Shakespeare 400
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Beware of the leopard!
Clémentine Margaine prowled the RBA like an exotic and rather dangerous feline. A total stage animal, she created a stunning series of female personae, from the virginal to the very much not, to bring to life a well curated selection of Spanish and French pieces. She started with the 7 Canciones populares Españoles of de Falla which set the tone as they communicate a wide variety moods and temperaments in a very short space of time. Each little song was fully invested with its own drama. And her eyes. Incredible! Granados’ La maja dolorosa followed. By this point I was really beginning to understand why Ms. Margaine is so sought after. It’s a big, dark, sexy voice. I would probably have realised the sheer size of the voice more on Wednesday if I hadn’t been comparing her to the absolutely enormous sound of Anita Rashvelishvili. It’s a wonderfully expressive instrument perhaps lacking a really strong upward extension but, overall, lovely to listen to.
Russell Thomas in the RBA
American tenor Russell Thomas, currently singing Don José in the COC’s Carmen, gave the lunchtime recital in the RBA yesterday. The main item on the program was Schumann’s Dichterliebe; a setting of sixteen poems by Heinrich Heine and one of the great test pieces of the classic German lieder repertoire. It was a red-blooded, operatic account. Purists might think too much so but I enjoyed the sheer power and beauty of it, even at the expense of the (incredibly wonderful) text not getting the sort of attention it might get from someone like Ian Bostridge. There was plenty of variation of tone and colour, some real virtuosity and even some humour in, for example, Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen but the the most impressive and striking thing was the ability to effortlessly project a lot of rather beautiful sound. Liz Upchurch’s accompaniment was very much in synch emotionally and musically.
Carmen again
We were back at the COC last night for the first performance of Carmen by the alternative cast. (First cast review) As so often seems to be the case with these double cast shows it felt almost like a different production. The biggest differences are produced by the new Don José, David Pomeroy, and the new Carmen, Clémentine Margaine. Pomeroy is a very decent singer but he doesn’t have the ease, power and bloom of Russell Thomas. What he does have is vastly superior acting chops. His Don José is a believably complex human being. We can see his decline from rather boring and provincially stuck up into despair(1). It’s palpable. Margaine’s Carmen is a similar story. Her voice isn’t as big or dark as Anita Rashvelishvili(2) but she’s much more physical on stage. Further, Pomeroy and Margaine are much more credible as a couple. The net result is the drama that was rather missing in the first two acts on Sunday. The price is not hearing two absolutely incredibly beautiful voices.
Livening up
I didn’t do a preview post on Sunday so let’s remedy that with one covering the balance of this week and next week. Carmen continues at the COC with the first chance to see the second cast tomorrow evening. There’s also a slew of lunchtime concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre:
- Russell Thomas, Don José in Carmen, is on Thursday 21st with a program of that includes Schumann’s Dichterliebe.
- The next day, Clementine Margaine, the second cast Carmen, performs French and Spanish love songs.
- On Tuesday 26th, Simone Osborne, the first cast Micaëla, has a program including Debussy’s Ariettes oubliées as well as works by Matthew Emery, Mozart and Cole Porter.
- Thursday 28th sees the annual collaboration between the Ensemble Studio and their counterparts from Montreal.
All of these are at noon and are free.
Carmen in Cuba?
I caught the second performance of the current run of Carmen at the COC this afternoon. It’s a revival of the production previously seen in 2010 but with, we are told, debuting director Joel Ivany being given some freedom to change things up a bit. Obviously he was mostly constrained to use the existing sets and costumes which, for reasons that escape me, transplants the piece to 1940s Cuba which was, as far as I know, markedly short of both gypsies and bull fights but there you go. Actually it matters scarcely at all because both sets and costumes are generic scruffy Hispanic and could be anywhere from Leon to Lima. For the first two acts too the blocking and Personenregie is pretty standard too. It’s all really down to the chemistry between the singers and the quality of the acting and neither is anything to write home about. It says a lot when Frasquita is scene stealing. Fortunately it livens up a lot after the interval. The third act is atmospheric and Micaëla’s aria is deeply touching and for the first time I felt genuine emotion. It gets even better after that with a really effective use of the whole auditorium for the parade which had much of the audience clapping along and a clever stage set up for the crowd during the final confrontation scene. I don’t think it’s a production for the ages but it’s better than merely serviceable and I’ve seen much worse Carmens. And, frankly, it’s simply not realistic to expect one of the season’s cash cows to push the envelope very far.
