Tag Archives: chan

Cleveland or bust

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In concept/development/workshop since 2001, Brian Current and Anton Piatigorsky’s chamber opera, Airline Icarus, got its first complete, staged performance last night in a production directed by Tim Albery in the Ada Slaight Hall at the Daniels Spectrum.  It’s an ambitious work taking us on a journey into the minds of the passengers and crew on a flight to Cleveland.  It explores fear and desire and our need, as a society, to reach for ever greater heights regardless of cost.  Hence the title.  It only runs 60 minutes or so but it covers a lot of ground.  More in fact than I could fully grasp without a copy of the libretto or surtitles.  It’s also, refreshingly, not afraid to be funny in places.

Airline Icarus Soundstream Continue reading →

Faster Still Anaïs Nin

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rcm_21c_webpage-icon_final2-2This concert at Koerner Hall was the second in this summer’s Twenty-First Century Music Festival.  It advertised works by Christos Hatzis, Brian Current, R. Murray Schafer and Louis Andriessen.  In fact we kicked off with a short bonus selected from Youtube entries to make up 21 premieres for the C21.  Unfortunately I didn’t catch composer or title and it lasted less than two minutes.  Continue reading →

New (more or less) works for two pianos

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adamsWorks for two pianos are comparatively rare and the chance to hear two contemporary works for them rarer still.  Today, in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre we got to do just that.  The program consisted of John Adams’ 1996 Hallelujah Junction, which i have heard a few times before, and Hans Thomalla’s 2004 piece Noema.  Both composers were there to introduce there works. Continue reading →

Renée and her frocks

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John Cox’s production of Massenet’s Thaïs at the Metropolitan Opera is probably most remembered for the rather extraordinary collection of Christian Lacroix frocks that Met perennial Renée Fleming gets to wear.  It’s rather more than that.  In fact it’s a pretty good example of what the Met does best.  It’s sumptuous and spectacular and has a pretty much ideal cast which, together, go a long way toward making this curious piece rather enjoyable.

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The Lessons of Love

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Last night Toronto Masque Theatre presented a double bill entitled The Lessons of Love.  First up was John Blow’s 1683 masque Venus and Adonis and it was followed by the premier of The Lesson of Da Ji; a fusion of Western and traditional Chinese elements by composer Alice Ping Yee Ho and librettist Marjorie Chan.

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