Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

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

New Voices

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newvoicesNew Voices is the latest CD from the Brooklyn Art Song Society.  It features songs by Glen Roven, Michael Djupstrom, James Kallenbach and Herschel Gerfein.  What most struck me was the retro feel of all four composers’ works.  We are in a tonal sound world with occasional jazz/folk inflections and the piano line is clearly written to support the voice.  One might be listening to, say Ned Rorem.  I say this because it’s such a contrast with the songs being written by contemporary Canadian composers with their chromaticism, experimental and frequently changing time signatures and often almost adversarial relation between voice and piano.  Which one prefers, of course, is a matter of taste.

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The Human Passions

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RodolfoRichter-media-room-thumbnailTafelmusik’s opening concert of the season, The Human Passions, was structured around the idea that baroque composers use the soloist in a piece; instrumentalist or vocalist, to explore an emotion and that, in the baroque world, from this point of view, the human voice is just another instrument to be explored/exploited.  At least I think that’s more or less what Rodolfo Richter said in his introduction.

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Introspection

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introspectiveI’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I write here and why I write and where I want to go.  Some of this is just that nagging “what is my purpose” thing that’s always hovering in the background, some of it is driven by writing more for Opera Canada and some of it by knowing that I was going to have to talk about it at the Massey College Opera Club.  The Massey event happened last night with Iain Scott moderating a session in which Robert Harris of the CBC and Globe and Mail and I were very politely grilled by the formidably intelligent audience.  It was a really interesting evening and one that’s led to some really long conversations with Katja this morning and maybe even some conclusions

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Met vs COC – the numbers

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Inspired by this post at Likely Impossibilities on the Met’s 2015/16 season I thought I’d take a look at how the COC compared.  Now, one season at COC wouldn’t provide much in the way of stats so I’ve looked at the eight seasons from 2008/9 to 2015/16.  (In all the numbers each work in a double bill has been counted as 0.5).

Productions by composer

composerVerdi unsurprisingly tops the COC list with 15% (Met 17%) closely followed by Puccini (10%) and Mozart (13%) but Puccini is nowhere near as heavily represented as at the Met (21%) and Donizetti only scores 5% versus a whopping 21% in New York.  Throw in Rossini and the “big 4” Italians account for 68% of productions in New York versus 36% in Toronto.  I didn’t do a full analysis of the percentage of performances because I didn’t have all the data but Verdi, Puccini, Rossini and Mozart tend to get more performances per production so, as in New York, production percentages somewhat understate their position. Continue reading →

Toronto Masque Theatre 2015/16 season

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2014-15 Season by Ian Donaldson - rectangle (800x615)Toronto Masque Theatre’s season features an intriguing mixture of old and new.  First up is a contemporary show.  It’s Dean Burry’s take on the mumming tradition in his native Newfoundland.  The Enoch Turner Schoolhouse is the venue for this retelling of the St George legend with soprano Shannon Mercer as the saint.  It tells of his encounters with a rival knight and dragon (both played by mezzo soprano Marion Newman) and romance with the mysterious Princess Zebra (tenor Christopher Mayell). I think you get the general idea.  The Mummers’ Masque is on at 8:00pm, 17th-19th December 2015 with a pre-show event at 7:15 pm each evening.

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The ur Nixon

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1.maoI found it a bit shocking that John Adam’s Nixon in China wasn’t released on DVD until after the MetHD broadcast in 2011.  I was even more shocked when I found out that the original 1987 Houston production had been recorded and broadcast on PBS.  Just recently, thanks to a kind reader of this blog, I’ve been able to watch that original broadcast.  It’s TV from 1988 recorded on VHS and then digitized so the picture quality isn’t state of the art but the sound is surprisingly good. Continue reading →

This week

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MLebel Color Portrait1I think it’s about time I started doing a weekly preview of upcoming Toronto events.  I’m going to try and make this in a regular slot, probably Sunday, so this is a bit late.  The main event this week is the opening of Tafelmusik’s season with a concert featuring mezzo Mireille Lebel.  It’s a pretty mixed line up.  Lebel will perform arias from Vivaldi’s Il Farnace, and Handel’s Alcina, Ariodante, and Rinaldo. Dominic Teresi performs Vivaldi’s Bassoon Concerto in F Major, RV 485, and Rodolfo Richter performs his own violin transcription of Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052.  The opening bash is tomorrow night at 7pm with repeats at 8pm on Friday and Saturday and a matinée on Sunday.  Trinity St. Paul’s of course.

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Where would you go to see opera in cinema?

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party2So further to my rant the other day about the ROH and ENO approach to their cinema broadcasts in Canada and the Met’s lock up with Cineplex Odious…

Suppose one were responsible for marketing the Royal Opera or ENO’s product in Canada what would you do?  Personally I wouldn’t worry about signing up loads of suburban and small town fleapits.  I’d go for the where the opera audience is in the downtown areas of the cities that have opera companies and maybe university towns.  I’d also go for the upscale theatres with decent sound and bars with decent beer and that sort of thing.  In Toronto that would be the TIFF Lightbox and Bloor Hot Docs.  Elsewhere I don’t know but I’d like to push the idea with the ROH marketing folks so any ideas on the “right” cinemas in Montreal or Vancouver or even Hamilton would be most welcome.

Brueghelland

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ETA 6th December 2019:

Rewatching Le Grand Macabre after four years has rather changed my opinion.  It still seems weird and sometimes hard to watch but I think I see a certain logic in it now that completely escaped me before.  So the End of the World is approaching and all the Powers that Be can do is squabble, exchange scatological insults and get very, very drunk while the one sane (if rather weird) character (Gepopo) can’t find a language to communicate the enormity of what’s happening to them.  Sound vaguely familiar?  (Coincidentally, I’m writing this on the day that Andrew Scheer said that the Federal Government should give more heroin to the addicts in Alberta because otherwise they’ll get in a snit).  Of course, in Ligeti’s version Death gets so drunk that he screws up terminating the space-time continuum but we probably won’t be so lucky.  So yes the fart jokes and the raccoon on bins orchestra is still there but it now seems to me in service of something rather more profound than I previously gave it credit for.  Also, Hannigan is not just brilliant vocally.  It’s also, even by her standards, an amazing physical performance. (Original review under the cut).

gepopoprince

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So much for competition

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I have now received the cinemaHD line ups from the Royal Opera House and the ENO.  Basically if you live in Canada you are probably screwed.  The baleful effects of the Met’s exclusive with Cineplex Odious are all too apparent.  If one compares the ROH ballet line up with opera it’s clear.  Whereas you can catch the ballet in just about every major population centre, the opera coverage is, at best, spotty.  There’s nothing at all in Quebec and Ontario is represented by four screens in Waterloo, Kingston, Whitby and Orleans.  It’s not much better elsewhere.  And ENO apparently hasn’t figured out that Canada exists which sucks because I really want to see my favourite crazy lady’s Queen of the Night.

I really wonder about the Met’s motivation.  They talk a great game about extending the audience for opera but then put barriers in the way of anything except their own rather boring product.  I also wonder why on earth Cineplex agreed to an exclusive.  When you pretty much have a monopoly you don’t need to take that shit from the Met.  Without Cineplex they are screwed too.  So it goes.