Tag Archives: against the grain

From rape to crucifixion

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image001The season announcements keep on coming.  There will be Koerner Hall recitals for both Sondra Radvanovsky and the, hopefully fully recovered, Dmitri Hvorostovsky.  Sondra appears on December 4th with pianist Anthony Manoli in a program of operatic arias and art songs.  Dmitri is scheduled for Sunday 21st February next year with Ivari Ilya at the piano. Tickets in the usual Koerner Hall places.

The dates have been now been announced for MY Opera’s production of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.  It’s scheduled for April 29th to May 1st next year in the Aki Studio at the Daniels Spectrum in Regent’s Park.

atgmAnd, finally, Against the Grain Theatre are remounting their choreographed Messiah.  It was a blast the first time round, especially Geoff Sirett’s sheep impersonation.  This time it’s being staged at Harbourfront Centre Theatre on Dec. 16th, 17th and 18th at 8pm and Dec. 19th at 2pm. The solists will be Miriam Khalil, Andrea Ludwig, Owen McCausland and Stephen Hegedus.  Joel Ivany directs with choreography by Jenn Nicholls.  This time there will be an 18 piece orchestra and 16 member choir with Topher Mokrzewski conducting.  Tickets here.  This will probably sell out fairly quickly.

Eros and Thanatos

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Against the Grain’s Death/Desire opened last night at the Neubacher Shor Contemporary Gallery.  It’s structured around Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin cycle with the songs of Messiaen’s Harawi: Chants d’amour et de mort interpolated, though not in the usual order.  Thus there are two characters; The Man, singing the Schubert; who is very much the conventional questing lover of 19th century poetry, and The Woman, singing the Messiaen (mostly) who is something very different from the young girl of Wilhelm Müller’s texts.  The piece is staged with both characters on stage most of the time and interacting in ways that reflect the music and don’t.

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It’s that time of year

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atg_dandd_webposter_revisedIt’s that time of year when the musical calendar kind of grinds almost to a halt in Toronto.  Looking ahead to June there’s not a whole lot on offer, at least in the opera/choral/artsong departments.  The big event is Against the Grain’s Death and Desire show, of which I saw the first half previewed in the RBA.  It’s on at the Neubacher Shor Gallery (Queen and Dufferin) on June 2nd to 5th at 8pm.  Tickets are going fast so if you plan to go, head here soon. There’s a Mahler 2nd (Resurrection) Symphony at the TSO on June 10th (8pm) and 12th(7.30pm).  Erin Wall, Susan Platts and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir will join the orchestra with Peter Oudjian conducting. Then it’s Luminato.  The big deal for opera fans here is R. Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis.  David Fallis will direct what sounds like a Cecil B. DeMille scale extravaganza.  It’s at the Sony Centre on June 26th and 27th (8pm) and the 28th (2pm).  At your own risk…

Doundou tchil

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Today’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was a preview of Against the Grain’s upcoming show Death and Desire.  It’s a staged mash up of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin and Messiaen’s Harawi: Chant d’amour et de mort; a settong of texts, rather weird ones at that, by the composer.  As director Joel Ivany said, mixing Messiaen and Schubert might seem “a bit bizarre” but these two texts seem to work together remarkably well and the juxtaposition seems almost inspired.  I’m glad too that the original intention of performing the two pieces back-to-back has been replaced by a mash up.  Today we got to see and hear the first half of the show.

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Building the audience for indie opera

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Building_Blog_AudienceOpera America recently awarded a series of grants to opera companies for audience development.  Most of these grants went to mainstream opera companies; usually “the big guy in town”.  $35000 though went to Toronto’s Tapestry Opera.  Yesterday I met with artistic director Michael Mori to find out what it was all about.

