VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert announced their 2023/24 season. It’s quite interesting; three Verdi rarities:
And for something completely different, Alice Ho’s The Phantom Bird of Han, performed by Symphony Nova Scotia, is now available on Youtube. Definitely worth a listen!
Soundstreams has announced the line up for the 2023/24 season. First up, and very exciting, is The Bright Divide, which will play Nov 10th and 11th at the TD Music Hall (the new performance space at Massey Hall). It’s a staged show, directed by Tim Albery and featuring two works inspired by the work of Mark Rothko. There’s Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel for viola, timpani and choir and a new work by Cecilia Livingston; mark for viola and voice.
Electric Messiah is back. This time it’s at Theatre Passe Muraille from December 14th to 17th. Adam Scime is in charge again for the Messiah where you don’t know what to expect.
So what’s coming up in July? Let’s look first at a few late June shows I haven’t mentioned before.
Looking for some thing suitable to do on National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21st) that has a classical music twist? Soprano Deantha Edmunds is performing in the Music Garden at Harbourfront at 7pm. I spoke to Deantha at her home in Newfoundland yesterday to find out what we might expect.
Opera Atelier have announced a two show Toronto season for 2023/24. The fall show is Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice which will play at the Elgin Theatre from October 26th to November 1st. This is the 1774 version with Orphée sung by an haut-contre. Colin Ainsworth should be just about ideal. He’s partnered by Mireille Asselin, also pretty much ideal as Eurydice. Anna Julia David sings Amour. The orchestra is Tafelmusik and the chorus will consist of Tafelmusik Chamber Choir and the Nathaniel Dett Chorale.
June is fast approaching and, as ever, it’s one of the odder months in the performance calendar. Here’s what has caught my eye (so far).
More May listings…
You may have been following this saga. Basically, Artscape had a twenty year lease on a lot of space in the Distillery District which they leased out various arts organisations and studio artists, including Tapestry Opera and Nightwood Theatre; who jointly occupied the Ernest Balmer Studio and adjacent space wherein I attended many, many performances, rehearsals, workshops and so on. It’s what made the Distillery District more than a bunch of tourist tat and over-priced restaurants. But the lease ran out and the landlord declined to renew. Tourist tat is more lucrative than art and the Distillery District’s owners have always struggled with the idea of any purpose other than maximising profits.
Things happening next month…
But first this month… on April 27th to 29th male soprano Samuel Mariño is appearing with
Tafelmusik in a programme titled Higher Love: Virtuoso Arias. Details here.
Crow’s Theatre has a couple of shows. True Crime opens on the 2nd. It’s a short run. Preview on the 1st then closes on the 7th. It’s basically a one man, semi-improvised show about an imprisoned con man. The Chinese Lady, which runs 5th to 21st (previews 2nd to 4th) in the smaller Studio Theatre tells the story of the first Chinese woman in the USA. Written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Marjorie Chan it should be interesting. There’s also Boom X. Rick Miller plays over a hundred characters to narrate events from 1969 t0 1995. It runs from the 10th to the 28th. More details at crowstheatre.com.
Ahead of Opera Atelier’s upcoming production of Handel’s The Resurrection (La resurrezione) at Koerner Hall next week (6th to 9th April) there was a lunchtime preview in the RBA on Tuesday. Later that day I sat down with director Marshall Pynkoski to find out more about the work, OA’s relationship to it and its rather tortuous journey to the Koerner Hall stage.
