From another planet

Posted on November 1, 2017 by operaramblings

Yesterday lunchtime in the RBA soprano Lauren Eberwein and the Rosebud String Quartet (Sheila Jaffé, Aaron Schwebel, Keith Hamm and Rachel Desoer) entertained us with a program of Haydn and Schoenberg. First up was an arrangement of Haydn’s Arianna a Naxos. We got the recitative, Teseo mio ben, and the two arias, Dove sei and Ah! che morir vorrei. It’s basically a cantata with tessitura that sits very nicely for Lauren’s voice. It was an elegant performance all round with some passion in the concluding aria. And it’s always good to hear a Haydn vocal work.

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Eastern breezes, western winds

Posted on October 29, 2017 by operaramblings

That’s the title of a new CD from soprano Kira Braun and pianist Peter Krochak. Yesterday I got to hear them perform music from it at Rosemarie Umetsu’s new digs on Davenport. This is a great venue for small scale concerts and recitals and has a really good Yamaha piano. It’s also less awkward to get to than, say, Gallery 345 so check out their website and facebook page to see what’s happening.

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Musik für das Ende

Posted on October 28, 2017 by operaramblings

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Claude Vivier’s Musik für das Ende had to wait until 35 years after the composer’s death for its first fully staged performance. That happened last night at Crow’s Theatre under the auspices of Soundstreams. It forms the main and concluding part of a really interesting show directed by Chris Abraham.

The first part of the program is a monologue, Il faisait nuit, of Vivier returning to his Paris apartment and describing his life and his final composition. Written by Zack Russell and brilliantly played by Alex Ivanovici it’s a French/English piece based on extensive discussions with people who knew Vivier and is said to capture his verbal and physical mannerisms with uncanny accuracy. It also introduces us to key design elements of the evening. We, the audience, are lining the walls of a “black box”. The set is created by lighting effects and there is an electronic sound track. It’s a very immersive experience. Continue reading →

Announcements round up

Posted on October 27, 2017 by operaramblings

Church Here’s an assortment of announcements from my In Box…

December 10th at 4pm Rosedale Presbyterian there’s a fundraiser for the church. The program is called Respite and Dream and will include Santoliquido songs, Tosti and Verdi songs, French and English songs, Brahms, Strauss, some excerpts from Rosenkavalier and some Xmas stuff. Rachel Andrist will be at the piano with Sara Schabas, Danielle MacMillen, Jessica Scarlato, Jonelle Sills, Nicole Percifield and Jocelyn Fralick singing. Not sure about ticketing yet but take a cushion.

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Into November

Posted on October 27, 2017 by operaramblings

eberwien So coming up in the next week or so…

On Monday LooseTEA have another Whose Opera is it Anyway? show. It’s at 9.30pm at Comedy Bar, 945 Bloor West. Alaina Viau directs with hosting by Greg Finney, Natasha Fransblow at the piano and Jeff Boyd, Amanda Cogan, Adanya Dunn, Gillian Grossman, Rachel Krehm, Jonathan MacArthur, Erin Stone, and Lindsay Sutherland Boal doing silly things.

On Tuesday Lauren Eberwein and the Rosebud Quartet have a noon time concert in the RBA including the fascinating and very difficult Schoenberg String Quartet No.2. Barbara Hannigan was the last person to do that in the RBA so no pressure.

Wednesday evening is Centre Stage, the COC’s Gala/Singing Competition/Audition for the Ensemble Studio. Things kick off with booze and snacks at 5pm. It’s at the Four Seasons Centre of course.

Thursday, UoT Opera are previewing their Don Giovanni in a free concert at 12.10pm in Walter Hall. Later, at 9pm, it’s AtG’s Opera Pub Night at the Amsterdam Bicycling Club.

In the continuing runs department, Arabella closes out tomorrow at the COC but The Elixir of Love runs through the 4th. Soundstreams’ Müsik für das Ende, which opens tonight, runs all week at Crow’s Theatre and Opera Atelier’s The Marriage of Figaro also runs through the 4th.

Four marriages and a Figaro

Posted on October 27, 2017 by operaramblings

Opera Atelier’s remount of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro opened last night at the Elgin. It’s a curious production made up of parts that don’t really fit together, hence the review title. At the core is a rather elegant traditional production. It’s wigs and crinolines and might have been seen almost anywhere almost any time in the last fifty years or so. Most of the excessive baroque gesturing is gone and the acting is stagey but no more so than in many opera productions.

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Musical Chairs II – On the Move

Posted on October 26, 2017 by operaramblings

Todays concert in the UoT’s Thursdays at Noon series at Walter Hall was given by baritone Giles Tomkins, soprano Elizabeth McDonald, pianist Kathryn Tremills, clarinettist Peter Stoll and cellist Lydia Munchinsky. The music they played was sometimes in familiar combinations of players and sometimes very much not. Hence the title.

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Encounter with Brett Polegato

Posted on October 26, 2017 by operaramblings

modal As previously noted the International Resource Centre for Performing Artists is once again running its program for young professional singers in Toronto. The program is in two parts. There was an “Encounter” (career workshop) with Brett Polegato on October 20th and there will be a concert at 7pm on November 6th at the Zoomerplex which will be broadcast by Classical 96.3. Yesterday I spent some time talking with Brett about the program, its rewards and challenges and, inevitably, we drifted off into some broader issues about careers in the opera world.

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Opera for Disaster Relief

Posted on October 26, 2017 by operaramblings

I have spent most of the last two decades working in healthcare. Most of that has been at the high tech, big dollar end of the business and one thing one learns in that world is that the big dollars are big. Sometimes one questions the large salaries of hospital administrators and ministry “off scale” bureaucrats. Sometimes one asks whether spending very large sums to provide a marginal life extension of poor quality makes any sense. Always one is aware that much of the money spent that way could have a much greater impact elsewhere. Nobody would deny that a dollar spent on providing emergency medicine in a disaster area or conflict zone goes a lot further than a dollar spent on the latest experimental chemotherapy or dubious IT mega-project. That’s why I, personally, support Médecins Sans Frontières and why I was so glad that to say thanks for their shiny new piano acquisition, Tapestry decided to stage a concert benefitting MSF and local “first responder” charity Global Medic.

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The World of Yesterday

Posted on October 25, 2017 by operaramblings

Yesterday’s lunchtime concert was my second chance in just over a week to see Erin Wall in recital, in a completely different program from the Mazzoleni gig. There were three sets. First up were Korngold’s Three Songs Op.22. I’m all for more German songs in recitals, especially someone other than the Schus, but I wasn’t really taken with these. They seem closer to the later film music in style than to, say Die tote Stadt. They got the operatic treatment from Erin which is probably not a bad thing here.

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