Yesterday lunchtime the Ensemble Studio gave us a preview of their upcoming performance of the Barber of Seville. The production, of course, will be the one currently on stage at the Four Seasons Centre and there were clear echoes of that in the way yesterday’s event was put on though they also played with the fact that Almaviva will be split between Andrew Haji and Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure with much pulling and pushing into place.
The COC’s new production of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville opened last night at the Four Season’s Centre. The production is by the Catalan collective Els Comediants, the same team who did La Cenerentola a few seasons back, with direction by Joan Font and designs by Joan Guillén. It’s a riot in a good way. It’s bold, colourful and very well choreographed. There are giant props; for example a huge guitar from which Almaviva sings his serenade and a giant pink piano which serves for all kinds of shenanigans. A lot of the “sung action” is doubled by actors in a sort of on stage projection cube. Scene changes are “on the fly” and the curtain only comes down for the interval and the end. Bold, clever, slick.
Alek Shrader as Count Almaviva. Photo: Michael Cooper
Today’s lunch time concert in the RBA was a lieder recital by two Ensemble Studio members; bass-baritone Gordon Bintner and tenor Andrew Haji. Both singers sang settings of texts by Heinrich Heine. Bintner, accompanied by Jennifer Szeto kicked off with selections from Schubert’s Schwanengesang to be followed by Haji and Liz Upchurch with Schumann’s Dichterliebe.
Sometimes I forget the obvious… Here’s what the big kids are doing in April/May.
Opera Atelier are staging Berlioz’s 1859 version of Gluck’s Orphée. There are six performances from April 9th to April 18th. Mireille Lebel sings Orpheus, Peggy Kriha Dye sings Eurydice and Meghan Lindsay is Amour. This will be Tafelmusik’s furthest foray yet into 19th century repertoire. It’s at the Elgin and Marshall Pynkoski directs. Not sure who is conducting, presumably David Fallis.
How many Toronto lawyers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Two; one to fly to New York and the other to stand by the fax machine waiting for the instructions.
Today the COC’s winter run of Don Giovanni and Die Walküre comes to an end. It’s worth reflecting on what we’ve seen I think. Neither production could be called “traditional” and the Don Giovanni in particular produced a broad range of reactions, some of them quite extreme. I’m not really sure why as, by international standards, it wasn’t particularly extreme. And that’s the starting point for this “thought for the day”.
Today saw the annual lunchtime concert in the RBA in which members of the COC Ensemble Studio collaborate with visitors from the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal. There were three singers from each program but rather unusually only one of them was female; soprano France Bellemare. Naturally I was rather focussed on the visiting singers as the three Toronto participants; Gordon Bintner, Clarence Frazer and Andrew Haji are very much known quantities. Of the visitors it was very much Ms. Bellemare who shone. She has a very accurate, lovely rich voice with perhaps still some work to do on the top of her range but very easy to listen to and she’s musically and dramatically convincing too. Her version of Micaëla’s Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante was very competent though I’m not sure it’s ideal rep for her. The Song to the Moon from Rusalka though fitted her like a glove. This was really lovely singing. She also did very well in duet with Clarence Frazer in Lippen schweigen from Die Lustige Witwe or The Merry Widow or La Veuve Joyeuse as all three languages were used! She can waltz too though perhaps not as well as Clarence. Ladies, if you need a dance partner consider Mr. Frazer. She also shone in the final number; the Libiamo from La Traviata. I confess when I saw the program and saw that she would be partnered by Andrew Haji I rather expected her to be sung off the stage. She wasn’t. She held her own with a tenor who will sing this role on the COC’s main stage next season. No mean feat. This young lady is definitely one to watch.
I was back at the Four Seasons Centre last night to have another look at the COC’s Die Walküre. The big news, which I heard pretty much as soon as I arrived, was that cover Issachah Savage would be singing Siegmund in place of an indisposed Clifton Forbis. This time, unlike last Saturday when he also sang, this was very much a last minute call. The reviews and the word on the street, and from my companion for the evening who had seen him in Seattle when he won the International Wagner Competition last year had been very positive so I was very interested to hear him. Clearly word had got out about his Saturday performance because when the announcement was made in the hall there was a curious ambiguous noise not at all like the collective sigh that usually greets such news.
Yesterday’s review of the Glyndebourne Ravel double bill prompted a question from a regular reader as to why that particular combination wasn’t performed more often. That meshed with some thoughts I’ve been having about why combinations of shorter operas aren’t programmed more often in major houses. They are pretty much a staple of the indie companies in Toronto, especially where contemporary works are concerned but much less featured by the larger companies. For example, in the eight completed or planned COC seasons I have data readily to hand for, four of fifty four slots were/will be filled by such combinations. For the record, The Nightingale etc in 2009/10 (a show that sold out and had an extra performance added), Gianni Schicchi and A Florentine Tragedy in 2011/12, Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Erwartung this season and Pyramus and Thisbe etc next season. The last time Opera Atelier did anything comparable was, I think, a pairing of Dido and Aeneas and Blow’s An Ode on the Death of Mr. Henry Purcell but that was a very long time ago.
Last night in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre the singers of the COC Ensemble Studio competed for the Quilico awards for the third time in this format. Owen McAusland was off singing in Lucia di Lammermoor in Victoria and Andrew Haji was down with the flu so seven singers actually sang. As usual the standard was very high and it can’t have been easy for the judges. Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure and Ian MacNeil had a bit of an off night but that left five singers who I has extremely close on my notes. No permutation of three from five would have particularly surprised me.
Iain MacNeil, Aviva Fortunata, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Karine Boucher, Clarence Frazer, Charlotte Burrage, Gordon Bintner, Jennifer Szeto and Michael Shannon
Christine Goerke made her stage debut as Brünnhilde last night in Atom Egoyan’s production of Die Walküre at the COC. She didn’t disappoint. It’s a big voice with ringing high notes that ping over the orchestra. No scooping on the high notes either. She’s probably the next great Brünnhilde and that’s probably what last night will best be remembered for. With all the Elektras in her calendar it may also be a a case of “catch it while you can”. The rest of the singing was pretty distinguished too. Johan Reuter was a firm toned, perfectly solid Wotan. Heidi Melton, from beginning to end, was a wonderful Sieglinde to listen to; accurate, sweet of tone (for a dramatic soprano) and almost matching Goerke for power. Clifton Forbis, the Siegmund, still has genuine Helden high notes and was pleasant to listen to. One might have wished for a slightly more ardent approach to the Winterstürme scene but it was more than decent. Dimitry Ivaschshenko was a genuine solid bass Hunding who sounded just right and acted more, and better, than most. Janina Baechle made the most of her cameo as Fricka. The octet of junior Valkyries, made up of mostly younger singers, injected some youthful vigour into the whole enterprise to good effect. Johannes Debus in the pit impressed as a Wagnerian once more with a tightly structured and, at appropriate points, opulent reading of the score. The COC orchestra, always admirable, as so often last night pulled out their best for Johannes. So, admirable music making.
operaramblings 