Wednesday’s recital in the RBA was given by UoT Opera. It consisted of a series of arias/scenes drawn from the operas of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven creatively staged by Mabel Wonnacott. It was lively and a lot of fun and the vocal standard was very high, especially for so early in the academic year.
Verdi’s 1849 opera La battaglia di Legnano is loosely based on a battle that took place in 1176 between the forces of Frederick Barbarossa and those of the Lombard League; just one episode in the interminable struggle between Guelfs and Ghibellines. By Verdi’s time the battle had been appropriated by Italian nationalists (at least in northern Italy) as symbolic of the Italians struggle against the Austrian occupiers and that’s pretty much where Verdi is at.
Metropolitan United Church that is. Not the other place. Anyway, it was a very pleasant Thursday lunchtime recital in which Maeve was accompanied on piano by Helen Becqué. It was essentially a “turn of the century” (as in around 1900) programme.
The first set was Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliees. The six songs are very Debussy. Maeve sang them idiomatically, in excellent French and with a fair amount of variation in emotional intensity from quite restrained to exuberant. She does “exuberant” rather well. Equally excellent and idiomatic playing from Helen who also provided a bit of a break between song sets with pieces drawn from the Preludes Op. 12 of Luise Adolpha Le Beau.
Summer Night is a CD of songs by Healey Willan produced by the Canadian Art Song project and due to be released on the Centrediscs label next month. Willan is best known as a composer of church and choral music but he also wrote over 100 songs and song arrangements, many of which have not been published, let alone recorded. There are 28 songs on the CD ranging in composition date from 1899 to the late 1920s. Most are original settings of the text though a few are arrangements of existing songs; either traditional or by Burns.
Having been tipped off that yesterday’s RBA noon concert was to be a vocal recital rather than, as previously billed, a chamber concert I made the trip through the snow to catch it. Three of the Royal Conservatory’s Rebanks fellows were singing with Helen Becqué at the piano and assorted staff and alumni added for the final number. Attendance was a bit sparse perhaps unsurprisingly given the weather and the evident confusion. That was a shame because it was an interesting, varied and well presented concert combining well known works with some much less well known fare.
The Academy Program is an important part of the Toronto Summer Music Festival. It allows selected young artists; singers, collaborative pianists and chamber/orchestral musicians, to work with experienced professionals in an intensive series of coachings, masterclasses etc culminating in a concert series. This year the mentors for the vocal/collaborative piano component were pianist Craig Rutenberg, who has worked everywhere and with everybody, and mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke; a last minute replacement for an indisposed Anne Schwannewilms. I didn’t make it to any of the masterclasses, though word on the street is that they were exceptional, but I did make it to yesterday’s lunchtime concert in Walter Hall.
operaramblings 