Tag Archives: dahl

October upcoming

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Music – concerts and opera

  • 2nd October – UoT Opera perform at noon in the RBA
  • 3rd October – Mozart’s Così fan tutte opens at the COC. Seven performances to October 18th
  • 6th October – Soundstreams present Steve Reich at 80 at Koerner Hall
  • 13th October – Tracy Dahl gives a recital at noon in the RBA
  • 15th October – Opera Atelier preview their upcoming Charpentier show in the RBA
  • 16th October – Toronto Operetta Theatre present La Grande-Duchess de Gérolstein in the Jane Mallett Theatre
  • 22nd October – Opera Atelier open The Death of Orpheus at Koerner Hall. Further shows on the 23rd and 24th
  • 29th October – Emma Nikolovska is in recital at Koerner Hall
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Enjoyable Puccini double bill opens Opera 5’s Toronto Opera Festival

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Opera 5 opened the Toronto Opera festival on Wednesday at Theatre Passe Muraille with a Puccini double bill; the rarely seen Suor Angelica and perennial crowd pleaser Gianni Schicchi. Both were presented fully staged in productions by Jessica Derventzis with accompaniment by a chamber ensemble (string quartet, bass, harp, piano) conducted by Evan Mitchell.

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Opera 5 Toronto Opera Festival Preview

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How many singers can you fit in a clown car one hour lunchtime recital in the RBA? Opera 5 managed eighteen ranging from Krisztina Szabó and Greg Dahl to a whole posse of interns plus Trevor Chartrand at the piano. Besides material obviously related to the upcoming (June 3rd to 14th) festival at Theatre Passe Muraille there was Mozart, Strauss (R), musical theatre and Die Fledermaus. It was all really well done but I’m just going to talk about the material that’s most relevant to the festival.

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Stellar singing in Rigoletto revival

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Wednesday night I attended the second performance of the current run of Verdi’s Rigoletto at the COC.  This is a revival of the Christopher Alden production first seen in 2011 (first cast, second cast) and again in 2018.  So the basic concept is the same.  All the action is played out, quite publicly, in the “gaming room” of a Victorian gentlemen’s club.  I think the production has grown on me over time.  I felt the tweaks in 2018 were improvements and I suspect some more tweaks this time.  Certainly from where i was sitting in the Orchestra the set seemed bigger than I remember.  It’s huge and very painterly.  It also has great acoustics.

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Opera 5’s 2026 Toronto Opera Festival

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Following on from this year’s successful festival at Theatre Passe Muraille Opera 5 are once again running a sort of mini festival at that venue in June next year.  There will be two programmes.  There’s a Puccini double bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi which, I’m guessing will be given with chamber ensemble accompaniment.  Rachel Krehm headlines as the theologically unsound nun while Gianni Schicchi has Greg Dahl in the title role.  Krisztina Szabó will appear in both operas as Princess Zia and Zita.  Jessica Derventzis directs and Evan Mitchell is in charge of matters musical.  This one runs June 3rd to 7th. Continue reading →

Opera 5 gala

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Opera 5 opened the first Toronto Opera Festival last night at Factory Theatre with a gala featuring Greg Dahl and the singers from their intern programme; most of whom have McGill connections..  It was basically a concert of opera arias and scenes and musical theatre numbers in about equal shares.  It was quite varied ad theire was some excellent singing supported with versatility and flair by Nate Ben-Horin on a slightly battered looking piano (it sounded fine though!).

Nate Ben-Horin, piano; Gregory Dahl, baritone

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It was the best of times…

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UoT Opera Division’s production of Arthur Benjamin’s A Tale of Two Cities, currently playing at the MacMillan Theatre, is really rather good.  Its partly the work itself which surely deserves to be better known.  It’s a 1950 work to a libretto by Cedric Cliffe.  It was written for the Festival of Britain and was considered a success at the time.  It is in many ways typical of mid 20th century English opera (though Benjamin was a peripatetic Australian rather than a Brit).  It’s colourful and uses a large orchestra with lots of brass and percussion and combines lyricism with some fairly heavy dissonance.  It also includes a few good arias, notably one for Lucie Manette, the romantic female interest.

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Dr. Manette (Burak Yaman), Lucie Manette (Emily Rocha)

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Egoyan’s Così – brunette edition

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The COC season continued last night with Atom Egoyan’s production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, first seen in January 2014.  There are some changes from the previous outing but most of what I had to say about the production holds good still.  This time there have been cuts.  The show now runs as two ninety minute acts plus an interval and it feels tighter and doesn’t drag so much in the second act.  In the process some of the heavy handed symbolism has been discarded; fewer pinned butterflies.  I think the physical comedy may have ratcheted up just a touch but maybe that’s me misremembering.  And the girls are brunettes, rather than redheads, but still well matched enough to look like sisters.  Musically, I think it’s been lightened up somewhat.  Bernard Labadie, something of a period specialist, conducts and Michael Shannon accompanies the recits on a fortepiano.  But, still, fundamentally the same show.

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Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian

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I finally got to see Rufus Wainwright’s new opera Hadrian, to a libretto by Daniel Macivor, at the Four Seasons Centre last night.  There’s been a lot of hype around it and I was interested; the few bits of music from it that I had heard intrigued me but I’m no fan of his earlier work Prima Donna.  One thing was certain.  The piece does not lack ambition. There are four acts totalling something like 160 minutes.  There’s a large cast, a large orchestra, a large chorus and an epic storyline.  It’s clearly an attempt to produce a “grand opera” for our times.  Does it succeed?

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Danceworks at 40

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Danceworks 40th anniversary show opened at Harbourfront last night.  Now contemporary dance isn’t really my thing but I was invited in part on the assumption I’d write about the music.  Fair enough but I thought we could do better than that so I asked my partner Katja, who has at least some dance in her background to guest review.  She has done this in rather more detail than I might have expected so what follows is basically her work.  I have added a few comments, mostly about the music, and I have made it clear where it’s me talking.  It would be obvious anyway as I am, as the good lady points out, a “grumpy old bastard”.  Over to Katja…

Joanna de Souza & Esmeralda Enrique-Amalgam-photo 03 by Hervé Lelbay_preview

Photo: Hervé Lelbay

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