Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play opened at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre on Wednesday night. The TL:DR version of this review is that it’s raunchy, extremely funny and rather disturbing. The more considered version contains spoilers so you might want to stop here if you are planning to see it soon.
Talisker Players’ first concert of the season was an interesting mix of material around the general theme of travel; the music neing intersperse with related texts read most pleasingly by Derek Boyes. First up was soprano Virginia Hatfield with a French baroque rarity; Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s Le Sommeil d’Ulisse. This piece is scored for flute, violin and harpsichord continuo and the violin part in particular, very well played here, takes an important role. The piece, which is largely recitative, was sung stylishly, beautifully and, as always, extremely accurately by Ms. Hatfield. One quibble though. If one is expecting the audience to use the provided translation of the text it might be advisable to leave the lights up enough to allow them to be read!
operaramblings 