Yesterday’s lunch time concert featured bass Robert Pomakov accompanied by members of the Gryphom Trio. The programme kicked off with two songs by Glinka with Bob accompanied by Roman Borys on cello and Jamie Parker on piano. The first piece was called Lullaby but it’s hard to imagine anyone sleeping through Bob’s powerful rendering. The second piece, Doubt, showcased some lovely playing by Borys.
Yesterday’s free concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre saw four members of the Ensemble Studio singing contrasting works by Benjamin Britten. First up was bass-baritone Gordon Bintner with excerpts from Tit for Tat; settings of works by Walter de la Mare. These were full blooded performances and Bintner gave full reign to his powerful and flexible voice. It’s a terrific instrument but I would have preferred a little more restraint and subtlety, especially in something as intimate as these pieces. Next up was tenor Andrew Haji with excerpts from Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. It was rather a similar story. He has a fine, operatic voice and gave the songs a rather operatic treatment. It was good singing but not in the idiom one is accustomed to hearing this music sung in.
Photo: Karen Reeves
Yesterday saw the first of this season’s free concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. As has become the norm it featured the singers of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. This year it was dedicated to the memory of the late Lotfi Mansouri and included a couple of short tributes to him.
Six of the Ensemble’s singers are new this year, as is the sole pianist, so these were mostly singers I haven’t heard a lot of. I’ve also observed how much members of the Ensemble Studio develop in the programme and last year we had a solid group of third years with a few new entrants. The balance has shifted to the other extreme and so no surprise that yesterday we heard more potential than polish.
Front (l – r): Clarence Frazer, Sasha Djihanian, Danielle MacMillan, Michael Shannon
Middle (l – r): Gordon Bintner, Aviva Fortunata, Claire de Sévigné, Cameron McPhail
Back (l – r): Andrew Haji, Charlotte Burrage, Owen McCausland
Photographer: Karen Reeves
Here are a few of the photographs that Chris Hutcheson took at the preview of excerpts from Figaro’s Wedding last week.
The whole gang
More under the cut…
It’s one of the nicer things about Toronto that from time to time a visiting star at the COC will agree to do a free lunchtime recital in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Today was the turn of American coloratura Anna Christy who is currently singing the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor. It was an exceptionally fun sixty minutes.
I was a little worried when she and accompanist Liz Upchurch just took their places and started. I need not have been. We got a set of three bel canto art songs that were full of virtuosity and personality. The sheer technical skill was obvious but so was the range of tone colour. Those doomandgloomists who think modern singers can’t act with the voice should listen to Ms. Christy. It’s all there. After that opening she did open up and explain the middle part of her set; pieces by Bolcom and Copland that she sees as natural successors to bel canto. Sung with exquisite attention to the texts one can see her point. She was also very funny and very human. I do like modern divas so much more than the one’s who get in a snit because the caviar isn’t the right temperature.
She finished up with arias by Rossini, Handel and Donizetti, all sung stylishly and with tasteful ornamentation. It was really classy. And to round things out her parents were there and it was her dad’s seventieth and there are no prizes for guessing how things finished up.
Today’s free lunchtime concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre was a preview of Against the Grain’s upcoming Figaro’s Wedding. Its got a brand new English libretto by director Joel Ivany very much along the lines of the La Bohème they did at the Tranzac a few years back; setting the story in today’s Toronto but keeping the basic plot line roughly similar. Today’s show featured excerpts from the piece plus interviews with the characters by Joel. I don’t want to do spoilers but let’s just say it’s very clever and very funny. It’s got a great cast of young local singers and it’s been arranged for piano and string quartet by the amazing Topher Mokrzewski. This is going to be really, really good and I’ve never heard anything get such an enthusiastic reception in the RBA.
The full show is going to play at a real wedding hall, The Burroughes Building at 639 Queen Street West on May 29-31 and on June 2. There’s no show on June 1 because the venue is booked for a wedding! Tickets and more details are available at http://www.againstthegraintheatre.com. Be warned, opening night is already sold out and I expect the remaining nights will also sell ahead of time. This is going to be a hot ticket.
Sorry about the iPhone photo. Expect better ones in due course.
Last night, for the second time (the first was in 2011) the singers of the COC Ensemble Studio competed for the Christina and Louis Quilico Awards; a prize competition created by Christina in memory of her husband, baritone Louis. It was the usual competition format; the singers offer three arias, they sing one and then the judges choose which of the remaining two they will sing. It being the Ensemble Studio on show the standard was extremely high. Nine singers and eighteen arias is too much to report in detail so I’ll concentrate on the winners.
Alan Walker of the Ontario Arts Foundation, Christina Quilico and the Ensemble Studio
John Terauds may have proclaimed the death of the art song recital in Toronto, and he may even have a point about recitals with high ticket prices, but the line up outside the Four Seasons Centre yesterday for a recital of French chansons rather suggests that the taste for the form has not gone away. The admirably chosen programme of songs, mainly by Poulenc with some Ravel and Milhaud thrown in, was performed by members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio.
Chris Paul Harman’s La selva de los relojes (The Forest of Clocks) had its premier at the Four Seasons Centre at lunchtime today. It’s a setting of some very beautiful texts from Lorca’s Suites scored for mezzo, harp, piano/celeste, flute, clarinet, cello, percussion and tape. The tape consists of sections of the texts read by Martha de Francisco. Sometimes the text comes from the tape, sometimes it’s sung by mezzo, sometimes it’s spoken by the mezzo and at other times they overlap. The accompaniment is mostly very spare but occasionally becomes surprisingly dense with lots of work for tuned percussion. There are also some unconventional roles for the instruments, especially the flute, and there is a whistled passage for the singer near the end. All in all it’s very 21st century; decidedly modern but quite approachable. And did I say the texts are gorgeous? Continue reading
So, apparently Toronto has three opera singers from the otherwise unremarkable town of Corner Brook, Newfoundland. Today they (Michael and Peter Barrett and Adam Luther) together with Doug Naughton on guitar, Andrew Grimes on bhodran and, the definitely not from Newfoundland, Sandra Horst on piano produced a fun recital of arrangements of more or less traditional songs from Newfoundland and the British Isles together with a few pieces that aren’t actually traditional but people think they are. And actually, of course, a lot of the time differentiating between a traditional Newfoundland song and a traditional British song is a bit fraught.
operaramblings 