The first production by Benevolence Opera Project took place on Friday evening at the Redwood Theatre. It was a benefit for the Redwood Shelter for women and children fleeing abuse. One could argue that the choice of Mozart’s Don Giovanni was a bit odd in the circumstances but it certainly got conversation going around the issues!
This year’s New Year offering from Toronto Operetta Theatre is Imre Kálmán’s 1924 work Countess Maritza presented in Nigel Douglas’ English language version. It’s a pretty typical TOT offering. The work itself is a rather silly love story full of just about every cliché about central Europe bar vampires but it’s tuneful and the ten piece orchestra conducted by Derek Bate provides colour and volume enough for the Jane Mallett Theatre.
The final programme of Confluence Concerts season took place at Heliconian Hall on Wednesday night. It was billed as The Confluence Songbook and, if there was a theme, it was about doing live versions of music that had been streamed during the Plague. But really by the time we saw it it had outgrown that. For, in addition to the full line up of Confluence artistic associates there was a raft of guests which resulted in a fairly lengthy and very eclectic programme. Continue reading
Belle Cao
VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert opened their 50th anniversary season at the Jane Mallett Theatre with the first of three Verdi rarities. Un giorno di regno was Verdi’s second opera and it premiered at La Scala in 1840 to no great acclaim. It’s a curiously old fashioned piece for its time. Perhaps the fact that it sets a libretto written over twenty years earlier accounts for some of that. It’s very much a bel canto work. It’s sort of a comedy though it’s not actually all that funny; being largely concerned with machinations about who marries whom played around a somewhat implausible impersonation of the King of Poland by a minor French aristocrat. It’s no sillier than many Donizetti operas but perhaps by 1840 that formula was wearing rather thin. Continue reading
Voicebox: Opera in Concert’s most recent production is Joseph Bologne, Chévalier de St, Georges’ 1780 opéra comique, L’amant anonyme. It was given in OiC’s usual style; i.e concert dress but some blocking, a few props and no music stands. The dialogue was given in English with the musical numbers in French with surtitles. Accompaniment was a 10 piece chamber reduction of the original score by Stephen Hargreaves. David Fallis conducted.
VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert presented Mozart’s early opera Lucio Silla yesterday at the St. Lawrence Centre. Inevitably it was in a much reduced version (the original is insanely long) coming in at around two hours and organised into two acts. Tis left the principals with maybe three arias each plus a few ensemble numbers. It was presented off book but with a very minimalist production; piano at the centre of an otherwise empty stage, some atmospheric projections, basic blocking and some sort of hybrid of costume and concert wear. It actually worked rather well. This is very much a “tell” rather than “show” opera and fancy scenic effects weren’t really required.
VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert have a streamed version of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur premiering on Friday. It’s a film made at the Edward Jackman Centre that reimagines the opera as a game of chess. Natalya Gennadi sings the title role with Julie Nesrallah as the Princess de Bouillon. The cast also includes Holly Chaplin and Evan Korbut. Tickets are $20 from www.operainconcert.com and the stream will be available until July 2nd.
Toronto Operetta Theatre’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore opened last night. Director Guillermo Silva-Marin has chosen to translate the piece to a cruise ship in the 1920s which has its incongruities but they aren’t particularly disturbing (except perhaps for Sir Joseph Porter’s shoes!). In fact what we get is basically a crisp, well paced and idiomatic Pinafore which is what I want in G&S. It’s also genuinely funny, though some jokes age better than others, and occasionally even quite moving.
Mercadante’s I due Figaro(1) is one of a number of operas that continue the story of Figaro, Almaviva etc into a third instalment. It sets a libretto by Felice Romani based on Les deux Figaro by Honoré-Antoine Richaud Martelly. It premiered in Madrid in 1835 but was lost for many years before being rediscovered in 2009 and given at the 2011 Ravenna Festival. Yesterday in got its Canadian premier at VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert.
By an odd coincidence two season announcement pressers hit my in box today; Toronto Operetta Theatre and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. Toronto Operetta Theatre have four shows:
All performances are at the St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts.
operaramblings 