Category Archives: Performance review – miscellaneous

Tapestry Briefs

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tapestry_quartetTapestry Briefs is the product of the Composer-Librettist Workshop run annually by Tapestry.  Four composers and four librettists come up with sixteen ideas for a new opera and work up a scene from each.  Last night twelve scenes from the most recent workshop were presented in a fully staged format with piano accompaniment in Ernest Balmer Studio and adjacent Distillery spaces.  The quartet of singers for the evening was made up of some of Toronto’s top singer/actors; Carla Huhtanen, Krisztina Szabó, Keith Klassen and Peter McGillivray.  Piano accompaniment was from Gregory Oh and Jennifer Tung.

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La tragédie de Carmen

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warnerLa tragédie de Carmen is a stripped down version of Bizet’s opera originally created by Peter Brook some thirty years ago.  It dispenses with the chorus and most of the minor characters to focus in on the central drama of Carmen, Micaëla, Don José and Escamillo with some support from Zuniga and Lillas Pastia.  In Loose TEA Theatre’s version the action is transferred to New York in the 1920s and given a night club/mob setting which stretches the libretto but allows the rather striking Cassandra Warner to appear in some quite stunning outfits.

The piece is very condensed.  It runs maybe 80 minutes.  Presented in a small space like Buddies in bad times it becomes almost unbearably intense, especially when presented by fine actors as it was here.  Central to the whole thing is Warner’s stunning Carmen.  She is very good looking in a rather angular 1920s sort of way.  She can act and she has a really good voice.  The tone is genuine mezzo but she seems quite comfortable well up into soprano territory.  The overall effect was extremely sexy.

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Philippe Sly and Julius Drake at Walter Hall

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Phillippe-SlyUp and coming Canadian bass-baritone Philippe Sly was joined last night by veteran collaborative pianist Julius Drake for a program of chansons and lieder at Walter Hall.  The 490 seat hall was almost full which is rather nice to see for a song recital in Toronto.  The first half was devoted to chansons by Duparc, Ropartz and Ravel.  I was struck by the restraint of Sly’s singing.  It was conversational and not operatic at all but very expressive.  I think that takes a lot of guts in a young singer.  He let the words and music do the talking and didn’t exaggerate.  This was perhaps best shown in the drinking song from the Don Quichotte songs of Ravel.  He was very funny but sounded like a drunk, not somebody overacting the idea of a drunk.  Continue reading →

Gryphon Trio with Robert Pomakov

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Gryphon_085v1(1)Back to Koerner Hall last night for a concert of chamber music and art song.  Anchoring the show were the Gryphon Trio.  They kicked off with the Debussy Piano Trio in G Major.  This was an enjoyable and compact piece with a very playful second movement.  Then came what was, for me, the main reason for going, Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death.  For this the Gryphons were joined by Toronto bass Robert Pomakov.  He was excellent.  Obviously completely at home singing in Russian he produced a nuanced reading of text and music.  His acting with the voice was exemplary and no extraneous physical acting was required.  His control of dynamics was exemplary.  He has a really big voice which he deployed as appropriate but he was also capable of floating a lovely pianissimo.  Accompaniment from the Gryphons was also well up to par.  There are some interesting instrumental lines including making the cello go about as low as a cello can to match the bass voice.  Continue reading →

Toronto Summer Music Festival kicks off

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Last night saw the first concert of the Toronto Summer Music festival which runs at a variety of venues until August 3rd.  The theme for the festival is Paris La Belle Époque and this was reflected in last night’s opening concert being given by the distinguished French trio Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux.  One might question though to what extent works written in 1914 and 1923 can be said to belong to the themed era.  It didn’t seem to bother a packed Koerner Hall.  The reception to all three pieces given was raucous.

Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux (From left to right: Roland Pidoux, cello; Régis Pasquier, violin; and Jean-Claude Photo credit: Guy Vivien

Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux (From left to right:
Roland Pidoux, cello; Régis Pasquier, violin; and Jean-Claude
Photo credit: Guy Vivien

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Key Characters

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battLast night we attended a concert in the relatively new performance space at the Canadian Music Centre.  It’s a very pleasant room, set up for recording, and seating maybe 50.  The program consisted of four recent works by Canadian composers; three short opera scenes for soprano and piano and a piano piece.

 

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The Giacomo Variations

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4.snogThe Giacomo Variations is the latest collaboration between John Malkovich, Michael Sturminger, Martin Haselböck and, posthumously, W.A. Mozart.  In that respect it has much in common with The Infernal Comedy.  In other respects, not so much. It’s just wound up a six performance visit to Montreal and Toronto and last night I caught the final performance at the Elgin Theatre.

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Toronto’s got talent

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organRecitals at Rosedale is a new venture from collaborative pianists John Greer and Rachel Andrist.  There will be four themed recitals, each featuring multiple singers, on Sunday afternoons at Rosedale Presbyterian Church.  Last night saw a preview of excerpts from all four programs.  Around 200 people showed up on a very hot and humid Saturday evening to see a pretty decent cross section of Toronto’s singing talent.  The venue has a typically resonant church acoustic and tends to swallow the words a bit however carefully the singer enunciates but it’s a sensible size, holding maybe 200-300 and so avoids the problem of feeling empty even when there is actually a pretty decent crowd.

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The knot is tied – Figaro’s Wedding at The Burroughes

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figaro

Photo credit: Roger Rousseau

Figaro’s Wedding music by W.A Mozart, libretto by Joel Ivany, opened last night at The Burroughes.  A full house, many dressed as if attending a wedding as requested, saw an extremely effective realisation of another ambitious project from Against the Grain Theatre.  This isn’t just another low budget production of a well known opera. Figaro’s Wedding is a complete rework of the piece.  The music is the familiar Mozart in a very effective piano quintet arrangement by Topher Mokrzewski, albeit with cuts to suit the new libretto,  The libretto is in English, cuts the chorus (and Barbarina) and reshapes the story around a wedding in today’s Toronto.  Gone are aristocrats, servants and hangers on.  Instead we have a young couple – Susanna and Figaro, his boss and boss’ wife – Alberto and Rosina, and the various arrangers and functionaries connected with the wedding.  Oh yes, and there’s a lesbian grad student called Cherubino living in Alberto and Rosina’s basement.  The story unfolds in a way that’s close enough to da Ponte for the twists and departures to add a little extra amusement for those who know the libretto well.  It’s very smart, extremely funny and surprisingly singable.

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The Lessons of Love

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Last night Toronto Masque Theatre presented a double bill entitled The Lessons of Love.  First up was John Blow’s 1683 masque Venus and Adonis and it was followed by the premier of The Lesson of Da Ji; a fusion of Western and traditional Chinese elements by composer Alice Ping Yee Ho and librettist Marjorie Chan.

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