My review of the COC’s season opener; Verdi’s Nabucco, is now up at @bachtrack
Photo credit: Michael Cooper
Great singing, dull production
1
Tag Archives: coc
October 2024
Opera’s back with the start of a new COC season and more. Here’s a look at what I think looks interesting in October.
First up there are two theatre festivals with multiple shows. Aluna Theatre’s RUTAS International Performing Arts Festival runs from September 26th to October 9th (various venues). There’s a distinct Latinx twist to this one. Then from the 16th to the 27th at Buddies in Bad Times there’s the Next Stage Theatre Festival run by the same folks as the Fringe. Both are pretty varied with something for pretty much everyone.
September 2024
Well late August has been a bit thin in terms of live performances but September. sees things back with a bang.
-
- Opera Revue has a Verdi and Weill show at the Redwood Theatre.
- Coal Mine Theatre is opening with Annie Baker’s Infinite Life which played to rave reviews in London and New York. Previews are on the 6th to 8th with opening on the 10th. The play runs until the 29th.
- Crow’s opens their season with Ibsen’s Rosmersholm. Previews run from the 3rd to the 10th with opening night on the 11th. The run continues to October 6th.
What’s on in June?
Here’s an events listing for June as it currently stands:
- Canadian Children’s Opera Company are doing Dean Burry’s The Hobbit at Harbourfront Centre on May 31st through June 2nd.
- June 6th at 7.30pm at Arrayspace there’s Echoes of Bi-Sotoon; short operatic works by seven composers inspired by the ancient site of Bi-Sotoon (which) means the place of the gods).
Excellent Don Pasquale from the Ensemble Studio
Tuesday night at the Four Seasons Centre it was the turn of the Ensemble Studio cast to give us Donizetti’s Don Pasquale. It’s the same Barbe et Doucet production of course but director Marilyn Gronsdal, conductor Simone Luti and an excellent cast definitely gave it their own twist. Everybody seemed to have their own bit of business that we didn’t see on opening night and they all worked.
The COC’s production of Cherubini’s Medea is grand opera at its grandest
Cherubini’s Medea, in the 1909 Italian version being used by the COC, got there by a fairly circuitous route. Euripides 5th century BCE tragedy and Seneca’s 1st century CE play inspired a French verse version of 1635 by Thomas Corneille which was turned into an opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier in 1693. In 1797 a version with music by Cherubini to a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman; retaining much of Corneille’s version as spoken dialogue, premiered in Paris. In 1909, for the Italian premiere at La Scala an Italian translation with added recitatives was used and that became, more or less, the standard version for its rare 20th century revivals (most notably in the 1950s with Maria Callas) and that’s the version being given at the COC with Sondra Radvanovsky in the title role. Understandable really. It’s hard enough to find a cast that can do justice to the music. To expect them also to be expert at declaiming Alexandrines en français is probably expecting a bit too much.
A purrfect storm
I don’t think it’s a big secret that I’m a fan of furry felines so I’m probably predisposed to like Barbe & Doucet’s cat themed production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale for the COC which opened at the Four Seasons Centre on Friday night. It starts with a projected comic book type prologue during the overture. Malatesta discovers that cat lover Pasquale is allergic to them so the old man has to ditch his actual furry friends for a series of statues that then crop up all over the Pensione Pasquale. Yes B&D have set another opera in a hotel! It’s clever because it makes us a little more sympathetic to the old man who isn’t the nicest guy as written.
May listings
It’s coming towards the end of the traditional “season” but there’s sill plenty happening. Here’s how I see may shaping up at present (I expect more theatre listings will come in. They tend to be somewhat less notice!):
- May 1st and 2nd: The TSO are coupling Brahms’ First Symphony with Emily D’Angelo and material from her enargeia CD.
- Also on May 2nd the Women’s Musical Club are hosting Joyce El-Khoury in recital at Walter Hall.
April preview
Here are some upcoming shows for April:
Music
- First, a late March Show. Yu Dun and Royce Vavrek’s Pulitzer winning opera Angel’s Bone, about human trafficking, comes to Harbourfront Centre Theatre March 22nd to 24th. More information here.
- On the 6th the Happenstancers have a concert; Being Pascal Dusapin, at Redeemer Lutheran. We are promised a “a portrait concert in palindromic form” featuring music by Dusapin, Kaija Saariaho and Samy Moussa.
COC 2024/25
The COC has just announced it’s 2024/25 season. It’s a mixed bag. There are some very welcome examples of operas not seen in Toronto for a long time and a new co-commission. There’s a perhaps surprisingly earlier than expected remount of Eugene Onegin plus Madama Butterfly yet again but at least it’s a “new to Toronto” production. There are no new/new productions and no COC Theatre production though there’s one performance of a concert version of Cavalleria Rusticana at the Four Seasons Centre. It’s a bit light on star power too though there are plenty of opportunities for home grown favourites.
A scene from William Kentridge’s Wozzeck – photo: Ruth Walz
operaramblings 