Opera Atelier 2018/19 season

Posted on January 25, 2018 by operaramblings

20080424Opera Atelier_Idomeneo_Dress Rehearsal

Measha Brueggergosman.
Photo by Bruce Zinger.

Opera Atelier have announced their 2018/19 season. As usual, there are two shows. In the Fall there is a double bill of Charpentier’s Actéon paired with Rameau’s Pygmalion (Oct. 25 – Nov. 3, 2018). Colin Ainsworth, who has also been named as OA’s first “artist in residence”, features in both title roles with Mireille Asselin as Diana and Amour and Allyson McHardy as Juno and Céphise. The supporting cast includes Jesse Blumberg, Christopher Enns, Meghan Lindsay, Cynthia Smithers and Anna Sharpe. Pygmalion will be prefaced by Opera Atelier’s first Canadian commission for solo baroque violin and contemporary dancing, entitled Inception. It will be performed by composer/violinist Edwin Huizinga and choreographer/Artist of Atelier Ballet, Tyler Gledhill. Following its Toronto dates, the show will tour to the Royal Opera House in Versailles.

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Let me tell you a story

Posted on January 24, 2018 by operaramblings

Most opera singers come to the profession through fairly well defined pathways; music degree, post graduate degree or conservatory training, young artists program, and so on. Occasionally one comes across someone with a very different background. The English (well Scouse) mezzo Jennifer Johnston read law and practiced at the bar before becoming a professional singer. Burkhard Fritz studied medicine before committing to singing. Yesterday Mexican-American tenor Joshua Guerrero, in town to sing the Duke of Mantua, used his lunchtime recital in the RBA to tell us his story in words and music.

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Il Tabarro and Pagliacci at the Met

Posted on January 24, 2018 by operaramblings

The Metropolitan Opera opened the 1994/5 season with a starrily cast double bill of Puccini’s Il Tabarro and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci. Both were conducted by James Levine and filmed by Brian Large.

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An offer you can’t refuse?

Posted on January 23, 2018 by operaramblings

trolls So this header was in my mailbox today:

Cineplex’s The Met: Live in HD features Franco Zefferelli’s Tosca on January 27 and Bartlett Sher’s production of L’Elisir d’Amore on February 10th

My first thought was that I would rather be suspended upside down in a vat of ordure and flogged by drug crazed trolls and then I realised that unless I was somewhere in the the multiverse where the Met still had Robert Carsen’s Eugene Onegin this couldn’t be right. The body text clarified. It’s actually the, by now scarcely distinguishable from the Zeff, Caledonian knight Sir David MacVicar “Rivaling the splendor of Franco Zeffirelli’s Napoleonic-era sets and costumes”.

I’ll stick with the demented trolls.

Whose wearing the Overcoat?

Posted on January 22, 2018 by operaramblings

Casting has now been announced for The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring; an opera by Morris Panych and James Rolfe based on Gogol’s short story by way of Panych’s 1990s theatrical version. The opera is a co-production of Vancouver Opera, Tapestry Opera and Canadian Stage and will premiere in Toronto’s Bluma Appel Theatre (March 29th to April 14th) before heading to the Vancouver Playhouse (April 28th to May 12th).

Geoffrey Sirett as Akakiy in The Overcoat A Musical Tailoring_Photo Credit Dahlia Katz_preview

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Russell Braun and Carolyn Maule at Mazzoleni Hall

Posted on January 22, 2018 by operaramblings

8b440c574ff48428011373a5639b_Gallery Yesterday’s Mazzoleni Songmasters concert featured Russell Braun and Caolyn Maule in a generous and varied program anchored on Schumann’s Dichterliebe; a setting of sixteen poems by Heine. It was framed by three Mendelssohn songs and a varied and intriguing second half program.

Russell is a singer at the height of his powers. He has a lovely instrument and perfect control of pitch, dynamics and tone colour. He’s also a sensitive and musical human being. Throw all that at text and music as rich as Dichterliebe and the result is inevitably quite wonderful. One could just luxuriate in an emotional journey through the highs and lows of romantic love and a physical one up and down that magical river, the Rhine. The Mendelssohn was rather lovely too.

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Rigoletto at the COC

Posted on January 22, 2018 by operaramblings

If anybody is wondering why I haven’t yet posted a review of the Rigoletto that opened at the COC on Saturday it’s because, for the first time, I was reviewing for Bachtrack; a London based classical music site. The teaser is:

Christopher Alden’s production of Verdi’s Rigoletto returned to Toronto tighter, more focussed and with fewer dramatic incongruities. Add to this that every aspect of the music making was top notch and it made for a fine evening at the theatre.

The full review can be found here.

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Photo credit: Michael Cooper

Signal boosting

Posted on January 20, 2018 by operaramblings

Out of the Cold Benefit Concert For Toronto Homeless – January 27th at 8pm at the Church of the Redeemer.

Toronto musicians are getting together to play a concert to raise funds for and awareness of the homelessness crisis in our city.

Program: Chamber music, vocalists, and a grand finale led by David Bowser of a few opera favourites.

All proceeds to the Sistering and Fred Victor shelters.

The sistering: http://sistering.org/
Fred Victor: http://www.fredvictor.org/

Church of the Redeemer is easy to get to by transit: Museum or Bay subways. The church is at the corner of Bloor and Avenue Rd./University Ave. across from the ROM.

I don’t have any more details at this point but there’s a Facebook page

Don’t take that baritone with me!

Posted on January 19, 2018 by operaramblings

Probably not

To the Four Season’s Centre last night to check out one of the COC’s adult education events. This time it was about the baritone voice in all its aspects and featured Liz Upchurch at the piano and, mostly, doing the talking with Ensemble Studio members Sam Chan and Bruno Roy plus ES graduate Neil Craighead back in Toronto to sing Ceprano (not soprano) in Rigoletto doing some singing.

Besides the singing, of which more later, I think there were two takeaways from the evening though it was not actually divided up that way. One, fascinating, dealt with the development of the voice and the sheer number of years it takes for bigger voices to more or less grow up. Also, how do you develop and stretch the voice while staying vocally healthy. Neil is 34 and his voice is really just beginning to get where one can see it going, which is likely big to very big. Sam and Bruno, much younger, are still going through the process of figuring out what Fach (see below) they really are. This seems to happen to everyone except maybe genuine basses, high sopranos and the really obvious tenors. It was pretty cool for instance to heat Bruno sing a tenor aria though not, of course, something like Pour mon âme.

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Looking ahead to February

Posted on January 18, 2018 by operaramblings

groundhog-day-usa February is going to be really busy so I think I’ll take the previews in chunks. First up though one event in January I haven’t yet had opportunity to mention. This coming Sunday 21st Fawn Chamber Creative have a PWYC fundraiser for their in process opera-ballet project. It’s from 2-6pm at The Smiling Buddha. It will be party, silent auction and some performance. Previous ones have been fun but I’m booked Sunday. Details at: http://www.fawnchambercreative.com/events/upcoming/. Also in January and missed off the radar, on the 28th at 3pm at Mazzoleni Hall,the Amici Ensemble have a Strauss inspired concert featuring the lovely but tiny Sasha Djihanian who is current holder of the loudness to weight record for a soprano.

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