Seven years ago Tapestry Opera premiered Gareth Williams and Anna Chatterton’s Rocking Horse Winner at the Berkeley Street Theatre. Last night they opened an eight show re-run at Crow’s Theatre, once again directed by Michael Mori. There are lots of similarities and a some differences between the productions and I’m going to concentrate on the latter so if you aren’t familiar with the piece you might want to read my 2016 review.
Benjamin Appl’s latest CD is a selection of Schubert Lieder arranged for orchestra. Most of the arrangeents are by Max Reger or Anton Webern but there are a few surprising ones like an arrangement of “Ständchen” by Jaques Offenbach. The songs themselves are a mix of the very familiar; “Die Forelle”, “An die Musik”, and the less well known such as “Gruppe aus dem Tartarus” but, to be honest, it’s mostly Schubert’s Greatest Hits.
The performance is about what one wold expect. Appl is a really excellent Lieder singer and he’s very much on home ground here. It’s nuanced, precise, beautiful artsong singing with sensitive accompaniment by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester conducted by Oscar Jockel. It’s a studio recording made in Munich in 2022 and it’s nicely balanced and clear. It’s available as a physical CD, MP3 and CD quality and 96kHz/24 bit FLAC. I listened to the hi-res version.
There’s a good booklet that contains, among other things, Appl’s justification for performing these orchestral versions. I think they work pretty well.
Catalogue number: BR Klassik 900346
I’m probably not the only person who knows Delibes Lakmé only by the famous duet “Viens, Malika”, nor did I realise it actually comes about ten minutes into the first act. So, I was curious to explore the recent (2022) recording from the Opéra Comique where the work premiered in 1882.
Dancing with Love is a new CD of music by Afarin Mansouri on the theme of “love” in its many variants from the erotic to the transcendent. Eleven of the twelve tracks set Persian/Farsi poetry, from the 12th century CE to the present. The twelfth is a lament for solo flute. The musical style varies a lot with traditional Persian influences combining with modern Western compositional techniques in different ways. It leads to interesting results. Just to pick a few tracks, “Unattainable” for mezzo-soprano and piano sounds rather like a French chanson whereas a track like “Pain (Sorrow)” for mezzo-soprano, clarinet, piano, tar, cello and udu sounds much more like traditional Persian music. Other tracks incorporate electronics or jazz elements. One thing almost all the tracks have in common is that there’s a lot of melodic invention which makes it a very easy, as well as a very varied, listening experience.
There’s quite a lot to like in Opera Atelier’s current production of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice currently running at the Elgin Theatre. It’s elegant and refined with some pretty good singing but maybe it’s a bit too refined. It’s at its best in things like “The Dance of the Blessed Spirits” where there’s an effective pas de deux danced in pointe shoes though I’m not sure it was really necessary to use enough “smoke” to fill the entire auditorium! Unfortunately, the production doesn’t make much of the potentially more dramatic moments. Orphée’s confrontation with the Guardians of Hell is pretty low key. The demons are just dancers in slightly stripey body stockings and there’s no sense of menace. It’s all a bit Robert Wilson. Until the ending, which suddenly switches aesthetic with glitter and streamers and dancers with a Scrabble set.
I attended the second of two performances of their season opener by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir at Roy Thomson Hall last night. It was an enjoyable and well constructed programme. It opened with two pieces by composer in residence Tracy Wong. Patah – Tumbuh (Broken – Renewed), for choir and children’s choir (Toronto Children’s Chorus) riffs off Malaysian proverbs and gamelan. It’s an upbeat, rhythmic piece that got a really nice performance, especially from the children. Then they got their own place in the sun for a medley of Malaysian folksongs; which was also fun. Was this the first time Malaysian music has been performed at Roy Thomson?
Thursday night at the Four Seasons Centre saw the tenth iteration of the COC’s Centre Stage: Ensemble Studio Competition. It’s a competition for young singers for cash prizes and, more opaquely, potential places in the COC’s Ensemble Studio.
L-R: Duncan Stenhouse, Emily Rocha, Elisabeth St-Gelais
Threepenny Submarine is a nine episode puppet animation series of videos on Youtube inspired by the idea that most of us got at least some of our exposure to classical music as kids from Looney Tunes and other cartoons. It’s produced by Opera 5 and Gazelle Automations and concerns an underwater journey by the submarine Threepenny Submarine investigating a mysterious sound coming from the equally mysterious Salieri Sector. The sub is commanded by a cockatiel called Iona (voiced by Lindsay Lee and sung by Caitlin Wood) assisted by a fox called Lydian (voiced and sung by Rachel Krehm). They befriend a “sea monster” called Flute, represented, appropriately enough, by Amelia Lyon on flute. Various adventures take place punctuated by well known arias using new text by Rachel Krehm. For example, the first episode features “Una voce poca fa” and “Dich, teure Halle” in arrangements for string quartet. There are also classical instrumentals used as incidental music. It’s all arranged by Trevor Wager and directed by Evan Mitchell.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to in a busy November.
Dean Burry’s setting of Alfred Noyes’ The Highwayman has now been released on CD. I think it’s the same performance that was previously released on Youtube by Queen’s University. If it’s not the same performance then it’s certainly the same performers and I really don’t have more than a few incidental thoughts to add to my review of that concert.
Listening to it again though I was struck by the links to Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and also by the way Burry subverts popular tunes along the way. There’s a particularly weird version for flute and struck cello of The British Grenadiers for example.
operaramblings 