My review of Opera Atelier’s production of Handel’s La resurrezione is now up at Bachtrack. There are two more performances; tonight (8th April) at 7.30pm and tomorrow at 2.30pm.
Photo credit: Bruce Zinger
Opera Atelier’s La resurrezione
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Category Archives: Performance review – miscellaneous
Setting the Scene
Yesterday there was an early evening performance in Walter Hall by members of the UoT Opera. Fourteen singers and two pianists in various combinations presented a total of eleven scenes. The scenes were blocked with some basic props but concert dress, or rather whatever part of the singer’s wardrobe evoked their character for them, which is probably more fun if you are singing Musetta than Dr. Bartolo.
Bluebeard’s Castle
Against the Grain Theatre’s presentation of Theatre of Sound’s production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle opened last night at the Fleck Dance Theatre. It’s in English translation (by director Daisy Evans) with chamber ensemble and it reimagines the piece as the story of an elderly man caring for a wife who has dementia. What’s extraordinary is that the libretto works extremely smoothly with no changes. The rooms in Bluebeard’s castle are replaced by a trunk with objects that evoke memories from the couple’s long life together. The “torture” of uncertain first love, military service, marriage, children etc. In each scene a silent, younger, Judith (there are three of them representing different ages and life stages) appears until at the end all three are on stage looking at themselves in mirrors. It’s very beautiful and very moving.
Of the Sea
My review of Ian Cusson and Kanika Ambrose’s new opera Of the Sea is now up at Opera Canada.
L’amante anonyme
Voicebox: Opera in Concert’s most recent production is Joseph Bologne, Chévalier de St, Georges’ 1780 opéra comique, L’amant anonyme. It was given in OiC’s usual style; i.e concert dress but some blocking, a few props and no music stands. The dialogue was given in English with the musical numbers in French with surtitles. Accompaniment was a 10 piece chamber reduction of the original score by Stephen Hargreaves. David Fallis conducted.
Little Match Girl Passion
On Saturday evening the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers gave a very beautiful, carefully constructed and thought provoking concert. To start with it was at the Church of the Holy Trinity which, as most Torontonians will know, is a sort of social hub servicing the spiritual and material needs of Toronto’s homeless as best they can. All the more ironic as it sits in the shadow of that iconic temple of consumer capitalism the Eaton Centre.
Norcop Prize 2023
Thursday lunchtime in Walter Hall saw the winner of the 2023 Norcop Song Prize, Jamal Al-Titi give his prizewinner recital accompanied by Koldolsky Prize winner Indra Egan. It was an interesting selection of material for baritone in English, French, Italian and Russian. Starting off with Butterworth’s Loveliest of Trees and Vaughan Williams’ Silent Noon was bold. The standard for these songs is particularly high and I don’t think they are Al-Titi’s sweet spot. We would see laster in the recital a leaning towards a very operatic approach that didn’t work so well here.
dreams-bend
To the intimate (i.e. tiny) Array Space last night for a concert by the Happenstancers who, in this iteration, consisted of Brad Cherwin – clarinet, Madlen Breckbill – viola and Micah Behr – piano. and, in the first number, viola.
Part 1 of the programme was called Dream Images and was intended to evoke the discontinuous and illogical. It began with Du Yun’s dreams-bend for taped speech, two violas and clarinet as a sort of intro to the main event. This consisted of Schumann’s Fairy Tale Narrations and Kurtág’s Hommage à R. Schumann; these being two of the very few works for clarinet, viola and piano. Added to these was a new work; Abstractions by Nahre Sol. The pieces were played with the movements in the right order but with the composers mixed up so, for example, the first four movements went Kurtág, Sol, Schumann, Kurtág and so on. I like this approach. The styles contrast. The Kurtág is spikey and dissonant, the Schumann structured and Romantic and the Sol playful, tonal (mostly) and rhythmically varied. Listening to them interspersed somehow focusses attention on their particular qualities and has a kind of focus that the conventional way of doing things doesn’t.
A Woman’s Voice
Confluence Concerts’ show last night at Heliconian Hall was titled A Woman’s Voice. It was, after a fashion, a CD release concert in two halves. The first half featured music by Alice Ping Yee Ho from the album A Woman’s Voice and featuring the same performers; Vania Chan, Katy Clark, Alex Hetherington, Maeve Palmer and Jialiang Zhu. I’ve already reviewed the album and I don’t think last night changed my opinion much so I’ll not do a detailed rundown. What I can say is that last night it was mostly opera excerpts; Lesson of Da Ji, Chinatown, The Imp of the Perverse, and a live concert gave an opportunity for a bit of staging which was definitely an enhancement, especially in The Imp of the Perverse scene. “Café Chit Chat” and “Black” also benefitted from visual interaction between the singers. I like the CD a lot. Getting a chance to see some of the music live was great. Continue reading
It was the best of times…
UoT Opera Division’s production of Arthur Benjamin’s A Tale of Two Cities, currently playing at the MacMillan Theatre, is really rather good. Its partly the work itself which surely deserves to be better known. It’s a 1950 work to a libretto by Cedric Cliffe. It was written for the Festival of Britain and was considered a success at the time. It is in many ways typical of mid 20th century English opera (though Benjamin was a peripatetic Australian rather than a Brit). It’s colourful and uses a large orchestra with lots of brass and percussion and combines lyricism with some fairly heavy dissonance. It also includes a few good arias, notably one for Lucie Manette, the romantic female interest.
Dr. Manette (Burak Yaman), Lucie Manette (Emily Rocha)
operaramblings 