People keep asking me at musical events whether I have a business card. So I created one.
Business cards
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Heppner as Grimes
It was back to the Four Seasons Centre last night for a second look at the COC’s Peter Grimes. This time Ben Heppner was singing the titled role as scheduled. Everything else was much the same as opening night and so I’ll just focus on the differences between Tony Dean-Griffey and Ben. In many ways their interpretations are similar. They both come across as “gentle giants”; alienated and outside Borough society but not really “brutal and coarse” as the libretto has it. In both cases the violence offered to Ellen in Act 2 seems to come from nowhere. The big difference, it seems to me, is that Dean Griffey has the voice to sing that interpretation. He can float the high notes in Now the Great Bear and Pleiades and What Harbour Shelters Peace in the disturbing and otherwordly manner of a Pears or a Langridge. Perhaps Heppner once had that quality but if he did it has gone. What Heppner does have is great acting powers. The prologue and the final scene were nuanced and compelling and worth the price of admission. In between he had his moments but he clearly isn’t over the problems that kept him out of opening night and there were a couple of quite jaw dropping moments in the scene in his hut. None of this stopped the Four Seasons crowd from giving him a rapturous reception.
Photo: Michael Cooper courtesy of the COC
Peter Grimes remains a great show with brilliance from the orchestra and chorus, a very fine Balstrode from Alan Held and strong performances from the other soloists. I’m glad I saw the show with both tenors and I would certainly recommend it highly with either. There are four more performances between now and October 26th.
Poetic Echoes: A Britten Celebration
Yesterday’s free concert in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre saw four members of the Ensemble Studio singing contrasting works by Benjamin Britten. First up was bass-baritone Gordon Bintner with excerpts from Tit for Tat; settings of works by Walter de la Mare. These were full blooded performances and Bintner gave full reign to his powerful and flexible voice. It’s a terrific instrument but I would have preferred a little more restraint and subtlety, especially in something as intimate as these pieces. Next up was tenor Andrew Haji with excerpts from Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo. It was rather a similar story. He has a fine, operatic voice and gave the songs a rather operatic treatment. It was good singing but not in the idiom one is accustomed to hearing this music sung in.
Photo: Karen Reeves
Grimes is at his exercise
So Ben Heppner sang in the second performance of Peter Grimes at COC last night and is expected to sing the remainder of the run. I’m going again on Friday so watch this space.
The saga so far…
New departure
The COC is usually tighter than a duck’s arse when it comes to revealing information about future seasons so it was really quite surprising to find the leaflet illustrated below in last night’s programme. It’s not exactly a secret of course. I actually expected Falstaff to be in this season’s line up with the Verdi bicentennial and all. It’s pretty well known that Gerry Finley will star and I have a pretty good guess on the Nanetta.
It’s an interesting ploy to piggy back on the Met HD season this way.
What harbour shelters peace?
Readers of this blog will likely know that Peter Grimes is a very special opera for me. I’ve watched it live and on recordings a lot. I think about it a lot troo so the chance to see it live is rather special. It’s even more special when it’s done as well as at the Four Seasons Centre last night in the opening performance of a new run of Neil Armfield’s much travelled production, revived here by Denni Sayers.
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene
Where better to record a production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette than in the spectacular Arena at Verona? The productio, dircted by Francesco Micheli with sets by Eduardo Sanchi and costumes by Silvia Aymonino, is as spectacular as the setting and also quite weird in a space opera sort of way, The characters wear huge collars and are colour coded; Yellow for the Montagues, red for Paris and his entourage and blue for the Capulets. Only the non-feuding characters escape this schema notably, of course, the two lovers and Friar Lawrence. There are also lots of colourful cage like structures that character pop in and out of or sing from and a huge chorus and crowd of supers flow all over the vast space. It’s amazing to look at and actually suits a straightforward telling of the story quite well.
Old Ben has gone missing
It’s official. Tony Dean Griffey will sing the title role in tomorrow night’s opening performance of Peter Grimes at the COC, replacing an indisposed Ben Heppner. The party line is that Ben will sing the remaining performances. We will see. Certainly Tony is scheduled to start a run of Fledermaus in Houston on the 25th and the last Grimes is on the 26th. This story isn’t over. Whatever else goes down, let’s hope Ben makes a speedy recovery from whatever ails him.
Sundry announcements
The lovely Miriam Khalil and Acadian pianist Julien LeBlanc will bring their recital Airs Chantés to Toronto for one performance at Gallery 345 on Oct. 24, 2013. The program comprises French and Spanish art songs of the Impressionistic and 20th-century period. The first half of the recital will include excerpts from Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliées and will conclude with Poulenc’s well-known song cycle Airs Chantés. The second half is rounded out by three French melodies by Massenet, Ravel and Delibes in a Spanish style, Jesus Guridi’s uncommonly performed Seis Canciones Castellanas and three songs from Obrador’s Canciones Classicás españolas. The show begins at 7:30 p.m. with doors opening at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $25 and are available at http://www.miriamkhalil.com and at the door.
Changes afoot
There are some interesting tidbits scattered through the latest edition of the COC’s house magazine Prelude. They include a return to a six production season from 2014/15 (the last few years there have been seven). This is intended to free up cash to make the remaining productions more ambitious (as well as stem what was shaping up as an increasingly dodgy financial position). There is talk of “more grand opera” and “a great amount of Wagner on the COC’s horizon”. It’s also very clear that the current model of “challenging” productions (including Tcherniakov’s Don Giovanni) and encouraging established stars to make role debuts in Toronto will continue.
All of this makes sense to me from a business and an artistic viewpoint. Going more populist in search of a probably non-existent fringe audience seems to me wishful thinking at best. Giving the core audience a high quality product, aimed at those with real interest in the form, mixed with fiscal prudence just feels like the right way to go.
operaramblings 