Category Archives: Performance review – miscellaneous

Another take on The Rape of Lucretia

Posted on by
Reply

The Toronto Summer Music Festival continued last night with a one off performance of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at The Winter Gardens, the upstairs part of the Elgin Theatre that I had never before been in.  The production originated in a Banff Centre/Against the Grain/COC joint project directed by Paul Curran but was recreated here in semi-staged form by Anna Theodosakis.  It was on the “quite close to staged” end of the spectrum so, although the band was on stage behind the action and there was no scenery or curtain it came off as much more than a concert in costume.

_MG_7237

 

Continue reading →

Strings and things

Posted on by
Reply

The Toronto Summer Music Festival opened last night with a predominantly strings concert.  The theme this year is “London Calling” so we got a programme of iconic 20th century English works.  Things got off to a good start with the Festival Strings under conductor Joseph Swensen giving a lively and witty account of Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite with some excellent solo work by concert master Shane Kim.

English Music-46

 

Continue reading →

Fenlon x2

Posted on by
1

fenlonandfenlonLast night at Gallery 345 Rachel Fenlon gave a preview performance of her new one woman show Fenlon & Fenlon:Liebesbotschaft.  It’s a program of fifteen more or less well known Schubert lieder put together to create some kind of thematic arc around love and loss and redemption.  There’s scarcely a Bächlein to be seen.  The USP, of course, is that Rachel accompanies herself on the piano.

It’s curiously difficult to figure out just how this approach makes the experience different for the audience, especially when, as in this case, one is not familiar with the singer in normal mode.  It’s also quite hard to sort out what one thinks ought to be happening from what objectively is.  For example, I initially thought that Rachel sounded balanced much further back relative to the piano than usual.  Then I shut my eyes and the impression completely disappeared.  It’s odd.  Certain songs certainly seem to gain from the approach.  Gretchen am Spinnrade perhaps most of all, with the piano more than ever seeming to be the spinning wheel.  Another effect was it made me reconsider my impression that the piano parts in Schubert are pretty simple (in a sense they are compared to, say, Strauss) but played this way one realises that they are far from trivial.

Continue reading →

Three Bats on a Chest of Drawers

Posted on by
Reply

Opera 5’s interactive production of Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus opened last night in the Great Hall at 918 Bathurst.  It’s an intriguing but, above all, fun show.  I think it’s fair to say that presented straight Die Fledermaus has more than a few elements of meta-theatricality.  Here it’s central to the plot from MC Pearle Harbour’s initial apology for the lack of a fourth wall because “we can’t afford one” through a whole series of “interventions” by various characters.  Unpacking it all would probably make as much sense as Umberto Eco’s Three Owls on a Chest of Drawers and I’m not as clever as the late Professor Eco and, in best Fledermaus tradition, it’s the morning after and I’ve only had five hours sleep.  So, I’ll avoid the meta and try and describe the show.

unspecified

Continue reading →

There must be more money

Posted on by
2

Rocking Horse Winner; music by Gareth Williams and libretto by Anna Chatterton, opened last night at the Berkeley Street Theatre.  It’s based on the short story by DH Lawrence and is a co-commission of Tapestry Opera and Scottish Opera.  There are some changes from the original story.  Here Paul is a developmentally challenged adult (on the autism spectrum) rather than a child.  The gardener is replaced by his personal care worker who moonlights as a caller at the local racetrack.  This has a couple of advantages.  It provides something of a rationale for Paul hearing the “voice” of the house and for his apparently inexplicable intuition about race winners and it also means that Paul can be cast as a tenor rather than having to make an awkward choice between a boy soprano or a pants role.  As Paul is one of, perhaps the main, character, this simplifies casting considerably.  The work is also gently updated.  So gently in fact that it’s barely perceptible.

RHW-L to R, top to bottom Keith Klassen as Oscar, Peter McGillivray as Bassett, Asitha Tennekoon,, Stephane Mayer, Aaron Durand, Sean Clark, Elaina Moreau, Erica Iris

Continue reading →

Morphology of Desire

Posted on by
Reply

To Mazzoleni Hall yesterday to hear Christina Campsall’s graduating recital.  I think over the course of the year she has become my “top tip” for this year’s graduating class at the Conservatory and nothing that happened yesterday did anything to shake that judgement. It was a pretty intense program that was definitely more shade than light but that, I think, rather suits her voice.  The opening set, Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, was a case in point.  Dark, brooding texts, dark, brooding music and a dark, brooding voice with plenty of power.  We have a mezzo here not a second soprano!  That said, her high notes are all there and there seems to be plenty of power all through the registers, though to be fait I’ve only seen her once in a large hall and that was in operetta.  Very good German too with a distinct northern inflection.  All the consonants!

campsall

Continue reading →

Cozy enough

Posted on by
Reply

The Toronto production of Against the Grain’s A Little Too Cozy opened last night at Studio 42 at the CBC Centre.  It’s the third and final instalment in the series of Ivany/Mokzrewski adaptations of the Mozart/da Ponte operas, following on from Figaro’s Wedding and #UncleJohn.  Like the earlier pieces it’s updated, site specific and makes a lot of references to social media.  The schtick here is that it’s a reality TV dating show.  Dora and Felicity are yet to meet Elmo and Fernando in the flesh though they have become engaged via social media and through the prior episodes of the show.  Tonight is the season finale and there is one big test left.  Can they be tempted by two strange men?  Show host Donald L. Fonzo and girl handler Despina will make sure they are maximally tempted.  The rest you can work out.

altc3

Continue reading →

Synesthesia IV pt 1

Posted on by
2

Last night in an aerialist loft in the grittier part of the west end FAWN presented Synesthesia IV part 1.  Six short pieces by different composers were choreographed by Jenn Nichols and presented in an art installation by Kathryn Francis Warner.  It was an interesting and enjoyable show but it left me wondering how it was going to help select a composer for a future opera.  I may be old fashioned but I would want to hear how the composer wrote for voice before making that call and only two pieces last night did that.

synesthesia

Continue reading →

Guidebook of Decadence

Posted on by
Reply

Coleman, Lemieux et Compagnie’s Against Nature presented last night at The Citadel, is another show combining vocal music and dance.  It combines two baritones; Geoff Sirett and Alexander Dobson with a dancer, Laurence Lemieux, playing a female servant.  Funny how things tend to coevolve in the arts world.  Combining vocal music with dance, once not so common, is now almost ubiquitous with productions from the likes of CASP, Against the Grain and FAWN among others.

an4

Continue reading →

The Hungarian-Finnish connection

Posted on by
Reply

Stephen HegedusThe last Songmasters concert of the season featured a selection of works that sorta kinda had a Finnish or Hungarian connection.  The first part of the prgram featured songs by Sibelius, all but one to Swedish texts, and piano pieces by Selim Palmgren, whose music sounds like a sort of cross between Debussy and Sibelius.  The songs were sung Stephen Hegedus with plenty of power and quite a bit of subtlety.  We had been told he was quite ill but one wouldn’t have known it.  Fine, delicate work at the piano by Robert Kortgaard.   Continue reading →