Tag Archives: clark

A Woman’s Voice

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A Woman's VoiceConfluence Concerts’ show last night at Heliconian Hall was titled A Woman’s Voice.  It was, after a fashion, a CD release concert in two halves.  The first half featured music by Alice Ping Yee Ho from the album A Woman’s Voice and featuring the same performers; Vania Chan, Katy Clark, Alex Hetherington, Maeve Palmer and Jialiang Zhu.  I’ve already reviewed the album and I don’t think last night changed my opinion much so I’ll not do a detailed rundown.  What I can say is that last night it was mostly opera excerpts; Lesson of Da Ji, Chinatown, The Imp of the Perverse, and a live concert gave an opportunity for a bit of staging which was definitely an enhancement, especially in The Imp of the Perverse scene.  “Café Chit Chat” and “Black” also benefitted from visual interaction between the singers.  I like the CD a lot.  Getting a chance to see some of the music live was great. Continue reading →

The Leader

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NV6469_The-LeaderThe Leader and other works is a new record of music by Karim Al-Zand.  The most substantial piece is the one act chamber opera The Leader based on Ionesco’s 1955 play Le Maître.  A reporter and two devoted fans follow the Leader wherever he goes mesmerised by his often absurd antics.  A young couple is gradually drawn into the fascination.

The Leader does ridiculous things.  he dances with a hedgehog.  He has his trousers pressed in public.  Finally it’s revealed that he no head.  Instead he has “genius”.  None of this shakes the loyalty of his followers.  One imagines that Ionesco had the European dictators of the 1930s in mind but, of course, one can substitute whichever half absurd, half sinister populist neo-Fascist one chooses.

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Carmen #YesAllWomen

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Loose Tea Music Theatre’s Carmen #YesAllWomen has been in the works for three years.  It went “live” this week with a production at Heliconian Hall.  It’s an intriguing show.  Dramatically and musically it’s recognisably based on Bizet’s Carmen but only just.  In Alaina Viau and Monica Pearce’s version the principal male character is one John Anderson, an Afghanistan vet with PTSD, his rival for Carmen is a rapper, Maximillian aka Hot God, and Michaela is Anderson’s estranged wife.

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Bon Appétit

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Muse 9 Production’s new show Bon Appétit: A Musical Tasting Menu couples three short operas about food and was, appropriately enough, presented at Merchants of Green Coffee on Matilda Street.  Perhaps “opera” isn’t the right term as, although each piece was fully staged, they featured only one singer each.  “Opera” or “staged song”?  I don’t really care as they were fun.

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A preview look at the UoT’s Don Giovanni

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UoT Opera’s fall production of Don Giovanni will open in three weeks time.  Today, in Walter Hall we got a few hints on what we may be seeing plus some semi staged excerpts.

For director Marilyn Gronsdale one way into Don Giovanni (and she accepts that there are many) is to see it as being about how the actions of the powerful impact the lives of the many.  In a sexual context it’s clearly of relevance to our times with a serial groper in the White House, a British cabinet minister out on his ear for sexual impropriety and one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures rapidly being cast into outer darkness.  One technique to be used to emphasise this is a silent chorus of women who will witness/bear witness to the action.  Maybe this is something like the Land Assembly in Peter Hinton’s take on Louis Riel?  We also learned that the design aesthetic will be stylized 1940s film noir and that we may be in for a surprise with the ending.

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Act 2 sextet: Brendan Friesen, Matthew Cairns, Alyssa Durnie, Jamie Groote, Sarah Abelard, Alex Halliday (I think)

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There must be more money

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Rocking Horse Winner; music by Gareth Williams and libretto by Anna Chatterton, opened last night at the Berkeley Street Theatre.  It’s based on the short story by DH Lawrence and is a co-commission of Tapestry Opera and Scottish Opera.  There are some changes from the original story.  Here Paul is a developmentally challenged adult (on the autism spectrum) rather than a child.  The gardener is replaced by his personal care worker who moonlights as a caller at the local racetrack.  This has a couple of advantages.  It provides something of a rationale for Paul hearing the “voice” of the house and for his apparently inexplicable intuition about race winners and it also means that Paul can be cast as a tenor rather than having to make an awkward choice between a boy soprano or a pants role.  As Paul is one of, perhaps the main, character, this simplifies casting considerably.  The work is also gently updated.  So gently in fact that it’s barely perceptible.

RHW-L to R, top to bottom Keith Klassen as Oscar, Peter McGillivray as Bassett, Asitha Tennekoon,, Stephane Mayer, Aaron Durand, Sean Clark, Elaina Moreau, Erica Iris

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Uncle John

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Against the Grain Theatre opened their new show last night on the worst day of the winter so far.  Over 15cm of snow fell and the TTC was in utter chaos.  It’s becoming a habit.  Last year’s Messiah opened in weather almost as bad.  Uncle John is the latest modern, Toronto based, adaptation of the Mozart/da Ponte trilogy.  It follows on from last season’s smash hit Figaro’s Wedding and was created and produced with support from the COC and the Banff Centre.  It will be followed by A Little Too Cosy next season.  The formula is basically the same.  It;s ataged in a non traditional spave; in this case a rock concert venue on Queen West.  The libretto is in English and differs in detail from da Ponte while respecting the basic spirit of the original.  It’s also very Toronto and a little bit Toronto opera scene insiderish.  Much of the recitative is replaced by spoken dialogue.  There’s no chorus and accompaniment to the singers is provided by piano and string quartet.  It’s a musical solution I like.  It adds enough weight and colour that one hardly misses the full orchestra while being, of course, much more affordable.  It all works really well and if you can you should see it.  I’m putting my more detailed thoughts under the cut because they contain lots of spoilers which you may not want to read if you are going.

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The one we’ve all been waiting for

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unclejohnSo Toronto’s hottest indie opera company, Against the Grain Theatre, has finally announced a 14/15 season.  Not entirely unexpectedly they are bringing #UncleJohn; a transladaptation (©Lydia Perovic) of Mozart’s Don Giovanni to Toronto after it’s successful appearance in Banff this summer.  With a new English libretto by Joel Ivany, #UncleJohn will be staged at The Black Box Theatre at 1087 Queen St. West’s vintage rock venue, The Great Hall. .

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Kupfer/Barenboim Ring – 3. Siegfried

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We seem to be in some kind of post apocalyptic wasteland.  Mime’s hut looks like a re-purposed storage tank but the bear and the forest are more or less realistic.  It’s all very dark and there’s quite a lot of use of pyrotechnics.  This is also our first look at Siegfried Jerusalem’s Siegfried and he is very good indeed.  He captures the hero’s youthful vigour and arrogance extremely well.  There is a strong performance too from a rather manic Graham Clark as Mime and John Tomlinson continues as a reckless and wild Wanderer.

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