Tag Archives: against the grain

May 2023

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wordcloudmay23Things happening next month…

But first this month… on April 27th to 29th male soprano Samuel Mariño is appearing with
Tafelmusik in a programme titled Higher Love: Virtuoso Arias.  Details here.

Crow’s Theatre has a couple of shows.  True Crime opens on the 2nd.  It’s a short run.  Preview on the 1st then closes on the 7th.  It’s basically a one man, semi-improvised show about an imprisoned con man.  The Chinese Lady, which runs 5th to 21st (previews 2nd to 4th) in the smaller Studio Theatre tells the story of the first Chinese woman in the USA.  Written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Marjorie Chan it should be interesting.  There’s also Boom X.  Rick Miller plays over a hundred characters to narrate events from 1969 t0 1995.  It runs from the 10th to the 28th.  More details at crowstheatre.com.

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Bluebeard’s Castle

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Against the Grain Theatre’s presentation of Theatre of Sound’s production of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle opened last night at the Fleck Dance Theatre.  It’s in English translation (by director Daisy Evans) with chamber ensemble and it reimagines the piece as the story of an elderly man caring for a wife who has dementia.  What’s extraordinary is that the libretto works extremely smoothly with no changes.  The rooms in Bluebeard’s castle are replaced by a trunk with objects that evoke memories from the couple’s long life together.  The “torture” of uncertain first love, military service, marriage, children etc.  In each scene a silent, younger, Judith (there are three of them representing different ages and life stages)  appears until at the end all three are on stage looking at themselves in mirrors.  It’s very beautiful and very moving.

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Introducing Bluebeard

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Tuesday’s lunch time concert in the RBA featured some of the people involved in Against the Grain Theatre’s new, updated version of Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle which opens next week at the Fleck Dance Theatre.  There was an excellent descripttion of what the project was all about from Gerald Finley (Bluebeard) and Stephen Higgins (conductor and arranger – the orchestration is reduced to a seven person chamber ensemble).

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More March events

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march2023suppHere are a few more events not listed in my previous March post.

On Saturday 18th the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir have a concert at 7.30pm at Church of the Holy Trinity featuring David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion and a new work by Shireen Abu-Khader; Diaries of the Forgotten.

Theatre Smith-Gilmour are presenting Metamorphoses 2023 at Crow’s Theatre.  It’s a contemporary take on Ovid that combines mime, illusion, spoken word, silence and Bharatanatyam dance.  Previews are on the 21st through 23rd with the run proper from the 24th to April 9th.

Against the Grain’s reworking Of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle with Gerald Finley in the title role plays at the Fleck Dance Theatre on March 29th and 31st at 7.30pm with a matinee on April 1st.  The new English language libretto is by Daisy Evans who also directs,  Stephen Higgins conducts.

March 2023

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march2023Here’s a look ahead to March.

March 3rd and 5th, Opera York are presenting Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts.  Details are here.  Also on the 5th at 1pm Opera Revue are playing a new venue; The Aviary in the Canary District.  (They are playing another new venue, Granite Brewery, on the 12th.  Opera Revue your source for craft beer!)  And the following night at 7.30pm it’s AtG’s Opera Pub at the Drake at 7.30pm.

From the 9th to the 12th it’s UoT Opera’s spring offering at the MacMillan Theatre.  This year it’s Arthur (not George) Benjamin’s A Tale of Two Cities.  Benjamin is probably the only opera composer to be shot down by Hermann Göring.  I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about his music.

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Miscellany

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Less a Toronto listings summary than a quick review of things going on in various real and virtual spaces.

  • On November 6th my good friends at Opera Revue have a “gala”; Ruckus! at the Revival.  Besides the usual suspects there are several guests and I believe it starts at 6.30pm not 7.30 like the poster says.  There’s a very short and very silly trailer here.

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Bits and Pieces

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or1221The annus horribilis of 2021 seems to be going out with a whimper rather than a bang; at least musically in Toronto.  Much of the streamed content on offer consists of repeats which is, I suppose, a holiday tradition.  In this category we could include Against the Grain’s Messiah:Complex showing on Youtube and at TIFF and Essential Opera’s December.  There’s still some new stuff appearing.  Opera Revue have a rather good short piece about the exorbitant cost of aviaries in Toronto on Youtube.  (They also have a live show coming up this weekend at the Emmett Ray.  The COC have a show I(n Winter coming up this weekend on the COC web site featuring music by, among others, Vivaldi and Ian Cusson.  There are also a couple of very short concerts from the RBA on the COC’s Youtube channel.  Also, this year the annual Krehm memorial concert in aid of St. Mike’s ICU is on Youtube at 5.30pm on Boxing Day.  Rachel Krehm is singing Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen in the Schoenberg arrangement and that will be followed by a chamber reduction of Beethovens Symphony No.7.  Evan Mitchell conducts the Canzona Chamber Players.  For live, Tafelmusik have a sort of Christmas “greatest hits” concert and the TSO have a much shortened Messiah.  Apart from that the holiday season is looking like booze and booster shots.

Requiem for a pandemic

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The COC/AtG film of Mozart’s Requiem is now available for viewing. It’s free but requires either registration with AtG or a (free) COC digital membership.  Directed by Joel Ivany, it’s essentially cast as a reflection on what we lost during the pandemic and as a statement of hope as, maybe, we reach the end.

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Looking to November

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Norway-NovemberAs the rest of the world moves to live in-person performance Toronto is still mostly stuck in Covidland.  My calendar for the month currently has two in-person shows (both courtesy of the RCM) and three streams.  So:

November 6th at 7.30pm in Mazzoleni Hall. The GGS Opera programme is presenting Ana Sokolovic’s Svadba.  It seems hard to believe that the premiere was over ten years ago!

November 27th at 8pm in Koerner Hall.  Stewart Goodyear, soloists, the Penderecki Quartet and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir present the premiere of Goodyear’s Piano Quintet plus Beethoven’s 9th symphony in piano reduction.  This one is also livestreamed.

And so to streams:

November 19th at 8pm.  Soundstreams presents Love Songs; a 45 minute programme of music by Claude Vivier and Christopher Mayo. (ticketed)

November 25th at 7.30 pm (and the following three days).  UoT Opera is performing Rossini’s The Barber of Seville. (free)

November 26th at 7.30pm.  The COC and Against the Grain are collaborating on a staged Mozart Requiem.  (free)