Tag Archives: allison

Artsong ReGENERATION 2

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Yesterday we got the second recital by the song fellows of the Toronto Summer Music Festival.  In the week since the first concert they have been working with mentor Soile Isokoski and it showed in the programming.  There was quite a bit of Strauss and more Finnish and Swedish music than I have ever heard in such a recital.  Among other things this highlighted just how difficult Strauss songs are to sing well.  They are exceedingly tricky yet have to sound absolutely effortless.  Three of the four sopranos on show tried.  None of them succeeded completely(*).  So it goes.  And so to the details.

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Artsong ReGENERATION 1

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Toronto Summer Music Festival has two “apprenticeship” programmes; one for chamber musicians and one for singers and collaborative pianists.  The latter is directed by Martin Katz and Steven Philcox.  On Saturday afternoon in Walter Hall we got our first chance to see this year’s young artists.  Eight singers and four pianists were on show.  The singers were a mix of those who are well known to anyone who follows student opera in Toronto and newcomers.  The pianists were all new to me.

Art Song reGENERATION July 15

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Porgi amor

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UoT’s show Porgi amor consisted of a series of staged and costumed scenes from Mozart operas with linking commentary, all designed by Michael Patrick Albano.  The operas ranged from La finta giardiniera to La clemenza di Tito with all the major bases in between covered off.  The emphasis was on ensemble numbers and providing opportunities for as many singers as possible so there was a cast of thousands.  It was well structured, quite slick and there was some very decent singing.  One expects a reasonably high standard from UoT Opera and we got it.  As I usually do with this kind of show I’ll refrain from a play-by-play and just talk about a few highlights and do some “talent spotting”.

porgiamor

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Allison and Sinsoulier

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The Thursday concert at UoT yesterday was a recital by Joel Allison and Mélisande Sinsoulier, respective winners of the Norcop song prize and Koldofsky prize in accompanying.  It was a very satisfying performance.  Loewe’s Tom der Reimer set the tone with fine singing from Allison and quite inspired pianism from Ms. Sinsoulier.  Allison displayed power and agility plus an ability to sing quite elegantly when required though perhaps he does occasionally “push” the drama a bit further than the text really needs.
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UoT’s Imeneo

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Imeneo is one of Handel’s less well known operas; perhaps deservedly so.  The plot and the libretto are weak and the music pretty variable.  Charles Jennens, the librettist for Messiah, descibed it as “the worst of all Handel’s compositions”.  It does have the merit of being short.  Most recent recordings come in around two hours and this UoT Opera production, rearranged and cut by Tim Albery, comes in at 100 minutes spread over two acts.

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UoT Opera’s Orpheus in the Underworld

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Brittany Cann

French operetta is notoriously difficult to get right.  The genre treacherously combines a kind of humour that doesn’t always translate well in time or language, difficult music to sing and a need to be as “naughty” as the original seemed without being crass.  It’s a huge credit to Michael Patrick Albano and his student cast that they pretty much pulled off all of that last night with their new production of Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld.  One could nit pick details (I shall) but overall it was a well paced show with some good singing and acting and it was genuinely funny.  Unsurprisingly the audience lapped it up.  Continue reading →

UoT Opera season opener

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As has become the norm, UoT Opera opened their concert season with a free “preview” of their spring show in the RBA at noon today.  It was a series of Mozart scenes which were given semi-staged today but will, in the fullness of time, form a staged and costumed performance.  It’s always an interesting event because it’s so early in the academic year.  It’s the first chance to try and talent spot and see how things develop over the rest of the cycle.  As such, it’s often a bit rough but today really wasn’t.  It was a surprisingly high quality across the board effort which augurs well.  That said, it was all ensembles and nobody was asked to pull out vocal fireworks so maybe not the sternest test imaginable which makes star picking that bit trickier.

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On a Darkling Plain

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Joel Allison

The Talisker Players latest offering is a concert titled On a Darkling Plain.  It’s an ambitious program of 20th and 21st century music interspersed, in the Talisker manner, with selected texts read (very expressively) by Stewart Arnott.

It kicks off with Samuel Barber’s 1931 setting of Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach.  It’s a dark and evocative piece for a 21 year old and was sensitively performed by baritone Joel Allison supported by violinists Michelle Ordorico and Andrew Chung, Talisker music director Mary McGeer on viola and Laura Jones on cello.  Allison is very young and hasn’t been seen much in Toronto but he seems to have the hallmarks of a lieder singer.  He’s expressive and attentive to the text, has an attractive voice but can summon up a surprising amount of volume when he needs it.  I was impressed.

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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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