Today’s noon hour concert at Metropolitan United Church featured soprano McKenzie Warriner and pianist Christine Bae. Ellita Gagner was also scheduled to sing but, unfortunately, she was not able to do so due to illness. So we got a hastily reorganised programme.
The 2025 edition of the 21C festival of contemporary music at the Royal Conservatory of Music basically runs from January 18th to 25th next year with an outlier in May. As usual it’s heavy on premières; World, North American and Canadian and there’s an intriguing mix of genres.
The Redwood Theatre was packed on a wet Sunday evening for the latest gala from Opera Revue. This time the theme was circus with guests Kalen Davidson juggling and setting things on fire, Haley Shannon on aerial silks, Ambur Braid doing Ambur things and Walter Bowen Braid jumping through hoops. The usual gang; Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek and Claire Elise-Harris were of course also clowning it.
Horizon is a choral work in seven movements by Croatian composer Dalibor Bukvić. Scored for (mostly) unaccompanied female voices, it’s meant to evoke the ambiance of the prehistoric Vučedol culture, which flourished between 3000 and 2200 B.C. in what is now (mostly) Croatia which could stand in this context for the ritual side of any pre-literate culture.
There is text; Croatian (I think) and Latin, whispered, declaimed and sung but there’s more vocalise and some recorded bird song plus, on a couple of tracks quite sparse and sometimes atonal piano accompaniment. It does evoke a sense of ritual, mystery and connection to Nature and it’s enjoyable to listen to.
My review of The Mata Hari Songbook by John Burge and Craig Walker, performed by the composer and Patricia O’Callaghan, is now available at La Scena Musicale.
Catalogue information: Centrediscs CMCCD 34424
My review of Palazetto Bru-Zane’s new video recording of Bizet’s Carmen aimed at recreating the original staging of 1875 is now available at La Scena Musicale.
Catalogue information: Bru-Zane BZ3001
Samuel D. Hunter’s play The Case for the Existence of God, in a production directed by Ted Dykstra, opened at Coal Mine Theatre on Thursday night. It’s a story about the somewhat unlikely friendship between two would be single fathers in a small town in Idaho. It’s mostly pretty sad but with some really funny moments. We can come back to the God thing.
My review of John Adams conducting the TSO on Wednesday evening is now up at Bachtrack.
Photo: Alan Cabral
Walter Sutcliffe’s staging of Handel’s Brockes Passion, recorded at the Halle Festival in 2023, would be disturbing under any circumstances. Watching it during and just after the US elections borders on the unbearable.
A New Philosophy of Opera is a recent book by opera and theatre director Yuval Sharon. It deals with that thorny question “How do we revitalise opera?”. It contains a lengthy critique of the current opera world; repertory, performance practice, business model, and some pretty radical suggestions for ways forward. It’s focussed on the US but I think it’s pretty relevant to Canada too. It’s also worth pointing out upfront that Sharon’s way forward is not at all based on the German model. He’s actually quite critical of it as being almost as ritualistic, lifeless and elitist as the US model.
So let’s look at his critique of current practice. It can be summed up by the three adjectives in the previous sentence. So, inter alia: Continue reading
