Category Archives: Not entirely serious

Carmen on the planet of the Amazons

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So last night at the Tranzac, as part of Against the Grain’s Opera Pub, Queen Hezumuryango and Ryan Nauta did a version of the “Seguidilla” from Bizet’s Carmen but with the roles reversed. It was the Pride Edition after all. Turns out it’s not the first time I’ve heard Carmen gender bent. Not so long ago I heard Korin Thomas-Smith sing the “Habanera”.

So what, I asked myself, would a completely gender bent Carmen look like and would it work. Set it in some female led society and i think you can swap all the roles pretty easily. Michaele would be sort of like Werther; a bit of a mummy’s boy. Escamilla would still be a bullfighter. A cowfighter would be silly! The rest of the characters work with minimal adjustment I think. And for once it woudn’t be the soprano who got the chop.

BTW, the rest of Opera Pub was pretty good too with even more gender bending as Ryan also sang “Quondo men vo”. There was a really nice account by Queen of “Printemps qui commence” from Saint-Saëns’ The Barber of Gaza Samson et Dalila. There was Mozart and art song and lots of musical theatre numbers. And Greg Finney got in some G&S (try stopping him!).

And that’s a wrap on Opera Pub for 2025/26 but it will be back at the Tranzac in the Fall.

What might we see at the COC in 2026/27

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It’s about the time of year when one starts to think about what might be in the next season at the COC.  The last couple of years the announcement has just been an email drop and there’s really no way of telling when it will happen.  In about a month’s time is likely so if I’m going to make some predictions now is a pretty good time.

Once upon a time there were some pretty good indicators of what the next COC season might look like.  Rumours aside, one could look at:

  • Co-productions with other companies and expect that they would come around sooner or later
  • Ditto commissions of new work
  • A certain regularity in the recurrence of “popular” works.  Madama Butterfly every five years for example.

The trouble is none of this seems to be relevant anymore.  Co-pros and commissions disappear without trace and the regularity patterns seem no longer to apply.  The only real certainty is that three or four shows will be revivals.  All of which makes trying to make predictions a bit daft… which makes me ideally suited to do it.  So here goes… Continue reading →

COC 2024/25 predictions

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Piacenza_Bronzeleber - By Lokilech - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1804667So 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.

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A couple more on-line events.

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Tomorrow at 3pm EST Jo So is interviewing Alexander Neef on a Zoom channel under the auspices of the IRCPA.  You need to register as space is limited.  The topics, how to register etc can be found at https://ircpa.net

On Friday May 29th at 8pm EST there’s another virtual event.  The vocal/piano du Chordless (Allegra Chapman and Sarah LeMesh) will be premiering a music video of George Crumb’s The Night in Silence Under Many a Star.  I’ve seen a short preview and I’m intrigued.  It will be followed by a Q&A on the theme of “How will digital media shape artists’ and audience’s performance experience, even beyond the pandemic era?”  Registration information is here

nightissilence.

COC to relocate to Frankfurt

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Following a decade of declining ticket sales and revenue the Canadian Opera Company has decided that the logical step is to go in search of a new audience.  As General Director Alexander Neef puts it “We’ve tried everything in the playbook to build a new audience in Toronto; discounts for seniors, discounts for under 30s, community outreach, the lot and nothing has really worked so the board decided that if the audience won’t come to us, we must go to the audience.  So we are moving lock, stock and barrel to Frankfurt.  There’s a great audience there, as well as most of our singers.  Besides it’s not like we will no longer be accessible to our existing audience.  Air Canada has three direct flights per day from Pearson to our new home.”

tofrankfurt

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Predictions for COC 2019/20

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soothsayer_traits_advisingIt’s that time when I go through the ultimately pointless exercise of trying to predict what the COC season for 2019/20 will be.  In some ways it’s an interesting intellectual enterprise not unlike what an Intelligence Officer would do.  What do past patterns reveal?  What can we glean from published sources?  What have prisoners told us?  (No I don’t really interrogate captured opera singers tempting as it might be).

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