Last night I saw the second performance of Tapestry’s latest compilation of short works. As before it was a mix of excerpts from works in progress and potential projects plus stand alone short scenes developed during the LibLab. This year there was an additional refinement. The works were staged in different parts of the building (part of the Distillery complex) and samples of the local goodies were provided at strategic points along the way.
There were crazy choices available to concert goers in Toronto last nigt but enough chose Extensions of Us at the Extension Room (where else) to fill the joint. We were there to see a performance of piano, song and dance provided by the team of baritone turned tenor Adrian Kramer, soprano Lucia Cesaroni, dancers Jennifer Nichols (who also choreographed) and Justin De Bernardi with pianist and music director Maika’i Nash. The complex motivations for the show and the full line up of music is contained in my interview with Adrian and Lucia here.
The Canadian Stage season brochure for 2015/16 landed in my mailbox yesterday. I was intrigued to see that, among the ten productions on offer, there was an opera and a contemporary one at that. Julie is a 2005 adaptation of Strindberg’s 1888 play Miss Julie with a libretto by Luc Bondy and music by Belgian Philippe Boesmans. Matthew Jocelyn directs. There will be eight performances at the 867 seat Bluma Appel Theatre from November 17th to November 29th 2015. More details here.
It seems like the Toronto contemporary opera scene is coming to life. As well as Tapestry’s ongoing efforts we had Airline Icarus, Shelter and When the Sun Comes Out this summer and who knows what’s to come. It almost makes up for the COC commemorating the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1 by programming nothing written since then.
If you aren’t already committed to the opening night of Tapestry Briefs or Adrian Kramer and Lucia Cesaroni’s show at the Extension Room, there’s now another option for Thursday night. Aprile Millo is presenting a concert of operatic excerpts performed by members of Mary-Lou Vetere’s studio including Teiya Kasahara. It’s being billed as a “gala”; whatever that means. It’s at Trinity St. Paul’s at 7pm. Ms. Millo is also performing at Trinity St. Paul’s on Saturday at 7.30pm.
More details have been announced on Tapestry Opera’s season. This week sees Tapestry Briefs: Booster Shots; previously previewed here. January 24th, 2015 sees Tapestry Songbook V with baritone Peter McGillivray and young Canadian singers in concert performing the beautiful and absurd repertoire from Tapestry’s 35 year old Canadian collection.
The line up for Centre Stage; the final auditions for the COC Ensemble Studio has been announced. The seven singers are:
Recitals at Rosedale opened the season yesterday afternoon with a program entitled A Walk on the Dark Side featuring Leslie Ann Bradley, Alysson McHardy and Geoff Sirett with Rachel Andrist and Robert Kortgaard at the piano. It was an extremely well put together program with a range of pieces on the themes of myths, legends and fairy tales.
This Sunday sees the first of the season for Recitals at Rosedale. Entitled A Walk on the Dark Side: Myths, Legends and Fairy Tales, it will feature soprano Leslie Ann Bradley, mezzo soprano Allyson McHardy and baritone Geoff Sirett with pianists Robert Kortgaard and Rachel Andrist. The programme features works by Mahler, Debussy, Symanowski, Weil, Gershwin and more. It’s on November 9th at 2.30 pm at Rosedale Presbyterian Church and tickets are available here.
Stefania Turkewich
Yesterday, for the second time inside a week, I found myself at a musical event celebrating a nation and a nationalism not my own. It’s a rather weird experience (1). The first had been a performance of Dvoràk’s Jakobin, not reviewed here as I was reviewing for Opera Canada, and yesterday was the launch of the CD set Galicians 1; the fourth instalment of the Ukrainian Art Song Project. This latter is the lovechild of British Ukrainian bass-baritone Pavlo Hunka. Indeed it’s almost an obsession. He has tracked down scores for 1000 largely unknown art songs by Ukrainian composers and has plans for them all to be recorded by 2020. The latest bunch are by Galician composers Denys Sichynsky, Stanyslav Liudkevych, Vasyl Barvinsky and Stefania Turkewich. The party line reason for the neglect of this music is, unsurprisingly, persecution under both Tsarist and Soviet regimes. This was mentioned in at least one of the many introductions and speeches of thanks yesterday and provoked a loud “Absolute rubbish!” from the rather scholarly looking gentleman two seats to my right. It does rather look a bit more complicated with composers holding prestigious conservatory posts but eventually falling foul of someone in the apparatus and getting sent to a labour camp for obscure reasons. I don’t think that was unique to Ukrainians.
Every time I go to Roy Thomson Hall, as I did last night to see the TSO perform Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius, I have to recalibrate for the acoustic. It’s just much quieter than the Four Season’s Centre and, indeed, many other venues. This has the advantage that coughing is largely inaudible but also that even a large orchestra playing full bore doesn’t exactly blow one’s socks off. So, perhaps it wasn’t a surprise that I was more struck by the meditative aspects of this score than its moments of high drama such as the chorus of demons. I’m pretty sure this was just the acoustic because conductor Peter Oundjian was certainly going for maximum effect in those sections. Continue reading
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