Tag Archives: bellini

The Ensemble Studio do Mozart, Bellini and Handel

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Last night saw the Ensemble Studio’s big main stage performance.  Rather than perform one of the COC’s current productions (hard to imagine how they could cast one from the current line up) we got scenes from three operas; two of them from the COC’s current season.  They were performed with the orchestra on stage in front of the backdrop to the opening scene from the current Die Zauberflöte and in concert dress rather than costume (more or less, there were some nods to the roles in question) and with some blocking as far as limiting movement to the front of the stage permitted.

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This week

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5720421dc9-jpgToday at 2.30pm Voicebox:Opera in Concert are performing Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi.  It’s Bellini’s take on Bandello rather than Shakespeare, not a lot happens and the orchestral music is ho hum so a semistaged version with piano isn’t a bad bet if the singing is good.  Juliet is the up and coming Caitlin Wood.  Romeo, on whom much depends, is Anita Krause.  It’s at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.

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Norma encore

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Back to the Four Seasons Centre last night for a second look at Norma.  This time with Elza van den Heever singing the title role.  Van den Heever has a more conventional voice than Sondra Radvanovsky.  It’s perhaps not as dramatic and distinct but it’s an accurate, flexible instrument with plenty of colours and big enough for the role.  She’s also every bit as good as an actress so I don’t think the production suffers from losing its “headliner”.  Russell Thomas impressed again.  He’s so much better as Pollione than he was as Don José.  The acting is convincing and he really gets the chance to let rip here with what is a truly glorious tenor voice.  All the obvious comparisons suggest and are not ridiculous.  Isabel Leonard was also very fine last night and the duets with van den Heever were perhaps the highlight of the show.  Hat tip too to Charles Sy who never sounded out of place even when Thomas was singing all guns blazing,  It’s only two years since he was singing in a student production of HMS Pinafore.

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Norma at the COC

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Kevin Newbury’s production of Bellini’s Norma at the COC (co-pro with San Francisco, Chicago and the Liceu) is perhaps best described as serviceable.  I have seen various rather desperate efforts made to draw deep meaning from it but I really don’t think there is any.  That said, it looks pretty decent and is efficient.  The single set allows seamless transitions between scenes which is a huge plus.  So, what does it look like?  It’s basically a sort of cross between a barn and a temple with a back wall that can raised or moved out of the way to expose the druids’ sacred forest.  There’s also a sort of two level cart thing which characters ascend when they have something especially important to sing.  Costumes were said to have been inspired by Game of Thrones; animal skins, leather, tattoos (which actually don’t really read except up very close), flowing robes.  Norma herself appears to be styled, somewhat oddly, on a Klingon drag queen. The lighting is effective and there are some effective pyrotechnics at the end.  All in all a pretty good frame for the story and the singing.

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Voicebox: Opera in Concert 2016/17

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engraving_for_the_opera_l_isola_disabitata_by_goldoni_and_scarlatti_1753VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert has announced details of their upcoming season.  There are four shows:

  • October 30th sees Shakespeare 400, featuring music using and inspired by Shakespeare’s texts.  Solists are Michael Nyby, Holly Chaplin, Gena van Oosten, Diego Catalá, Stephanie Kallay, Anthony Rodrigues and Mikhail Shemet witrh pianist Narmina Afandiyeva and chorus.
  • On November 20th it’s more bard (sort of) with Bellini’s I Capulet e i Montecchi.  Anita Krause sings Romeo, Caitlin Wood is Juliet and Tonatiuh Abrego plays Tybalt with Raisa Nakhmanovich at the piano.
  • Onto the new year and it’s Haydn’s L’isola disabitata on February 5th.  This, for me, is the one to go for.  Haydn’s operas are greatly underrated and this is the piece that gets Kevin Mallon and the Aradias in the pit rather than just piano.  The cast includes Valérie Bélanger, Marjorie Maltais and Alexander Dobson.
  • The season finishes up with Mussorgsky’s epic Khovanshchina, presumably in much reduced form.  Voicebox:OIC Sunday afternoons rarely run much over two hours and Khovanshchina is well over three.  The soloists include Emilia Boteva, Andrey Andreychik and Dion Mazerolle with Narmina Afandiyeva at the piano.

All performances are at 2.30pm in the St. Lawrence Centre’s Jane Mallett Theatre.

