Innocence/Experience

Posted on October 16, 2015 by operaramblings

American mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera, with pianist Myra Huang, has recently released a CD of songs by contemporary American composers titled Innocence/Experience. There are four , fairly contrasting, sets of songs by different composers. The first group are settings of texts by Garrison Keillor with music by Robert Aldridge. The texts are predictably sentimental and the music is rather retro. It sounds like it might have come from a musical comedy in the 1940s. It’s not inappropriate for the texts but seems a little out of time. It suits Rivera’s voice though. Her strength is definitely in the lower register where there is a pleasing smokey tone.

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Diva, diva, diva

Posted on October 15, 2015 by operaramblings

Danika Loren

Today’s lunchtime concert in the RBA featured the assembled students of UoT Opera in a staged programme called The Art of the Prima Donna. It was a sequence of mostly ensemble numbers drawn from the core 19th century rep. Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Donizetti, Bellini, Bizet and Rossini all featured with works made famous by the great divas of the era’ Patti, Pasta, Malibran etc. Linking narrative, which skipped over who slept with Rossini, was provided by Michael Albano who directed the staging with Anna Theodosakis. Sandra Horst headed up the musical side and accompanied with help from Sue Black, Kate Carver and Ivan Jovanovic. Continue reading →

None so blind

Posted on October 14, 2015 by operaramblings

So Opera Lyra in Ottawa has closed down. Here’s the announcement. I’m a little sad that the performance opportunities for hard working but under employed Canadian singers have been reduced but that’s pretty much the extent of it. I’ve watched Opera Lyra as they have lurched along, season after season, with traditional productions of the most mainstream of mainstream operas. Carmen has followed Traviata has followed Figaro. All in the very expensive National Arts Centre; fully staged with a big, expensive orchestra even as their finances have tanked. The strategy has shown all the imagination of a British general on the Western Front in 1916.

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A quiet week ahead

Posted on October 11, 2015 by operaramblings

Well, after a rather hectic start to the fall season, this coming week is remarkably quiet. La Traviata continues at the COC with performances on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. Friday is the first chance to see the second cast (El-Khoury, Haji, Westman) but I’m passing on that until later in the run. Otherwise there’s one lunchtime concert in the RBA on my schedule. It’s the UoT Opera Division previewing The Art of the Prima Donna and it’s on Thursday. It’s often a good opportunity to do some talent spotting ahead of Centre Stage.

Selfie

Posted on October 10, 2015 by operaramblings

Selfie is a work in progress by Chris Thornborrow and Julie Tepperman. It’s still incomplete and the performances over the last couple of days were workshops designed to elicit audience feedback. It had its genesis at the 2013 LibLab and it’s come a long way. The original sketch of two teenagers texting each other is turning into an hour long piece about cyberbullying. It’s a rather disturbing exploration of how technology allows teenagers to do all those things which teenagers do with even less “supervision” than ever. In this case a manipulative girl (Cindy played by Larissa Koniuk) tries to make up for her split from her rather feckless boyfriend (Devon played by Asitha Tennekoon) by engineering a split between her friend Mindy (Meher Pavri) and her bloke Tyler (Giovanni Spanu). The result is a massive on-line slut shaming campaign against the fifth character Heather who has no real identity or agency until the very last scene. Adults encountered along the way are portrayed as clueless, ineffective or bureaucratically indifferent.

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Suirina, Castronovo and Kelsey rock Traviata

Posted on October 9, 2015 by operaramblings

There’s a lot to like in the COC’s production of Verdi’s La Traviata that opened at The Four Seasons Centre last night. Arin Arbus’ production; a co-production with Chicago Lyric Opera and Houston Grand Opera avoids the cloying sentimentality of many productions of this piece and, without being in any way gratuitous, deals very directly with the world Verdi wanted us to see; a world of hypocrisy, sex for sale and early, pointless death.

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Silence! Singers at Work

Posted on October 8, 2015 by operaramblings

Silence! Singers at Work is a slim volume of humorous drawings about the life of the singer; choral, solo or opera. It’s by graphic artist turned singer Emmanuelle Ayrton and contains about 50 colour drawings and an intro by Joyce DiDonato. It’s published by Edition Peters Group but North American distribution seems a bit patchy. Googling suggests that one could pick up a copy for $10-$15. I got some chuckles out of it and it might make a good stocking stuffer for those of you unfortunate enough to have a singer in your lives.

Here’s a sample:

The Hannigan show

Posted on October 8, 2015 by operaramblings

Last night at Roy Thomson Hall Barbara Hannigan made her North American conducting debut with the TSO. And, of course, she sang too. She kicked off with Luigi Nono’s Djamila Boupacha for solo voice. It’s a short but haunting piece inspired by a woman activist from the Algerian War. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a solo, unaccompanied, voice in that hall and the effect is eerie. It’s also a hell of a sing and to navigate it with utter precision is quite some feat. As the last note died away (precisely on pitch) the violins came in with the opening Haydn’s Symphony no. 49 “La Passione”. It starts off with an Adagio that’s curiously similar in mood to the Nono piece and Hannigan was conducting without score or baton. In fact it was more like an interpretive dance than conventional conducting. She has amazing arms and hands; the arms and hands of a ballerina in fact and as she summoned the strings to a sort of shimmering sound I couldn’t help but reminded of Swan Lake. Corny perhaps but very real and quite disturbing. And the orchestra, quite a small subset of the TSO, responded. This was four movements of really lovely, chamber music like playing.

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Phantom of Lilith

Posted on October 4, 2015 by operaramblings

Krzysztof Warlikowski’s production of Berg’s Lulu (it’s the three act version with the Cerha completion) recorded at Brussel’s La Monnaie in 2012 is so stuffed full of symbolism it’s really hard to fully unpack. There’s a sense that Lulu represents Everywoman, for some rather twisted definition of “woman”. She’s Lilith. She’s Pandora. She’s the Black Swan and the White Swan. She’s lost or corrupted childhood and she’s love gone wrong. Maybe she’s even the phantom of Berg’s estranged daughter. All these symbols recur again and again in various combinations. In fact, on DVD, it’s pretty much impossible to keep track of them.

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From rape to crucifixion

Posted on October 4, 2015 by operaramblings

The season announcements keep on coming. There will be Koerner Hall recitals for both Sondra Radvanovsky and the, hopefully fully recovered, Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Sondra appears on December 4th with pianist Anthony Manoli in a program of operatic arias and art songs. Dmitri is scheduled for Sunday 21st February next year with Ivari Ilya at the piano. Tickets in the usual Koerner Hall places.

The dates have been now been announced for MY Opera’s production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia. It’s scheduled for April 29th to May 1st next year in the Aki Studio at the Daniels Spectrum in Regent’s Park.

And, finally, Against the Grain Theatre are remounting their choreographed Messiah. It was a blast the first time round, especially Geoff Sirett’s sheep impersonation. This time it’s being staged at Harbourfront Centre Theatre on Dec. 16th, 17th and 18th at 8pm and Dec. 19th at 2pm. The solists will be Miriam Khalil, Andrea Ludwig, Owen McCausland and Stephen Hegedus. Joel Ivany directs with choreography by Jenn Nicholls. This time there will be an 18 piece orchestra and 16 member choir with Topher Mokrzewski conducting. Tickets here. This will probably sell out fairly quickly.