Last night, at Roy Thomson Hall, the TSO presented a two part Mozart program. The first half consisted of pieces from two abandoned opera projects; the buffa Lo sposo deluso and the Singspiel Zaide. The second half consisted of the better known, but incomplete, Mass in C Minor.
L to R: Guilmette, Fortier-Lazure, Bintner, Tessier. Photo – Malcolm Cook
I guess it’s a good thing when one’s emotional and intellectual reactions to a program threaten to overwhelm one’s ability to listen analytically and evaluate. That’s what art is for isn’t it? Anyway that’s pretty much what happened to me today listening to a program called Songs of Love and War in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. The songs were all pieces more or less inspired by the catastrophes of the first half of the twentieth century; the wars, the rise of Nazi power, the occupation of France. These are all events that have many layers of meaning for me. I have studied them and the music and literature they generated for decades. I have known, often well, people who played roles in these events. I have deeply held views. You have been warned!
Ever since they were first published the poems that make up AE Housman’s A Shropshire Lad have exerted a fascination over English composers. Today in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre we heard two first year members of the Ensemble Studio give performances of two settings that take quite different approaches to the texts.
Yesterday lunchtime saw the first free lunchtime concert of the season in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Following tradition, it was presented by the members of the Ensemble Studio. Or, to be more accurate, by six of the nine as an unprecedented three singers had fallen victim to the virus that is apparently sweeping the Toronto opera world (HighCbola?).
Credit: (l-r) Jennifer Szeto, Andrew Haji, Karine Boucher, Charlotte Burrage, Clarence Frazer, Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Iain MacNeil. Photo: Karen Reeves
The Canadian Opera Company has announced the addition of three singers and a pianist to the Ensemble Studio for next season. The singers, unsurprisingly, are the three prize winners from November’s Centre Stage; Soprano Karine Boucher, tenor Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure and bass-baritone Iain MacNeil, The pianist is Jennifer Szeto. The COC also announced the setting up of an orchestral equivalent of the Ensemble Studio in which a number of young musicians will work with Johannes Debus and the COC Orchestra. Names were announced on Wedneday night but I can’t find them in any of the press releases. Continue reading
Last night saw the latest evolution of the COC’s Ensemble Studio competition; a competition for cash prizes functioning as well as final auditions for next year’s Ensemble Studio. This year, for the first time, it was packaged as Centre Stage; a gala event featuring a cocktail reception and black tie dinner as well as the competition itself. Added to that, the singers got to perform with the COC orchestra under Johannes Debus on the main stage rather than in the RBA with piano accompaniment.
Finalists with Rufus Wainwright
operaramblings 