Some announcements

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pearleharbourFor those of you who were wondering “whatever happened to Opera 5?” they are back, and with some pizzazz (and possibly some pizza).  Their upcoming show is an “immersive” version of the Johann Strauss classic Die Fledermaus.  In act 2 patrons will be encouraged to interact; to dance with the cast, gamble at the tables, snort coke with Prince Orlofsky (ok I made that up) etc.  The cast includes Michael Barrett, Rachel Krehm, Julie Ludwig and Erin Lawson with drag queen Pearle Harbour as Ivan and emceeing.  Aria Umezawa and Jessica Derventzis direct with Patrick Hansen conducting.  It plays at 8pm on June 8th to 11th at 918 Bathurst Street.  Tickets at www.opera5.ca.

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I Capuletti e I Montecchi

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The story line for Bellini’s opera I Capuletti e I Montecchi will be familiar enough though it’s very condensed and based on the earlier source by Bandello rather than Shakespeare’s more elaborate reworking.  So, lots of feuding but no back story, no balcony scene, no friar’s cell.  But (spoiler alert) the ending is the same.  Vincent Broussard’s production, originally from Munich but filmed in San Francisco in 2012, sets the work around the time of its composition and seems at times to reference that it was composed for the Venice Carnivale.  It also veers around between being quite literal and trying to make the story something going on in Romeo’s head.  The production is quite influenced visually by the fact that the costumes were designed by Christian Lacroix and it’s unclear whether he’s trying to support the production concept or promote his brand.

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Majesty, Murder and Madness

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Friday night I went to see Teiya Kasahara and Stephanie Yelovich’s recital at First Unitarian.  Unusually for a voice and piano (Mark-Anthony Del Brocco) recital it was essentially all bel canto; a mix of Bellini and Verdi songs with some Donizetti opera excerpts (plus a duet from Norma as an encore).  It would be unusual programming for almost anyone and I was frankly a bit surprised because I don’t think of either singer as a bel canto specialist and, Teiya’s Lucia aside, a bel canto singer at all really.

I know that the event was a fundraiser to help pay for their summer in Italy studying mainly this rep and I guess, wherever one is headed as a singer, being able to sing bel canto well is an asset.  So maybe, to use a rugby analogy, it wasn’t so surprising that this felt a bit more like the training field than a competitive game; especially when the duets were both mezzo/soprano pieces being sung by two sopranos.

Both these young ladies have big voices.  Teiya in particular has real power, as well as coloratura chops, so perhaps she’s on the way to being that rare voice that can sing Norma and the Tudor queens.  Who knows?  Stephanie’s future probably lies north of the Alps though and it’s potentially a bright one.  I’ve seen these two ladies separately and together in contemporary works and they were really, really good.  Bel canto‘s not my sweet spot so maybe that’s part of the problem but I’m really not convinced it’s theirs either.

1649 And All That

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Bellini’s I Puritani is one of those 19th century operas that dishes out a version of 16th or 17th century English history that’s all but unrecognisable to anyone with any actual knowledge of the subject.  In this case we are in Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the nasty Puritans want to off anyone with a Stuart connection including the widowed queen Henrietta.  Various implausibly named Puritan colonels (everyone in the New Model apparently holds that rank) feature as well as a Royalist earl who is, of course, in love with the Roundhead commander’s daughter.  Immediately prior to marrying her though he decides to save Henrietta from execution and escapes with her thus triggering the obligatory mad scene, which is probably the main reason for watching this thing at all.  Finally Arturo (the earl) returns, is captured and, inevitably, sentenced to death.  As he is being led to the block Cromwell’s messenger arrives with the second most improbable reprieve in all of opera.  The Stuarts have been defeated and everyone is pardoned.  A happy ending with fortissimo soprano high notes ensues.

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‘Tis the season to speculate

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Finley-Gerald-02With a month or so to go before the Canadian Opera Company officially announces its 2013/14 season it’s surely time for some uninformed speculation.

There are three big anniversaries in 2013; the bicentenaries of Verdi and Wagner and the centenary of Benjamin Britten.  One would think all would be represented but maybe not.  We know Verdi will be.  Gerald Finley announced at the Rubies that he would make his role debut in the title role in Falstaff at COC in 2013/14 so we can ink that one in.  Britten seems probable.  There’s a Houston/COC co-pro of Peter Grimes, directed by Neil Armfield that is due to to come to Toronto.  I think we can pencil that one in.  No idea on casting but I would love to see Stuart Skelton myself.  Wagner, I’m not so sure.  Maybe February’s run of Tristan und Isolde will be COC’s sole nod to Wagner.  Certainly the next most likely candidate; the Lyon/Met/COC Parsifal is, apparently, not expected before 2015.

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