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.
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 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.
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 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? 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; 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.
So what’s coming up in July? Let’s look first at a few late June shows I haven’t mentioned before.
Looking for some thing suitable to do on National Indigenous Peoples Day (June 21st) that has a classical music twist? Soprano Deantha Edmunds is performing in the Music Garden at Harbourfront at 7pm. I spoke to Deantha at her home in Newfoundland yesterday to find out what we might expect.
It’s a bit of a thing with me. I tend to prefer staged versions of the Handel English language oratorios to the Italian operas. I know it’s a view I share with quite a few singers, including Ryan McDonald and Anna Sharpe with whom I was chatting about it on the weekend. But, it would seem, this opinion is not shared by opera house managements (not to be confused with audiences!). Continue reading
operaramblings 