Stacie Dunlop’s film of Claude Vivier’s Lonely Child, which I reviewed here, is now available on Youtube for free.
Lonely Child on Youtube
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Solti’s Siegfried
The remastered SACD release of Siegfried from the Solti Ring cycle is now out. There’s only so much I can add to my reviews of Die Walküre and of the sampler disk of the whole cycle. Overall observations about the technical side of the record remain valid and the Vienna Philharmonic is again fabulous. The packaging is as with Die Walküre… luxurious.
The singing is also very fine and I didn’t have any reservations about anyone sounding “dated”. Hotter and Nilsson are again fantastic and Wolfgang Windgassen’s Siegfried combines beauty and power in full measure. Gustav Neidlinger and Kurt Böhme are back as Alberich and Fafner to good effect. Gerhard Stolze is effective (and not too affected) as Mime and there’s the famous cameo as the Woodbird by Joan Sutherland. Solti’s conducting is once again thrilling. He’s not afraid to take things at pace but can also be intensely dramatic and lyrical; sometimes at the same time. Culshaw’s “soundstage” effects come off really well, especially in the Fafner’s lair scene. This is another impressive instalment in an impressive project.
The version I listened to is the the four SACD disk release. It’s also available (for roughly the price of a Nibelung’s horde) as five vinyl LPs or much, much cheaper digitally in formats ranging from MP3 to 192kHz/24 bit FLAC which I suspect will be very good but not quite up to SACD quality.
Catalogue number: Decca 4853161
Opera by Request do Rossini’s Otello
Rossini’s Otello is an interesting piece with a completely different plot to the Shakespeare/Verdi version. It’s entirely set in Venice for a start. For more details on the plot and the not insignificant casting demands you might find the first few paragraphs of my review of a 2012 recording from Zurich helpful.
They are at it again…
Opera Revue is at it again. This time they give us a takedown of Doug Fraud’s plans for Ontario Place. Something to Chow down on?
And a reminder… they have a show at Granite Brewery on Sunday at 5pm
Soundstreams 2023/24
Soundstreams has announced the line up for the 2023/24 season. First up, and very exciting, is The Bright Divide, which will play Nov 10th and 11th at the TD Music Hall (the new performance space at Massey Hall). It’s a staged show, directed by Tim Albery and featuring two works inspired by the work of Mark Rothko. There’s Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel for viola, timpani and choir and a new work by Cecilia Livingston; mark for viola and voice.
Electric Messiah is back. This time it’s at Theatre Passe Muraille from December 14th to 17th. Adam Scime is in charge again for the Messiah where you don’t know what to expect.
Deantha Edmunds in the Music Garden
It was National Indigenous People’s Day so what better way to celebrate/commemorate than go listen to an Indigenous artist perform in the music garden ; where the trees almost stand in the water.
We got an hour of music from Inuk soprano Deantha Edmunds; mostly from her CD Connections. These songs are reflections; some in English, some in Inuktitut, on aspects of life as an Indigenous person in contemporary society and sit somewhere between art song and singer/songwriter territory. Subject matter ranges from traditional Indigenous children’s games , to the Northern landscape, to the spirits of Rain and Thunder and, inevitably and very, very sadly to Residential Schools and Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Two Spirited People. They are varied, skilful and heartfelt. Continue reading
Acis et Galatée
Acis et Galatée was Lully’s last completed opera. Like pretty much all of his work it displays in abundance the qualities that Voltaire claimed made Racine and Corneille superior to Shakespeare. How you feel about that will probably affect how you feel about Acis et Galatée, which is an elegant and classically correct retelling of Ovid’s tale of a nymph who loves a shepherd and the Cyclops who spoils the fun. It has an allegorical prologue too, which celebrates the glories of Louis XIV (natch). It also has lots of dance numbers.
Just another Saturday in Toronto…
Just another Saturday in Toronto? Not really. I was at two shows/events a few blocks apart; one in the morning, one in the evening, and the experiences were very different. In the morning I was at Roy Thomson Hall for a “conducting masterclass” under the auspices of the Women in Musical Leadership programme. I don’t think such events are at all common and it was certainly a first for me. The set up was that four young women conductors (Maria Fuller, Jennifer Tung, Naomi Woo and Juliane Gallant) got to rehearse the TSO in standard repertoire with principal conductor Gustavo Gimeno providing feedback and suggestions. Two of the ladies worked on Brahms’ First Symphony and the other two on Tchaikovsky’s Fifth. Continue reading
Dragon’s Tale
Dragon’s Tale; music by Chan Ka Nin, text by Mark Brownell, premiered at Harbourfront last night. It’s a rather clever mash up of two stories which, taken together, address how we face the future without abandoning the past or, alternatively, getting stuck in it. The first story concerns a young Chinese Canadian woman in Toronto, Xiao Lian, whose widowed father is dying. She is torn between her desire to “get a life” and his obsessive insistence that the “old ways”, meaning essentially here looking after him, come first.
July 2023
So what’s coming up in July? Let’s look first at a few late June shows I haven’t mentioned before.
- This Saturday (17th) there’s a MAKEWAY Showcase Concert at St. George by the Grange. It’s basically workshops of WIP including Rebecca Grey’s Bus Opera. Tickets by donation.
- The following Saturday, Opera by Request are presenting a concert version of Rossini’s Rarely seen Otello at College Street United Church.
- June 22nd, 24th and 25th Toronto City Opera have a run of Die Fledermaus at the Fleck Dance Theatre.
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