Grumpy Otello

Posted on August 9, 2015 by operaramblings

Verdi loved Shakespeare and tried to reflect the psychological depth of his characters in the operas he based on the bard. You really wouldn’t know that watching the 2008 Salzburg Festival production of Otello. There’s a lot to like in both production and performance but the emotionally monochromatic performance of the title role by Aleksandrs Antonenko, who can do every mood from fairly grumpy to furious, and the moustache twirling Jago of Carlos Álvarez rather reduce the piece to pathologically jealous nutter with anger management problem kills wife.

Continue reading →

Habe Dank

Posted on August 8, 2015 by operaramblings

The last major concert of this year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival was a recital by Finnish soprano Karita Mattila and pianist Bryan Wagorn. Talk about ending on a high note. This was an exceptional performance by a mature artist at the height of her powers. In her mid-fifties, she is starting to transition to older roles. For example she will sing Kostelnička, rather than the title role, in her next Jenůfa. She has really acquired an ability to darken her voice which she used to great effect, especially in the set of Sallinen songs she sang after the interval but she hasn’t lost the vocal qualities that made her a star.

Continue reading →

Oral tradition and opera

Posted on August 7, 2015 by operaramblings

Nicole Brook’s Obeah Opera is described as a “Nicole Brooks vision” which is probably a good starting point for an opera this isn’t. It’s an a capella stage piece with an all female cast, composed and taught to the performers orally and performed with mikes. If it resembles anything it’s a musical but really it’s a unique concept. It’s also clearly rooted in the oral traditions of African-American slavery and a kind of idealisation of the world they had left behind. For example, every slave women is a powerful sorceress from a long lineage rather as every Welshman is a gentleman who can trace his ancestry from King Arthur. It’s a musically rich and powerful tradition and this forms much the most effective element in the piece, especially as it’s where Brooks’ own talents and energy are most focussed.

Divine Brown, Deidrey Francois, Singing Sandra, Karen Burthwright, Nickeshia Garrick

Continue reading →

Heads up

Posted on August 5, 2015 by operaramblings

The Bloor Hot Docs showing of the somewhat controversial ROH production of Rossini’s Guillaume Tell appears to have been moved. Originally scheduled for Sunday 28th August, it’s now listed for Saturday 22nd August at noon.

Gaslight

Posted on August 4, 2015 by operaramblings

Later this month there is an Ingrid Bergman retrospective at TIFF Cinematheque to celebrate the 100th anniversary of her birth. There is one (vaguely) opera related film in the offering; Gaslight, a 1944 thriller directed by George Cukor about the niece of a murdered opera singer, Alice Alquist. The girl aspires to an operatic career too and we do see Bergman practicing an aria from Lucia di Lammermoor. However the main plot turns on the Bergman character (Paula) marrying and returning to her aunt’s house in London where she is subjected to attempts by her husband to drive her mad to get possession of the house where he hopes to find the jewels he murdered Paula’s aunt for in the first place. The denouement is precipitated by a young Scotland Yard operative who, as a small boy, was given a glove worn by Alice as Juliette and signed by Gounod. Continue reading →

La Grand-Duchesse de Gérolstein

Posted on August 1, 2015 by operaramblings

Despite a thin to non-existent plot and music that sounds like a remix of all the other Offenbach operettas, La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein, performed by largely French forces and recorded at the Théâtre du Châtelet in 2004 is a highly enjoyable romp. The plot centres on the susceptibility of the Grand-Duchess to fall rather hard for younger men. This makes it a perfect vehicle for Felicity Lott who rather seems to specialise in such roles; whether Strauss’ Marschallin or La Belle Hélène. She’s brilliant. She sings gorgeously except where she doesn’t want to and her comic timing is impeccable. She’s well backed up by Yann Beuron as the young soldier Fritz who she promotes from private to général-en-chef without swaying his affections for his sweetheart Wanda sung by the irrepressible and cute Sandrine Piau. The slapstick element is provided by François Le Roux, as Le Général Boum, Franck Leguérinet as Le Baron Puck and Eric Huchet as Le Prince Paul who are set on getting the Grand-Duchess to marry Paul even if it means murdering Fritz. They get lots of up tempo numbers that sound as if they are singing a Korean restaurant menu.

