Tag Archives: britten

Chelsea Rus in the RBA

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Chelsea Rus is a recent graduate of the Schulich Scool of Music at McGill University and winner of the Wirth Vocal prize.  Today, along with pianist Marie-Ève Scarfone, she gave a recital in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre.  I like that it was all song bar the opening number; “Je veux vivre” from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.  Hearing young singers belt out the same few Mozart and bel canto standards gets a bit tedious.  Anyway this was one of those recitals that started quite well and just got better as things progressed.  Poulenc’s Fiançailles pour rire are, I suppose, a bit of fluff but they allowed Chelsea to show off a rather lovely middle voice and good French diction, though the registers are still not fully integrated.  Even better was Liszt’s Oh! quand je dors.  Here she showed just how expressive she can be.

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The Romans, being wanton, worship chastity

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Continuing my struggle with Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia I got hold of the Blu-ray recording of Fiona Shaw’s 2015 Glyndebourne production.  I’m beginning, I think, to see my way to understanding the problems inherent in the libretto and some of the strategies that can be used to overcome them.  The more minor problem is Junius and the odd scene early in Act 2 where he seems to be inciting the Romans to revolt while acting as a general in Tarquinius’ army while, also, apparently, been in some sense complicit in the rape.  So we have a two faced power hungry schemer who is oblivious to the consequences of his mischief making; whether rape or rabble rousing (a sort of Roman Boris Johnson).  Most productions ignore this aspect of things and probably rightly.

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Where there’s a Will

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So the Toronto Summer Music Festival continued last night with a Shakespeare themed show called A Shakespeare Serenade.  Curated and directed by Patrick Hansen of McGill it fell into two parts.  Before the interval we got Shakespeare scenes acted out and then the equivalent scene from an operatic adaptation of the play.  After the interval it was a mix of Sonnets and song settings in an overall staging that was perhaps riffing off The Decameron.  Patrick Hansen and Michael Shannon alternated at the piano.

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Artsong reGENERATION

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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.

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Another take on The Rape of Lucretia

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The Toronto Summer Music Festival continued last night with a one off performance of Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at The Winter Gardens, the upstairs part of the Elgin Theatre that I had never before been in.  The production originated in a Banff Centre/Against the Grain/COC joint project directed by Paul Curran but was recreated here in semi-staged form by Anna Theodosakis.  It was on the “quite close to staged” end of the spectrum so, although the band was on stage behind the action and there was no scenery or curtain it came off as much more than a concert in costume.

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Season’s end

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The final concert of the year involving members of the Ensemble Studio took place yesterday in the RBA.  First up were Charles Sy and Hyejin Kwon with Britten’s Les Illuminations.  This is a formidable challenge for both singer and pianist and we were treated to a performance of real intensity and maturity.  Charles seemed to be sufficiently in technical command of the material to let himself go a bit and have some fun with the more ironic bits of Rimbaud’s rather extraordinary text.  His French diction was more than good enough for this, even in the places where the notes pretty much fall over themselves.  There were some very pretty sounds where needed and real intensity, particularly in Parade.  Hyejin was excellent too.  The piano part is no mere support in this piece.  It’s challenging and demands real partnership with the singer.  All in all, it was a performance that made one forget that these two have only been in the program for a year.

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Is it all?

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Anna Theodosakis’ production of Britten’s Rape of Lucretia for MYOpera updates the piece from proto-historical Rome to somewhere in the mid 20th century which is fine but doesn’t seem, of itself, to add any layers of meaning to the narrative.  There are neat visual touches in a simple but effective set design and the nature of and relationships between the characters are deftly drawn.  The rape scene manages to be disturbing without being gratuitously graphic.  It’s skilful theatre.  But is that enough?

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Collaborations

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Lunchtime saw the annual concert featuring visiting members of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal.  It turned into something of a Donizettifest.  First up was soprano Cécile Muhire with Adina’s aria Prendi, per me sei libero.  This was quite competently sung though she seemed very nervous.  The nerves seemed to vanish though when she was joined by her Nemorino, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, for the duet when he tries the elixir.  One of the things that has always struck me about the Ensemble Studio is how quickly it teaches singers to have stage presence.  J-P was a very funny, rather drunk, Nemorino and his swagger seemed to rub off on Cécile who looked much more at home in this number.

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Toronto Summer Music Festival

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There’s quite a lot for the vocal music fan in this year’s Toronto Summer Music Festival though the only operatic opening is getting a bit Twilight Zone.  How often does an opera like Britten’s Rape of Lucretia get done in Toronto?  Well for now the answer is twice in quick succession because besides the MYOpera production later this month we are also getting a “semi-staged” version on July 22nd at 7.30pm at the Winter Garden Theatre.  It is a transplant from Banff originally created by Joel Ivany and Topher Mokrzewski but to be directed here by Anna Theodosakis.  The cast includes Emma Char (Lucretia), Peter Rolfe Dauz (Junius), Beste Kalender (Bianca), Jasper Leever (Collatinus), Iain MacNeil (Tarquinius), Ellen McAteer (Lucia), Owen McAusland (Male Chorus), and Chelsea Rus (Female Chorus).  That’s a pretty good cast but it does seem an odd choice.  Is the King Street streetcar contagious?

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I am Way, I am Act

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This spring’s main opera production from UoT Opera is Britten’s Paul Bunyan.  It is a really peculiar work.  The libretto is by WH Auden and is, well, weird.  It mixes up the (apparently) profound with the absurd and the downright silly.  There’s a Swedish lumberjack fish slapping dance, talking cats and dogs, trees that aspire to be product and a philosophical accountant (*).  There are also countless pronouncements from the off stage voice of Bunyan along the lines of the closing:

“Where the night becomes the day, Where the dream becomes the fact, I am the Eternal guest, I am Way, I am Act“

Walt Whitman meets Dr. Seuss meets a lot of drugs?  One of those 1970s English public schoolboy prog rock bands?

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