Unbridled Theatre Collective, a new outfit, opened a run of Brecht/Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at Video Cabaret on Thursday evening. It’s in an updated version created for The National Theatre by Simon Stephens in 2016 and it’s so updated it might well be retitled The 1.25p Opera. It’s raunchy and contains sexually explicit language and action (including some rather disturbing sexual violence) that would never have made it past the censors back in the day.
Dance to the Abyss is a show of music from the Weimar Republic currently on stage at Harbourfront Centre Theatre. It’s given by Art of Time Ensemble as part of their 25th and final season.
It’s an interesting mix of instrumental and vocal music. The first piece in the programme is Erwin Schulhoff’s Hot Sonate for Sax and Piano which is a four movement, heavily jazz piece influenced, expertly played by Andrew Burashko and Wallace Halladay (I think). It’s followed by three pieces by the prolific Mischa Spoliansky. There’s the atmospheric instrumental piece Sehnsucht and two songs sung by Patricia O’Callaghan in English translation; I Am a Vamp and L’heure Bleue. The songs are pretty well known and fun and I liked O’Callaghan’s playful treatment of them. Continue reading
This one has been on the bucket list for ages. I have loved Ute Lemper’s work since I discovered it back in the 1980s but had never had a chance to see her live. Last night she played Massey Hall which was. a big enough deal for me to miss an opening at the COC of one of my favourite operas. (Fear not, I’m going to Cunning Little Vixen tomorrow).
The current offering from Operavision on Youtube is the 2020 production by Opera North of Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins livestreamed from Leeds Playhouse in November 2020. It was Pay to View then but now it’s available for free until October.
Hell’s Fury(*) is a two man show about Hanns Eisler conceived and created by Tim Albery. It’s focussed on his time in the United States and, somewhat, on his return to the DDR. It combines songs from the Hollywood Songbook (poems by Brecht and others set by Eisler), dialogue and projections to tell the story of Eisler’s arrival in Hollywood, his work in the US, his deportation as a result of the “work” of the House Un-American Activities Committee and his return to the GDR and struggles to come to terms with the Stalinist culturecrats leading ultimately to drink, depression and death.
What better way to celebrate Kurt Weill’s birthday than listening to his songs, cabaret style, with a beer or three. Well that’s what we did on Saturday as Blitzkrieg Cabaret opened a new run of Saturday afternoon shows at the Dakota Tavern.
We got three singers; Danie Friesen, Hilary June Hart, Jackson Welchner supported by Nick Donovan (drums), Colin Frotten (piano), and Andrew Downing (bass) with Hilary also chipping in on the accordion on occasion. While Danie is a classically trained singer, Hilary and Jackson sound more comfortable in a jazzier idiom. That, plus the make up of the band meant that the show tended to the “Sinatraesque” version of Weill rather than, say, the grittiness of Pabst’s Dreigroschenoper movie. This was reflected in both choice of translation and performing style. I think this works for some of Weill’s stuff but it doesn’t work for me so well with the Brecht lyrics. I’ll go for Marx over McCarthy anytime! Other people may feel differently.
I went to the first show of Soup Can Theatre’s presentation of Brecht and Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at the Monarch Tavern yesterday. It was an interesting take. Three performers took all the roles in a much shortened concert version. Quite a few numbers were cut and the dialogue was replaced by a very compressed spoken linking narrative. This was a fund raiser and I think it’s fair to say that there was probably minimal if any rehearsal involved which showed in a presentation that had some nice individual touches but not a lot of cohesion.
So it’s early November and a recital titled Songs of Remembrance. One might of expected something like the program Chris Maltman presented just down Philosophers’ Walk last year but no, Monica Whicher and Rachel Andrist’s program was gentler. Dare we say “more feminine”? This concert was about remembrance of childhood and love; happy and not so happy. Framed by Roger Quilter’s settings of Blake we got two “concocted cycles” drawn from very diverse sources; English, French and German texts; art song and popular song; composers from Schubert to Richard Rogers and Hans Eisler. It was effective.
New kids on the block , The Friends of Gravity, presented their first show last night at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church on Dundas East. It was a silent film themed take on Weill’s Die Sieben Todsünden. Stephanie Conn sang both Anna I and Anna II in front of a film screen showing black and white film clips shot by Scott Gabriel for the show, replacing the ballet of the original. The Family, who pop up mostly to criticize the Annas were sung by Charles Fowler, Christopher Wattam, Bryan Martin and William Lewans. Scott Gabriel conducted his own arrangement of the score for a six piece band including accordion and ukulele.
Following on from yesterday’s Der fliegende Holländer showing at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema I followed up with them about future plans for the ROH opera broadcasts. Here’s the scoop though dates may change.
June 28th. Brecht/Weill The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. This is a new production by John Fulljames with Mark Wrigglesworth conducting. The cast includes Anne-Sofie von Otter, Willard White and Christine Rice. It’s going to be sung in English.
July 26th. Puccini La Bohème. It’s the old John Copley production dating from 1975 (which in turn replaced an 1896 production) and it was intended to be “traditional” and it is! Joseph Calleja and Anna Netrebko headline with Dan Ettinger conducting.
August 30th. Rossini Guillaume Tell. This is another new production , this time by Damiano Michieletto. Gerry Finley sings the title role with Malin Byström as Mathilde. Antonio Pappano conducts.
So, some decent fillers for the traditionally quiet summer season.
operaramblings 