So there’s another new approach to art song in Toronto. Collectìf is a new group “dedicated to exploring and expanding the world of art song performance and presenting innovative, song-based theatre”. The people behind this one, Danikà Loren, Whitney O’Hearne and Jennifer Krabbe, are young and very talented. They have a show on December 14th and 15th at Loft404’s B-Lounge. It’s called Le Rossignol et la Rose. We are promised Oscar Wilde and the underground nightlife of 1930s Paris. I shall go with a seriously depressed student and try not to pin my hand to a table with a knife.
A few announcements
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The Fall 2015 
Yesterday’s Riki Turofsky master class at the UoT Music faculty was given by Sondra Radvanovsky which probably accounted for the almost full Walter Hall. It was interesting. I’ve only ever seen Sondra glammed up and seeming very much the diva and so I was a bit surprised that she proved rather down to earth and very technique focussed. Four students sang but I’m going to focus on two. Partly to avoid being repetitive and partly because they happen to be singers I’ve heard quite a bit and so was more able to see what Sondra was doing with/to them.
Liz Caballero is an American soprano of Cuban origin. Like many successful professional singers she never really planned to be one. Opera wasn’t part of her childhood experience as a Cuban refugee in Southern Florida. Like many young people she sang in school and church choirs and often got to take solo roles but she didn’t have a voice lesson until she was at university. Her break came in 1995 when, on a whim, she entered the Pavarotti International Voice Competition in Miami and made it to the finals in Philadelphia. Pavarotti encouraged her to develop her raw talent which led to stints in young artists programs in Miami and San Francisco and to her current busy career mainly singing Puccini and Verdi roles in US regional houses.
I met with Adam Scime and Amanda Smith of 
Yesterday I went to a Met “live in HD” broadcast for the first time since The Nose two years ago. It was an interesting and ultimately rather depressing experience. This review really falls into two parts; a review of the production and performance, including how it was filmed for broadcast, and a piece on how the Met is “presenting” the work and how that seems to fit in with its overall HD strategy. The latter may turn into a bit of a rant.
The AGO has a new initiative; AGO Friday Nights. For the price of admission to the gallery one also gets to hear a one hour concert of music programmed by Tapestry’s Michael Mori to reflect something going on at the the gallery. Right now the big exhibition is 
operaramblings 