Collectìf’s latest show for the Toronto Summer Music Festival at Walter Hall last night was called Beyond Perception: What Haunts Us Now. It presented three new multimedia works each curated and directed by one of the trio of singers. The first piece, by Whitney O’Hearne featured arrangements of French works; both folk and classical that deal with the idea of La Dame Blanche; by turns sorceress or virgin bride. Turning the idea of male defined female transgression upside down to celebrate women’s agency, O’Hearn combined arrangements of the chosen music for combinations of three voices and piano with soft focus atmospheric video rather reminiscent of Collectìf’s Winterreise show at Heliconian Hall. The singing was beautiful and the concept intriguing. Top notch accompaniment by Trevor Chartrand.
Coming up later this month…
March was a curiously quiet month. April starts to look busier, at least once we get past Easter. Tonight, Against the Grain have their monthly pub night at The Amsterdam Bicycle Club. Snow is forecast so you should all stay away and then maybe I’ll be able to get in. On Saturday at 4pm there’s a free (or PWYC) recital in Ernest Baumer Studio featuring soprano Stephanie Nakagawa and pianist Peemanat Kittimontreechai. They will be performing arias from contemporary Canadian operas. On Thursday 13th Philippe Jaroussky and Les Violins du Roy will be appearing at Koerner Hall. It’s at 8pm and features mainly fairly obscure Handel material.
On the face of it the idea of reorganising Schubert’s Winterreise for three female voices and staging it as a kind of allegory isn’t an obvious one but Collectìf’s As a Stranger worked remarkably well. The arrangement and distribution of the numbers was judicious; most of the songs went to a single singer, some were split and occasional and effective use was made of two or three voices in unison. The idea behind the split being to make mezzo Whitney O’Hearne the narrator/traveller while sopranos Jennifer Krabbe and Danika Lorèn embodied the malign and benign aspects/characters of the story. Heliconian Hall doesn’t offer a lot in the way of staging possibilities but well thought out costumes, a few props and a considerable, and quite sophisticated, video element added up to a pretty satisfying experience. In the last number Jennifer relieved Tom King at the piano to allow the Leierman to stagger off into the wintry night. All well thought out and well executed.
With Easter almost upon us it’s not surprising that the upcoming week is a bit light. Tonight Danika Lorèn and friends at Collectìf have a show at Heliconian Hall at 7.30pm. It’s called As a Stranger and is their take on Schubert’s Winterreise. I’ve been quite taken by this young group’s efforts to date. Tickets are available 
So this week is the big Messiah week. I’ll be seeing two; the TSO’s “big, fat” Messiah on Tuesday and Against the Grain’s choreographed version the following night. The TSO version uses Andrew Davis’ “large scale” orchestration and has a great quartet of soloists. It’s playing at Roy Thomson Hall Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday through Sunday. The AtG version also has great soloists, it’s on a smaller scale and features Jenn Nicholls’ choreography. It plays at Harbourfront Wednesday through Saturday. There’s also Tafelmusik’s baroque take at Trinity St. Paul’s, also Wednesday through Saturday.
operaramblings 