Changes afoot

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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.

Heppner out of COC Grimes?

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griffeyAnthony Dean Griffey was flown into Toronto yesterday to replace Ben Heppner in the final dress rehearsal of the COC’s Peter Grimes which opens on Saturday.  There has been no official announcement of a cast change but I’m making enquiries.  Reports from the dress say that the einspringer was splendid.

This in from the COC… “Yes, it’s true that Anthony Dean-Griffey sang the dress rehearsal. Ben wasn’t feeling well and since he knows the role so well, he was resting up for opening night.”

It’s the day for announcements apparently

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Also in today’s mailbox, the season announcement from the Talisker Players; a group who specialize in mixing music and the spoken word.

citiesThe 2013/14 season kicks off with City of the Mind, a concert about cities, ancient and modern featuring soprano Erin Bardua, mezzo soprano Vicki St. Pierre and baritone Joel Allison.  The show begins in the 15th century, with Les Cris de Paris, a consort piece based on the cries of street vendors in the French capital. Moving ahead a couple of centuries, Tommasso Giordani’s Addio di Londra, for soprano with violin, viola and continuo, is an ode to a famous but unnamed personage upon his departure from London, entreating him to remember the sights of the city in his travels abroad.  The programme also features a rare North American performance of a selection of Wiener lieder and the Venetian Boat Song,  a 19th century salon piece by Jacques Blumenthal, for mezzo soprano, violin and piano. Very popular in its day, it is a reminder of the era of the “grand tour” of Europe.  Moving into the 20thcentury we start in New York City with excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s iconic On the Town, arranged by Laura Jones for baritone, soprano and string quartet, and finishing in Toronto with two pieces; Andrew Ager’s Ellis Portal, for baritone, mezzo soprano, clarinet and string quartet, about the city at night; and Erik Ross’s Concrete Toronto for soprano and saxophone.

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The discounting has started

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boheme upsellWith two nights to go to the start of the COC’s season the discounting has started already.  The deal is buy tickets for any two other operas and get free tickets for La Bohème.  The deal is good for performances on October 16, 25, 27, 29 and 30 and appears to apply for all but the cheapest and most expensive seats.  The website isn’t exactly splashing the news around.  You will only see the offer if you try to buy tickets for La Bohème or if you just happen to be poking around to see how well things are selling.

Two Cultures – alive and well

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As part of yesterday’s Koerner Hall concert yesterday there was a panel discussion between the President of the RCM, the Artistic Director of the ARC Ensemble and the Director of Koerner Hall.  Unsurprisingly the President at one point made a pitch about the value of the arts in education and deprecated the cuts that have been made in that area by various governments.  Fair enough.  That’s his job and, anyway, I agree with him.  What did raise my hackles was his contrasting the “creative” arts with “drilling” (his word) in maths and science.

As some of my readers may know, mathematics was once my field and it, and theoretical physics, remain important interests.  Now it’s quite possible, likely even, that someone running a conservatory never got far enough in mathematics to experience just how deeply creative it can be but there’s no excuse for not knowing it can be.  Some of the most subtle and beautiful ideas can only be understood mathematically.  And here’s the irony.  It’s just like music.  You have to do a hell of a lot of grunt work to get to the point where you can do beautiful mathematics just as even the best musicians still have to practice and play scales. This is probably true of anything where deep skill is involved.  That apparently effortless blind back of the hand pass of Richie McCaw’s comes from hours on the training field as much as from brilliance.

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ARC Ensemble

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c-t“Culture Days” is a weekend long festival in Toronto where various arts organisations put on free events.  This year it included a concert in Koerner Hall by the ARC Ensemble with guests Baritone Peter Barrett and cellist Se-Doo Park.  The main draw for me was Respighi’s Il tramonto; a setting for baritone and string quartet of an Italian translation of Shelley’s The Sunset.  This was indeed very well executed but was far from the most interesting part of the afternoon.

It was actually the final piece that was the revelation; Castelnuevo-Tedesco’s Piano Quintet No. 1.  It’s a really fun piece in high romantic style with tons of melodic ideas and lots of colour.  It was given a truly virtuoso performance by Erika Raum, Benjamin Bowman, Steven Dann, Se-Doo Park and Dianne Werner.  I think I’ll be looking for more examples of Castelnuevo-Terdesco’s work.

Sex and violets

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Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur isn’t performed very often and, when it is, it’s usually because some great diva of the day wants to do it.  That’s the case with the 2010 Covent Garden production which was created by David McVicar for Angela Gheorghiu.  Actually I am a bit surprised it’s not done more often.  It’s not a great masterpiece but it’s no worse than a great many commonly done pieces and, if the plot is a bit implausible, it’s not as offensive as half of Puccini’s output.  I would have thought it would have great appeal to that opera middle ground to which I don’t belong.

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Here we go again

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Yesterday saw the first of this season’s free concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.  As has become the norm it featured the singers of the COC’s Ensemble Studio.  This year it was dedicated to the memory of the late Lotfi Mansouri and included a couple of short tributes to him.

Six of the Ensemble’s singers are new this year, as is the sole pianist, so these were mostly singers I haven’t heard a lot of.  I’ve also observed how much members of the Ensemble Studio develop in the programme and last year we had a solid group of third years with a few new entrants.  The balance has shifted to the other extreme and so no surprise that yesterday we heard more potential than polish.

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Front (l – r): Clarence Frazer, Sasha Djihanian, Danielle MacMillan, Michael Shannon
Middle (l – r): Gordon Bintner, Aviva Fortunata, Claire de Sévigné, Cameron McPhail
Back (l – r): Andrew Haji, Charlotte Burrage, Owen McCausland
Photographer: Karen Reeves

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