Tuesday’s concert in the RBA was a chance to listen to some of the music that will feature in Aportia Chryptych: A Black Opera for Portia White (music by Sean Mayes, libretto by HAUI) when it premieres in the COC Theatre later this year.
Dance to the Abyss is a show of music from the Weimar Republic currently on stage at Harbourfront Centre Theatre. It’s given by Art of Time Ensemble as part of their 25th and final season.
It’s an interesting mix of instrumental and vocal music. The first piece in the programme is Erwin Schulhoff’s Hot Sonate for Sax and Piano which is a four movement, heavily jazz piece influenced, expertly played by Andrew Burashko and Wallace Halladay (I think). It’s followed by three pieces by the prolific Mischa Spoliansky. There’s the atmospheric instrumental piece Sehnsucht and two songs sung by Patricia O’Callaghan in English translation; I Am a Vamp and L’heure Bleue. The songs are pretty well known and fun and I liked O’Callaghan’s playful treatment of them. Continue reading
Tapestry’s Tap:Ex shows are experimental by design. They combine “classical” music making with something else in the hope that some interesting, and maybe even useful, ideas will emerge for future projects. This year’s show; Tap:Ex Versus in the Great Hall at OCAD, combined piano improvisation with an “art battle”. There were two shows with different pianists. At the early show Morgan-Paige played while Julie Amlin and Enrique Bravo painted.
![TAP EX Versus - Photo by Brian Medina - 89[Cropped]](https://operaramblings.blog/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/tap-ex-versus-photo-by-brian-medina-89cropped.jpg?w=584)
The COC has just announced it’s 2024/25 season. It’s a mixed bag. There are some very welcome examples of operas not seen in Toronto for a long time and a new co-commission. There’s a perhaps surprisingly earlier than expected remount of Eugene Onegin plus Madama Butterfly yet again but at least it’s a “new to Toronto” production. There are no new/new productions and no COC Theatre production though there’s one performance of a concert version of Cavalleria Rusticana at the Four Seasons Centre. It’s a bit light on star power too though there are plenty of opportunities for home grown favourites.
A scene from William Kentridge’s Wozzeck – photo: Ruth Walz
First some additional February shows
Opera
So you are Christof Loy, it’s early 2021 and your production of Fedora in Frankfurt can’t go ahead due to… you know. So what are you going to do with a set that basically consists of a lavishly decorated, multi-purposable drawing room? Loy’s answer is to create a narrative around twenty four Tchaikovsky songs and some of his piano/chamber music and stage and film it in an empty theatre.
The Valentine’s Day recital in the RBA was given by Simone McIntosh and Rachael Kerr. They served up fare appropriate to the occasion unlike in 2013 when Franz-Josef Selig gave us a Valentine recital mostly about Death! It was an interesting mix of material starting with two of the Britten folk song arrangements; “The trees they grow so high” and “The miler of Dee”. Quite a bold choice in some ways as the first one is almost, but not quite, a capella so there’s nowhere to hide. It was good. Not only was Simone’s voice accurate and expressive but she gave herself some metrical freedom. There is nothing worse than a singer singing this material as if they have a broomstick up their ass.
Kamp! – Songs and Satire from Theresienstadt is a 2016 album recorded by Amelia DeMayo, Curt Buckler & Sergei Dreznin (piano) under the auspices of the World Jewish Congress. It’s a collection of 25 more or less satirical songs written in the Theresienstadt camp/ghetto by the likes of Leo Straus and Ilse Weber. They are presented here in English translation and in a breezy cabaret style which is very apt and which I liked very much.
What Brings You In is an album of music for violin and electronics that consists mostly of work that was composed for performance as part of an art installation or a site specific performance or as therapy rather than a conventional concert hall experience. It features violinist Leslie Ting and various collaborators on percussion and live electronics. It’s one of the most “experimental” records I’ve listened to. There are five tracks and I’m going to describe each piece as best I can. Conventional music vocabulary; melody, harmony, rhythm etc isn’t much help! Continue reading
Wednesday night at the Dakota Tavern there were two Debauchery at The Dakota shows from Opera Revue and various more or less scantily clad friends. We caught the early show. It was a BDSM show (Bizet, Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Mozart… what were you thinking?). Actually this iteration probably stayed more operatic than previous Debaucheries though there were also plenty of show tune, cabaret and even comedy rock numbers plus, of course, burlesque.
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