Tuesday’s concert in the RBA was given by students from the France-Canada Academy of Vocal Arts currently being hosted by the UoT Faculty of Music. The music was a range of mélodies, all in French, by French and Canadian composers.
Soprano Mélina Gerbith and pianist Olivier Seuzaret performed first. Achille Fortier’s ici-bas was followed by Francis Poulenc’s Trois poèmes de Louise de Vilmorin. The Poulenc seemed particularly well suited to Mélina’s rather bright soprano. There was plenty of scope to be playful and she did show off some interesting colours lower in the voice.
Mezzo-soprano Aimée Harness accompanied by Zhilin Xiao gave us Maurice Ravel’s “La flûte enchantée” from Shéhéazade and Poulenc’s Miroirs brûlants. Aimée sang with really good diction and was appropriately dramatic in the Poulenc while maintaining excellent control. Really nice.
Next up were mezzo Taline Yeremian and pianist Rebeca Lluveras Matos with quite a varied set. Auguste Descarries’ En sourdine and Jules Massenet’s Les mains are quite solemn pieces and were sung in quite a bright tone but with some gravitas. I thought though that Yeremine sounded more at home in the much livelier “Villanelle” from Hector Berlioz’ Les nuits d’été, which was sung with appropriate vivacity. All in all, a nicely contrasted set of songs.
And so on to soprano Marion Germain accompanied by Ludovic Rochon. It was a nicely contrasting set. The two songs from Jacques Hétu’s Les Clartés de la nuit were very different. “Thème sentimental” is quite pastoral and sat nicely for Marion’s bright soprano. “Les corbeaux” is much darker and more dramatic and she brought out those qualities very well too. The set closed with Henri Dutilleux’ San Francisco Night which was also pretty dark and gritty and sung with pleasing restraint..
Last to sing was our third mezzo Kyrsten Chambers-Jones accompanied by Brock Tjosvold. Lots of contrast again in two songs from Poulenc’s Cinq Poèmes de Pierre Ronsard. “Le tombeau” is essentially a meditation on death and got treated appropriately. “Ballet”, on the other hand, is pretty playful, even cheeky, and Kyrsten changed up accordingly. She finished up with two songs from Keith Bissel’s Quatre chansons sur des poèmes du vieux français. “D’un vanneur de blé, aux vents” feels quite “Amertican” in some ways and it has a lovely melody sung quite beautifully. “Sonnet pour Hélène” is also rather beautiful but it’s also darker and more dramatic allowing Kyrsten to show off quite a bit of well controlled power.
All in all an enjoyable hour of well chosen songs performed really rather well.
Photo credit: Karen E. Reeves
Tuesday’s RBA concert with members of the Ensemble Studio was themed around composer rivalries though not the really toxic ones. No Mozart/Salieri or Wagner/Meyerbeer here! The most convincing as a rivalry was the first; Berlioz vs Rossini. So Queen Hezumuryango sang “Le spectre de la rose” with some sensitive handling of the text and a pretty fiery “Cruda sorte” from L’Italiana in Algeri with plenty of emotion. I definitely like her voice more when she’s going for drama as she’s got plenty of power and expressiveness.
Wednesday’s lunchtime recital in the RBA featured Simone Osborne; currently appearing as Norina in Don Pasquale, and pianist Rachael Kerr. It was a well curated selection of songs apparently, at least partially, inspired by sleep deprivation singer and pianist both have small children!). There were three sets of four songs. One in each set was by a Canadian composer backed up by two others that were thematically related.
Thursday’s concert in the Music in the Afternoon series at Walter Hall was curated by Marion Newman and featured herself, soprano Melody Courage, baritone Evan Korbut and pianist Gordon Gerrard. It featured some classic opera duets and trios ranging from the Flower Duet from Madama Butterfly to an exuberant “Dunque io son” from the Barber of Seville along with Berlioz’ “Vous soupirer” from Beatrice et Bénédict (which sounded like title should translate as “you will be immersed in warm soup”). These numbers were all very well done and there were a couple of solo pieces too with Melody singing the Poulenc La Fraicheur et le Feu with great verve and Evan chipping in with an exuberant “Sit down, you’re rocking the boat” from Guys and Doills.
Decca have just released a 3CD set of previously unreleased recordings made by the late Jessye Norman between 1989 and 1998 with various orchestras and conductors.
The Toronto Symphony have a new CD out. It’s a couple of Berlioz works recorded under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis at Roy Thomson Hall in September 2018. The first piece is the rarely heard Fantaisie sur la Tempête de Shakespeare for which the orchestra is joined by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. It’s an early piece inspired by one of Berlioz’ unrequited passions (like everything else by Berlioz!) and was considered daringly modern in its day. It’s said to be the first piece to introduce a harp to the symphony orchestra and it also includes piano four hands. It’s very colourful and rather brash which is territory that Sir Andrew excels in. There’s great clarity to both the singing and the playing.
I got hold of the recent Chandos recording of Berlioz’ L’Enfance du Christ largely because I wanted to take a look at the Super Audio CD format. On that subject my thoughts are 
operaramblings 