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Opera Atelier’s Médée

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There are umpteen operas based more or less closely on the legends surrounding Medea, Jason, the Golden Fleece and the events afterwards in Corinth.  Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s 1693 version to a libretto by Corneille deals with the events in Corinth subsequent to Jason and Medea’s return with the fleece.  The plot, in essentials, is simplicity itself.  Jason is scheming to secure his future, and that of his children, by ditching Médée and marrying the king’s daughter Créuse.  Médée is not having this and wreaks revenge on just about everybody else in the piece.  Somehow Charpentier and Corneille string this out over five acts and the obligatory prologue glorifying Louis XIV, wisely omitted by director Marshall Pynkoski.

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Like the 504 streetcar

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Season announcements, it seems, are like the King Street streetcar(1).  You wait for ages then three come along at once.  This time it’s Opera Atelier announcing the 2017/18 season.  As ever there are two productions.  A remount of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro runs October 26th to November 4th. The cast icludes Douglas Williams, making his Opera Atelier debut, in the title role, with Mireille Asselin (Susanna), Stephen Hegedus (Count Almaviva), Peggy Kriha Dye (Countess Almaviva), Mireille Lebel (Cherubino), Laura Pudwell (Marcellina), Gustav Andreassen (Bartolo), Christopher Enns (Basilio/Don Curzio), Olivier Laquerre (Antonio), and Grace Lee (Barbarina).  This one will be sung in English.

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Patrick Jang, Carla Huhtanen and Phillip Addis in “The Marriage of Figaro” (2010).  Photo by Bruce Zinger.

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Opera Atelier announces 2015/16 season

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Opera Atelier has announced its plans for the 2015/16 season.  As seems to have become the norm, the Toronto season will feature one new (to Toronto anyway) production and one remount.  The new piece will be Mozart’s little seen Lucio Silla which played at last year’s Salzburg Festival( with a considerably starrier cast) and which is headed for La Scala in a few weeks time.  The title role will be sung by Kresimir Spicer, alongside Inga Kalna (Cinna), Mireille Asselin (Celia), Peggy Kriha Dye (Cecillio) and Meghan Lindsay (Giunia).  David Fallis and Tafelmusik will be in the pit.  There will be six performances as follows; April 7th, 9th, 10th (3:00pm), 12th, 15th, and 16th (4:30pm), 2016 (start times 7:30 pm except where noted).  FWIW here’s a review of the Salzburg production.

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Opera Atelier does it again

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I had planned on giving Opera Atelier’s production of Lully’s Persée a miss but early reviews were positive and, more importantly for me, suggested there was something new and a bit different about the piece this time around.  This production has been around since 2000 and was recorded for DVD four years later so I knew pretty much what to expect and to be honest that’s what we got last night.  If there were changes, they were very minor.  If anything it’s got even camper and I do wonder whether OA is in danger of becoming a sort of parody of itself.  And it’s still three hours of OA doing Lully and if that’s your thing you will not be disappointed.  If you are expecting anything else you won’t get it.

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Opera Atelier announces 14/15 season

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alcina.jpgOpera Atelier announces its usual two production season.  The fall 2014 production will be Handel’s Alcina with Meghan Lindsay in the title role.  She will be joined by Allyson McHardy as Ruggiero, Marie Lenormand as Bradamante, Mireille Asselin as Morgana, Krešimir Špicer as Oronte and Olivier Laquerre as Melisso.  Despite the absence of Curtis Sullivan, the advance publicity suggests that the trend to ever increasing amounts of bare flesh will continue.

The spring 2015 production will be Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice in the Berlioz orchestration.  This will push Tafelmusik even further into 19th century romantic rep.  Is Tannhäuser on the cards?  Mireille Lebel will sing Orpheus, Peggy Kriha Dye appears as Eurydice with Meghan Lindsay as Amour.

In many ways this is the most interesting season OA have offered for some time and the venture into Handel is very welcome.  More details and tickets can be found here.