June is kind of quiet but first there’s yet another show to mention for the busy last weekend of May. David Fallis is conducting his last performances as Music Director of the Toronto Consort. It’s Monteverdi’s Orfeo and it’s at Trinity St. Pauls at 8pm on the 25th and 26th and 3.30pm on the 27th. Besides David it features Charles Daniels in the title role, Kevin Skelton as Apollo, Laura Pudwell as Messagiera with Jeanne Lamon on first violin plus Montreal’s premier cornetto and sackbut ensemble La Rose des Vents.
Category Archives: Toronto opera news and views
Tapestry 18/19
Tapestry’s 2018/19 season has been announced. There are two new operas plus Tapestry Briefs and Songbook IX. So here’s the lineup:
- Tapestry Briefs: Tasting Shorts runs September 13th to 16th 2018. Four singers perform short works plus drinks and tapas.
- Hook Up, which runs January 29th to February 10th 2019 at Theatre Passe Muraille is a partnership with that company. The libretto is by Julie Teppermann with music by Chris Thornborrow. It looks like a sort of “coming of age” piece about starting university. The singers are Alicia Ault, Nathan Carroll, and Jeff Lillico. None of them are known to me but a quick Google suggests actors-who-sing/musical theatre rather than opera.
- Songbook IX is scheduled for March 2019. No further details at this stage.
- Finally, and of most interest to me, is a new work co-produced with Opera on the Avalon. It’s called Shanawdithit and tells the story of the last recorded surviving member of the Beothuk Nation in Newfoundland, and the extinction and erasure of her people. The libretto is by Yvette Nolan with music by Dean Burry and it will be performed by an indigenous cast headed by Marion Newman. This will run on yet to be announced dates in May 2019. I’m excited about this one.
More info here.
Tapestry and Pride
Tapestry Opera is collaborating with Toronto Pride Week to put on a “queerated opera series” called Pride Toronto, Tap This. There are three shows:
- Cocktales with Maria showcases Drag Chanteuse / Contralto Profundo Maria Toilette (Joel Klein) and her small motley crew (the Gutter Opera Collective). They will present Isaiah Bell’s settings of Cocktales: rapacious and tender 1st person retellings of early sexual experiences. June 8th and 9th at 9pm.
- Queer of the Night features Soprano Teiya Kasahara subverting the tropes of women in opera with her trademark butch couture and powerful coloratura in cooperation with collaborative pianist, David Eliakis. June 7th at 9pm and June 9th at 4pm.
- Tap This: Queers Crash the Opera is a selection of queer-themed opera curated by David Eliakis. It features selections from the classics as well as Tapestry original works. June 7th and 8th at 8pm.
All shows are at the Ernest Balmer Studio. More info and tickets here.
Toronto Operetta Theatre 2018/19
Toronto Operetta Theatre have released preliminary information on their 2018/19 season. There are three main stage productions at the Jane Mallett Theatre. First up is Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss which runs December 28th, 2018 to January 2nd, 2019. There’s been no shortage of Fledermice in Toronto in recent years with Christopher Alden, Aria Umezawa and Joel Ivany all contributing quite individual productions. I imagine Guillermo Silva-Marin’s treatment will likely be designed to appeal more to the traditionalists!
Assorted news and signal boosts
Here’s the news that’s arrived in my inbox this week.
Toronto Alliance for the Performing Arts announced that from 2019 the DORA awards will be gender neutral. In categories where there has traditionally been “Best Performance by a Male” and “Best Performance by a Female” there will now be a single “Best Performance” award.
More in May
Looks like I missed a couple of things. Tapestry has Songbook VII running May 10th to 12th at the Ernest Balmer Studio. Tickets are $25 from tapestryopera.ca. There’s also a show presented by Continuum by a Montreal based outfit called ECM. It’s a “multimedia opera” called Hockey Noir at the Jane Mallett on May 10th and 11th. It’s about crime and the hockey rivalry between Montreal and Toronto apparently. Apart from that, I know nothing about anybody involved except I’m told that the singers are well regarded in Montreal. Details here.
Looking ahead to May
So it looks like January is finally over and that means we can look ahead to next month. Things are definitely winding down. There’s the last Opera Pub of the season on the 3rd at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club. The Vancouver Symphony is appearing with Bramwell Tovey at Roy Thomson Hall on the 26th with the highlight being Marion Newman singing Ancestral Voices; a piece Tovey wrote for her. Also that evening the Canadian Children’s Opera opens a two performance run of Alice Ping Yee Ho’s new piece The Monkiest King. That’s at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
Another April gig
They just keep coming in! There’s another new kid on the block in the admirable tradition of young Toronto artists creating performance opportunities. This one is called Muse 9 and it’s a collaboration between stage director Anna Theodosakis and collaborative pianist Hyejin Kwon. Both of them are very talented with a track record in the Toronto indie opera scene. Their first production, From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, is a theatrical art song performance featuring the music of Dominick Argento and Amy Beach paired with excerpts from Woolf’s novels, letters, and diaries. It is an artistic exploration into the life and mind of Virginia Woolf through the performances of mezzo soprano Victoria Marshall, actor Keshia Palm, and dancer Renee Killough. It’s playing at the Ernest Balmer Studio on April 13th at 8pm. That’s the opening night of the COC’s The Nightingale so I won’t be there but I would be if I could. Proceeds from the event will go to CAMH. Tickets are available at brownpapertickets.com under From the Diary of Virginia Woolf. https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/3351476
A few more April gigs
April just keeps getting busier. On April 12th The Women’s Musical Club of Toronto are presenting soprano Sylvia Schwartz with pianist Olivier Godin in a German and Spanish program. It’s a t Walter Hall at 1.30pm. Tickets are $45. The following evening at 8pm the remarkable 13 year old violinist and composer Alma Deutscher is appearing at Koerner Hall. She’ll be joined by pianist Angela Park and singers Adanya Dunn and Andrew Haji who will perform excerpts from her opera Cinderella which premiered to some acclain in Vienna.
Inadvertently omitted
In my April Round up I inadvertently omitted Toronto Operetta Theatre’s upcoming production of Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène which plays April 27th to 29th at the Jane Mallet. It’s a good looking cast including Beste Kalender, Adam Fisher and Lynn Isnar. Guillermo Silva-Marin directs and Peter Tiefenbach conducts. Those few days at the end of the month are insane but it’s probably worth trying to fit this one in.