Empire of Wild; music by Ian Cusson, libretto by Cherie Dimaline, is based on the latter’s novel of the same name and will feature as part of the COC’s main stage season in May 2027. Last Wednesday the COC orchestra with soloists performed five excerpts from the opera in the RBA. The summary version is that it’s most unusual. It’s very grand, it’s tonal, it has numbers yet there is something very modern about it. I suppose one could just say it’s very Ian Cusson!
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.
Thursday’s noon hour in the concert was a really great idea; combine the COC Ensemble Studio with the COC Orchestra for an all Mozart concert. Mozart’s Symphony No.35 in D major (Hafner) was split into into its four movements with pairs of arias inserted between the movements to create what Johannes Debus, conducting, described as an opéra imaginaire. It worked really well.
On Friday night the COC presented a one-off concert style performance of Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana. Concert style, in this case, meaning the orchestra on stage with the chorus behind them and the soloists singing from music stands at the front of the stage. There were some projections behind the stage.
Sometimes the Canadian Opera Company gets it right and the current production of Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen is a good example. It’s got all the things that might help boost a flagging audience. It’s not over familiar. Nobody is going to be complaining that they have seen the same old boring production five times already. It’s a brilliant score. The production is intelligent with enough for those who want more than a costume drama while not doing anything to shock the pearl clutchers. It’s well sung; with a goodly quantity of local talent, and the orchestral playing and conducting is exemplary. What more could one ask for? One could I suppose add that it’s an opera one could happily take children to.
Thursday night at the Four Seasons Centre saw the tenth iteration of the COC’s Centre Stage: Ensemble Studio Competition. It’s a competition for young singers for cash prizes and, more opaquely, potential places in the COC’s Ensemble Studio.
L-R: Duncan Stenhouse, Emily Rocha, Elisabeth St-Gelais
The COC opened its 2023/24 season on Friday night with Matthew Ozawa’s production of Beethoven’s 1805 attack on corruption and tyranny; Fidelio. Ozawa gives it a contemporary American setting with all the action playing out on a sort of multi-level rotating cage. It’s pretty effective and efficient in allowing scenes to succeed each other quite seamlessly.
On Saturday evening the COC presented a teaser concert for their 2023/24 season on the outdoor stage at Harbourfront. The weather stayed fair and there was no more than the usual aural background to distract a little from the music. The full orchestra under Johannes Debus was on display along with half a dozen members of the Ensemble Studio.
The COC’s 2022/23 season opened last night with a revival of David Alden’s production of Wagner’s Der fliegender Holländer with Marilyn Gronsdal directing. It’s been eleven years since this production was last seen and, if memory serves, it created some controversy back then, chiefly on account of the Dutchman’s “zombie” crew. Seeing it again it’s hard to see what the fuss was about. It’s actually a very straightforward production where sailing ships are sailing ships and spinning sheds feature textile workers. The only deviation from the libretto that I noticed was Senta’s death. Here she’s shot by Erik while holding up a picture of the Dutchman.
Bartok’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle is a twisted little opera with wonderful music. Atom Egoyan’s film Felicia’s Journey is equally twisted and also derived at root from the Bluebeard material. So it makes sense to mash them up and that, essentially, is what Egoyan has done in the latest on-line presentation from the COC.
operaramblings 