Sundry season announcements

Posted on October 4, 2023 by operaramblings

Some organisations hold off on their season announcements later than others! Two came in today.

Tapestry Opera announced a season that includes:

A remount of Rocking Horse Winner at Crow’s Theatre from November 1st to 12th 2023.
Songbook XIII at the Redwood Theatre on March 28th 2024. It’s a lovely, restored theatre with a really good beer selection. There will be music too. Keith Klassen and Naomi Woo headline.
Juliane Gallant hosts Le Kitchen Party; a celebration of Acadian music and culture and, it says, food. That’s me in then. It’s on May 21st 2024 ant TBD.
And the following night Jenn Tung hosts Iron Chef d’Orchestre also at TBD. Also involves food. I scents a theme here.

Roméo et Juliette at the Liceu

Posted on October 3, 2023 by operaramblings

I’m actually not sure where to start with Stephen Lawless’ production of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette recorded at the Liceu in 2018. The production is a bit weird but then so is the libretto. It follows the basic plot of Shakespeare’s play but weakens it dramatically in all the wrong places which appears to be why Lawless made some of his, to my mind, less felicitous decisions.

1.ball

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Topdog/Underdog

Posted on October 2, 2023 by operaramblings

Topdog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks, which is currently running at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre has garnered impressive accolades since its 2001 New York debut. It’s won a Pulitzer and been named, in 2018, as “the greatest American play of the last 25 years” by the New York Times. It’s well written, dramatically well crafted and often very funny but, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t deeply engaged by it.

Mazin Elsadig and Sébastein Heins in TopdogUnderdog-photobyDahliaKatz-5695

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We’re Late!

Posted on October 1, 2023 by operaramblings

werelate The Happenstancers latest concert We’re Late! happenstanced on Saturday evening at Redeemer Lutheran. It was a typical Happenstancers sort of event with chamber music works for various forces split up into their movements with the components then rearranged to make an interesting line up.

Lukas Foss’ Time Cycle provided the opening piece which also provided the title for the concert as a whole. It’s a setting of Auden for soprano and chamber ensemble and begins “Clocks cannot tell our time of day”. Which was pretty much the theme for the evening. This was followed by Toshi Ichiyangi’s Music for Electric Metronomes which had the whole ensemble banging things rhythmically and making stylsed gestures. Then came the first of three parts of rather a good musical joke; John Cage’s 4’33” arranged into three movements for different forces. which as might be expected cropped up at intervals during the show. For the record the movements were scored for piano and percussion, conductor and oboe and percussion.

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High musical values in the COC’s Fidelio

Posted on September 30, 2023 by operaramblings

The COC opened its 2023/24 season on Friday night with Matthew Ozawa’s production of Beethoven’s 1805 attack on corruption and tyranny; Fidelio. Ozawa gives it a contemporary American setting with all the action playing out on a sort of multi-level rotating cage. It’s pretty effective and efficient in allowing scenes to succeed each other quite seamlessly.

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OK, it’s official

Posted on September 29, 2023 by operaramblings

I’ve known for ages that Ian Cusson was working on an opera for the COC main stage and that it was a bout a Métis werewolf legend. It’s the sort of thing that gets me howling at a full moon. Anyway it’s all now official and talkaboutable. It’s called Empire of the Wild and the libretto is by Cherie Dimaline based ion her 2019 novel of the same name. It’s a co-commission of the COC and the NAC in Ottawa and there’s no date given for the premiere yet. (And yes I do have a bit of “I’ll believe it when I see it” given that COC commissions seem to disappear mysteriously often enough to provide the plot for a werewolf novel). I think it’s a great subject for an opera and Ian’s record of writing for vopice and the opera stage is good so, yeah, I really want to see this. So keep your fingers crossed it actually happens! All the details are in the press release which is here.

cussondimaline

UoT Opera in the RBA

Posted on September 29, 2023 by operaramblings

UoT Opera presented a show of mostly Mozart arias/scenes in a semi staged fashion directed by Mabel Wonnacott in the RBA on Wednesday. Although each scene was credited in the programme the parts weren’t specified and since I don’t know this new group of students I’m only gong to name names where I’m sure!

COC 9.27.23-23

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work.txt

Posted on September 28, 2023 by operaramblings

work.txt by Nathan Ellis is an interactive, participatory theatre piece that explores work. art and the end of the world. There are no actors, except for the audience and whoever is pushing the buttons that move things along. There’s a computer screen. It instructs the audience what to do, what to say, what to sing. It asks for volunteers. But the volunteers don’t know whether they will be given a task that lasts seconds or whether they will play a major role in the unfolding drama. One volunteer becomes the principal protagonist of the show. They alone have a name. But I’m jumping ahead. First we must create the city where millions go to places called “workplaces” to do stuff called “work”. We do this with Jenga blocks. It’s fun and looks cool. But back to our protagonist.

building

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Mon amant de Saint-Jean

Posted on September 27, 2023 by operaramblings

monamourdesaint-jean This is a really interesting and unusual album. French mezzo-soprano Stéphanie d’Oustrac teams up with a small baroque ensemble, Le Poème Harmonique (accordion, theorbo, strings, bassoon/flute) led by Vincent Dumestre to present a selection of music that ranges from traditional songs through 17th century opera/oratorio arias to cabaret music and modern chansons.

The music is grouped into Three “life stages”; Jeunesse, Les vieux airs and Les amours passée; a sort of lifetime of music. I was really excited after the first four numbers because they were touching a whole bunch of things I really love; jazzy cabaret on played freely on baroque instruments, traditional music sounding a bit like a band like Malicorne, a freedom of vocal expression etc. It did quieten down a bit after that with arias by Cavalli and Monteverdi sung in a properly period appropriate way but also other music freely interpreted by all the musicians. It finishes up in a fun way too. There’s a very silly song; Les canards Tyroliens, which features yodelling and coloratura ducks. Then there’s a tango and a plangent rendering of the title track.

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Der Wald

Posted on September 26, 2023 by operaramblings

RES10324 Smyth Der Wald cover Dame Ethel Smyth’s one act opera Der Wald is certainly of some historical interest. It was the first opera by a woman given at the Metropolitan Opera. That was in 1903 and 113 years would pass before the Met did another one; Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de loin in 2016.

It’s about an hour log and in English (sort of). Musically it’s pretty good but the libretto is rather awful. The plot concerns a forester and his fiancée, a deer hidden in a well (and anyone who has seen Tosca knows what a good idea that is!), a vengeful aristocrat who happens to be the mistress of the local lord and a peddler. In a nut shell, the hero Heinrich chooses to be executed for poaching rather than “serve” the lady Iolanthe. I suppose that’s no dafter than a lot of opera plots but throw in a sort of archaic English that makes the libretto sound like it was written by a drunk Pre-Raphaelite and ’tis pity ’tis so twee. Continue reading →