Wozzeck is a tricky piece for a director. There seem to be two possible approaches. One can find a character for Wozzeck himself that resonates with contemporary audiences and treat the piece more or less realistically. That’s the approach taken by both Bieito and Tcherniakov. Alternatively one can run with the overtly expressionist aspects of the piece and present it in a more abstract way as Peter Mussbach did. Andreas Homoki’s 2015 Zürich production takes the second route. The piece is presented as if the characters are puppets in a puppet theatre in a sort of ultra-grim version of Punch and Judy. It’s visually quite arresting and there are some very well composed scenes. To give just one example, immediately after Wozzeck has decapitated Marie the chorus appear as nightmarish Maries while Wozzeck sits nursing the severed head. That said, the concept does pall and maybe hasn’t really got the legs, absent any other real directorial ideas, to carry the piece for two hours.
This looks like the week the season really starts. The big event is the season opener at the TSO on Wednesday where Renée Fleming is featured. There’s Ravel’s Shéhérazade plus Puccini, Walton and others finishing up with three numbers from The King and I. This one’s at Roy Thomson Hall at the slightly unusual time of 7pm. The next night at the Alliance Française there’s a show called Singing Stars of Tomorrow. It features ten young singers who will have been engaged in a day long workshop with Sondra Radvanovsky. It’s organised by the IRCPA. Tickets are $25 from 
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/ 
