My review of Voicebox:Opera in Concert’s production of Puccini’s La Rondine at the weekend is now up at Opera Canada.
La Rondine from Voicebox:Opera in Concert
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with you and without you
Every year Soundstreams has a competition to find a young artist to curate a main stage concert. This year’s lucky winner is Brad Cherwin, who will need little introduction to readers of this blog, and the concert took place at the Jane Mallett Theatre on Saturday night.
It was, in many ways, a typical Cherwin programme. Some works were played in their entirety while others had their individual movements spread through the programme. The overall theme was “Love and Death” and the programme was divided into four cycles with somewhat enigmatic titles. Twelve instrumentalists, plus soprano Danika Lorèn and conductor Gregory Oh were used in various combinations.
Tapestry officially opens 877 Yonge Street
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.
Homage to Shostakovich
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
Mahler and more at the TSO
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
Minimalist Magic Flute with a Japanese twist
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
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.
Coups de roulis
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.
Curiously low key Brahms and Shostakovich from the VSO
My review of Sunday’s Roy Thomson concert by the Vancouver Symphony is now up at Bachtrack.
@bachtrack
UoT Opera’s Così
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.
