July 2025

Posted on June 23, 2025 by operaramblings

July in Toronto is really all about two festivals; the Toronto Fringe Festival and Toronto Summer Music.

The Fringe runs July 2nd to July 13th and there are more than 100 shows on 20+ stages. There’s a huge range of performance styles; drama, comedy, clowning, musicals, stand up etc. Most shows run an hour or less and the standard ticket price is $18.75 though there are plenty of discounts plus multi show passes as well as free events at the Fringe Hub which this year is at Soulpepper with events also across the street at Old Flame brewery. Quality varies a lot. Some shows are excellent; Monks last year would be a case in point, but others a re a bit meh. But that’s the point really. You can see what looks interesting to you. All the details are here.

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Langridge’s Grimes revisited

Posted on June 22, 2025 by operaramblings

Almost fourteen years ago I reviewed the DVD of the 1994 ENO production of Britten’s Peter Grimes. The DVD was so bad technically that it was quite hard to decide much about the merits of the performance although it was obvious that Philip Langridge’s Grimes was something special. On June 1st this year the BBC rebroadcast the recording in HD on BBC4. I have a copy of that broadcast and it’s way better than the North American DVD release and so I wanted to clarify and, where appropriate, correct what I said in that earlier review.

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Un Ballo in Maschera in the dark

Posted on June 21, 2025 by operaramblings

Vincent Boussard’s production of Vedi’s Un Ballo in Maschera staged and filmed at Barcelona’s Liceu in 2017 is dark. Basically there’s a light box in which the characters at front of stage can be seen while others lurk in the darkness. According to the notes Broussard is using light and shadow to bring out the themes of illusion and truth, duty and betrayal. That sounds to me like cleverness masquerading as a production concept and bar a few striking visuals this is hardly a production at all.

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The Two Deaths of Ophelia

Posted on June 20, 2025 by operaramblings

The latest Happenstancers gig, which took place at 918 Bathurst on Thursday evening, was an exploration of the death of Ophelia and related ideas with works for assorted chamber ensembles plus/minus voices. Ten composers; all of whom could at a stretch be considered “contemporary”, were featured in a programme that, with interval, lasted two and three quarter hours. That’s a feat of stamina for performers and audience alike as none of the music performed was “easy” and no notes or introductions were provided.

Each half of the programme started off with a piece by Linda Catlin Smith, who was in the audience. Stare at the River for piano, string bass, trumpet, clarinet, violin and percussion was quite sparse and open textured while The River was more obviously lyrical with guitar, cello and Danika Lorèn replacing piano, trumpet and bass.

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Orphée as love triangle

Posted on June 19, 2025 by operaramblings

Gluck’s Orpheus opera; in either Italian or French guise, is usually presented as a short and cheery “love conquers all” with an uncomplicated happy ending. Pierre Audi in his production of the 1774 Paris version of Orphée et Euridice, recorded at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 2022 takes a different tack. Here Amour, who is on stage 100% of the time, forms a love triangle with Orphée and Euridice and while she’s happy to work to reunite the lovers Orphée gets in a snit in the last act when he realises that her interest isn’t entirely altruistic and comes close to violence when the two girls show more interest in each other than in him!

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Jurowski and Tcherniakov do War and Peace

Posted on June 18, 2025 by operaramblings

How does one do (if one does at all) a propagandistic Russian opera in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. Dmitri Tcherniakov and Vladimir Jurowski’s approach to Prokofiev’s War and Peace, filmed at Bayerische Staatsoper, is radical, complex and controversial. See my full (and ridiculously long) review at La Scena Musicale.

Elegies

Posted on June 17, 2025 by operaramblings

My review of William Finn’s Elegies as performed by the interns at Toronto Opera Festival is now up at La Scena Musicale.

Photo credit: Emily Ding Photography

An Oak Tree

Posted on June 16, 2025 by operaramblings

Tim Crouch’s An Oak Tree has been around for 20 years and has been performed about 400 times and it still feels very experimental and rather weird in a good way. It mucks about with time and space and identity while layering on multiple meta-theatrical elements that create an experience that is simultaneously engrossing and somewhat disorienting.

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Celebrating Kurt Weill

Posted on June 15, 2025 by operaramblings

Saturday night Confluence presented a concert curated by Patricia O’Callaghan of a selection of works by Kurt Weill. Now I have.a bit of a love/hate relationship with Weill which will likely colour this review. Broadly speaking I love his earlier work, especially the collaborations with Brecht, but I’m just not into the Broadway stuff at all with a few exceptions such as Street Scene which has at least a bit of an edge. I also thoroughly dislike some of the American translations of the Brecht pieces that do all they can to take the edge off. Continue reading →

Come Closer

Posted on June 14, 2025 by operaramblings

Come Closer; libretto by Rachel Krehm, music by Ryan Trew, is a two act chamber opera about Rachel’s relationship with her younger sister Elizabeth who died as a consequence of heroin addiction. Some of it is based on Rachel’s memories and much on the writing and drawings that Elizabeth left. It premiered on Friday night and is currently playing in an Opera 5 production at Factory Theatre.

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