UoT Opera’s fall production of Don Giovanni will open in three weeks time. Today, in Walter Hall we got a few hints on what we may be seeing plus some semi staged excerpts.
For director Marilyn Gronsdale one way into Don Giovanni (and she accepts that there are many) is to see it as being about how the actions of the powerful impact the lives of the many. In a sexual context it’s clearly of relevance to our times with a serial groper in the White House, a British cabinet minister out on his ear for sexual impropriety and one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures rapidly being cast into outer darkness. One technique to be used to emphasise this is a silent chorus of women who will witness/bear witness to the action. Maybe this is something like the Land Assembly in Peter Hinton’s take on Louis Riel? We also learned that the design aesthetic will be stylized 1940s film noir and that we may be in for a surprise with the ending.
Act 2 sextet: Brendan Friesen, Matthew Cairns, Alyssa Durnie, Jamie Groote, Sarah Abelard, Alex Halliday (I think)
Here’s an assortment of announcements from my In Box…
So coming up in the next week or so…
It’s a bit of a crazy week coming up. On Monday at 8pm there’s the first in a series of young artists concerts presented by Atelier Rosemarie Umetsu and Yamaha Canada. This one features pianist Cindy Liu in an all Prokofiev program. It’s at Rosemarie’s atelier at 310 Davenport Road and tickets are $20 ($10 student).
The Toronto Consort has recently announced leadership changes concomitant on David Fallis stepping back his involvement as Artistic Director. I have to admit that although I’ve attended and enjoyed Toronto Consort shows from time to time I’ve been a bit hazy about what they were about so it seemed like a good time to put that right. Yesterday I set down with David Fallis and Laura Pudwell to talk about the Toronto Consort; past, present and, especially, future.
The Canadian Opera Company released its annual report and accounts for 2016/17 last night. The big news was the extension of General Director Alexander Neef’s tenure to the end of the 2025/26 season. The financial news was basically “same old same old”. Ticket sales once again showed a small decline which was compensated for by record fundraising performance to yield, essentially, a break even.
The contestants for this years Centre Stage; the competition for places in the COC’s Ensemble Studio have been announced. They are bass-baritone Joel Allison (Ottawa); tenor Matthew Dalen (Grande Prairie, Alta.); mezzo-soprano Simona Genga(Woodbridge, Ont.); soprano Natalie Image (Tsawwassen, B.C.); soprano Chelsea Rus (Abbotsford, B.C.); soprano Anna-Sophie Neher (Gatineau, Que.); and baritone Jonah Spungin (Ottawa). I’ve seen a fair bit of Allison, Rus, Dalen and Genga and I am absolutely not surprised at all that they are competing. They are all very promising young singers. I’m looking forward to hearing the others.
Wow! There’s a stack of season and other announcements in my inbox. Apologies for any redundancy from earlier posts but here’s stuff you might want to know. In no particular order…
And in the week ahead…
News just in that Tapestry Opera have acquired a 9.5-foot Imperial Bösendorfer 290 Concert Grand Piano, courtesy of a gift from Clarence Byrd and Ida Chen. This beast is valued at $225,000 so it’s quite a gift. One could buy an apartment for that, though in the Distillery it might be smaller than the piano. To inaugurate the instrument and celebrate its public debut, Tapestry Opera will present two concerts on the evening of October 25th to benefit disaster relief efforts around the world, specifically those underway in Puerto Rico, Dominica, Mexico and India. All proceeds will be donated to Medecins san Frontieres (Operaramblings’ charity of choice) and Global Medic, who are working to rescue, support and rebuild the lives of millions affected by recent extreme weather events.
