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About operaramblings

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

Putting the cars in Carmen

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Calixto Bieito has a reputation as one of opera’s “bad boys” but there is nothing particularly shocking about his production of Carmen filmed at Barcelona’s Liceu in 2011.  The action is updated to maybe the 1970s (there’s a phone box and a camera that uses film) and there are lots of cars on stage.  For Bieito, this is a story of people living on the margins where sex is a commodity that women use as a trade currency and where violence, especially toward women, is endemic. It’s enough to disturb, as this piece did its original audience, without being gratuitous.

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Et in Bohemia ego

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It’s a curious fact that two of the three most popular operas; Verdi’s La Traviata and Puccini’s La Bohème, are about women dying from tuberculosis.  It’s also curious that they are almost always presented as frothy escapist fantasies in which Death makes his appearance only in the tear jerking finale.  It’s very curious because Death stalks the libretto of both operas, albeit usually well hidden behind brocade, champagne and Christmas decorations.  In 2005, at Salzburg, Willy Decker broke with convention and made Death an explicit actor in La Traviata creating the famous red dress production that has even been seen at that bastion of conservatism the Metropolitan Opera.  In 2012 Stefan Herheim did something similar for La Bohème in Oslo.

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‘Tis the season

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Opera/concert season is pretty much done in the big smoke though there is the Toronto Summer Music Festival (see below).  Attention moves to various more rural venues and to some seriously eclectic programming.  Out in Northumberland County there’s the Westben Festival with concerts in a barn ranging fro Irish trad to Richard Margison.  The highlight, for me, here would be a recital by Suzy Leblanc and Julius Drake featuring French mélodies, Strauss lieder and English songs by Christos Hatzis.  That one is on July 30.  Westben also has the UBC Opera Ensemble doing Carmen and, for those so inclined, a programme of Broadway tunes from the ever reliable Virginia Hatfield, Brett Polegato and James Levesque.  No word on whether Brett’s cat is also performing.

Stratford Summer Music has three concerts by the Vienna Boys Choir, one including Michael Schade.  There is also the Bicycle Opera Project and a celebration of R. Murray Schafer’s 80th birthday.

Meanwhile, back in the smoke there is the Toronto Summer Music Festival which kicks off on July 16th with the Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux in an all French programme.  The highlights for me are the Gryphon Trio with Bob Pomakov on the 18th and Philippe Sly with Julius Drake on the 23rd.

 

Another Ulisse

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William Christie and Les Arts Florissants recorded Monteverdi’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria in Aix-en-Provence, five years before their Madrid recording.  The Aix production was directed by Adrian Noble and featured real life couple Kreśimir Śpicer and Marijana Mijanović as Ulisse and Penelope.

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Not especially magical flute

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William Kentridge’s La Scala production of Die Zauberflöte is mainly notable for its use of black and white projections.  The intention, apparently, is to tell the story as seen by, or even as seen inside, a Victorian camera.  In places this works rather well but at times it’s quite hard to figure out what is actually going on.  Whether it was that hard to read in the theatre I can’t say.  Video recording projections is really hard and i have a lot of sympathy with Patrizia Carmine who video-directed here.  The film of a play of a film thing is really difficult to capture remotely faithfully.

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A podcast with a twist

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smartphone-and-headphonesThe latest The Big COC Podcast features regulars Gianmarco Segato of the COC, Wayne Gooding of Opera Canada magazine and myself.  The twist is that we are joined by Topher Mokrzewski and Joel Ivany; respectively the music director and artistic director of Against the Grain Theatre.  As regular readers will know they are also the co-creators of Figaro’s Wedding and two of the rising stars of the Canadian opera scene.  I think it made for an unusually interesting episode but, man, do I talk slowly.

You can find the podcast on the COC website and on iTunes.

COC ticket sales and revenue

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denial_catThe Canadian Opera Company released information on sales for the 2012/13 season today.  Ticket sales totalled 109,297, down from 125,328 in 2011/12 and well below the 137,000 of the 2009/10 season.  Ticket revenue was also off at $9.9 million versus $11 million in 2011/12 and $13.4 million in 2009/10.  A reduction in the number of performances (and one hopes, costs) meant that capacity utilization only dropped to 90% compared with 91% in the previous season and 98% in 2009/10.  At least revenue per seat sold rose to $94.26 compared with $87.76 the previous year though still below 2009/10’s $97.97. Part of this must have been due to the premium prices charged for Tristan und Isolde but one hopes it might also reflect slightly less frenetic discounting.

Overall I think this is pretty worrying.  Three consecutive years of significant revenue decline is not good.  The economy is tough everywhere but Toronto has probably suffered less than most major opera centres so it’s hard to blame the economy for all of the decline.  A 26% drop in ticket revenue in four years is pretty extreme.  I’m a big fan of the product that the COC is putting on the stage but I just don’t see the current situation as sustainable and, as yet, I don’t see any sort of remedial action (or even any admission that there is a problem).  Still one lives in hope.

Subtitles

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Pretty much all opera video recordings have sub-titles.  Some, usually older, recordings just have hard coded English subs but most have selectable subs in half a dozen or so languages.  They almost always include English French and German but the others seem to be pretty much a crap shoot.  Does anyone, maybe who works in the business, know how they are chosen?  Italian and Spanish are quite common.  Usually the native language of the house in which the recording is made features and so I have recordings with Danish, Dutch, Catalan and Flemish subs though my Helsinki L’Amour de Loin lacks Finnish and there’s no Norwegian on my Oslo La Bohème.  Even more oddly there’s no Italian on the La Scala Peter Grimes even though the text within the DVD is all in Italian.  Asian languages are totally random though Chinese, Korean and Japanese all show up from time to time.  Enquiring minds want to know.

subs

Ercole amante

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Cavalli’s Ercole amante was written for the wedding of Louis XIV to Marie-Thérèse, a Habsburg princess.  The marriage itself being the seal on the French victory over Spain in the war that had lasted until 1659.  It’s an odd work considering.  It’s not nearly as weird as, say, Il Giasone or La Didone but it’s hardly what one would expect for the nuptials of Le Roi Soleil.  It’s clear from both the Prologue and the ending that Ercole is Louis but he’s also a most unlikeable character.  In this version of the Hercules story he’s in love with his son’s (Hyllo) girlfriend (Iole) and will stop at nothing to bed her including casting off his wife (Deianira), imprisoning his son and bumping off Iole’s father.  In the end he’s attacked by the spirits of various people he has wronged before succumbing to the trick with the centaur’s poisoned shirt.  He’s made immortal and paired off with Hebe in the heavens but it’s hardly a tale of kingly virtue or marital fidelity.  For good measure, along the way a good chunk of the Graeco-Roman pantheon make an appearance.

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