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About operaramblings

Toronto based lover of opera, art song, related music and all forms of theatre.

The Hannigan show

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Last night at Roy Thomson Hall Barbara Hannigan made her North American conducting debut with the TSO.  And, of course, she sang too.  She kicked off with Luigi Nono’s Djamila Boupacha for solo voice.  It’s a short but haunting piece inspired by a woman activist from the Algerian War.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard a solo, unaccompanied, voice in that hall and the effect is eerie.  It’s also a hell of a sing and to navigate it with utter precision is quite some feat.  As the last note died away (precisely on pitch) the violins came in with the opening Haydn’s Symphony no. 49 “La Passione”.  It starts off with an Adagio that’s curiously similar in mood to the Nono piece and Hannigan was conducting without score or baton.  In fact it was more like an interpretive dance than conventional conducting.  She has amazing arms and hands; the arms and hands of a ballerina in fact and as she summoned the strings to a sort of shimmering sound I couldn’t help but reminded of Swan Lake.  Corny perhaps but very real and quite disturbing.  And the orchestra, quite a small subset of the TSO, responded.  This was four movements of really lovely, chamber music like playing.

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Phantom of Lilith

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Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production of Berg’s Lulu (it’s the three act version with the Cerha completion) recorded at Brussel’s La Monnaie in 2012 is so stuffed full of symbolism it’s really hard to fully unpack.  There’s a sense that Lulu represents Everywoman, for some rather twisted definition of “woman”.  She’s Lilith.  She’s Pandora.  She’s the Black Swan and the White Swan.  She’s lost or corrupted childhood and she’s love gone wrong.  Maybe she’s even the phantom of Berg’s estranged daughter.  All these symbols recur again and again in various combinations.  In fact, on DVD, it’s pretty much impossible to keep track of them.

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From rape to crucifixion

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image001The season announcements keep on coming.  There will be Koerner Hall recitals for both Sondra Radvanovsky and the, hopefully fully recovered, Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  Sondra appears on December 4th with pianist Anthony Manoli in a program of operatic arias and art songs.  Dmitri is scheduled for Sunday 21st February next year with Ivari Ilya at the piano. Tickets in the usual Koerner Hall places.

The dates have been now been announced for MY Opera’s production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.  It’s scheduled for April 29th to May 1st next year in the Aki Studio at the Daniels Spectrum in Regent’s Park.

atgmAnd, finally, Against the Grain Theatre are remounting their choreographed Messiah.  It was a blast the first time round, especially Geoff Sirett’s sheep impersonation.  This time it’s being staged at Harbourfront Centre Theatre on Dec. 16th, 17th and 18th at 8pm and Dec. 19th at 2pm. The solists will be Miriam Khalil, Andrea Ludwig, Owen McCausland and Stephen Hegedus.  Joel Ivany directs with choreography by Jenn Nicholls.  This time there will be an 18 piece orchestra and 16 member choir with Topher Mokrzewski conducting.  Tickets here.  This will probably sell out fairly quickly.

Next week

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DSC_6619-704x1024There are a couple of biggies coming up next week.  On October 7th and 8th the amazingly talented and apparently fearless Barbara Hannigan is singing with and conducting the TSO.  For all I know she’ll be tap dancing and doing hand stands as well.  It’s her conducting debut with this orchestra. The programme features works by Nono, Haydn, Mozart, Ligeti and Stravinsky.  8pm Roy Thomson Hall.

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The Fatal Gaze

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The Fatal Gaze is, in a way, a follow up to last year’s UoT Opera show Last Days in that it consists of a staged performance of pieces of vocal music to a theme.  This time the theme is the dangers of seeing or being seen and there’s quite a lot to unpack.  The music all lies on an arc from Monteverdi to Gluck and the stories are all taken from classical mythology or thee Bible with some commentary from more modern figures.

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Beyond the Aria

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KrisztinaSzabo_Adrianne-Pieczonka-Beyond-the-Aria_Sept-29_1The second show for me yesterday was presented by Soundstreams at Koerner Hall.  It was a programme of works written since 1970 and featured Adrianne Pieczonka and Krisztina Szabó with a percussion heavy chamber ensemble conducted by Leslie Dala.  I’ve heard Krisztina a lot in contemporary work but it was a rare treat to hear Adrianne do something other than Verdi, Strauss and Wagner.  The “opera grind” as she put it in an introductory chat with Lawrence Cherney of Soundstreams. Continue reading →

Array Ensemble in the RBA

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Yesterday was slightly bizarre in that I was at two concerts of contemporary, or at least very modern, music.  The first was at lunchtime in The RBA where the Array Ensemble presented two works by female Canadian composers; Linda Catlin Smith’s Hieroglyphs and Barbara Monk Feldman’s Love Shards of Sappho, both for soprano and chamber ensemble. Continue reading →

Russia Cast Adrift

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The opening concert of Off Centre Music Salon’s season was a programme of Russian romantic and post romantic works, songs and piano pieces, entitled Russia Cast Adrift.  The first half of the afternoon was devoted to the sort of songs that explain why “smert” is one of about six Russian words that I recognize.  It kicked off with a Rachmaninoff prelude played with vigour by William Leathers before going into a series of songs by Sviridov, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Glière, Arensky and Mussorgsky.  The singing was shared by soprano Nathalie Paulin, mezzo Emilia Boteva, tenor Ernesto Ramirez and baritone Geoffrey Sirett with Boris Zarankin and Inna Perkis at the piano.

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