Continue reading →

Guilt by dissociation

Posted on July 30, 2015 by operaramblings

I met with Alaina Viau, Artistic Director of Loose TEA Theatre, earlier today to discuss her upcoming show Dissociative Me; a transladaptation™(*) of Gounod’s Faust. We started by exploring the reasons why one might choose transladaptation rather than either a “straight” production or simply a radical restaging à la Herheim or Tcherniakov. The starting point for Alaina, one that I completely share, is that certain works are so problematic that they can’t realistically be presented “straight” and still do the things that “art” is supposed to do; stimulate, challenge etc. If a work contains elements that have so radically changed meaning since the original composition that one must treat it as a museum piece or intellectually disengage to make a piece tolerable then, we both believe, something has to be done. I realise that there are those who can enjoy, for instance, Puccini’s Madama Butterfly; a squalid tale of paedophilia and sex tourism, at a superficial level but count me out there.

Continue reading →

The Solti show

Posted on July 29, 2015 by operaramblings

The recording of Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten made at the Salzburg Festival in 1992 is very much Sir Georg Solti’s show. The conducting is superb and the Vienna Philharmonic, of course, respond for Solti. From the opening, shattering cords through the various orchestral interludes to the final ensemble and chorus Solti is utterly convincing in his command of tempi and dynamics.

Continue reading →

Whose opera is it anyway?

Posted on July 23, 2015 by operaramblings

I’ve always been a fan of those BBC Radio 4 programs where people have to do silly things so I was naturally drawn to LooseTEA’s fundraiser “Whose opera is it anyway?” in which a select band of singers (Greg Finney, Whitney Mather, Michael York, Charlotte Church, Fabian Arcineagas and Kijong Wi) got to do silly things bid on by the audience. Some of the silly things even involved members of the audience. Asa Iranmehr was on the keyboards and comedian Andrew Johnston, despite almost total ignorance of anything operatic, MC’d.

It was great fun and much funnier than the average bel canto “comedy”. Highlights included Sit, Stand Lie where Michael, Greg and Fabian had to perform La mia Dorabella with one of them in each position at any one time, Moving People where Greg and Whitney were “manipulated” by Aria Umezawa, Michael Mori, Katja “polkadots” Juliannova and Rachel Krehm while singing the Papageno/a duet. The best/weirdest singing was probably a couple of “in the style of”s. I was really impressed by Whitney’s Deh vieni non tardar in the style of Miranda Sings. It takes real talent to sing that badly! Greg’s Catalogue Aria in the style of (a very lugubrious) Vladimir Putin was a hoot too. My sunglasses came in handy in “Props”.

The snacks were decidedly better than they often are at these events too. Really good pizza! So, a good time was had by all. More people should come to these things. Have a few drinks, meet fun people, see just how multi-talented some of our singers are and have fun. Why not?

Sorry about the photo quality. Taken by me on my phone.

Barking

Posted on July 18, 2015 by operaramblings

It’s good to see a company like Opera by Request doing contemporary Canadian work. Better still when it’s a comedy. So I was very eager to see what they would do with John Metcalfe and Larry Tremblay’s A Chair in Love, presented last night at The Array Space. The work itself is, shall we say, “unusual”. An avant-garde film director falls in love with a chair and, despite the warnings of his jealous dog that the world isn’t ready for human/furniture relationships, makes a film about it. He is duly condemned by critical and popular opinion and despairs. The doctor prescribes her experimental Lovekiller pills. He, apparently kills his dog and is sentenced to the electric chair (what else?). Fortunately this whole episode turns out to be a hallucination brought on by the untested medication. Meanwhile the chair has run off with the film critic who condemned such things and man and dog are reconciled. Got that?

Continue reading →