Category Archives: Toronto opera news and views

The price is right

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simoneThe best bargain of the Toronto music season is the free lunchtime concert series at the Four Seasons Centre.  The 2013/14 line up was announced today.  Opera and vocal highlights include recitals by Sir Thomas Allen (Songs of the Sea, which sounds rather excellent), Simone Osborne, Robert Pomakov with The Gryphon Trio, Tracey Dahl, Russell Braun and Paul Appleby.  Somewhat off the beaten track, there will be a performance of Gagliano’s La Dafne by Capella Intima and the Toronto Continuo Collective and the Canadian Art Song project will be premiering a new commission by a Canadian composer.  There will also be the usual (and very popular) sessions from the COC Ensemble Studio (including two Britten themed concerts), the students of the University of Toronto opera division and the young artists of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal.

For the less vocally inclined there is also a full line up of piano, chamber music, world music, jazz and dance.  Here’s the full PDF brochure.

Summer is icumen to an end

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opera5It may still be 90%+ humidity and hot as hell in Toronto but the signs of things to come are piling up.  I have a stack of tickets for fall events at various venues and the smaller opera groups are starting to announce their seasons.

The latest news is from Opera 5 who are launching the year with a Hollywood Glam Gala at Atelier Rosemarie Umetsu.  It’s a fundraiser with an “Opera in Hollywood” theme.  Performers will include Teiya Kasahara (probably not with the butch lesbian routine), Elizabeth MacDonald, Graham Thompson, and the increasingly visible Geoffrey Sirett among others.  Toronto photographer, Emily Ding will be on hand for Hollywood glam photos with food and alcohol provided by Fionn MacCool’s, notorious hangout of the COC Chorus.

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Summer in the city

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toronto-summer-ferryThis year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival reported a 28% increase in attendance over the previous year with the under 35 segment up 11%.  Obviously this is a good thing but I’m also interested because it tends to reinforce my view that the assumption that there’s no market for classical music in the summer months is based on a very outdated view of behaviour.  Most of us don’t decamp to the cottage for the summer.  The  model of the non-working wife taking the children to the cottage for the summer where father joins them on the weekend is right up there with the idea that schools should close for the summer because the kids are needed on the farm.

I think there’s a real opportunity for a summer opera venture in Toronto.  Maybe it’s where we could slot in our (missing) equivalent of Chicago Opera Theatre that does more obscure and/or edgier stuff than the big kids at the COC?  One can hope, I guess.

Season announcements

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Announcements for the upcoming season in Toronto are starting to come in.  Voicebox: Opera in Concert have announced a thee show season at the St. Lawrence Centre for the arts. The season opens on Sunday, November 24, 2013 at 2:30 PM with Benjamin Britten’s Gloriana.  This isn’t a work one gets to see very often so even a piano accompanied concert version is very welcome.  Musical Director and Pianist will be Peter Tiefenbach.  Soprano Betty Waynne Allison will sing Elizabeth I with tenor Adam Luther as Essex. The cast also includes Jennifer Sullivan, Jesse Clark and Mark Petracchi.

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Another transladaptation

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Cassandra Warner

Cassandra Warner

There’s another indie opera company in town; Loose Tea Music Theatre.  They are going to be putting on a crowd source funded transladaptation of Carmen called La tragédie de Carmen at Buddies in Bad Times on September the 6th, 7th and 8th.  Details of the show are here and the crowd source funding page is here.  This is no amateur effort.  It’s directed by Alaina Viau who has worked at the ROH.  The title role will be sung by Cassandra Warner, last seen in Opera Atelier’s Magic Flute, and the Don José is Ryan Harper, previously a Rodolfo for Against the Grain’s Tranzac La Bohème.

This was brought to my attention by Lisa Faieta who has a new blog, Soprano vs. the World.  Check it out!

 

On to Toronto

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tcherniakovThe Tcherniakov Don Giovanni that I just finished watching on Blu-ray is a Canadian Opera Company co-production so, sooner or later, it should end up in Toronto.  That will be interesting.  There’s a very conservative streak in the Toronto audience and, especially, among the critics for the major newspapers.  These are people who are disturbed by Robert Carsen and go apopleptic over Chris Alden.  It will be most interesting to see what the reaction is to something like Tcherniakov’s interpretation, even though it’s not that radical by European standards.

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‘Tis the season

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Opera/concert season is pretty much done in the big smoke though there is the Toronto Summer Music Festival (see below).  Attention moves to various more rural venues and to some seriously eclectic programming.  Out in Northumberland County there’s the Westben Festival with concerts in a barn ranging fro Irish trad to Richard Margison.  The highlight, for me, here would be a recital by Suzy Leblanc and Julius Drake featuring French mélodies, Strauss lieder and English songs by Christos Hatzis.  That one is on July 30.  Westben also has the UBC Opera Ensemble doing Carmen and, for those so inclined, a programme of Broadway tunes from the ever reliable Virginia Hatfield, Brett Polegato and James Levesque.  No word on whether Brett’s cat is also performing.

Stratford Summer Music has three concerts by the Vienna Boys Choir, one including Michael Schade.  There is also the Bicycle Opera Project and a celebration of R. Murray Schafer’s 80th birthday.

Meanwhile, back in the smoke there is the Toronto Summer Music Festival which kicks off on July 16th with the Trio Pennetier Pasquier Pidoux in an all French programme.  The highlights for me are the Gryphon Trio with Bob Pomakov on the 18th and Philippe Sly with Julius Drake on the 23rd.

 

COC ticket sales and revenue

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denial_catThe Canadian Opera Company released information on sales for the 2012/13 season today.  Ticket sales totalled 109,297, down from 125,328 in 2011/12 and well below the 137,000 of the 2009/10 season.  Ticket revenue was also off at $9.9 million versus $11 million in 2011/12 and $13.4 million in 2009/10.  A reduction in the number of performances (and one hopes, costs) meant that capacity utilization only dropped to 90% compared with 91% in the previous season and 98% in 2009/10.  At least revenue per seat sold rose to $94.26 compared with $87.76 the previous year though still below 2009/10’s $97.97. Part of this must have been due to the premium prices charged for Tristan und Isolde but one hopes it might also reflect slightly less frenetic discounting.

Overall I think this is pretty worrying.  Three consecutive years of significant revenue decline is not good.  The economy is tough everywhere but Toronto has probably suffered less than most major opera centres so it’s hard to blame the economy for all of the decline.  A 26% drop in ticket revenue in four years is pretty extreme.  I’m a big fan of the product that the COC is putting on the stage but I just don’t see the current situation as sustainable and, as yet, I don’t see any sort of remedial action (or even any admission that there is a problem).  Still one lives in hope.

Back to the future

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euphoniaIt seems I spend a lot of my time in physical and electronic conversations about the declining audience for classical music; especially song recitals and chamber music.  I understand where the doom and gloomers are coming from.  The figures don’t lie.  The number of people who will pay $60 to sit in a dark room for two hours listening to a middle rank act in reverent silence is unquestionably on the decline.  On the other hand there are newer forces at play.  Tonight Against the Grain Theatre open a new show, Figaro’s Wedding, that will be as far removed from the “opera house as temple of culture” idea as their ground breaking La Bohème and it’s pretty much sold out.  Today the following arrived in my in-box:

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