Come Closer; libretto by Rachel Krehm, music by Ryan Trew, is a two act chamber opera about Rachel’s relationship with her younger sister Elizabeth who died as a consequence of heroin addiction. Some of it is based on Rachel’s memories and much on the writing and drawings that Elizabeth left. It premiered on Friday night and is currently playing in an Opera 5 production at Factory Theatre.
Opera 5 opened the first Toronto Opera Festival last night at Factory Theatre with a gala featuring Greg Dahl and the singers from their intern programme; most of whom have McGill connections.. It was basically a concert of opera arias and scenes and musical theatre numbers in about equal shares. It was quite varied ad theire was some excellent singing supported with versatility and flair by Nate Ben-Horin on a slightly battered looking piano (it sounded fine though!).
Nate Ben-Horin, piano; Gregory Dahl, baritone
Immersed is an audio-visual performance piece created by Justin Gray. There are visuals but the raison d’etre of the piece is recorded music. The whole thing was written to be recorded and then played back using Dolby ATMOS to create a three dimensional moving soundscape. I got to experience it on Saturday night in the TD Music hall at Massey Hall which has a thirty eight speaker array for doing just this kind of thing. It was playing as part of Luminato.
There were thirty eight musicians involved in the project…
There was a time when site specific productions were very much part of the Toronto opera scene but, like much else, they seemed to disappear with the pandemic. So it was especially pleasing to see Tapestry Opera, Luminato and Metropolitan United Church combining for just such an event.
Nigamon/Tunai is part ritual, part performance, part narrative. It’s based around the fight of an Indigenous group in the Colombian Amazon to prevent a road being built through their land in order to exploit a copper deposit but it interweaves this with water lore and creation myths from all over the Americas. It’s playing in the Ada Slaight Hall at the Daniels Spectrum as part of Luminato.
This year’s Canadian Children’s Opera Company main show is a new production of Alice Ho and Marjorie Chan’s The Monkiest King which the company previously performed in 2018. This time it was at Harbourfront Centre Theatre which offered some additional opportunities and some challenges with its multi level configuration but also some sight line issues.
Male soprano Samuel Mariño was back in town for another concert with Tafelmusik; this time at Koerner Hall. There were three concerts and I caught the last one on Sunday afternoon. The repertoire consisted of opera recitatives and arias from the 18th century interspersed with related instrumental numbers.
It’s quite a story really. Schmaltz and Pepper started life in November 2023 and played their first gig exactly a year ago. They have become, dare I say it, a bit of a cult and their first CD is now on the street in CD and vinyl (really!?!) format with digital to come. My review of the CD is here.
I don’t pay as much attention to the free concert series at Metropolitan United as I should but yesterday I made it there to hear tenor Alexander Cappellazzo and pianist Narmina Afandiyeva in a programme of 20th and 21st century song.
Tapestry Opera are currently presenting a production of Sanctuary Song (music by Abigail Richardson-Schulte, words by Marjorie Chan). It’s a piece that premiered in 2008 and this revival, directed by Michae Mori, represents Tapestry’s first major production in the new Nancy and Ed Jackman Performance Centre.
operaramblings 