Tapestry Opera and Nightwood Theatre’s new digs at 877 Yonge Street are now officially open. I was unable to attend Saturday nignt’s opening gig and party but I did get to attend the free concert for the local community in the afternoon and get a tour of the premises.
Dmitri Shostakovich died on 9th August 1975; the day after my 18th birthday and I remember the feeling of sadness and hurt I felt when I heard the news. The 50th anniversary is being celebrated by a fair number of concerts featuring the great man’s works including one given my members of the COC Ensemble Studio in the RBA on Thursday.
The material featured was comparatively unknown even by the standards of Shostakovich songs which are, in general, much less well known than his symphonic and chamber works. Matters started playfully enough with a four hands arrangement of Waltz No.2 played with appropriate whimsy by Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi It was followed by the first of two sets by Duncan Stenhouse; two of the songs from Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op.46. Using text by Pushkin allowed the composer to express sentiments about authority that would otherwise have been very risky and these pieces are sombre. They were very solidly sung with some impressive floaty high notes, variation of colour and fine work by Senesi. Shostakovich rarely lets one forget he started out as a pianist! Continue reading
My review of last night’s concert at Roy Thomson Hall featuring the TSO, Anna Prohaska and the Spanish ambassador is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo credit: Jae Yang
The Glenn Gould School gave the first of two performances of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at Koerner Hall on Wednesday evening. The production is directed by Allison Grant and is pretty straightforward, though quite heavily cut. The “look” is maybe Miyazaki animation (costumes by Alex Amini) with a minimalist backdrop (Kim Sue Bartnik) which is enlivened by interesting projections by Nathan Bruce and quite striking lighting by Jason Hand. There’s a sort of dumb show during the overture that the Director’s Notes imply is something to do with the opera being about a dysfunctional family (what opera family isn’t?) but the idea isn’t developed at all.
joy & asymmetry is a new recording from the Helsink Chamber Choir and their conductor Nils Schweckendiek. It consista of music by Finnish composers Kalevi Aho and Einojuhani Rautavaara, although by no means all the texts are in Finnish.
There’s some interesting music on the recording but a lot of it is relatively stately, layered, polyphony. That’s not exactly unusual for contemporary choral music and if it’s your thing there’s a lot to like her. I’ll admit though to finding much of it quite soporific.
One might be forgiven for thinking that French operetta ended with Offenbach since, outside of France anyway, nothing much gets performed. However, the tradition continued. Reynaldo Hahn, for example, produced Ciboulette in 1923. Another has now come my way. It’s an audio recording of Andrê Messager’s 1928 work Coups de roulis.
It’s set on a French battleship, the Montesquieu in the Mediterranean. Christmas leave has been cancelled to allow the visit of the High Commissioner M. Puy-Pradal on a cost saving expedition. He is accompanied by his daughter Béatrice who is his secretary. Both the ship’s captain Gerville and a young officer Kermao fall in love with Béatrice. During a party given during a courtesy visit to Egypt Puy-Pradal forms a liaison with the aspiring actress Sola Myrrhis who believes Puy-Pradal’s influence can get her into the Comédie-Française. He accompanies her on her Egyptian tour.
My review of Sunday’s Roy Thomson concert by the Vancouver Symphony is now up at Bachtrack.
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The spring production from UoT Opera is Mozart’s Così fan tutte and it’s playing at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre. Anna Theodosakios directs with some conceptual input from Michael Patrick Albano. The production is interesting and I think there are three layers to unpack. On the surface it’s a fairly straightforward 18th century setting with uniforms, wigs, elaborate dresses and so on but with a rather striking colour scheme; pinks and lilacs.
Last Wednesday’s noon hour concert in the RBA was a collaboration between the Canadian Art Song Project and the UoT Faculty of Music. It was an all Canadian programme; mostly living composers and mostly in a lighter vein; hence the title Songs of Whimsy and Humour.
There is Violence and There is Righteous Violence and There is Death or, The Born-Again Crow is perhaps the longest play title ever but the play itself, written by Caleigh Crow, is a fast moving ninety minutes. It’s a collaboration between Native Earth Performing Arts and Buddies in Bad Times and it opened on Thursday night in a production directed by Jessica Carmichael.
operaramblings 