Saturday at 8pm the Aga Khan Museum there’s a concert fusing western classical and Arabic maqam music. The featured artists are opera singer (Syria’s first) Lubana Al Quntar and composer and oud virtuoso Issam Rafea. I do feel this is the sort of thing we need more of in Toronto. There have been some interesting fusions of western and Chinese classical such as The Legend of Da Ji. Let’s see what this one can offer. You may even be able to see the show for free. The organisers have offered a lucky Operaramblings reader a pair of tickets. If you would like to enter the draw, comment here with contact details. We’ll do the draw at 5pm on Thursday. If you prefer to buy a ticket, details are here.
And now for something completely a bit different
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The Mazzoleni Songmasters series opens this afternoon at 2pm in, surprise, Mazzoleni Hall at the conservatory. Nathalie Paulin and Monica Whicher present Welcome and Adieu; a program of English and French songs and duets. Collaborative pianists are Robert Kortgaard and Peter Tiefenbach.
November 14th will see the fourth annual Elizabeth Krehm Memorial Concert. The concert raises money for the St Michael’s Hospital ICU, where Liz spent the last 30 days of her life. This year the program will start with the Bach Double Violin Concerto; a piece played by Liz. It will be performed by Yosuke Kawasaki and Jessica Linnebach, who are the concert master and associate concert master of the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa. Rachel Krehm will be singing 2 arias and a song by Mozart, Dvorak and Strauss. Finally we will get Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Evan Mitchell will conduct a volunteer orchestra. As well as being in aid of a good cause these memorial concerts have featured exceptionally good performances and are definitely worth going to. It’s at Metropolitan United Church (56 Queen St E) on Monday November 14th at 7:30pm. Admission is by donation to St. Mike’s with a suggested minimum of $20.
The Canadian Opera Company issued its Annual Report and Financials for 2015/16 today. As far as ticket sales go it was fairly flat in terms of tickets sold and revenues. Subscription sales were down a bit but single ticket sales were up. That’s probably the Carmen effect. That all equates to around 91% capacity sold which isn’t bad. Tickets to people under 30 are still less than 10% of tickets sold (and probably way, way less than 10% of box office revenue). Clearly there’s no magic bullet for replacing an aging subscriber base. Individual donations and government grants were both down by about 5%. That’s being spun as largely a loss of one time grants and extraordinary gifts but down is still down and the reduction in Ontario Arts Council funding can’t be spun. Still, one way or another it was finagled into a break even year which is not too shabby for any arts organization. Endowment performance was steady.
Considering we begin with a holiday weekend it’s a busy week. Tuesday sees Dimitry Ivashchenko and Rachel Andrist in recital in the RBA at lunchtime with a program of Russian song that, inevitably, includes Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death and works by Rachmaninov, Borodin, and Tchaikovsky. At 7.30pm that evening Christina Haldane is giving a DMA recital in Walter Hall. This isn’t your usual student gig. Christina has covered at Salzburg and the Royal Opera and made main stage appearances in several European countries. Both recitals are free.
VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert has announced details of their upcoming season. There are four shows:
Things are still a bit slow on the Toronto opera front. That said, today Soup Can Theatre are doing a concert version of The threepenny Opera at the Monarch Tavern. Three actors; Christine Jeffries, Sarah Thorpe and Scott Garland, will sing all the roles. There are three performances at 4pm, 6.30pm and 9pm. Tickets are $13. More details at 
By an odd coincidence two season announcement pressers hit my in box today; Toronto Operetta Theatre and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Toronto Operetta Theatre have four shows:
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