If I had been languishing in obscurity for 250 years like Joseph Bodin de Boismortier I think I’d rather stay that way than be rescued by Hervé Niquet and the French “comedy” duo Dino and Shirley (Corinne and Gilles Benizio). To be fair their take on Boismortier’s 1743 ballet-comédie Don Quichotte chez la duchesse isn’t nearly as bad as their previous brutal murder of Purcell’s King Arthur but it’s really weird and patchy. It’s rather hard to describe in fact. It’s a sort of mash up of farce, commedia, slapstick and pastiche in which bits of baroque opera occasionally break out. It’s also staged as meta theatre with the stage interacting with the pit and Niquet himself ending up in the action.
A bunch of announcements today; most of them from Against the Grain Theatre. The big one I suppose is the announcement of a formal arrangement with the COC which sees a two year “company in residence” arrangement whereby AtG will be based at the COC’s Front Street offices and where COC execs will mentor their AtG equivalents. The relationship has been going on for a while so it’s not terribly surprising that they have decided to shack up together.
Toronto Masque Theatre have announced their 2016/17 season. There are two main stage productions and three salon concerts. First of the main stage shows is a double bill of Handel’s dramatic cantata Apollo and Daphne with Jacqueline Woodley and Geoffrey Sirett and dancer Stéphaie Brochard, directed and choreographed by Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière paired with Richard Strauss’s Enoch Arden based on the epic poem by Tennyson, performed by actor Derek Boyes and pianist Angela Park. This one is at 8:00 pm on November 17th, 18th and 19th with a pre-show event at 7:15 pm each evening at the Enoch Turner Schoolhouse.
Couperin’s Leçons de Ténèbres sets texts from Lamentations and is incredibly beautiful in a very French baroque way as well as rather being music to cut your wrists to. There’s a new CD recording of it by English sopranos Lucy Crowe and Elizabeth Watts with La Nuova Musica directed by David Bates. It’s very fine. Both Crowe and Watts give exemplarty performances. They use minimal vibrato; just enough to create some resonance in louder passages and both have a wonderfully expressive trill. Coupled with really expressive playing from Jonathan Rees – viola da gamba, Alex McCartney – theorbo and David Bates – organ, it’s a real pleasure to listen to. Interestingly the three sections of the Leçons are separated by two trio sonatas by Sébastian de Brossard where the instrumentalists are joined by Bojan Čičić and Sabine Stoffer – violins. It works really well. The disc is rounded out by Brossard’s Stabat Mater, another rather lovely piece of Lenten dolorosity. The singers on this last are Miriam Allan, James Arthur, Nicholas Scott and Simon Wall with Jonathan Rees – viola da gamba, Judith Evans – double bass, Alex McCartney – theorbo and Silas Woolaston – organ. The recording, made in St. Augustine’s Kilburn, is clear and well balanced with an ambience that suits the music well.
It’s a quiet week coming up. There’s just a couple of churchy things that I’m aware of and they are both on the afternoon of Sunday 18th. On the island the Anglican Church of St. Andrew-by-the-Lake is holding a Piano Fundraising Party in aid of acquiring a new grand piano for their music program. Works by Mozart, Debussy, Gounod, and Jazz standards will be performed by Vadim Serebryany, Melissa Scott, Gilles Thibodeau, Kristin Day, Louis Lawlor, Jonathan Krehm, Rachel Krehm, Mike Milligan and Roger Sharp. It’s from 3pm to 5pm. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased either in advance from Roger Sharp at 416-779-3886/ 
Evolving Symmetry is the first of a promised series of collaborations by soprano Adanya Dunn, clarinetist Brad Cherwin and pianist Alice Gi-Yong Hwang. The focus will be on “modern” chamber and vocal works (for some value of “modern”) and last night at Heliconian Hall they presented French works ranging from the 189os to the 1960s.
The COC has just released the line up for the free lunchtime concert series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. It’s the usual rich and eclectic mix of vocal, chamber and piano music with world music, jazz and dance thrown in for good measure. Here are the highlights from my point of view:
