Category Archives: Performance review – miscellaneous

A Northern Lights Dream

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A Northern Lights Dream is a new operetta by Michael Rose which premiered this last week at Toronto Operetta Theatre in a production directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin.  A new operetta is a very rare thing.  It;’s just not a form that contemporary composers seem to take to.  There’s far too much spoken dialogue for an opera but the musical language; mostly tonal, often quite beautiful but not afraid to get more abrasive when appropriate, is much closer to that of contemporary opera than musical theatre.  So an operetta it is.

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Bryn at Koerner

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Almost six years to the day since his last appearance Bryn, now Sir Bryn, Terfel made it back to Koerner hall for a much anticipated recital; this time accompanied by Annabel Thwaite.  The first set, partly setting up a Shakespeare theme for the evening, consisted of four songs by Schubert including “Trinklied” and “An Silvia”.  It was followed by three of the the Quilter Shakespeare settings; “Come Away, Come Away, Death”, “O Mistress Mine” and “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind”.  The first half concluded with the Vier ernste Gesänge of Brahms.  I think it’s fair to say that what we were hearing was not the Bryn that his considerable following in the hall expected.  The artistry of interpretation was still there but something was up with the voice.  It didn’t have the bloom I remembered and in places, especially with high notes, it just wasn’t happening.  Was he a bit under the weather or was it the toll of the years and lots of Wagner?  I don’t know but I really hope it was the former.

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Chimaera

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chimaeraLast night the Happenstancers presented another intriguing concert of chamber music titled Chimaera.  This time it was in the excellent hall at 918 Bathurst.  It was a clever conceit.  There were three “sets” with each consisting of two contrasting works that were combined in different ways.

The pieces in the first set were played straightforwardly consecutively but consisted of the least familiar music; Julia Wolfe’s Reeling and the premiere of Nahre Sol’s Chunhyang.  Wolfe is one of those young American composers who combine a conservatory training with a taste for minimalism and hard driving rock and, in the case of this piece, folk music.  It’s scored for nine instrumentalists including electric guitar and drum kit plus lots of electronics.  It’s really cool and reminds me of the most drunk ceilidhs I’ve ever been to.  And that may be why I remember almost nothing about the second piece except that the composer (keyboards) was playing it.

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A Love Song for Toronto

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carlahSoundstreams is the latest local organisation to make the return to live performance with an audience with a concert Thursday night at St. Andrew’s Church titled A Love Song to Toronto.  Three of the works on the program; Vivier’s Hymnen an dir Nacht and Lovesongs plus Christopher Mayo’s Oceana Nox, appeared in a streamed concert in November and I described them in some detail in reviewing that show.  The performers were the same as well bar one.  Pianist Serouj Kradjian replaced Gregory Oh .  I don’t think my impressions of the pieces have changed much but I really appreciated the greater immediacy of a genuinely live performance.

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Eden

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Last night Joyce DiDonato and il Pomo d’Oro brought their touring show Eden to Koerner Hall.  It’s one of those genre defying shows that’s not especially easy to describe.  Basically it’s a recital of art songs and arias; most of the latter from the 18th century, with chamber orchestra accompaniment.  It’s also staged but not with any obvious narrative.  Rather Joyce interacts with two very large metal hoops which move around and rotate on their axes.  All of this is backed up by John Torres’ complex and sometimes spectacular lighting plot.  Cynics might call it gimmicky but given the difficulty of building the audience for vocal recitals I’m all for trying new things and the audience loved it so I think that’s justification enough.

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A Simple Twist of Fate

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Confluence Concerts returned to live performance last night at Heliconian Hall.  The concert, curated by Patricia O’Callaghan, was titled A Simple Twist of Fate and featured an eclectic mix of music either on the topic of Fate or that was entwined with the fates of the performers.

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The nightingale flies from its gilded cage

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nightingale1Florence: The Lady with the Lamp, music by Timothy Sullivan, libretto by Anne Mcpherson, premiered at the Elora Festival in 1992 and n 1995 was the first Canadian work performed by VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert.  Yesterday afternoon they presented it again at the St. Lawrence Centre; staged and with orchestra.

It’s an interesting piece.  Some of it I liked a lot and some not so much.  The orchestral writing is excellent; colourful and atmospheric with some jazz influences.  I quite often found myself drifting off into listening to the orchestra when perhaps I should have paid more attention to the words, especially as there were no surtitles.  The vocal writing is less interesting but it had its moments especially in some of the ensembles.  It’s the old dilemma of whether or not to prioritise the comprehensibility of the words over strictly musical values. Continue reading →