Next week things get rather busy. There’s all the Hannigan shenanigans at UoT ; lecturing, masterclassing, concerting, walking on water, details here. There are a couple of lunchtime concerts in the RBA. Tuesday sees Gordon Bintner and Charles Sy perform Schumann’s Liederkreis and Britten’s Les Illuminations while on Thursday Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure appears with the members of the COC Orchestra Academy and their mentors.
The COC will add six singers and a pianist to the Ensemble Studio for the 16/17 season. Unsurprisingly the three prize winners from Centre Stage; mezzo-sopranos Emily D’Angelo and Lauren Eberwein and baritone Bruno Roy, are among the six. They are joined by soprano Samantha Pickett (continuing a tradition of promoting young dramatic sopranos) and mezzo Megan Quick and, best news of all to my mind, soprano Danika Lorèn. Regular readers will know that I have been increasingly impressed by this young lady over the last twelve months or so and am looking forward to seeing even more of her. The new pianist is Stéphane Mayer.
No big surprises at the Four Seasons Centre last night. In my prediction post I called five out of six and I knew the sixth last night before I even got my first glass of red! So what are we getting? Continue reading
The amazing Barbara Hannigan is in town next week teaching at the UoT. There are a number of events open to the public and free. Here’s a list:
Tues, Jan 19, 10:30 am, Walter Hall
Lecture – Show and Share: Living and Surviving as a Singing Artist
Tues, Jan 19, 12:10 pm, Walter Hall
Master Class with U of T Opera students – featuring excerpts from the contemporary operatic repertoire centering on The Machine Stops, a new opera by the Faculty’s student composer collective.
Wed, Jan 20, 3:10 pm, Room 330 @ 80 Queen’s Park
Interactive session – Dare to Compare: session with composers, pianists and instrumentalists from U of T’s contemporary music ensemble.
Thu, Jan 21, 12:10 pm, Walter Hall
Master Class with U of T Voice students – featuring songs and chamber music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Fri, Jan 22, 5 pm, Walter Hall
Concert – Performances by Faculty of Music singers and pianists after their training with Barbara, as well as from Barbara herself with pianist Professor Steven Philcox.
ETA: She’s also appearing with the TSO on Jan 27 and 28 singing Correspondances by Henri Dutilleux. There’s no stopping her!
So today’s New York Times has an article apparently confirming the relaunch of New York City Opera. On the face of it, good news, if it indeed happens. That said, apparently the plan is to open with a production of Tosca at Lincoln Center. As Micaela at Likely Impossibilities has shown 30% of Met performances this season are of works by Puccini. Is more Puccini, probably presented in a highly traditional way, what the New York, indeed the North American, opera scene really needs? One would say at least it was creating work for singers but when the boss of the new outfit was last seen running a company that was sued for not paying its musicians I’m not even sure about that! Not so much resurrection as the undead walking?
Talisker Players latest show, High Standards, was a bit different from previous efforts of theirs that I have attended. This was all about the music. There were no prose or poetry readings. The music was a selection from what might be considered the “golden age” of the Broadway musical. The time period covered being the four decades from 1933 to 1973 or, roughly, Showboat to A Little Night Music. I’m not an expert in Broadway theatre but I was struck by how the music remained remarkably similar over that period while the lyrics got, generally, more sardonic. That’s pretty curious when one reflects on the changed in classical music, and even popular music over that time period. Where the music did seem to be rather different was when there was an “intervention” from someone with a foot in another camp. There were selections here from Gershwin and Bernstein that did sound different. The latter in particular playing with tonality in a way that seemed very daring by comparison, though tame of course by classical music standards. I’m sure proper musicologists would have much more to say about this. Continue reading
Things are starting to pick up after the Christmas lull. Here’s my pick of the week in Toronto for w/c 10th January.
Today at 3.30pm The Talisker Players have a concert at Trinity St. Paul’s called High Standards. It’s classic Broadway (Sondheim, Gershwin, Kern etc) and features soloists Virginia Hatfield and James Levesque. (Also Tuesday at 8pm).
Wednesday is the COC Season Launch at the Four Season’s Centre at 6.30pm. I think it’s subscribers and invitees only. Speculation on what we might hear is here (me) and here (Dylan Hayden).
Then on Saturday from 1pm to 6pm Tafelmusik have a singing competition to select soloists for a future performance of Zelenka’s Missa omnium sanctorum. Two gals and seven guys compete. It’s free and , of course, it’s at Trinity St. Paul’s.
There was something about Collectìf’s cabaret show, Do Over, last night that reminded me of a folk club in the 70s or 80s (as in when I was their age!). It was in a pub. The room was full of young(ish) people. It was loud. It was irreverent. And people were having fun. Shocking! An opera related event that was irreverent and fun. No solemn “palaces of culture” here. No AMOP style “in my day” grumbling. Just three rather good singers, a pianist and a thoroughly eclectic, not to say at times filthy (there were more double entendres than an eight hour episode of The Two Ronnies), selection of music drawn from four and a half centuries. The AMOP crowd should probably prohibit their daughters and servants from seeing this show.
Pappano’s Classical Voices is a series of four TV programmes that aired on the BBC last November. I’ve just rewatched it and I’m even more impressed than I was first time around. It’s fronted by Tony Pappano, the Royal Opera’s music director, and he comes across as committed, likeable and inquisitive. Each show features a different voice type and combines archive footage with interviews with contemporary singers. There’s tons of information on how different voice types developed and also a surprising amount of technical singing stuff. This may be a bit ho hum for professional musicians but for amateurs seriously interested in how singers do what they do it’s really interesting.
Historical singers featured range from Maria Callas and Kathleen Ferrier to Enrico Caruso and Tito Gobbi. Interviewees include Anna Netrebko, Felicity Palmer, Sarah Connolly, Jonas Kaufmann, Bryn Terfel and John Tomlinson. There are many more in both categories. Other highlights include Tony Pappano taking a singing lesson from Thomas Allen.
I have no idea how one might lay hands on these shows as they are not available on DVD or iPlayer but if they do come your way, grab them.
This review first appeared in the print edition of Opera Canada.
This new CD of music by James Rolfe on the Centrediscs label contains three works for voices and a small “early instruments” ensemble. Two; Europa and Aeneas and Dido, were written as companion pieces for Toronto Masque Theatre performances of the similarly titled works by Pignolet de Montéclair and Purcell. The third, Breathe, was written for Trio Mediaeval and the Toronto Consort.
Breathe is a setting of words by Anna Chatterton and Hildegard of Bingen on the theme of the four elements. It feels quite meditative with high voices (Suzie LeBlanc, Katherine Hill and Laura Pudwell) weaving patterns with the band. It’s rhythmically inventive, almost jazzy in places but always quite ethereal.
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