Alex Hetherington and Ariane Cossette’s last recital as members of the Ensemble studio happened on thursday lunchtime in the RBA. It was charming. We got a varied selection of art songs bookended by a couple of opera duets. They opened with “Miro O Norma… Si, fino all’ora estreme”. They blended well with Ariane, as Norma, displaying considerable power and richness of tone without overwhelming her Adalgisa.
Coming up later this month is Angel’s Bone; an opera with music by Du Yun and a libretto by the amazing Royce Vavrek. It’s a chamber opera for amplified voices and small ensemble. The plot concerns two angels who fall to earth and are ruthlessly exploited by otherwise unremarkable people. It’s a commentary on human trafficking and the exploitation of youth. There’s a really good looking cast and it will play at Harbourfront Centre March 22nd to 24th. It’s already attracted largely positive reviews in New York and Vancouver. More details including casting and ticketing here. Continue reading
Iconic British countertenor James Bowman passed away last March. On Sunday night at Trinity-St. Pauls the Early Music folks at UoT presented a tribute to the man and his career. It was very well done. Music associated with Bowman; mostly Purcell and Britten, was interspersed with video and personal recollections/testimonials that fully reflected the considerable influence Bowman had on the English music scene and on the more widespread acceptance of the countertenor voice in the classical music world generally. Continue reading
The Valentine’s Day recital in the RBA was given by Simone McIntosh and Rachael Kerr. They served up fare appropriate to the occasion unlike in 2013 when Franz-Josef Selig gave us a Valentine recital mostly about Death! It was an interesting mix of material starting with two of the Britten folk song arrangements; “The trees they grow so high” and “The miler of Dee”. Quite a bold choice in some ways as the first one is almost, but not quite, a capella so there’s nowhere to hide. It was good. Not only was Simone’s voice accurate and expressive but she gave herself some metrical freedom. There is nothing worse than a singer singing this material as if they have a broomstick up their ass.
Britten’s Owen Wingrave is a curiously neglected opera. It’s rarely performed live and the only recorded versions are 2 CD recordings plus DVDs of TV productions. The earliest of each feature Benjamin Luxon in the title role and Peter Pears as General Wingrave. The DVD version holds up surprisingly well for a 1970 TV production. The later DVD version is also over 20 years old and features Gerald Finley in a, to my mind, ill conceived production for Channel 4 updated to the 1950s. So I was interested to get my hands on a 2008 Chandos recording with Peter Coleman-Wright as Owen.
Those who know me are probably fed up of hearing me lament how slow the indie opera scene in Toronto has been to recover post plague. Well here’s some good news on that front. Opera 5 will be mounting a fully staged version of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with the proper thirteen piece chamber orchestra at Theatre Passe Muraille in June next year. Yea!
Chinatown; music by Alice Ho, words by Madeleine Thien and Paul Yee, is a multilingual opera about the Chinese immigrant experience in British Columbia. It ws commissioned by Vancouver City Opera where it played in 2022. It’s now been recorded for CD by the original cast.
Like some of Alice Ho’s previous work (The Monkiest King, The Lesson of Da JI) Chinatown is cross cultural in many ways. It combines Western and Chinese instruments, musical styles and vocal styles and in this case it uses three languages; Hoisan dialect, Cantonese and English. Unlike the previous two operas though this one isn’t based in myth and legend. Rather, it’s a gritty and moving story that doesn’t shy away from confronting the brutal institutional racism that Chinese people faced in BC well into the 20th century. Continue reading
Regular readers will know I’m something of a Peter Grimes completist so I was interested to get my hands on a recording previously unheard by me (one of only two such!). It’s a 1992 recording made in Watford Town Hall and, as far as I know, was not made in conjunction with a stage run. The Grimes is Anthony Rolfe Johnson with Thomas Allen as Balstrode and Felicity Lott as Ellen Orford. There’s also a young Simon Keenleyside as Ned Keene. Bernard Haitink conducts with Orchestra and Chorus of the Royal Opera House. Continue reading
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 first is a series of extracts from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde recorded in Leipzig in 1998 with Kurt Masur conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Besides the Prelude there’s most of the Isolde/Brangäne scenes from Act 1 (Hannah Schwarz is Brangäne). Then comes the huge Act 2, Scene 2 duet; “Isolde! Geliebte! – Tristan! Geliebte!” etc, with Thomas Moser as Tristan, and finally, and inevitably, the “Liebestod”. It all sounds really good with the duet properly ecstatic and the “Liebestod” very moving. It’s a studio recording made in many takes so that challenging final scene doesn’t have to be sung after many hours on stage which no doubt contributes but it’s all very fine and a good record of Jessye in the role.
Tenor Mlles Mykannen, currently on the COC main stage as Steuermann in Der fliegende Holländer performed in the RBA on Tuesday accompanied by Sandra Horst. It was a bit unusual. There was no published programme and Mykannen talked a lot. Also a quiz at the end (really). He’s extremely engaging, even funny, and an excellent singer. His opera choices were unusual; Arnalta’s lullabye from L’incoronazione di Poppea, an “aria” from Silent Night and “Miles, Miles” from The Turn of the Screw. The last was particularly good with maximum spookiness achieved (though not for the first time I noticed just how “wrong” TotS sounds on piano!)
operaramblings 