All girls like honey wine
Richard Strauss operas do tend to have somewhat weird plots but perhaps none more so than his early and seldom performed piece Feuersnot. We are in mediaeval Munich on St. John’s Eve when apparently large bonfires and, one suspects, other things, are traditional. The children are gathering firewood and the magician Kunrad is stalking the mayor’s daughter Diemut. To her, apparent at least, disgust and the scandal of the townspeople, he kisses her. She gets her revenge by pretending she’s going to winch him up to her room but leaves him stranded halfway where he is mocked by the other girls. He calls on the spirit of his mentor, an even greater magician, to help him extinguish all the lights and fires in the town. This bit is very Wagnerian because who was mistreated by the people of Munich? And who is his equally mistreated heir? You’ve got it in one right? Anyway, the townspeople rather whimsically persuade Diemut that it’s her maidenly duty to get the lights turned back on. After all, people have sacrificed a lot more than a quick shag to the needs of the energy industry. All it’s missing is a wordly crustacean really.
Toronto Summer Music Festival
There’s quite a lot for the vocal music fan in this year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival though the only operatic opening is getting a bit Twilight Zone. How often does an opera like Britten’s Rape of Lucretia get done in Toronto? Well for now the answer is twice in quick succession because besides the MYOpera production later this month we are also getting a “semi-staged” version on July 22nd at 7.30pm at the Winter Garden Theatre. It is a transplant from Banff originally created by Joel Ivany and Topher Mokrzewski but to be directed here by Anna Theodosakis. The cast includes Emma Char (Lucretia), Peter Rolfe Dauz (Junius), Beste Kalender (Bianca), Jasper Leever (Collatinus), Iain MacNeil (Tarquinius), Ellen McAteer (Lucia), Owen McAusland (Male Chorus), and Chelsea Rus (Female Chorus). That’s a pretty good cast but it does seem an odd choice. Is the King Street streetcar contagious?
Schubert in the spring?
Off Centre Music Salon concluded their 2015/16 season with their 21st annual Schubertiad concert. It kicked off, in normal OC style with young artists. In this case Kallas and Vikas Chari with a very competent rendering of the Allegro vivace from the Marches Militaires. Then it was onto the main event; tenor Jeffrey Ollarsaba and Boris Zarankin performing Die Schöne Müllerin. It was good. Ollarsaba has quite a light, bright, rather pretty tenor and he can float rather beautiful high notes. I don’t know how it would go in a big opera house but it was well suited to the music and the relatively intimate Trinity St. Paul’s. His diction and phrasing were close to ideal and his vocal acting was appropriately expressive without getting histrionic. Some would consider him a bit over demonstrative in the hand and face gestures department but that rather seems to be the American way with lieder. Zarankin accompanied sensitively. He can play quite beautifully but he was also quite aggressively percussive in the more dramatic sections. All in all most satisfying. The concert concluded with Ilana Zarankin and clarinetist Colleen Cook joining Boris for Der Hirt aus dem Felsen. It’s a curious work; somewhere between a lied and a concert aria with it’s many repeated sections and variations. There was some really beautiful clarinet playing here which worked very well with Ilana’s bright timbre. So, a pleasant way to spend an April Sunday afternoon but a bit of a downer to head out of a concert that pretty much concludes with “Der Frühling will kommen, Der Frühling, meine Freud'”into a snowstorm. Some Frühling!
Last week of winter?
The coming week may be the last quiet one before May madness sets in. This afternoon Off Centre Music Salon have their 21st annual Schubertiad. Ilana Zarankin and Jeffrey Ollarsarba will sing Die Schöne Müllerin and Der Hirt auf dem Felsen with Boris Zarankin and Ina Perkiss at the piano. It’s at 3pm at Trinity St. Paul’s. Apart from that there’s really only (only!) the opening of the COC’s production of Bizet’s Carmen on Tuesday. That, of course, is at the Four Seasons Centre.
operaramblings 