Author Archives: operaramblings

Unknown's avatar

About operaramblings

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

Dido and Aeneas in Trinity College Chapel

Posted on by
Reply

Last night the UoT’s early Music program presented Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in the chapel at Trinity College.  It was a bit of a strange experience.  The work was semi-staged with dancers doubling Dido and Aeneas and a few extra as “chorus dancers”.  With a twelve person chorus and all the soloists plus the small band this made for a lot of people in the space.  Trinity College Chapel is long, narrow and high with traditional pew seating and a minimally raised platform for the altar.  All of which meant that only the first few rows and , maybe, people on the aisle had much of a view of anything.

tcc Continue reading →

The Harnoncourt show

Posted on by
1

Unusually, the Theater and der Wien’s 2011 production of Handel’s Rodelinda features a father and son team.  Philippe Harnoncourt directs and Nikolaus conducts.  It’s an interesting production with great acting, very decent singing and the always excellent Concentus Musicus Wien in the pit. 1.wardrobe Continue reading →

Future ROH broadcasts at the Bloor

Posted on by
1

mahagonnyFollowing on from yesterday’s Der fliegende Holländer showing at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema I followed up with them about future plans for the ROH opera broadcasts.  Here’s the scoop though dates may change.

June 28th.  Brecht/Weill The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.  This is a new production by John Fulljames with Mark Wrigglesworth conducting.  The cast includes Anne-Sofie von Otter, Willard White and Christine Rice.  It’s going to be sung in English.

July 26th.  Puccini La Bohème.  It’s the old John Copley production dating from 1975 (which in turn replaced an 1896 production) and it was intended to be “traditional” and it is!  Joseph Calleja and Anna Netrebko headline with Dan Ettinger conducting.

August 30th.  Rossini Guillaume Tell.  This is another new production , this time by Damiano Michieletto.  Gerry Finley sings the title role with Malin Byström as Mathilde.  Antonio Pappano conducts.

So, some decent fillers for the traditionally quiet summer season.

The Flying Welshman

Posted on by
4

BrynAdrianneThe Royal Opera House production of Wagner’s Der fliegende Holländer finally made it to Toronto yesterday with a showing of the film at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema.  There areva couple of Toronto connections.  The production was created by Tim Albery, although Daniel Dooner directs this revival, and the Senta is sung by Adrianne Pieczonka who was present with her family and introduced the film.  The Dutchman, of course, is played by hulking Welshman Bryn Terfel who wasn’t there.  He was probably crying into his beer somewhere at Wales coming up short in the Six Nations. Continue reading →

Turning the Tables

Posted on by
3
Not Alfred Hitchcock

Not Alfred Hitchcock

Last night’s Tap:Ex Tables Turned lived up to the hype.  It was a pretty incredible experience but extremely difficult to describe.  The first half consisted of Nicole Lizée’s reprocessed clips from classic films (The Shining, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Birds, The Graduate and, of course, The Sound of Music but there were others).  It was mostly short loop stuff; for example, the ball bouncing scene from TSoM over and over again.  Beside the sound from the film there was live accompaniment from Ben Reimer on a variety of tuned percussion instruments and Carla Huhtanen with a variety of vocal effects and weirdly disturbing acting, helped along by the fact that she does look a bit like Julie Andrews, especially exploding Julie Andrews.  I think there may have been more electronics from Nicole in the mix too.  It was weird and fascinating and very enjoyable.

Continue reading →

The Met’s HD season for 2015/16

Posted on by
6

I took a quick look at the overall Met season here.  What follows is a more detailed description of what’s coming to cinemas and why one might, or might not, want to see the offerings.

NFnug_trovatoreOctober 3rd, 2015.  Verdi’s Il Trovatore.  This is the McVicar production that was broadcast a few seasons back with Sondra Radvanovsky as Leonora.  This time it’s Anna Netrebko.  Yonghoon Lee is Manrico rather than Marcello Álvarez.  The other key players are the same.  The Radvan version is available quite cheaply on DVD and Blu-ray.  One for die hard Netrebko fans I think. Continue reading →

Soundstreams announces 2015/16 season

Posted on by
Reply

Adrianne-eventToronto contemporary music outfit Soundstreams have announced their 2015/16 season. Highlights from an operaramblings perdpective include a chance to hear Adrianne Pieczonka sing music ranging from George Crumb to The Beatles.  That one’s at Koerner Hall on September 29th and will also feature Kristina Szabó.  In November there’s the previously announced run of Boesman’s Julie at the Bluma Appel.  I’m eagerly awaiting casting information on that.  There’s also a concert dedicated to James MacMillan, including his Seven Last Words from the Cross.  That one is at Trinity St. Paul’s on March 8th next year.  There’s a 80th birthday bash for Steve Reich at Massey Hall on April 14th next year and for real masochists there’s a concert featuring multiple types of squeezebox music at Trinity St.Paul’s on February 10th.  Full details and ticket information can be found here.

La belle Hélène from the GGS

Posted on by
2
Christina Campsall

Christina Campsall

The Glenn Gould School’s production of Offenbach’s 1864 operetta La belle Hélène opened at Koerner Hall last night.  Overall, it’s an enjoyable show with some strong performances though there are aspects of it that, in my view, rather missed the mark.  Certainly it made me realise just what a difficult piece to really bring off really well La belle Hélène is.  There are some very difficult singing roles and yet they need to sound effortless.  It needs the exquisite comic timing of a bedroom farce.  There’s also a difficult to define quality; very French and with a sexiness of the “I know it when I see it” variety.  I think it was a shortage of this last that was largely the problem last night.

Continue reading →

A couple of late entries

Posted on by
Reply

I thought I’d managed a pretty comprehensive update on the Toronto opera/choral/vocal music scene for March but there are a couple of gigs I got rather later info on.

On March 23rd at 7pm in Walter Hall, CASP have a concert of works from the more humorous end of the Canadian Art Song rep.  Mary-Lou Fallis, Geoff Sirett, peter Tiefenbach and Steven Philcox are performing.  Tickets are $40, $25 (senior) and $10 (student).

Then on Friday 27th Maureen Batt and Cheryl Duvall are performing a program of contemporary American and Canadian works, many of them written for Maureen, at Heliconian Hall.  It’s at 8pm and tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door and there are $15 early bird tickets available at https://www.bemusednetwork.com/events/detail/69

And in other news Voicebox:Opera in Concert have announced a cast change for their performance of Charpentier’s Louise on the 29th.  Keith Klassen replaces Adrian Kramer as the poet Julien.