The second concert in the OPUS IV series, which took place on Tuesday evening at the Arts and Letters Club, had a similar structure to Sunday evening. The concert was anchored around a major, well known, work. In this case Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with the rest of the programme featuring less familiar material. It was given by the same five instrumentalists as Sunday; Stella Chen and Isabella Perron – violins, Matthew Lipman – viola, Brannon Cho – cello and Kevin Ahfat – piano.
Once in a while one comes across a really impressive new opera and I would put The Lord of Cries; music by John Corigliano, text by Mark Adamo, into that category. It’s an example of how opera is good at telling “big stories”. In this case the base material is Euripides’ Bacchae but Adamo has relocated it to 19th century London and very cleverly layered onto it the core elements of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to create a multi-layered and subtle psychological thriller.
UoT Opera presented a show of mostly Mozart arias/scenes in a semi staged fashion directed by Mabel Wonnacott in the RBA on Wednesday. Although each scene was credited in the programme the parts weren’t specified and since I don’t know this new group of students I’m only gong to name names where I’m sure!
I’ve attended many very good concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre but I’m not sure I’ve ever attended one as intense as Tracy Dahl and Liz Upchurch’s Songs from the Heart recital today. Tracy really is a rather extraordinary artist. She is the antithesis of the lieder singer who stands demurely by the piano and Schuberts mellifluously. She throws every fibre of her being into the performance. It’s not campily histrionic but voice, facial expression and gesture are all used to the full whether she’s hiccupping a drunken Harlequin or sibilantly suggesting a slithery singing snake.
operaramblings 