A couple of months ago I reviewed Jennifer Nicholls’ film of Sweat by Anna Chatterton and Juliet Palmer. It was the main feature in a double bill that also included an animated short from the Canadian Art Song Project of Cecilia Livingston’s arrangement of Wade Hemsworth’s The Wild Goose performed by Lawrence Wiliford and Steven Philcox with animation by students from OCAD.
Back in 2017 Bicycle Opera Project toured the a cappella opera Sweat by Anna Chatterton and Juliet Palmer. I caught it in Hamilton and Toronto. In the intervening years it’s been turned into a film that premiered at the Revue Cinema on Roncesvalles on Saturday night.
“My favourite opera lunatics”™ have a new parody up on line.
On the heels of Toronto Transit Parody, The Ontario Place For(d) All and the Toronto Housing Opus, We now get Les MisérLoblaws set to the tune of “At the End of the Day” from Les Mis (remember Jean Valjean, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child),. Lyrics by Alexander Hajek, performance by Alexander Hajek, Danie Friesen, Claire Elise Harris and Greg Finney of Opera Pub fame. Audio engineering by Michael McKenzie.
The Queen of Carthage is a webstream of a show produced by Early Music Vancouver and re:Naissance Opera this last summer. It’s currently available for watching for a donation. My review is up now at Opera Canada.
Threepenny Submarine is a nine episode puppet animation series of videos on Youtube inspired by the idea that most of us got at least some of our exposure to classical music as kids from Looney Tunes and other cartoons. It’s produced by Opera 5 and Gazelle Automations and concerns an underwater journey by the submarine Threepenny Submarine investigating a mysterious sound coming from the equally mysterious Salieri Sector. The sub is commanded by a cockatiel called Iona (voiced by Lindsay Lee and sung by Caitlin Wood) assisted by a fox called Lydian (voiced and sung by Rachel Krehm). They befriend a “sea monster” called Flute, represented, appropriately enough, by Amelia Lyon on flute. Various adventures take place punctuated by well known arias using new text by Rachel Krehm. For example, the first episode features “Una voce poca fa” and “Dich, teure Halle” in arrangements for string quartet. There are also classical instrumentals used as incidental music. It’s all arranged by Trevor Wager and directed by Evan Mitchell.
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!
Stacie Dunlop’s film of Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child, which I reviewed here, is now available on Youtube for free.
Opera Revue is at it again. This time they give us a takedown of Doug Fraud’s plans for Ontario Place. Something to Chow down on?
And a reminder… they have a show at Granite Brewery on Sunday at 5pm
To “celebrate” it taking longer to get home from the Theatre Centre on the TTC last night than the show actually lasted here’s a little number set to a possibly recognisable tune from my favourite lunatics at Opera Revue.
And don’t forget Debauchery at the Dakota at the end of the month.
Way back in 2016 I attended a concert of Dean Burry’s music in Victoria College Chapel. The highlight of that evening was a performance by Krisztina Szabó and the Talisker Players with Bill Rowson conducting, of Dean’s setting of Alfred Noyes’ poem The Highwayman. It was performed more recently at Queen’s University, again with Krisztina, backed this time by an ensemble of Queens faculty members (flutist, Sarah Moon, clarinettist, Kornel Wolak, violinist, Gisèle Dalbec-Szczesniak, cellist, Wolf Tormann, pianist, Younggun Kim and conductor, Darrell Christi). This time it was also accompanied by some cool shadow puppetry. It was recorded for video and audio and will eventually be released on Centrediscs. This time it was preceded by chamber music by Debussy, Berg and Beethoven. The whole thing is available now on Youtube for free.
operaramblings 