So you are Christof Loy, it’s early 2021 and your production of Fedora in Frankfurt can’t go ahead due to… you know. So what are you going to do with a set that basically consists of a lavishly decorated, multi-purposable drawing room? Loy’s answer is to create a narrative around twenty four Tchaikovsky songs and some of his piano/chamber music and stage and film it in an empty theatre.
The Valentine’s Day recital in the RBA was given by Simone McIntosh and Rachael Kerr. They served up fare appropriate to the occasion unlike in 2013 when Franz-Josef Selig gave us a Valentine recital mostly about Death! It was an interesting mix of material starting with two of the Britten folk song arrangements; “The trees they grow so high” and “The miler of Dee”. Quite a bold choice in some ways as the first one is almost, but not quite, a capella so there’s nowhere to hide. It was good. Not only was Simone’s voice accurate and expressive but she gave herself some metrical freedom. There is nothing worse than a singer singing this material as if they have a broomstick up their ass.
Kamp! – Songs and Satire from Theresienstadt is a 2016 album recorded by Amelia DeMayo, Curt Buckler & Sergei Dreznin (piano) under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress. It’s a collection of 25 more or less satirical songs written in the Theresienstadt camp/ghetto by the likes of Leo Straus and Ilse Weber. They are presented here in English translation and in a breezy cabaret style which is very apt and which I liked very much.
What Brings You In is an album of music for violin and electronics that consists mostly of work that was composed for performance as part of an art installation or a site specific performance or as therapy rather than a conventional concert hall experience. It features violinist Leslie Ting and various collaborators on percussion and live electronics. It’s one of the most “experimental” records I’ve listened to. There are five tracks and I’m going to describe each piece as best I can. Conventional music vocabulary; melody, harmony, rhythm etc isn’t much help! Continue reading
Wednesday night at the Dakota Tavern there were two Debauchery at The Dakota shows from Opera Revue and various more or less scantily clad friends. We caught the early show. It was a BDSM show (Bizet, Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Mozart… what were you thinking?). Actually this iteration probably stayed more operatic than previous Debaucheries though there were also plenty of show tune, cabaret and even comedy rock numbers plus, of course, burlesque.
So the COC is set to release details of the 2024/25 season some time in late February so in the interests of tradition I’ll have a go at guessing what we will hear. I have to admit that i have very little confidence in my predictions as the combination of COVID and new management has disrupted old patterns and new ones are not yet very apparent. Even the sacrificial goat liver (see left) isn’t helping much. There have been two complete seasons since COVID. One featured five revivals and the other five “new to Toronto” productions sourced from other houses. COC commissions, new productions or co-pros were noticeably absent. It’s probably also fair to say that there was a distinctly conservative vibe to the productions. I’m not saying horned helmets and crinolines but it’s noticeable that the revivals haven’t included any of the COC’s edgier efforts.
Mohammd Yaghoubi’s Earworm, currently playing in the Studio Theatre at Crow’s, is a hard hitting story of what the Islamic Revolution has meant for Iranian women. Unfortunately it hangs onto to more ideas than the narrative can comfortably support which diffuses the impact.
Herbert Fritsch’s production of Rossini’s Il barbiere di Sivigla filmed at the Wiener Staatsoper in 2021 is strangely ambiguous. At first blush it looks like the sort of hyper traditional production the WSO might have had in repertory for fifty years. There are big wigs, knee breeches and so on but it soon becomes apparent that something more (or less) is going on. Tje costumes are exaggerated. The fabrics are elaborate and shiny and very not early 19th century at all. The wigs are odd colours. Rosina’s dress shows rather a lot of leg. There’s virtually no scenery and the only props I recall in the whole piece are a ladder and Lindoro’s sword at the end of Act 1.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect from DION; A Rock Opera, currently premiering at Coal Mine Theatre. It’s billed as a “rock opera” which worried me as very loud music in. a very small space is so not my thing. On the other hand it’s based on Euripides The Bacchae and I’m a sucker for a really good reworking of classical Greek drama. So I went. It was absolutely the right decision. This show rocks in an entirely good way.
Aluna Theatre’s production of Jorgelina Cerritos’ On the Other Side of the Sea (translated from Spanish by Dr. Margaret Stanton and Anna Donko) opened at The Theatre Centre last night. Cerritos is from El Salvador and the play is set on a beach somewhere in that part of the world. There are two characters (three if you count the sea). Dorothea is a no longer young civil servant sent from the capital to a remote fishing village to issue birth certificates, ID cards and the like. Every day she sets up her desk on the beach but she has no clients until the Fisherman arrives. He has come from the Other Side of the Sea in his rowing boat. He needs a birth certificate; “something that shows who he is”, but has none of the information needed for Dorothea to issue one. She gets angry at his bugging her day after day; especially as he is her only client and she can’t do anything for him. They quibble about the possibility of names (he wants his ID to read “Fisherman OftheSea”) and argue the finer points of grammar concerning what may, or may not be, possible. This is often very funny but it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
operaramblings 