My review of Montreal based Paramirabo’s CD of contemporary chamber music; Voix jetées, is now on-line at La Scena Musicale.
Catalogue information: ATMA Classiques 2887
Voix jetées
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Civilized
The Toronto Fringe Next Stage festival opened on Wednesday evening at Buddies in Bad Times with Keir Cutler’s Civilized. It’s a one man tour de force in which John Huston plays a senior bureaucrat from Indian Affairs during the Laurier government who has returned from the dead to explain to contemporary Canadians why the Residential School System was entirely necessary and a Very Good Thing.
Amor con Fortuna
Tuesday evening the Diapente Renaissance Vocal Quintet gave a concert at Heliconian Hall of 16th century music from Spain (so music in the reign of Philip II for any Braudel fans out there). It was surprisingly varied. This was the age of the Italian madrigal so tha’s a big influence but with a definite Spanish twist. Quite a few different composers and two principal genre; the villancico (which lives on in modern Christmas carols) and the ensalada; which is generally about catastrophe (brought about by sin of course) where everything turns out OK because the Virgin Mary shows up. A lot of the music was unaccompanied but some pieces were accompanied by either guitar or vihuela (a kind of lute). It was pretty varied with some pieces having significant solos for one or more singers, some having quite complex polyphony and others more strophic, almost folk song like, structures. Plenty enough variety to sustain about 80 minutes of music.
News and stuff
Roiyce Vavrek. Photo by Ser Amantio di Nicolao
Today’s big news is that Against the Grain Theatre have announced the appointment of a new Artistic Director and it’s Royce Vavrek. He’s probably best known to opera audiences as a librettist. He has written the libretti for 23 operas including a bunch with Missy Mazzoli of which perhaps my favourite is Proving Up, done in Calgary recently by Ammolite Opera. He’s also the writer for Ian Cusson’s Indians on Vacation and Luna Pearl Woolf’s Jacqueline which features in Tapestry’s recently announced season and is just out on CD. So not dead yet then!
And talking of Tapestry, they announced their season today. With the new space at 877 Yonge almost ready they have emerged from semi-hibernation. As implied above the first show is Luna pearl Woolf’s Jacqueline in The Betty Oliphant Theatre in February . I’m assuming it’s essentially the same show as five years ago (see Opera Canada Summer 2020). There’s also a venue launch concert for the new home on March 22nd. The first Tapestry show at the new venue will be Sanctuary Song; music by Abigail Richardson, libretto by Marjorie Chan, which, apparently, is about an elephant. Which may be an operatic first. Continue reading
A rather different Opera Revue show
Opera Revue teamed up with Opera Atelier for a show called Trills, Chills and Thrills at the Redwood Theatre on Sunday evening. The usual gang of Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek and Claire Harris were joined by tenor Ben Done and mezzo Kathryn Rose Johnston for a programme of opera arias and musical theatre numbers that (sort of) turned the plot of Handel’s Acis and Galatea (OA’s upcoming show) into a murder mystery.
There was music on spooky themes by Britten (Turn of the Screw), Schubert, Handel (of course), Corigliano (Ghosts of Versailles), Lloyd Webber (Phantom, natch), Verdi and more. It was glued together by a narrative in which the mermaid/nymph Galatea is murdered and despite being turned into sushi her ghost returns to wreak its revenge. And there was one of the dances from Acis and Galatea (Julia Sedwick and Eric da Silva). Continue reading
UoT Opera in the RBA
On Wednesday it was UoT Opera’s turn in the RBA. Pretty much the whole graduate programme appeared in a series of duets, trios and larger ensemble numbers staged by Mabel Wonnacott. The theme was “love” (well it had to be that or “death”.. this is opera). It was a French and German programme so there was fairly mainstream stuff like the Antonia/Hoffmann duet from Les contes d’Hoffmann and “Hab mir’s gelobt” from Der Rosenkavalier but also rarer material like “Doute de la lumière” from Thomas’ Hamlet.
The COC’s new Faust is a winner
The Canadian Opera Company’s new production of Gounod’s Faust, which opened on Friday at the Four Seasons Centre, is the first main stage show created at the COC since Joel Ivany’s Hänsel und Gretel in 2020. It’s worth the wait!
Where Waters Meet
My review of the CD Where Waters Meet, by Sherryl Sewepagaham and the Canadfian Chamber Choir, is now available at La Scena Musicale. It contains works by Carmen Braden and Sherryl Sewepagaham mostly about our relationship to water and its criticality to life.
Great singing, dull production
My review of the COC’s season opener; Verdi’s Nabucco, is now up at @bachtrack
Photo credit: Michael Cooper
13 Plays About ADHD… All At The Same Time
13 Plays About ADHD… All At The Same Time by Alec Toller (mostly) is a show that is currently running at the tiny Assembly Theatre in the heart of Little Tibet so if you get bored there are momos a’plenty to be had. Unsurprisingly the show is about ADHD. Hosts Sharjil Rasool and Danny Pagett (who predictably arrives late) attempt to take us through a seminar about ADHD, how to diagnose yourself how to recover from it (if you have it).
operaramblings 