Beatrice Cenci

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Beatrice Cenci is an opera by Berthold Goldschmidt; a composer who moved from Germany to London in the 1930s for the usual reason.  Beatrice Cenci was written in 1950 but the orchestral style sounds rather earlier.  Comparisons with Mahler have been made though I don’t really see that.  Richard Strauss or Korngold perhaps?  In any event the work didn’t get performed at all until the 1980s and had to wait until the 2018 Bregenz Festival for its first fully staged production directed by Johannes Erat.  Curiously, though originally composed with an English libretto it was given in German in Bregenz.

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This is Prophetic!

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This summer Against the Grain Theatre and UoT Opera have been collaborating on an Intensive focussed on modern opera.  Last night saw the culminating show; This is Prophetic, featuring staged scenes from twelve post 1950 operas.  Since there were one tenor, one baritone and nineteen assorted sopranos and mezzos selecting the scenes must have been quite a challenge. Unsurprisingly perhaps there was nothing from Billy Budd.

Alasdair Campbell & Morgan Reid (Gloriana)

Alasdair Campbell & Morgan Reid (Gloriana)

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Voicebox: Opera in Concert 2019/20

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vblogoThe line up for Voicebox: Opera in Concert has been announced for the 2019/20 season.  There are four shows:

  • The season opens on Sunday, October 20, 2019, with a double bill by Maurice Ravel, L’enfant et les sortileges and L’heure Espagnole.  It’s a common pairing and often a very funny one. It’s piano score with Suzy Smith playing., The cast includes Holly Chaplin, Anika-France Forget, Danlie Rae Acebuque and Joshua Clemenger.
  • Sunday, December 1st, 2019 sees some welcome Janáček.  We don’t see near enough of his work in Toronto.  This time its Katya Kabanova.  It’s not the jolliest of pieces but it’s musically and dramatically top drawer.  The cast includes Lynn Isnar, Emilia Boteva, Michael Barrett and Cian Horrobin with Jo Greenaway at the piano.
  • There’s a remount of Charles M. Wilson’s Kamouraska, premiered by OiC in 2009, on Sunday, February 16th, 2020.  It’s based on Anne Hebert’s novel about a tumultuous love triangle that plays out near a village in Quebec, with tragic consequences.  The cast includes Jennifer Taverner , Aaron Dimoff and Matt Chittick. Robert Cooper leads the orchestra, cast and chorus.
  • The season closes on Sunday, April 5, 2020, with snobbery with violets in the form of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.   The cast includes Sally Dibblee, Romulo Delgado aand Geneviève Lévesque  Narmina Afandiyeva at the piano.

All shows are at the Jane Mallett Theatre.

 

Muse

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Yesterday I saw the culmination of the project that I had seen in rehearsal earlier in the week.  The Ukrainian Art Song Project Summer Intensive presented 21 songs in a linked narrative about losing and regaining inspiration.  It was staged in the round in the Temerty Theatre with the piano in the middle of the room and the action taking place all over.  Pavlo Hunka directed.  Albert Krywolt and Robert Kortgaard shared piano duties and there were eight young singers from Canada, the US and Ukraine.

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An anti-Salome?

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I’ve learned not to dismiss Romeo Castellucci’s work on first watching because it has a nasty habit of starting to make sense on reflection.  His 2018 production of Richard Strauss’ Salome for the Salzburg Festival may be a case in point.  Castellucci seems determined to destroy any preconceptions we have about the work and Franz Welser-Möst in the pit is a willing accomplice.

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Ukrainian Art Song Project

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The Ukrainian Art Song Project’s summer intensive has a concert in Temerty Hall on Sunday at 3pm.  It’s possible to sit in on the creation/rehearsal process so I went along yesterday to take a look.  I last went to one of the UASP’s concerts a couple of years ago and it was presented as a standard voice/piano recital in Koerner Hall.  This is going to be quite different.  The songs have been ordered in a way that creates a kind of narrative described as “A poet, having lost their inspiration, retraces their life, striving to reawaken in themselves the passion that once allowed them to create great works of art”. Also, it’s all being staged “in the round”.  I got to see the crew work on four or five numbers yesterday and I was impressed by the commitment and the high standard of the singing and acting as well of the sheer speed with which the singers picked up on the ideas thrown at them by “circus master” Pavlo Hunka.  It’s dramatic.  There’s even an orgy.

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A few August things

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haliburtonhighlandsl-11040756o__16619.1319322876.1280.1280Out of town, up in bear country, Highlands Opera Studio has shows this month.  Puccini’s Suor Angelica is paired with two short contemporary opera’s; Maria Atallah’s The Chair and Kendra Harder’s Book of Faces.  That’s this coming Thursday.  Then on the 22nd, 24th, 25th and 26th they are doing Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos with two different casts.  Full casting and box office information is here.

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That survey

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Blu-Ray-Disc-89676So a few weeks ago I asked readers to help me better understand how they viewed opera on video via a short survey.  The results follow though heavily caveated by the fact that only 22 people responded.

Most people use multiple methods to watch video with 86% using Youtube, 82% DVD, 59% Blu-ray, 50% free video streams and 28% subscription streams. but only 14% (not very surprisingly) using 4K video.

The primary method results are more interesting: 45% use the Internet, 54% use some kind of disk.  The former is dominated by Youtube.  On the latter DVD tops Blu-ray 2 to 1.

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