Empire of Wild; music by Ian Cusson, libretto by Cherie Dimaline, is based on the latter’s novel of the same name and will feature as part of the COC’s main stage season in May 2027. Last Wednesday the COC orchestra with soloists performed five excerpts from the opera in the RBA. The summary version is that it’s most unusual. It’s very grand, it’s tonal, it has numbers yet there is something very modern about it. I suppose one could just say it’s very Ian Cusson!
The first production by Benevolence Opera Project took place on Friday evening at the Redwood Theatre. It was a benefit for the Redwood Shelter for women and children fleeing abuse. One could argue that the choice of Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a bit odd in the circumstances but it certainly got conversation going around the issues!
How many singers can you fit in a clown car one hour lunchtime recital in the RBA? Opera 5 managed eighteen ranging from Krisztina Szabó and Greg Dahl to a whole posse of interns plus Trevor Chartrand at the piano. Besides material obviously related to the upcoming (June 3rd to 14th) festival at Theatre Passe Muraille there was Mozart, Strauss (R), musical theatre and Die Fledermaus. It was all really well done but I’m just going to talk about the material that’s most relevant to the festival.
The death last week of Dame Felicity Lott had me thinking about English singers of that generation who featured a lot in the first live opera and recordings that I experienced back in the 1970s. A bit of digging around led me to a 1993 recording of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with Philip Langridge (who died in 2010) as Quint and Felicity Lott (not yet a Dame) as the Governess. It also, perhaps surprisingly, features American Wagnerian Nadine Secunde as Miss Jessel. Less surprisingly, it was recorded in Aldeburgh with Steuart Bedford conducting.
Thursday Noon at Met recital was given by baritone James Coole-Stevenson accompanied by Vlad Soloviev. The first part of the recital was all Canadian art song. Jocelyn Mortlock’s Involuntary Love Songs; which are varied in mood and quite lyrical, Ian Cusson’s “You Held Out the Light” from Breakfast for Barbarians which is short and very Ian Cusson., with a shimmering piano part and finally James Rolfe’s Moths. This is a very complex cycle about light and dreaming and very varied from the boomy “night is a river” to the delicate “The river of dreams” and much more. It was all sung with great attention to text backed up by impeccable diction and sharp characterisation. As is usually the case with contemporary song the pianist has a lot to do and Vlad did it really well. It’s good to see someone programme so much contemporary Canadian song.
Artists exist to create Art. Why does the state of the world today make them question that purpose and has it always been so? Susanna Fournier and ted witzel have been asking themselves that, and why they keep trying to give up Art (and failing) for twelve years during which time the world has just got even more fucked up. The result is take rimbaud; a play by Susanna Fournier, directed by ted witzel currently playing at Buddies in Bad Times in partnership with the Howland Company.
As has become the custom, the two members of the Ensemble Studio completing their stints at the end of this season gave a “Les adieux” recital in the RBA on Tuesday. It was time to say goodbye to Emily Rocha and Duncan Stenhouse with Liz Upchurch as our stalwart accompanist.
Emily chose a programme of mostly French chansons which was really rather lovely. She sang smoothly and expressively in Bizet’s Chanson d’avril and with a rather elegant languor in Paladilhe’s Psyché. There was more of the same in songs by Debussy and Poulenc; beauty, control, expressiveness! The one venture intoi opera was “Prendi, per me sei libero” from Donizetti’s l’elisir d’amore reminding us that she will be singing Adina at the COC next season. Elegant singing here too, coupled with plenty of heft.
Continue readingTwenty eight years ago Liz Upchurch, Alain Coulombe and Michael Colvin joined the COC’s Ensemble Studio at a time when Richard Bradshaw led the COC.. Yesterday they gave a recital in the eponymous amphitheatre. It was pretty impressive.
Student recitals are another great opportunity to hear great music for free. On Sunday I attended soprano Leandra Dahm’s recital at Mazzoleni Hall. It was a caredfully curated programme lasting just over an hour and it was really good.
How many Indigenous artists does it take to make an Opera Indigenous? That was one of many questions up for discussion at Stories Don’t Die presented by the Artists of Indians on Vacation at the Terminal Theatre on Saturday afternoon. The backdrop to all this of course is the withdrawal of Edmonton Opera from their role in the creation and presentation of Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek’s Indians on Vacation in February following the not entirely unexpected “revelation” that Thomas King; author of the novel on which the opera is based, is not Indigenous as he had long claimed. Edmonton Opera chose, unilaterally, to pull out after a protest by a small group of Indigenous activists in Edmonton. To the protesters, the false claim by Thomas King was reason enough to cancel an opera they hadn’t seen but is it? The Artists of Indians on Vacation clearly believe otherwise and Stories Don’t Die makes a strong case for its survival and further development.
