Tag Archives: allison

An Ode to James Bowman

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bowman4Iconic British countertenor James Bowman passed away last March.  On Sunday night at Trinity-St. Pauls the Early Music folks at UoT presented a tribute to the man and his career.  It was very well done.  Music associated with Bowman; mostly Purcell and Britten, was interspersed with video and personal recollections/testimonials that fully reflected the considerable influence Bowman had on the English music scene and on the more widespread acceptance of the countertenor voice in the classical music world generally. Continue reading →

Der Schatzgräber

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Franz Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber premiered in Frankfurt in 1920.  It was his last and most successful opera but it disappeared from the repertory under the Nazis and performances have been rare since WW2.  Christof Loy directed it for Deutsche Oper Berlin in a new production in 2022, marking the 100th anniversary of the first performance in Berlin.  It was also a continuation of Loy’s project of bringing less well known opera with “strong female characters” to DOB, following his production of Korngold’s Das Wunder der Heliane and Zandonai’s Francesca di Rimini.

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DOB Ring – Das Rheingold

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So here we go with the “preliminary evening” of the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s new production of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen directed by Stefan Herheim.  Das Rheingold opens before the music starts with a crowd of scruffily dressed people with suitcases; presumably refugees, filling a stage which is empty except for a grand piano.  One of them starts to put on clown make up.  We will soon see that this is Alberich.  Another “refugee” sits at the piano and conjures up the first notes of the prelude from the pit.  It takes a bit longer for us to realise that this is Wotan.

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COC Season Reveal 2020/21

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My predictions were rubbish but we’ll come back to that.  There are two new productions in the upcoming season; Parsifal, which had already been announced and Janáček’s Káťa Kabanová  in a David Alden production with Amanda Majeski in the title role.  This is great.  It’s been far too long since Janáček featured at the COC.

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Barber revived

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Catalan collective Els Comediants’ production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville is back at the COC in a revival of the 2015 production.  Five years ago I described it as a “glorious romp” and, based on yesterday’s performance, I see non need to amend that judgement.  It may be even better this time.  It still has Joan Guillén’s wonderfully colourful and silly costumes and sets and it still has Joan Font’s inspired directing; perhaps even crisper this time.  Once again it has a wonderful cast of international and Canadian singers including a reprise of Bartolo by the admirable Renato Girolami.

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Fairytales and Lullabyes

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Yesterday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was the last for the year in the vocal series and featured members of the Ensemble Studio.  Rachael Kerr was scheduled to do about half the accompanying but illness prevented her from playing so some hasty reprogramming meant that what we got differed somewhat from the printed programme but it was still a very well put together effort.

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Lutheran Masses

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The final concert of this year’s Toronto Bach Festival at Saint Barnabas Anglican Church featured two of the little performed Latin masses written for Leipzig (or possibly for Count Franz Anton von Sporck of Lysá.  Sources vary).  In any event they are unusual for liturgical music.  Based on previously written cantatas for the most part, they incorporate elements not much seen in church music.

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Fourth Annual Toronto Bach Festival

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bachtbfThe fourth annual Toronto Bach Festival runs May 24th to 26th.  There are four concerts and a lecture.  Here’s the line up:

Friday, May 24th at 8pm – Brandenburg Five

The program includes two cantatas: the early Tritt auf die Glaubensbahn, and Du wahrer Gott und Davids Sohn, plus Julia Wedman as soloist in Bach’s Concerto in A minor for violin. A brilliant night of illuminating music.  Soloists for the cantatas are Hélène Brunet, Daniel Taylor, Nick Veltmeyer and Joel Allison.  John Abberger directs the Toronto Bach Festival Orchestra.

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Opera for Toronto

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Last night at the COC there was a special performance of Puccini’s La Bohème.  The cast was made up, for the most part, of current and past Ensemble Studio members and tickets had been made available free to a variety of community groups.  It was billed as “Opera for Toronto”.  There had also been a small number of tickets available on line on a first come basis and, by the looks of things , a fair number of comps for the cast.

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Afarin Mansouri giving an introductory talk in Farsi – Credit: Gaetz Photography

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Not Sam

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Off I went to the Four Seasons Centre to see Samuel Chan and Stéphane Mayer perform some Schubert.  Sadly Sam was indisposed so what we got was a hastily, but very well, constructed program featuring some of the other singers in the Ensemble Studio.

Things kicked off with the increasingly impressive Anne-Sophie Neher in an accomplished rendering of Mozart’s “show off” piece Exsultate jubilate, in which she showed very decent control in the rather fiendish runs.  She was back later with “The Presentation of the Rose” from Der Rosenkavalier which sounded suitably Straussian and sufficiently girlish at the same time.  Nicely done. She made a third appearance with one of Adèles’s arias from Le comte Ory.  This didn’t quite do it for me but it was fun to hear Stéphane playing around with the very Rossiniesque accompaniment.

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