Wednesday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA featured three faculty members and two students from the Schulich School’s early music programme. It was quite a varied programme. It started with Dario Castello’s (1602-1631) Sonate concertate in stile moderno, Prima Sonata à due soprani which is a very early example of the sonata form played here by two violins (presumably the due soprani) with harpsichord and cello continuio. Quite interesting and very well played. Another very esarly piece followed; Frescobaldi’s Partita sopra la Follia for solo harpsichord. Again, unusual, interesting and very well done.
Last night saw the first of two performances of Haydn’s rarely performed 1791 work Orfeo: L’anima del filosofo. I know how much effort and indeed passion went into creating this production and the singing is pretty good. I wish I could say I enjoyed it but I can’t. There were just too many issues.
On May 26th and 27th in the MacMillan Theatre there’s a chance to see Haydn’s rarely performed Orfeo: L’anima del filosofo. It was composed for London in 1791 but was shut down during rehearsals because the Lord Chamberlain’s office thought it subversively supportive of enlightenment values at a time when Pitt’s government was cracking down brutally on pro French Revolutionary sentiment in the UK.
operaramblings 