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Best of 2014

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Well not so much “best of” as the good stuff that really made my year.  It was a pretty good year overall.  On the opera front there was much to like from the COC as well as notable contributions from the many smaller ensembles and opera programs.  The one that will stick longest with me was Peter Sellars’ searing staging of Handel’s Hercules at the COC.  It wasn’t a popular favourite and (predictably) upset the traditionalists but it was real theatre and proof that 250 year old works can seem frighteningly modern and relevant.  Two other COC productions featured notable bass-baritone COC debuts and really rather good looking casts.  Atom Egoyan’s slightly disturbing Cosí fan tutte not only brought Tom Allen to town but featured a gorgeous set of lovers, with Wallis Giunta and Layla Claire almost identical twins, as well as a welcome return for Tracy Dahl.  Later in the year Gerry Finley made his company debut in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff in an incredibly detailed Robert Carsen production.  I saw it three times and I’m still pretty sure I missed stuff.

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Uncle John

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Against the Grain Theatre opened their new show last night on the worst day of the winter so far.  Over 15cm of snow fell and the TTC was in utter chaos.  It’s becoming a habit.  Last year’s Messiah opened in weather almost as bad.  Uncle John is the latest modern, Toronto based, adaptation of the Mozart/da Ponte trilogy.  It follows on from last season’s smash hit Figaro’s Wedding and was created and produced with support from the COC and the Banff Centre.  It will be followed by A Little Too Cosy next season.  The formula is basically the same.  It;s ataged in a non traditional spave; in this case a rock concert venue on Queen West.  The libretto is in English and differs in detail from da Ponte while respecting the basic spirit of the original.  It’s also very Toronto and a little bit Toronto opera scene insiderish.  Much of the recitative is replaced by spoken dialogue.  There’s no chorus and accompaniment to the singers is provided by piano and string quartet.  It’s a musical solution I like.  It adds enough weight and colour that one hardly misses the full orchestra while being, of course, much more affordable.  It all works really well and if you can you should see it.  I’m putting my more detailed thoughts under the cut because they contain lots of spoilers which you may not want to read if you are going.

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Upcoming shows

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Toronto Operetta Theatre have announced casting for their production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado which runs December 27, 28 (mat), 31 (New Year’s Eve Gala), 2014 and January 2, 3, 4, (mat), 2015 t the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts. Evening performances start at 8 pm and matinees at 2pm. The cast is headed up by Lucia Cesaroni as Yum Yum; which is kind of the effect she has on a lot of people, including Adrian Kramer who will sing Nanky Poo.  Joseph Angelo takes the role of KoKo, the beleaguered Lord High Executioner and David Ludwig takes on Poo Bah, the Lord High Everything Else. Mia Lennox will be Katisha, the Daughter in Law Elect of the Mikado of Japan who will be sung by Giles Tomkins.  Also featured are Greg Finney and Domenico Sanfilippo as Pish Tush, Brittany King as Pitti Sing and Daria Bukhman and Kaili Kinnon as Peep Bo.  Derek Bates conducts and Guillermo Silva-Martin directs.  For tickets and information call the Box Office at 416-366-7723 or 1-800-708-6754 or online at http://www.stlc.com.

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That elusive new audience

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tumblr_m6l1rgQ65g1ra9bpvo7_1280The other night I was chatting to some folks at a performance by Loose TEA Theatre and a comment was made to the effect that it was companies like Loose TEA and Against the Grain who were creating the future audience for opera.  I didn’t think about it much of the time but it turned into a sort of brainworm that wouldn’t go away.  I don’t think the idea was that somehow innovative “pop up” type companies would replace the likes of the COC; at least not this side of nuclear war or total economic collapse (neither of which seems impossible it has to be said).  So the hypothesis has to be that this sort of endeavour makes a significant contribution to replacing the aging “big house” audience.  As I began to mull that over and further stimulated by yet another fact free piece in The Guardian on “opera snobs” (courtesy of Schmopera) I started to develop a number of lines of enquiry that aren’t exactly tangential to the original hypothesis but rather seem more like a set of eigenvectors defining the problem space.  Which is a mathematician’s way of saying that what follows is kind of all over the place.

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