Once in a while it’s good to take a chance on a concert or play that’s outside one’s normal sort of thing. Sometimes that turns out really well. For example, I’m no great fan of musicals but I loved Tiger Bride at Soulpepper. So t was in that spirit that I went to see Council at Walter Hall on Monday evening.
It’s not often that one attends a recital that is so stunning that one struggles to find words to describe it but The Golden Age recital given by soprano Erin Morley, tenor Lawrence Brownlee and pianist Malcolm Martineau at a packed Koerner Hall on Thursday evening, as part of Toronto Summer Music, was in that class. Most of the rep was drawn from the Golden Age album released last year with a few change ups. It’s basically all highly virtuosic material in the bel canto style (plus a couple of piano pieces).
This year’s mentors for Toronto Summer Music’s Art of Song programme are mezzo Sasha Cooke and pianist Warren Jones. On Monday evening they teamed up to give an American themed recital in Walter Hall.
My review of William Christie and Les Arts Florissants’ Charpentier double bill that opened TSM 2026 on Thursday evening at Koerner Hall is now available at bachtrack.com.
Photo: Lucky Tang
#bachtrack
Toronto City Opera opened a two show run of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at (a very steamy) Trinity St. Paul’s on Saturday evening. It was auspicious in several ways. It, technically, marked the 80th anniversary of the organisation, which apparently had its origin at Central Tech in 1946 followed by many years as a TDSB Adult Ed programme at the Bickford Death Trap Centre. But really, TCO as we know it began life with the split from TDSB in 2018 and what’s notable about this latest production is that it’s their first with orchestra; the North York Concert Orchestra to be precise. And that really is a milestone!
Echoes of the Underworld, from choreographer Emily Cheung, poet Diana Tso and the Little Pear Garden Dance Company, transforms Campbell House into the Underworld where souls (i.e. us) are guided in small groups through different rooms of Campbell House for a very “in your face” encounter with ghosts, demons and other restless spirits.
My review of the Canadian premier of Rene Orth and Hannah Moscovitch’s 10 Days in a Madhouse is now published at bachtrack.com.
TL:DR It’s musically and dramatically innovative and excellent with some very strong performances.
Photo credit: Eric Forget Photography. #bachtrack
Parélios; music by Cecilia Livingston, words by Duncan McFarlane, opened at Theatre Passe Muraille on Friday as part of Opera 5’s Toronto Opera Festival. It’s an intensely cerebral and very, very beautiful work but it’s unrelenting and quite dark. Basically a group of refugees; perhaps fleeing some environmental catastrophe, are on a journey to who knows where. They have survived the winter but the summer brings no real relief. It’s a bit like Cormac McCarthy’s The Road but vastly more intellectual and poetic.
Opera 5 opened the Toronto Opera festival on Wednesday at Theatre Passe Muraille with a Puccini double bill; the rarely seen Suor Angelica and perennial crowd pleaser Gianni Schicchi. Both were presented fully staged in productions by Jessica Derventzis with accompaniment by a chamber ensemble (string quartet, bass, harp, piano) conducted by Evan Mitchell.
The final concert of this year’s Toronto Bach Festival was Voices Lifted; a presentation of four of Bach’s chorale cantatas at Eastminster United. These pieces typically use the classic Lutheran chorale text sung quite simply to bookend material reworked from biblical sources into a mixture of arias, recitatives and duets. The chorale parts were sung here with two singers to each part. Accompaniment was a small period instrument ensemble anchored by Christopher Bagan on organ and conducted by John Abberger.
