Christof Loy’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth filmed at the Liceu in Barcelona in 2016 is grey, very grey. Costumes and lighting are such that one might think one is watching a black and white film. The first, brief, touch of colour; some lights and bunches of flowers appears at the beginning of Act 4. Beyond the greyness the vibe is essentially late 19th century and it’s pretty sparse. It’s also very dark; at times almost unwatchably so on video (even Blu-ray).
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a regular Opera Revue show and they were playing my favourite of their regular venues; Castro’s yesterday. Also, besides the usual gang of Alex Hajek, Dani Friesen and Claire Harris there was Alex Hetherington, so I went. I had a great time. It was classic Operas Revue; some arias, some music theatre, Kurt Weill and a couple of parodies. And Alex H. Boy does she sound loud in a small space like Castro’s! Plus this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear her sing the Countess from Marriage of Figaro (which will surely lead to expulsion from the Mezzos Guild).
Saturday night at the new performance space at 877 Yonge Street saw a concert inaugurating Cultureland’s residency at Tapestry Opera. The performance consisted mainly of excerpts from Cultureland’s recent and “in progress” operas accompanied on piano by Carolyn Maule and directed by Renée Salewski.
There’s a change in both style and pace for part 2 of Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata. (See review of part 1). The stage band is gone and the whole back wall is given over to video screens. Sometimes the whole is used and sometimes just the top half; often using split screen effects. Hana Kim’s projections are front and centre in this instalment.
Mahabharata is one of the great epics. It’s long (my somewhat abridged translation runs 1400 pages) and it’s complex. To condense it into five hours or so of theatre and still have it retain its essential qualities is astonishing but, based on the first part which I saw at the Bluma Appel Theatre last night, Why Not Theatre’s production does just that.
My review of Opera Atelier’s production of Charpentier’s David and Jonathan which opened at Koerner Hall last night is now available at Opera Canada.
Photo: Bruce Zinger
Duo Oriana consists of soprano Sinéad White and lutenist Jonathan Stuchbery. They gave a lunchtime concert in the RBA on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly most of their repertoire consists of lute songs from the 16th and 17th (and even 18th) century but they have recently branched out with the Toronto Book of Ayres which sets verse by contemporary Toronto poets. We got to hear that for the first time on Tuesday.
The Masque of the Red Death is a an interdisciplinary theatre piece created and directed by Stella Kulagowski currently playing at The Assembly Theatre. At its heart is a cabaret show where each performer represents a Virtue “complementary” to the canonical Seven Deadly Sins that Poe riffed off in his original short story. Each Virtue is also associated with a colour in the rainbow Pride flag.
L to R back row: Rosalind Saunders, Parham Rownaghi, Rachel Manson, Joy Thompson, Rennaldo Quinicot
Middle: Bryna Bella, Eli Holliday
Front: Nailah Renuka, Stella Kulagowski
This recording from the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and their conductor Jean-Luc Tingaud contains 65 minutes of music; mostly written for the stage, though there are some songs for voice and orchestra.
The first set is based on the incidental music that Fauré wrote for an English language production of Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande given in London in 1898. There’s a four movement suite and a bonus in “Mélisande’s song” from Act III Scene 1 sung here by Tara Erraught. It’s really tuneful, pleasant music that evokes the piece well. I particularly liked the third movement “Sicilienne” which features a wistful harp melody and the song which is sung with beauty and clarity. Continue reading
Schubert’s Four Seasons is a recital disk on the BIS label by soprano Carolyn Sampson and pianist Jioseph Middleton. It contains a generous 75 minutes of music made up of twenty Schubert songs about the seasons and nature generally (also death… there’s lots of death). Most of the songs are less well known ones but there are some more frequently heard one likes Die Forelle, Im Frühllind and Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (which also features Michael Collins on clarinet).
operaramblings 