Ambur Braid and her python co-star in the Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts (photo: Ryan Emberley)
Ms. Braid is braver than me. Snakes are about the only thing I’m irrationally afraid of. Now I want to see her work this angle in to Queen of the Night!
Ever wanted to know more about that weird instrument that’s playing during Lucia’s mad scene? William Zeitler explains all about the glass armonica in this Canadan Opera Company video.
Richard Strauss’ Salome opens April 21st at Canadian Opera Company in a production by Atom Egoyan. Curiously, this is a piece I know well in three languages as besides the Hedwig Lachmann German translation I own a bilingual edition containing both the original French text and Wilde’s own English translation. My copy is one of a limited edition published by the Limited Edition Club in 1938. It contains the English text with reproductions of the original Beardsley illustrations as well as a separate volume of the French text illustrated with pochoirs by Fauvist André Derain. Here’s an example.
There are a dozen photos of text and illustrations from the French volume here for people who like that sort of thing.
Today’s Guardian Prize crosssword is a must for any opera fan who likes first class cryptics.
Apparently Peter Gelb made a statement yesterday that the “Live in HD” broadcasts were “cannibalising” the in-house audience at the Met. I’d love to see the data on which that statement was based. I’d also love to see what data the Met has on how other companies are being impacted. My guess is that, if the statement about the Met audience is true, it will show other companies suffering too. So much for attracting a new audience for live opera.
I’m not sure I’d want to go down in opera history as the guy who killed the live audience with a second rate ersatz product…
ETA: Do not Google “cannibal cartoons”. It’s a bit like watching Puccini.
Regular readers will know that I’m not always as deferential to critics of the print media persuasion as they think I ought to be. Well strange things happen. Today, no doubt on account of the fact that anybody remotely qualified to review opera was at the opening performance of COC’s La Clemenza di Tito, I saw Opera in Concert’s production of Handel’s Orlando on Opera Canada magazine’s dime. My review will presumably appear there at some point if it isn’t completely awful.
Précis… it was really rather good.
So riffing off an idea raised in comments over at Likely Impossibilities, what books, films, plays, stories or other source material would you like to see made into an opera? Feel free to suggest a composer and librettist and even cast it if you so wish! To start the ball rolling I’ll offer up a few suggestions.
Miriam Khalil as the Governess in last season’s The Turn of the Screw. She was looking sparklier and less spooked last night!
Last night was the Against the Grain Theatre fundraiser at the Norman Felix Gallery. It was definitely billed as a Christmas party but was probably one of the most Jewish Christmas parties since the one in the stable. A fair selection of the great and good of the Toronto opera scene turned out together with an even larger sample of the not so great and good, including the lemur and myself. Topher banged the ivories for a few operatic excerpts and some Christmassy songs. There was carolling, of a rather higher standard than my old parish church, and drinking; though not necessarily in that order. There was a small dog. I think everybody had fun.
There’s a long and interesting review by Philip Hensher in today’s Guardian of A History of Opera by Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker. There are more than a few stock clichés but he does have useful things to say about the reason opera might, but shouldn’t, be relegated to a museum piece. In any event, it’s good to see a major daily giving space to a thought piece about opera.
There’s also a related piece by Leslie Barcza over at barczablog. He looks at why we owe it to ourselves to engage with the director’s vision of an opera and should avoid useless and pejorative epithets likes “Eurotrash” and even “Regie”. It’s the best contribution to that endless debate that I’ve seen in a while.
I’ve just read the news of the death of Galina Vishnevskaya. I’m taking it a bit hard because she was an important part of my education in classical music. She, of course, created the soprano solo role in Britten’s War Requiem and was also a notable performer in the premiere of Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony. Both of these works meant a great deal to me as a teenager and still do 40 years later. There’s a good obituary in the Guardian.
operaramblings 