While the rest of Toronto was preparing for that odd ornithological event the Superb Owl, or possibly attending the opening of the COC’s Un ballo in maschera, I went to see a semi-staged version of Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie at Voicebox: Opera in Concert. Perhaps surprisingly it was very well attended with a particularly strong showing from the bloggerati. You will have to wait for the next Opera Canada to read my review but Leslie Barcza’s may be found here.
I managed to catch the end of the run of York University’s production of The Beggars Opera this afternoon. It’s a hugely ambitious concept with a couple of hundred people involved. The basic concept is that John Gay’s piece is being performed by inmates in a prison as part of their rehabilitation. Layered onto this is an obnoxious talk show host who is commenting on the proceedings from a sort of gutter conservative perspective. Add to this interpolations based on Lady Gaga, blues harmonica, ukulele and even a bit of Britten. Fights break out between the cast and have to be dealt with by the prison warden and staff. Equally, they intervene in over enthusiastic sexual encounters. It’s brave but it rather tends to overwhelm the piece at the centre.
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It’s received wisdom in the opera (and, more generally, classical music) world that “modern” works are a hard sell. “Modern” appears to mean anything post Puccini plus anything from the early 20th century that’s perceived as “difficult”, like Bartok or Janacek. This is reflected in programming. In the last five years COC has programmed precisely one work written this century and in the last two seasons the most recent works were written in 1957 and 1945. Next year is even worse with nothing written after 1914. It’s no wonder people say the opera house is becoming a museum.
Encounters was a one hour programme of short opera scenes by student composers to libretti by Michael Albano. It’s the latest in a series of fully staged shows by student composers from the UoT Faculty of Music’s composition programme which has been running since 1997 and has included, for example Rob Ford, the opera. It’s quite shocking that when that showed two years ago, as Dean Don McLean reminded us, the big Rob Ford story was about library closures. Anyway, only one of yesterday’s five pieces featured Mr. Ford.
Today’s lunchtime concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre featured members of the COC Studio Ensemble performing extracts from Act 1 of Così fan tutte as a teaser for their performance of Atom Egoyan’s production on February 7th. This promises to beeven more confusing than usual as the young lover roles are all being shared to accommodate everyone. Today, Clraence Frazer and Danielle MacMillan being sick we had but one Guglielmo, Cameron McPhail, and one Dorabella, Charlotte Burrage. Andrew Haji and Owen McAusland alternated as Ferrando and Sasha Djihanian and Aviva Fortunata doubled Fiordiligi (those two, at least, are easy to tell apart). Gordon Bintner sang Don Alphonso and Claire de Sévigné played Despina.
Adelaide di Borgogna is one of those rather odd “serious” Rossini works where bel canto collides with opera seria. The plot is fairly accurately based on an episode from 10th century history and is most definitely not a comedy. The form has progressed well beyond a succession of da capo arias with multiple ensemble numbers and quite a few choruses. But there’s a throwback to an earlier tradition in the use of high voices for heroic male roles though it seems that by 1817 castrati were rather rare and the crucial role of Ottone, the German emperor, was from the beginning sung by a female contralto.
It appears that Warner Classics are slowly releasing some of their back catalogue of video recordings on Blu-ray. These appear to be recordings that were previously available in North America on rather low quality Kultur releases. And by low quality I mean that many of them had serious sound problems as well as annoyances like hard coded English subtitles. These are mostly older recordings; typically 4:3 format picture drawn from TV broadcasts so there is only so much remastering can do for them but, if the Sellars Theodora is anything to go by, they are a huge improvement. Several Glyndebourne classics have appeared including the Anja Silja Makroupolos Case and the Haitink Marriage of Figaro. Pricing is a bit variable but there are some real bargains to be had.
Kateřina Kněžiková in what appears to be a production of Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Dove è Amore è Gelosia is a 1768 comic opera by Giuseppe Scarlatti, probably the nephew of the more famous Domenico. It was written for wedding celebrations at Krumlov Castle where Scarlatti was music teacher to the children of the Duke of Krumlov. It was performed and recorded in the newly restored theatre at Krumlov using the original stage machinery and lighting. Krumlov is, along with Drottningholm, one of only two baroque theatres preserved as they were in the 18th century.
I recently posted about additions to the COC’s Ensemble Studio and briefly alluded to the company’s new programme for young orchestral musicians. Three student musicians will be mentored by members of the orchestra and will attend orchestra rehearsals of the company’s spring season productions. The new Orchestra Academy project will be led by Music Director Johannes Debus.
Two of the students are currently studying at the Glenn Gould School. Cellist Ashton Lim will be mentored by COC assistant principal cellist Paul Widnerand oboist Alessandro Rauli will be mentored by COC principal oboist Mark Rogers and COC oboist Lesley Young. The third student is from the UofT’s Faculty of Music; violinist Rebecca MacLeod will be mentored by COC violinist Dominique Laplante.
It sounds like a great opportunity to introduce young orchestral musicians to the world of opera and one hopes it will be repeated for future rehearsal cycles.
operaramblings 