All is Love, which opened Thursday night at Koerner Hall, is a remount of the 2022 Opera Atelier show which, for various reasons, nobody much saw. It’s a staged series of quite eclectic (mosly) opera and ballet excerpts around the theme of “love”; which means pretty much anything goes.
Tuesday’s lunchtime performance in the RBA was a preview of the upcoming Opera Atelier show All is Love which is essentially a remount of the February 2022 show that nobody much saw because it happened during a blizzard with most of downtown closed due to “trucker” activity.
Known to Dreamers: Black Voices in Canadian Art Song is a new CD from Centrediscs and the Canadian Art Song Project containing Canadian art songs composed by or setting lyrics by Black Canadians, sung by Black Canadians. The first set on the disk is Robert Fleming’s The Confession Stone (Songs of Mary) which sets texts by Owen Dodson’s texts about the life of Christ from his mother’s point of view. It’s a very beautiful piece and must be in the running for the most performed Canadian song cycle of all time! Curiously though it’s only been recorded commercially once before (by Caroline Gélinas on ATMA Classique). The singer here is Measha Brueggergosman-Lee. She wouldn’t be my first choice for this piece but she sings it pretty well. I find her style a bit mannered but she’s accurate and her diction is good. Steven Philcox accompanies with great skill (as he does on all the tracks).
operaramblings 