Details are now available for Opera 5’s double bill Suffragette featuring the works of Dame Ethel Smyth. The show will feature two works; Fête Galante, a rather grim “dance dream”, in a somewhat Stravinskian style, and the feminist opera The Boatswain’s Mate, which makes extensive use of folksong tunes. In her day Smythe tended to be written off by the critics for being too masculine so it will be interesting to see how the works have fared with time.
The cast features Sri Lankan tenor Asitha Tennekoon, mezzo-soprano Eugenia Dermentzis, soprano Alexandra Smither and tenor Kevin Myers. The show is being led by an all-women production team, headed by Opera 5 Production Manager and Stage Director, Jessica Derventzis (absolutely not to be confused with Dermentzis); Production Designer Erin Gerofsky; and Lighting Designer Jennifer Lennon. Evan Mitchell will conduct with a chamber orchestra performing composer-original reductions.
Suffragette will play at Theatre Passe Muraille, Mainspace – 16 Ryerson Ave, Toronto on June 22-24 at 7.30pm and June 25 at 6pm.
Tickets: At the door, online: www.opera5.ca/suffragettetix or phone: 416-504-7529.
More Info including complete cast and production team: www.opera5.ca/suffragette
Opera 5 have created some of the most interesting and innovative low budget opera in the city in the last few years so I would definitely recommend trying to see this show.
There are a few things I didn’t mention in my back half of April post. Century Song opened a couple of nights ago at Crow’s Theatre. It’s a live performance hybrid, inspired in part by Virginia Woolf’s Orlando and Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mother’s Gardens, Soprano Neema Bickersteth melds classical song (music by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Oliver Messiaen, John Cage, Georges Aperghis and Reza Jacobs) and movement to inhabit a century of women whose identities are contained within a single performer. Details 
Here’s a round up of news and announcements from my mail box.
March was a curiously quiet month. April starts to look busier, at least once we get past Easter. Tonight, Against the Grain have their monthly pub night at The Amsterdam Bicycle Club. Snow is forecast so you should all stay away and then maybe I’ll be able to get in. On Saturday at 4pm there’s a free (or PWYC) recital in Ernest Baumer Studio featuring soprano Stephanie Nakagawa and pianist Peemanat Kittimontreechai. They will be performing arias from contemporary Canadian operas. On Thursday 13th Philippe Jaroussky and Les Violins du Roy will be appearing at Koerner Hall. It’s at 8pm and features mainly fairly obscure Handel material.
An email just in from Tapestry informs me that:
This just in. Ukrainian Canadian soprano Natalya Gennadi will replace Ambur Braid in the title role in Tapestry’s Oksana G. I should have seen that coming as I know that Ambur is singing in a Krenek’s The Secret Kingdom at Oper Frankfurt until May 21st and Oksana G. opens on the 24th! I’ve only seen Ms. Gennadi sing once but she was impressive and she’s a protégée of Sondra Radvanovsky.
operaramblings 