Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

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

Trident Moon

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Trident Moon, by Anusree Roy and directed by Nina Lee Aquino opened at Crow’s Theatre on Friday night.  It’s set in 1947 during the Partition of India and concerns a bunch of women in the back of a truck seeking safety in what has become India.  Arun is a Hindu servant to a Moslem family.  Her boss, presumably to show he is not soft on Hindus, has beheaded her husband and sons.  In revenge she has shot him and kidnapped three of his women folk in the hope that they can be multiply raped by Hindu men when they reach “safety”.  The truck also contains her sister who has been accidentally, but seriously, wounded in the shooting, her retarded daughter and a box with the three heads.  The truck is driven by her brother.

(L to R back) Afroza Banu, Michelle Mohammed, Anusree Roy, Prerna Nehta, Zorana Sadiq, and Imali Prerera. (Front) Sahiba Arora and Sehar Bhojani

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Farewell to Natalie Dessay

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Few singers over the years have given me as much pleasure as Natalie Dessay.  She and pianist Philippe Cassard have now announced their upcoming retirement from concert performance (Natalie retired from the stage a few years ago) and are about to release an album of their farewell tour material.  It’s called Oiseaux de passage and it’s half an hour or so of bird themed chansons with some English language musical theatre numbers included for good measure.

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Duke Bluebeard’s Castle

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Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is a one act symbolist opera for two singers based on a French folk tale.  It’s scored for a large orchestra and uses quite a lot of dissonance and it’s a famously tough sing for the singer (soprano or mezzo) singing Judit.  It’s been recorded a lot.  Wikipedia lists 32 audio or video recordings, not including this new one from Gabor Brertz, Rinat Shaham and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Karina Cavellakis.

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Tea For Two

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Last Friday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was given by the France-Canada Academy of Vocal Arts at the University of Toronto.  That mouthful is the moniker of a collaboration between the Faculty of Music and the Académie Francis Poulenc.  So this last week members of the AFP had been in Toronto working with students and faculty here on French chansons and canadian art song.  Fridays concert showcased six singer/pianist teams singing French song rep from both sides of the Canadian Channel.

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Minimalist Onegin

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Laurent Pelly’s production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin was recorded for video at La Monnaie – De Munt in 2023.  It’s a severely minimalist production set somewhere, around 1900 or so.  I say somewhere because there’s nothing very Russian about it.  It could be any country gentry and peasants scenario followed by a society ball.  There are no uniforms in sight.  Even Gremin wears ordinary evening clothes, albeit with orders and medals.

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Brews, Beauties and Brawlers

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So on Saturday night at St.Olave’s CE I finally managed to catch a concert in the Apocryphonia series.  It was titled Brews, Beauties and Brawlers and was billed as “classical” meets “punk”.  It was a collection of pieces for piano, solo voice and/or choir and organiser Alexander Capellazzo had recruited four voices of each type with soloists coming from the group.  Narmina Afaniyeva was at the piano.  Everybody (and some of the audience) had dressed for the occasion!

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Seven Veils theatrical release

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Atom Egoyan’s 2023 film Seven Veils filmed at the Canadian Opera Company and featuring members of the cast of that season’s run of Strauss’ Salome is getting  a theatrical release on March 7th.  I can’t find exact details on whe and where it’s showing but at least some Cineplex and Landmark cinemas will have it.  I saw it pre-pre-release at the Four Seasons Centre in September 2023.  My thoughts are here.

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Toronto Summer Music 2025

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Toronto Summer Music has announced the line up for 2025; the last festival with Jonathan Crow in the driving seat.  As ever there’s lots to like.  There are two operas in concert.  The big opening night gig is a concert performance in Koerner Hall of one of the very best early operas which, inexplicably, is not performed as often as the boring repertory staples.  It’s Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea in a touring production conducted by Leonardo García-Alarcón at the helm of Cappella Mediterranea.  Poppea will be sung by Sophie Junker and Nerone by Nicolò Balducci.  That’s at Koerner Hall on July 10th. Continue reading →

The Gondoliers

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Toronto Operetta Theatre opened the concluding show of their 2024/25 season at the Jane Mallett Theatre on Friday evening.  It’s Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Gondoliers directed and choreographed by Guillermo Silva-Marin.  It’s pretty decent and, besides, TOT is about the only chance to see G&S in Toronto; whatever one thinks of their approach.  For those who have seen TOT’s G&S before it’s fair to say this is a very typical TOT G&S production.

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Vancouver Chamber Choir at Christ Church Deer Park

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Thursday evening’s concert by the Vancouver Chamber Choir at Christ Church Deer Park was the culmination of Soundstreams’ RBC Bridges Emerging Composers program.  It’s an annual week long workshop that brings six young composers together with an experienced mentor and a professional resident ensemble with the resulting works being performed at the end of the week.  So the core of Thursday’s programme was the six works so created bookended by three works by the mentor; British composer Tarik O’Regan and three works chosen to give the concert a balanced opening.

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