This Feels Like the End

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Bonnie Duff’s This Feels Like the End premiered at Buddies in Bad Times on Thursday evening, directed by Michelle Blight, as part of Next Stage.  I caught the second performance on Saturday afternoon.  The premise is that the sun has failed to rise so the entire world is deprived of natural light and nobody can explain it.  It’s even more inexplicable in that there isn’t a drastic drop in temperature, plants still grow and the moon is visible but let’s not get hung up on the physics.  The play is about the different ways humans react to such a phenomenon.

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Civilized

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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.

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Amor con Fortuna

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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.

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News and stuff

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Royce_Vavrek_at_the_Kennedy_Center,_2018

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

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82448A99-7CBC-4566-B525-35743D468953-1Opera 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

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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.

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