My review of last Thursday’s TSO season opener is now published on bachtrack.com.
Photo credit: Alan Cabral
TSO opens season with an intriguing double bill
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Category Archives: Performance review – TSO
Poska and Goodyear team up with the TSO to good effect
My review of the TSO’s concert on Wednesday night with Stewart Goodyear and Kristiina Poska is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo credit: Allan Cabral, courtesy of the TSO
@bachtrack
May 2025
Here are my top picks for May.
- The Cunning Linguist opens at Factory Theatre on May 1st. Previews are April 26th, 27th and 30th and it runs to May 11th. A young queer Mexican woman, with her sidekick God, decides to move to Toronto…
- Eugene Onegin in the Robert Carsen production opens May 2nd at the COC. Runs until May 24th.
- On May 3rd Confluence has a Teiya Kasahara curated show called Project T: Home Video (this is a change from the originally scheduled May 2nd/3rd show).
Mahler and more at the TSO
My review of last night’s concert at Roy Thomson Hall featuring the TSO, Anna Prohaska and the Spanish ambassador is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo credit: Jae Yang
John Adams returns
My review of John Adams conducting the TSO on Wednesday evening is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo: Alan Cabral
TSO pay tribute to Sir Andrew Davis
My review of Wednesday’s concert at the TSO with Emily D’Angelo is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo credit: Allan Cabral
@bachtrack
TSO Messiah
This year’s Messiah at the TSO is a fairly small scale affair by TSO standards. There’s still the 100+ strong Toronto Mendelssohn Choir but the orchestra is quite small; 12 violins, 6 violas, 4 cellos, 2 basses, 2 oboes and bassoon, plus Christopher Bagan on a sort of monster harpsichord/organ combo. There were two trumpets in the gallery for “Glory to God” and they were back (on stage) with timpani for the Hallelujah chorus and part 3. With Jane Glover conducting it felt like it was almost in Tafelmusik territory.
Ode to Joy
Last night’s TSO program, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno, kicked off with three short pieces by Canadian composers. All were impressive. The first two; Adam Scime’s A Dream of Refuge and Bekah Simms’ Bite are reflections (to some at extent at least) on the pandemic. The Scime piece is lighter and brighter. There is uncertainty there but ultimately it seems to speak of hope. The Simms piece wis much darker with heavy percussion and blaring brass. A sense of uncertainty permeates the string writing. It’s quite disturbing. Roydon Tse’s Unrelenting Sorrow was written for those who have lost loved ones. It’s quite melodic and has strong contrasts between dramatic and more lyrical passages. Sorrowful perhaps but not unrelentingly so.
Gimeno and Hannigan
To Roy Thomson Hall last night for the first time in over two years to see Gustavo Gimeno conduct (my first time) with Barbara Hannigan featuring in a major premiere in the first half. The concert kicked off with a 3 minute piece by Julia Mermelstein; in moments, into bloom. It was over too quickly to register much of an impression with me. I certainly enjoyed the Stravinsky Scherzo fantastique that followed. This seems to be Gimeno’s type of music and he had excellent control of rhythm, dynamics and colour which augured well for The Firebird coming up after the interval.
La Dori
Pietro Antonio Cesti’s 1657 dramma musicale La Dori is a hoot. It seems to prefigure every plot device that will ever be used in opera. A baby sold by bandits who turns out to be a princess. Pirates. A ghost. Mistaken identities. Swapped potions. Men pretending to be women. Women pretending to be men. Love polygons of fiendish complexity. I won’t even attempt to explain the plot because it’s very complex and silly and hardly matters. It took me a half page diagram just to map the relationships between the characters.
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