Toronto Summer Music has announced details details for its Festival Insiders events starting July 23rd. The events include film screenings, interviews, guest lectures, and masterclasses. The events take place at Walter Hall and Boyd Neel Room in the Edward Johnson Building, Faculty of Music, University of Toronto (80 Queen’s Park). Here’s the line up:
Tapestry’s LibLab is a collaborative that brings together composers and librettists to create new work. It provides participants with the opportunity to work with several partners in a short period of time. Throughout the week-long program, writers and composers are partnered with one another for one day each. With input from music and stage directors, each pair writes a short piece of music theatre and investigates the collaborative process. Their work is performed at the end of each day by a resident ensemble of singers and repetiteurs, and then constructively critiqued by the group. The best of the works are polished up for a show later in the year (review of last year’s show) and some go on for further development.
The Bicycle Opera Project has announced dates and rep for their 2014 Ontario tour which will take seven contemporary Canadian operas to 14 towns and cities across Ontario. The singers are soprano Larissa Koniuk (founder of the Bicycle Opera Project), mezzo Stephanie Tritchew (newest member of Calgary Opera’s young artist program), tenor Christopher Enns and baritone Geoffrey Sirett. They will be joined by instrumentalists: Wesley Shen (music director/piano), Chelsea Shanoff (saxophone) and Tristan Durie (flute). Liza Balkan will direct.
Summer Opera Lyric Theatre is a summer study and performance programme for young artists directed by Guillermo Silva Marin. This season they will present (in English) three fully staged works with piano accompaniment. The offerings are Mozart’s The Magic Flute (August 1st, 3 rd(mat), 6th (mat) and 9th), Puccini’s Madame Butterfly (August 2nd (mat), 5th, 7th and 9th (mat)) and Barber’s Vanessa (August 2, 6th, 8th and 10th (mat). All performances are at the Robert Gill Theatre, University of Toronto, 214 College St. (entrance on St. George). Single tickets are $28, students and seniors are $22. For tickets, call 416-366-7723 (Mondays to Fridays 12 to 6 pm).
Before heading over to the Daniels Spectrum last night I dropped in on the 2014/15 Royal Conservatory season announcement at Koerner Hall. The line up of 100 concerts is eclectic; chamber and orchestral, world music and jazz and a small number of vocal concerts which are probably the ones of most interest to readers of this blog.
So along with the late night (10pm start) June 14th Roy Thomson Hall concert of Mason Bates’ Garages of the Valley (a Canadian première/TSO Co-Comission) and Shostakovich’s Symphony No.5 there’s a tailgate party at 7.30pm in the car park and an after party in the lobby. The former features all you can eat food from Kaplansky’s and Smokes Poutinerie with the after party featuring food from Big Daddy’s.Those of us over 40 are not encouraged to attend; a line will probably be endorsed by local cardiologists. Full details here.
There are a couple of Essential Opera shows scheduled for the KW area in June. On June 7th at 2pm they are presenting a double bill of Haydn’s L’isola disabitata and Donizetti’s Il campanello at the New Hamburg Festival of the Arts. Singers include Maureen Batt, Erin Bardua,Stefan Fehr and Giovanni Spanu. Tickets are $20 (free for students) and available here.
There are a few operatic events coming up in June although, as usual things are slowing down a bit.
On June 1st at 7pm, Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has a recital at Koerner Hall singing works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Medtner and Liszt. Ivari Ilja will accompany on piano.
Brian Current’s new opera Airline Icarus will open at 8pm on June 3rd at Ada Slaight Hall in the Daniels Spectrum complex. The piece stars Krisztina Szabó and Alexander Dobson, among others. Tim Albery directs. The show runs until June 8th. Tickets are $20-$75 and are available here.
So I’m one of those people who doesn’t run a car. I’m a bike, transit, Autoshare kind of guy. This does sometimes present issues though when it comes to getting to places like Westben and the Stratford Festival. I hadn’t thought about it much but yesterday I got an email from someone called Mike asking if I would be willing to post a request for a rideshare. He’s specifically looking for a ride to Westben for the July 5th Dido and Aeneas. Come to think of it, I wouldn’t mind seeing that too!
So, I’m offering the comments to this post as a place to request or offer rides to Westben, Stratford etc. I’m not offering to organise anything but I’m happy for people to use this mechanism if it helps.
Leslie Uyeda’s opera, When the Sun Comes Out, which premiered at Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival last year is coming to Toronto. It will be given in concert performance at the Ernest Balmer Studio at the Distillery on June 26th and 27th. Set in an imaginary country called Fundamentalia, a country where violation of gender roles is punishable by death, When the Sun Comes Out is the story of a love affair between two women, Lilah, a young, sheltered and wealthy married mother, and Solana, a gender outlaw and rebellious outsider just passing through as she’s passed through so many other countries in her restless, futile quest for happiness. In a land where love between women is punishable by death, Lilah and Solana fall in love but their affair is discovered by Lilah’s enraged and unpredictable husband, Javan.
Ensemble Studio graduate Teiya Kasahara, who premiered the role of Solana is joined by Hamilton based soprano Stephanie Yelovich, soprano, who will play the role of Lilah. Keith Lam, baritone, will play the role of Javan. Opera 5’s Maika’i Nash will act as musical director and pianist. Continue reading
operaramblings 