Author Archives: operaramblings

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About operaramblings

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

The Bright Divide

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Soundstreams’ concert on Friday evening in the new TD Music Hall at Massey Hall was inspired by the Rothko Chapel in Houstion, Texas.  It featured two works; Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel, commissioned for the opening of the chapel, and Cecilia Livingston’s mark, commissioned for Friday’s concert.  Both featured chorus (Soundstreams Choir 21), viola (Steven Dann), celesta (Gregory Oh) and percussion (Ryan Scott).  mark also featured baritone Alex Samaras).  Both were staged by Tim Albery with lighting by Siobhán Sleath and projections by Cameron Davis.

The Bright Divide/ Soundstream

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Chinatown

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chinatownChinatown; music by Alice Ho, words by Madeleine Thien and Paul Yee, is a multilingual opera about the Chinese immigrant experience in British Columbia.  It ws commissioned by Vancouver City Opera where it played in 2022.  It’s now been recorded for CD by the original cast.

Like some of Alice Ho’s previous work (The Monkiest King, The Lesson of Da JI) Chinatown is cross cultural in many ways.  It combines Western and Chinese instruments, musical styles and vocal styles and in this case it uses three languages; Hoisan dialect, Cantonese and English.  Unlike the previous two operas though this one isn’t based in myth and legend.  Rather, it’s a gritty and moving story that doesn’t shy away from confronting the brutal institutional racism that Chinese people faced in BC well into the 20th century. Continue reading →

Duelling tenors

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Damiano Michieletto’s production of Rossini’s La donna del lago filmed at the Rossini Festival in Pesaro in 2016 has some odd features but at least it’s not as all around annoying as the Met production the year before.

1.elenauberto

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A Christofascist Tosca

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Puccini’s Tosca is a work that seems to turn the boldest directors conservative.  Up until now the only one I had seen that wasn’t set in Rome in 1800 was Philip Himmelmann’s production in Baden-Baden.  That starred Kristine Opolais and so does Martin Kušej’s 2022 production at the Theater an der Wien.  And like the Baden-Baden work this sets the piece in some sort of Christofascist dystopia but a very different one from Himmelmann.

1.caravantree

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Un giorno di regno

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Belle Cao2023

Belle Cao

VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert opened their 50th anniversary season at the Jane Mallett Theatre with the first of three Verdi rarities.  Un giorno di regno was Verdi’s second opera and it premiered at La Scala in 1840 to no great acclaim.  It’s a curiously old fashioned piece for its time.  Perhaps the fact that it sets a libretto written over twenty years earlier accounts for some of that.  It’s very much a bel canto work.  It’s sort of a comedy though it’s not actually all that funny; being largely concerned with machinations about who marries whom played around a somewhat implausible impersonation of the King of Poland by a minor French aristocrat.  It’s no sillier than many Donizetti operas but perhaps by 1840 that formula was wearing rather thin. Continue reading →

Mi País

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Mi_pais_square_coverMi País: Songs of Argentina is a CD from bass-baritone Federico de Michelis and an ensemble that includes Steven Blier on piano, Shinjoo Cho on bandoneon, Sami Merdinian on violin and Pablo Lanouguere on bass.  The songs are basically from the middle decades of the 20th century and mostly by classically trained composers such as Carlos Guastavino and Carlos López Buchardo.

I think I was expecting something more like 20th century art song but the material on the disc is more popular with strong tango influences and hints of the Great American Songbook.  It’s all completely tonal and really doesn’t go anywhere unexpected.  It’s all very competently done and de Michelis has an excellent voice but it’s not really my thing.  YMMV.

It was recorded earlier this year at Big Orange Sheep in Brooklyn and the recording is perfectly fine.  It’s available as a physical CD or a digital download from NYFOS Records (no catalogue number).  The packaging includes notes on the songs but no texts.

Tapestry x GGS

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The Glenn Gould School’s Fall Chamber Opera offering this year was four short pieces from Tapestry Opera’s back catalogue.  First up was Ice Time by Ka Nin Chan and Mark Brownell.  It’s the story of a has been ice skater and her futile attempts to get her daughter, who wants to be a civil engineer, to follow in her footsteps (or icy equivalent).  The music is in much the same vein as other works by this composer such as Dragon’s Tale.  It’s a pretty light hearted piece and it got a lively and credible account from Emma Pennell as the daughter and Alexa Frankian as the mother.  As with the other pieces direction was by Dana Fradkin with accompaniment by chamber ensemble conducted by Peter Tiefenbach.

1.icetime

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Le astuzie femminili

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Domenico Cimarosa’s 1794 Commedia per musica; Le astuzie femminili, is extremely silly.  It’s like an early Rossini farsa but a full two acts running almost three hours.  There’s a girl called Bellina, who bears a more than passing resemblance to Rossini’s Rosina.  She has been left a fortune by her father contingent on her marrying a dude from Naples called Don Giampaolo Lasagna.  But she is in love with the penniless Filandro.  Worse, her guardian, the notary Don Romualdo also wants to marry her despite having promised to marry his housekeeper Leonora.  There’s also Ersilla, a friend of Bellina, who doesn’t seem to be in love with anybody.

1.filandrobellina

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Rocking again

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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.

1.ava:paul

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