Here’s what I’m looking forward to this month (previously mentioned gigs omitted):
The Glenn Gould School’s fall opera is on the 4th and 5th at 7.30pm in Mazzoleni Hall. This time it’s John Blow’s Venus and Adonis; “A masque for the entertainment of the King.” from 1683.
Fuoco Sacro is a film by Jan Schmidt-Garre. It’s subtitled “A Search for the Sacred Fire of Song” and was inspired by Schmidt-Garre’s passion for Italian singing of a slightly earlier era rekindled when he heard Ermonela Jaho on his car radio. This led him to explore how certain singers create something more than “just singing”. In the film he does this by following the lives of three singers; all women (he clearly doesn’t believe that men have this elusive “sacred fire”) and all very different. They are Ermonela Jaho (of course), Barbara Hannigan and Asmik Grigorian. Now these are all singers about whom I have strong opinions and that may colour my view of the film. You have been warned. What follows concentrates on what I think the film tells us about its three principals. The film does this more by show than tell with lots of performance and rehearsal footage as well as interviews.
Tapestry Briefs: Les shorts qui chantent opened last night at the Alliance Française. It’s a twist on the traditional Tapestry Briefs show. This time it’s bilingual with the twelve sketches emanating from a bilingual LibLab held in Toronto in conjunction with Opéra de Montréal and Musique Trois Femmes. The short scenes are directed by Tim Albery and make really interesting use of video projections in the very Intimate theatre at the AF.
I suppose it’s fair to say that Philippe Jaroussky is a singer who divides opinion; you either love his light bright “soprano” sound or you prefer something more muscular (Sesto vs. Cesare perhaps). He has a cult following and he knows it. That side of things was very much on display at Koerner Hall last night when he appeared with the Ensemble Artaserse in a programme of arias from18th century Italian opera. It was clear that a goodly section of the audience had travelled from out of town for the concert and knew exactly what to expect. This was exemplified by the three encores leading up to Handel’s “Lascio ch’io pianga” which the hard core fans had been shouting for and weren’t going to go home without hearing!
Less a Toronto listings summary than a quick review of things going on in various real and virtual spaces.
The Elmer Iseler Singers and their conductor Lydia Adams returned to live performance at Eglinton St. George’s United Church yesterday with a programme that included the World Premiere of Timothy Corlis’ Om Saha Nāvavatu. The first half of the programme though consisted of four shorter works. First up was Three Motets to Our Lady by Healey Willan. The piece sets three texts; two invoking the Virgin Mary and one from The Song of Songs. They are conventional but effective polyphonic settings and were very skilfully performed. I’m not a huge Willan fan (heresy I know) but I really enjoyed these.
Toronto Operetta Theatre opened a run of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at the St. Lawrence Centre last night. Guillermo Silva-Marin gives it a pretty conventional treatment with minimal scenery, “Greek” costumes and no big surprises. It’s sung in English which has pros and cons for while the dialogue is intelligible enough the comprehensibility of the sung part is a bit variable.
My review of Opera Atelier’s production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas is now up at Opera Canada.
Photo credit: Bruce Zinger
The last time I reviewed a recording of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo was ten years ago and it included Jordi Savali with La Capella Real de Catalunya and Le Concert des Nations. Oddly enough they also figure in a recording made last year at the Opéra Comique in Paris. Pauline Bayle’s production though is very different from the very HIP Liceu version.
I guess when events are just too horrible to treat any differently one makes a comedy out of them. The aftermath of the US led invasion of Iraq certainly fits that category and Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, currently being performed by Modern Times Stage Company at the Streetcar Crowsnest, is as black a comedy as you will likely ever see. It’s also very difficult to write about without major spoilers.
operaramblings 