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A very AtG Christmas party

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miriam

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.

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Notable today

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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.

RIP Galina Vishnevskaya

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Galina Vishnevskaya in 1962I’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. 

Chuck’s back

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crEarlier this week I fired up iTunes in search of the latest Melvin Bragg “In Our Time” episode and noticed that two podcasts were downloading.  The other one turned out to be a new episode of Charles Reid’s “This Opera Life”.  Now, Charles’ podcast had been on hiatus for months and I really missed it so I was delighted at this turn of events.  I didn’t get a chance to listen to it until I was heading to the market at stupid o’clock this morning.  Anyway, to cut to the chase, after an explanation of the hiatus, Charles goes on to say nice things about this blog and the Big COC Podcast.  Which is awfully kind of him.  Charles’ podcasts are mostly interviews with the ordinary working stiffs of the opera world.  Occasionally he hooks a “big name” but mostly not and it’s all the more interesting because of it.  I think his archive now has 59 episodes, curiously numbered two to sixty!  The latest features director Jonathon Loy.  I recommend it highly.

You can find Charles Reid’s podcasts at http://thisoperalife.charles-reid.com/ or on iTunes.

Ein sonderbar Ding

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Coincidence and irony just ran into each other at high velocity.  Last night my DVD of Boulevard Solitude arrived which, among other things, sent my mind back to the long, hot summer of 1976 when, between IRA bomb scares and hitch hiking around Germany I saw the Covent Garden premiere of We Come to the River; a work which deeply confused my teenage self and put something of a damper on my infatuation with European Modernism.  So, I’m a bit ambivalent about Henze’s music but nonetheless much saddened by the news of his death for truly he was one of the giants of Modernism.  By way of irony the news arrived while I was listening to Adrienne Pieczonka singing “Die Zeit; die ist ein sonderbar Ding”.  So very, very true.

There’s a thoughtful obituary over at The Boulezian.

Not a DVD review

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Nixon in China at the COC

There are an awful lot of opera DVDs about.  It sometimes seems like there’s a new Tosca or Traviata out every week, often for no apparent reason.  It’s perhaps surprising then that some works don’t make it to DVD.  One particularly egregious case would seem to be John Adams’ Nixon in China.  It’s a good piece and has had plenty of productions both in North America and elsewhere.  A couple of years ago I saw it twice in 24 hours; on a Friday evening at COC followed by the HD broadcast from the Met the following afternoon and I’ve been listening to an audio recording of the COC version on my walk to and from work.  But there’s no DVD!  I guess that the Met probably planned to release the HD recording but James Maddalena, the Nixon in the recording, was so obviously ill I was actually surprised that he continued after the interval and I guess that scuppered that. Continue reading →

PSA

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I know things have been a bit slow around here lately.  Bear with me.  I’m dealing with starting a new, very demanding job and with having had cataract surgery last week.  That makes it quite hard for me to spend as much time looking at a computer screen as my job requires, let alone blogging in addition.  Normal service will be resumed eventually.