My review of Thursday’s performance of Brian Current and Marie Clements’ MISSING at Toronto Summer Music is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo: Lucky Tang
MISSING in concert
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MISSING on CD
My review of the CD of Brian Current and Marie Clements’ opera MISSING; about murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is now published at La Scena Musicale. This is going to be performed at Toronto Summer Music next month.
Coming up at Toronto Summer Music – MISSING
I’ve been following the development of MISSING; an opera with text by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current since early 2017. There’s an article principally about the project in the Summer 2017 edition of Opera Canada. But I’ve yet to see the opera on stage. It’s had multiple productions in Western Canada but this July will see it’s first performance east of the Lakehead when Toronto Summer Music present it in concert format. That’s at Koerner Hall on July 24th.
Marion Newman in MISSING at Pacific Opera Victoria – Photo: Dean Kalyan
Haydn’s Orfeo at the MacMillan Theatre
Last night saw the first of two performances of Haydn’s rarely performed 1791 work Orfeo: L’anima del filosofo. I know how much effort and indeed passion went into creating this production and the singing is pretty good. I wish I could say I enjoyed it but I can’t. There were just too many issues.
Let’s start with the opera itself. Maybe it was never completely finished as it was shut down by the authorities during rehearsals in London. Maybe that’s why it feels horribly unbalanced. The first half (two acts) tell us of Eurydice being betrothed, against her will, to her father, King Creonte’s, rival Arideo. She runs off into the forest where she is about to be devoured by beasts when the news is brought to Orfeo who then sings at length before “rushing” off to rescue Euridice.
Haydn’s Orfeo
On May 26th and 27th in the MacMillan Theatre there’s a chance to see Haydn’s rarely performed Orfeo: L’anima del filosofo. It was composed for London in 1791 but was shut down during rehearsals because the Lord Chamberlain’s office thought it subversively supportive of enlightenment values at a time when Pitt’s government was cracking down brutally on pro French Revolutionary sentiment in the UK.
It finally made it to the stage in 1951 in Florence with Maria Callas as Euridice. It’s had a few runs in Europe since, including Cecilia Bartoli’s Covent Garden debut, but can scarcely be called a “staple of the repertoire”. Now it’s being given its North American premiere by a collaboration between the music schools at University of Toronto and McGill University led by Dr. Caryl Clarke. Continue reading
Singing our songs
The latest concert in the Confluence series featured Marion Newman and friends addressing the question “What is Indigenous classical music?” through a carefully curated programme of works; all of which featured words by Indigenous women. We began with Marion singing Barbara Kroall’s Zasakwaa (There is a Heavy Frost) with words in Odawa describing the earth going to sleep for the winter with flute accompaniment by Stephen Tam. It was followed by Rebecca Cuddy singing three of the Five Songs on Poems by Marilyn Dumont by Ian Cusson. These are really fine settings of interesting, pithy, angry texts that have a wicked humour to them. I particularly like Letter to Sir John A. Macdonald which I’ve written about before.
A first look at UoT this year
The students of the post graduate program at UoT Opera were on show in the RBA yesterday with a show made up of staged opera excerpts curated and directed by Michael Patrick Albano. It’s right at the beginning of the academic year and these sorts of concerts are a bit of a calibration exercise for those of us who follow the progress of young singers. The starting point this year is decidedly high.
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