Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

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

Love polygon

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Handel’s Partenope is a bit unusual.  It feels lighter than a lot of Handel’s Italian operas and it is basically a romcom, albeit one that still has a vaguely classical setting.  Handel also plays with opera seria conventions by, for example, writing “heroic” arias for non-heroic texts and putting accompagnato in odd places.  The number of potential match ups that need to be tracked is fairly staggering.  Basically everybody is in love with, or pretending to be in love with, Partenope, queen of Partenope aka Naples.  These include the invading prince of Cumae, Emilio; Arsace, prince of Corinth; Armindo, prince of Rhodes and Eurimene, an Armenia who is really Rosmira, princess of Cypress and formerly betrothed to Arsace.  The only character who isn’t in love with Partenope is the philosophical captain of the guard, Ormonte, who is easy to spot as he’s a bass.  At the start of the piece Partenope is in love with Arsace but Eurimene/Rosmira isn’t having that and engineers a duel with Arsace.  This takes most of two acts but it’s the only essential bit of plot.  In Act 3 Arsace, who really doesn’t want to fight his former fiancée finally comes up with the wizard wheeze of demanding that the duel be fought bare chested.  Apparently this was perfectly normal under Neopolitan duelling conventions.  maybe it’s what gave Patrick O’Brian the idea of having Stephen Maturin always duel bare chested?  Anyway the modest Rosmira isn’t about to do any boob flashing (somewhat ironically as Inger Dam-Jensen, in the title role, has been bosom heaving with the best since the overture) so confesses to being, shock horror, female.  Arsace and Rosmira are reunited and Partenope awards herself as a consolation prize to Armindo.  Got that?

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Looks better than it sounds

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Massenet’s Don Quichotte is one of those works where one does a double take on learning when it was composed.  It dates from 1910 but sounds like it was composed at least 50 years earlier.  It’s lushly romantic and dressed up with elements of flamenco but to nothing like as good effect as in de Falla’s La vida breve.  There’s also plenty of schmaltz.  The intro to Act 5, for example, being highly reminiscent of the Meditation in Thaïs. The plot’s pretty thin too.  Don Quixote loves the unattainable Dulcinea.  He goes off and encounters some bandits who eventually take pity on him and rather than killing him give him Dulcinea’s necklace, which they have stolen.  He returns it to her.  She is grateful but still not interested in marrying him.  He dies.  Great!

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A second look at Hercules

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Hercules21Back to the Four Seasons Centre last night for a second look at Peter Sellars’ production of Handel’s Hercules.  This time we were sitting lower down in the house, in the front, left of the orchestra ring.  As predicted the set wasn’t as effective as when seen from higher up but in some ways the lighting effects were more successful.  Given the house’s acoustic properties favour the rings I’d say this is definitely one to see from somewhere other than the orchestra.

What did I particularly notice compared to opening night?  First off, Richard Croft.  I think I was so wrapped up in Lucy Crowe and Eric Owen’s singing the first time around that I almost failed to notice what a fine performance he gave.  His voice is very mature for a tenor now but he’s a terrific interpreter of text and has flawless technique.  His intensity remains remarkable.  And the schtick with the crutches?  It turns out he recently had hip surgery.

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Operetta, contemporary sounds and cast changes

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Cesaroni-LuciaThe news continues to flood in!  Toronto Operetta Theatre will close out their season with the Canadian Premiere of The Cousin from Nowhere (Der Vetter aus Dingsda); a 1921 work by the German Eduard Künneke.  Described by TOT General Director Guillermo Silva-Marin as “a very special work, a chamber operetta really, written by a Berliner who incorporated American and Latin dance rhythms into a lyric framework”; it will be conducted by Jürgen Petrenko and stars tenor Christopher Mayell, and soprano Lucia Cesaroni.  There will be fours shows at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts on May 1, 2, 3, 4 (mat). For tickets call the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts at 416-366-7723, 1–800-708-6754 or online at www.stlc.com

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Rival Queens

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Isabel-bayrakdarianRival Queens is a collaboration between Tafelmusik and Isabel Bayrakdarian showcasing music written for Faustina Bordoni and Francesca Cuzzoni; star divas of the 18th century who fought out a bitter rivalry on stage in London in 1726-28.  The great composers of the sage, most notably Handel, all composed for them and wrote works that brought out their respective, and quite contrasted, strengths.

In the first half of the program Bayrakdarian focused on works for Bordoni.  There were arias from Handel’s Alessandro (one of the works both divas performed in), Bononcini’s Astianatte and Hasse’s Cajo Fabricio.  These are pieces requiring extremely secure technique.  They lie fairly low in the soprano range (maybe modern mezzo territory) but have long, long, intricate coloratura runs which Bayrakdarian navigated with apparent ease.  The arias were rounded out with orchestral pieces by Handel and Zelenka.

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He’s also a short arse but…

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rebeccacA bit of a change of pace last night.  I went to see Rebecca Caine and Robert Kortgaard perform in the Shaftesbury Salon series.  Rebecca is one of the original crossover artists; flipping back and forth between opera and musical theatre with a bit of cabaret thrown in.  Last night’s show was definitely firmly in musical theatre territory.  There wasn’t a programme so I don’t have a full listing of numbers.  The first half of the evening was a selection, in essentially chronological order, of works from British musical comedy and reviews of the first half of the last century; each associated with a particular star of the period.  This is music that has pretty much disappeared off the face of the planet.  It’s “light” but rooted in classical singing style/technique unlike the more jazz/pop influenced show music that came after.  It’s also not much like American music of the period; a difference made obvious when Ms. Caine threw in a Kurt Weill number.  Some of it, though by no means all, is fairly undemanding vocally, being written for performers who were perhaps more noted for assets other than their singing technique.  Ms. Caine though has both.  We got these musically rather variable numbers very well sung interspersed with a compact and witty commentary from the very vivacious Ms. Caine.

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Sellars does it again

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There’s a unit set; some marble flags, a few broken columns surrounding  a “fire pit”.  Even this is stripped down for much of Act 2 which takes place on the stage apron in front of a plain curtain.  There are five singers, a chorus and an orchestra.  That, plus Peter Sellars, is all it takes to produce an extraordinary piece of music drama.

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The labours of Hercules

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I really had intended to write up the COC’s new production of Handel’s Hercules tonight.  But the best laid plans etc were subverted by the lovely Sasha Djihanian dragging me off to the after party.  There will be a proper review in the morning but, if you are smart (and don’t already have tickets) you won’t wait and will go buy some before they sell out.

To tide you over here’s Hercules himself (aka Eric Owens) flanked by Sasha and Rihab Chaieb.

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