This week sees holiday season events beginning. The main one on my calendar is Electric Messiah; tonight and tomorrow night at the Drake. It’s a Soundstreams presentation described as “a stripped down, surround sound electro-improv Messiah for today’s Toronto”. Other than that the Calmus Ensemble have a Christmas concert at Walter Hall on Sunday afternoon.
Despite living locally Sondra Radvanovsky is not a frequent recitalist in Toronto so it’s perhaps not surprising that Koerner Hall was packed last night for her show presented by Show One Productions. I had been intrigued in advance by the promised program which looked extremely varied; baroque, bel canto, Strauss, Barber, verismo and more. We were, in fact, being used as most willing guinea pigs for some new departures, especially the Strauss.
Adam Scime’s L’Homme et le Ciel opened last night at The Music Gallery in a production created by FAWN Chamber Creative. The story of a 2nd century BCE slave’s struggle between his spiritual aspirations and his less spiritual attraction to his beautiful owner might seem a bit obscure for a modern audience but it does provide a framework for exploring human emotions free of the need to rush on with a linear narrative. So, perhaps rather like Pyramus and Thisbe at the COC this is a piece that explores and questions human motivations and emotions rather than focussing on telling a story.
So there’s another new approach to art song in Toronto. Collectìf is a new group “dedicated to exploring and expanding the world of art song performance and presenting innovative, song-based theatre”. The people behind this one, Danikà Loren, Whitney O’Hearne and Jennifer Krabbe, are young and very talented. They have a show on December 14th and 15th at Loft404’s B-Lounge. It’s called Le Rossignol et la Rose. We are promised Oscar Wilde and the underground nightlife of 1930s Paris. I shall go with a seriously depressed student and try not to pin my hand to a table with a knife.
The Fall 2015 Opera Canada is out. No performance reviews by me in this one but I do have a profile of countertenor Daniel Cabena and reviews of three CDs; Adrianne Pieczonka singing Wagner and Strauss, Bud Roach singing Italian renaissance songs accompanying himself on guitar and a rerelease of Peter Maxwell Davies’ Resurrection. Lots of good stuff by other people too of course!
Yesterday’s Riki Turofsky master class at the UoT Music faculty was given by Sondra Radvanovsky which probably accounted for the almost full Walter Hall. It was interesting. I’ve only ever seen Sondra glammed up and seeming very much the diva and so I was a bit surprised that she proved rather down to earth and very technique focussed. Four students sang but I’m going to focus on two. Partly to avoid being repetitive and partly because they happen to be singers I’ve heard quite a bit and so was more able to see what Sondra was doing with/to them.
There’s not a lot in the calendar this week but what there is is high quality. Adam Scime’s L’Homme et le Ciel premiers at The Music Gallery on Thursday with a second performance on Friday. It’s a FAWN Chamber Creative production with Amanda Smith directing. It has already been extensively written about with contributions from Lydia Perovic, Jenna Douglas and myself so there shouldn’t be too many surprises, though with a new work there are bound to be some!
Then on Friday there’s a rare chance to see Sondra Radvanovsky in recital at Koerner Hall. The program is here. She has an unusual voice with a timbre unlike any other soprano I know and, of course, incredible technique rooted in the demands of the bel canto repertoire. Definitely worth checking out.
ETA: This just in. Pax Christi Chorale are doing Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ at Grace Church on the Hill on Saturday at 7.30pm and Sunday at 3pm. It’s an impressive line up of soloists; Olivier Laquerre, Nathalie Paulin, Alain Coulombe, Sean Clark and Matthew Zadow. It also appears to be choreographed. Curious about that. Anyway full details, ticket info and so on is here.
Liz Caballero is an American soprano of Cuban origin. Like many successful professional singers she never really planned to be one. Opera wasn’t part of her childhood experience as a Cuban refugee in Southern Florida. Like many young people she sang in school and church choirs and often got to take solo roles but she didn’t have a voice lesson until she was at university. Her break came in 1995 when, on a whim, she entered the Pavarotti International Voice Competition in Miami and made it to the finals in Philadelphia. Pavarotti encouraged her to develop her raw talent which led to stints in young artists programs in Miami and San Francisco and to her current busy career mainly singing Puccini and Verdi roles in US regional houses.
I met with Adam Scime and Amanda Smith of FAWN Chamber Creative today to talk about chamber opera in general and their upcoming show L’Homme et le Ciel in particular. There are several questions that are exercising the minds of many people in the opera community as they try to create in and for the space that lies between the COC and an out of tune piano in a pub and that has value beyond providing performance opportunities for the participants.
There’s probably a rough consensus that the answer lies in “chamber opera” but less unanimity on what that means either in terms of forces employed or repertoire. Equally, there are differing views on where the potential audience is to be found. So where does FAWN sit on these issues?
This week’s listings post is exceedingly dull. Though the season of mince pies and Messiahs will soon be upon us, next week is really quiet. The only event I’m aware off at this point is a concert next Sunday afternoon by the Canadian Children’s Opera Company. It’s at 2pm at Grace Church on the Hill. It will be their first public performance since Dean Burry took over a musical director.
operaramblings 