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 
Yesterday I went to a Met “live in HD” broadcast for the first time since The Nose two years ago. It was an interesting and ultimately rather depressing experience. This review really falls into two parts; a review of the production and performance, including how it was filmed for broadcast, and a piece on how the Met is “presenting” the work and how that seems to fit in with its overall HD strategy. The latter may turn into a bit of a rant.
The AGO has a new initiative; AGO Friday Nights. For the price of admission to the gallery one also gets to hear a one hour concert of music programmed by Tapestry’s Michael Mori to reflect something going on at the the gallery. Right now the big exhibition is 
Last night was the third memorial concert for Elizabeth Krehm in support of the ICU at St. Mike’s. This year the piece was Mahler’s Symphony No.2 appropriately enough. It’s a piece I’ve lived with for a very long time and it never fails to move. It’s a curious contrast with the Fourth which we heard at the symphony last week. If 4 gives a naive and optimistic view of the afterlife, 2 is much darker, more troubled and less certain. Even the very beautiful Urlicht is not without its sense of angst and the final movement is majestic, powerful and has the deepest possible sense of yearning.
operaramblings 