I’m not generally a huge fan of Broadway style musicals though when they have more than average dramatic and musical depth I can be up for it. Cabaret and Candide are favourites for example; combining fairly sophisticated music with social content. I’m also, as regular readers may have noticed, intrigued by Yiddish music and Yiddish culture generally. So, I was really quite intrigued to experience Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish which opened at the Elgin Theatre on Thursday evening.
Viva la Mamma (also known as Le convenienze ed inconvenienze teatrali) may be Donizetti’s most intentionally silly opera (though some of the “serious” operas rival it for silliness). It’s a farce and should be treated as such which is exactly what Maria Lamont’s production for UoT Opera, currently playing at the Elgin Theatre, does.
Opera Atelier has announced its 2025/26 season and while it’s not especially surprising it is intriguing. As usual it’s two shows. The first show is pretty conventional. It’s a revival of OA’s production of The Magic Flute at the Elgin Theatre on October 15th, 16th, 18th and 19th 2025. Nice cast though with Colin Ainsworth as Tamino, Meghan Lindsey as Pamina, Douglas Williams as Papageno, Karine White as Papagena and Stephen Hegedus as Sarastro.
The Tragedy of Hamlet; directed by Robert Lepage with choreography by Guillaume Côté is a 100 minute long dance work based on Shakespeare’s play. It opened last (Thursday) night at the Elgin Theatre.
Photo : Stéphane Bourgeois
UoT Opera’s spring production; Massenet’s 1899 opera Cendrillon, has been transferred to the Elgin Theatre with the MacMillan currently out of commission. They have made some sensible accommodations to the rather unfriendly Elgin acoustic. The orchestra is reduced to about thirty players and placed at floor level in front of the stage. Almost all the stage action takes place right at the front which helped significantly with voice projection.
Pandolfe & Servants
Opera Atelier have announced the line up for their 2024/25 season. As with other recent seasons there’s one show at the Elgin Theatre and one at Koerner Hall.
The first show, October 24th – 27th, 2024, is Handel’s Acis and Galatea at the Elgin. I’m not going to complain about more English language Handel! Bring it on. This show is indicative of the growing relationship between OA and Versailles with French tenor Antonin Rondepierre in the role of Acis and Blaise Rantoanina singing the role of Damon. The cast is completed by Meghan Lindsey as Galatea (yea!) and Douglas Williams as Polyphemus. Christopher Bagan conducts which is also nice to see. Continue reading
There’s quite a lot to like in Opera Atelier’s current production of Gluck’s Orphée et Euridice currently running at the Elgin Theatre. It’s elegant and refined with some pretty good singing but maybe it’s a bit too refined. It’s at its best in things like “The Dance of the Blessed Spirits” where there’s an effective pas de deux danced in pointe shoes though I’m not sure it was really necessary to use enough “smoke” to fill the entire auditorium! Unfortunately, the production doesn’t make much of the potentially more dramatic moments. Orphée’s confrontation with the Guardians of Hell is pretty low key. The demons are just dancers in slightly stripey body stockings and there’s no sense of menace. It’s all a bit Robert Wilson. Until the ending, which suddenly switches aesthetic with glitter and streamers and dancers with a Scrabble set.
Opera Atelier’s remount of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro opened last night at the Elgin. It’s a curious production made up of parts that don’t really fit together, hence the review title. At the core is a rather elegant traditional production. It’s wigs and crinolines and might have been seen almost anywhere almost any time in the last fifty years or so. Most of the excessive baroque gesturing is gone and the acting is stagey but no more so than in many opera productions.
Opera Atelier’s production of Mozart’s Lucio Silla opened last night at the Elgin. This is, more or less, the production that played at the Salzburg Festival and, later, at La Scala to considerable critical acclaim. It’s not hard to see why. It’s much the best thing Opera Atelier has done in a while. It’s more restrained than recent shows and trimmed of excess the familiar approach looks quite fresh again.
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