Tag Archives: haji

Magic Flute – the other cast

Posted on by
Reply

Last night I saw the alternate cast of the COC’s Magic Flute.  Owen McCausland swaps First Armed Man for Tamino with Andrew Haji, Kirsten MacKinnon comes in as Pamina, Phillip Addis is Papageno and Matt Boehler is Sarastro.  The changes don’t really affect things much at all.  All the new faces are very good.  MacKinnon is a very perky Pamina which works well with Addis who has maybe a bit more of the “cheeky chappy” than Hopkins.  Fans of Owen McCausland and Andrew Haji will see exactly the differences in timbre and vocal technique one would expect but the interpretation is pretty much the same.  Overall, I would say that someone not very familiar with these singers would scarcely notice any differences.  What I did notice is how much better this production looks from Ring 3 than from the Orchestra.  Getting something of a “plan view” makes the antics during the overture look less cluttered and frantic and the trials scene is much more effective.  And the sound is better too.

Photos by Michael Cooper under the fold. Continue reading →

Magic Flute revived at COC

Posted on by
Reply

Last night saw the first performance of this season’s run of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the COC.  It’s a revival of the Diane Paulus 2011 production with Ashlie Corcoran as revival director.  It has a “theatre within a theatre” overlay in Act 1; it’s supposed to be an aristocratic birthday party for Pamina where the guests perform the opera, which mysteriously disappears in Act 2 though it makes an odd reprise right at the end where all the characters appear to perform a country dance.  Strip that element out and it’s a workmanlike Flute with nothing much to say but some pretty visuals.  The animals are cute and the trials scene is rather well done.  There is one notable change from 2011.  Pamina’s lurid pink Disney princess outfit is gone, replaced by something Regencyish and far less jarring.

priests

Continue reading →

Conservatory 16/17

Posted on by
Reply

Adrianne-Pieczonka-4-credit-Johannes-IfkovitsThe Royal Conservatory announced the concert line up for the 2016/17 season last night.  As usual it’s a very eclectic mix with over 100 concerts in a rather staggering variety of genres.  The one loose them is the Canada Sesquicentennial with 70% or so of the line up having some CanCon.  Here are the highlights for the classical vocal music fan.

Koerner Hall will feature recitals by Deb Voigt (November 11th) and Natalie Dessay (May 2nd) plus Phillippe Jaroussky with Les Violins du Roy (April 13th).

The GGS fall opera is Viardot’s Cendrillon with Peter Tiefenbach as music director in Mazzoleni Hall (November 18th and 19th).  The big spring production, at Koerner, will be Piccini’s La Cecchina with Les Dala conducting (March 15th and 17th).  No word on directors yet.  There’s also the GGS Vocal Showcase in Mazzoleni Hall on February 4th.

Continue reading →

The four (bearded) tenors

Posted on by
Reply

Ensemble Studio tenors, like saints’ noses, only seem to come in multipacks these days.  There are four of them until the end of the season and today they were all on show in the RBA.  It was clearly a popular move as the good folks were lined up outside almost to Richmond Street before the doors opened and they didn’t all get in.  Maybe it was the beards.  Are bearded tenors the new black?  The program was fairly predictable.   Andrew Haji , Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure and Aaron Sheppard each gave us a well known and popular aria, with two from Charles Sy, before we got to the inevitable arrangements for four voices of three Neapolitan songs and, of course, the encores.

March29RBA3

Continue reading →

Schoenberg meets Mahler

Posted on by
Reply

Megan-Quick-Headshot-240x300At Walter Hall last night to see the Faculty Artists Ensemble with Megan Quick and Andrew Haji conducted by Uri Mayer perform the chamber versions of Das Lied der Waldtaube from Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in the Schoenberg arrangement.  The main reason for going was to get as chance to hear Megan in something more substantial than the things I’ve seen her in with UoT Opera.  Plus, a chance to hear Andrew is always very welcome.

The orchestration for both these pieces may be chamber scale but it’s heavy on the winds and it takes a fair bit of power to deal with that in a space like Walter Hall.  It was clear in Das Lied der Waldtaube that Megan has that.  Her instrument is a rich, darkish mezzo with significant beauty of tone and she has great control.  If I were to be picky, I’d say she has a tendency to focus on producing beautiful sounds at the expense of the text to some extent but I’d say that about a lot of successful singers.  It’s a matter of taste and maybe something she will feel differently about after a spell with the Ensemble Studio.  The basics are there for sure and the piece left me wanting to listen to Gurrelieder in full again.  It’s been a long time.   Continue reading →

Coming up

Posted on by
Reply

strangerWith Easter almost upon us it’s not surprising that the upcoming week is a bit light.  Tonight Danika Lorèn and friends at Collectìf have a show at Heliconian Hall at 7.30pm.  It’s called As a Stranger and is their take on Schubert’s Winterreise.  I’ve been quite taken by this young group’s efforts to date.  Tickets are available here.  Then tomorrow night Andrew Haji, Megan Quick and a chamber orchestra drawn from the university faculty have a concert in Walter Hall at 7.30pm.  Featured works include Schoenberg’s Die Waldtaube from Gurrelieder and Mahler’s (arr. Schoenberg) Das Lied von der Erde.  Tickets from the MacMillan box office.

 

Où dort la fantaisie

Posted on by
Reply

Yesterday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA featured two members of the Ensemble Studio.  Andrew Haji, standing in for an indisposed Charles Sy, and Jennifer Szeto performed Liszt’s Tre Sonetti di Petrarca.  These songs were unfamiliar to me and came as a pleasant surprise.  They are very Italianate and very operatic and have a pretty involved piano part (unsurprisingly).  Haji displayed his uncanny ability to find exactly the right idiom for the music and sang with beauty and expression as well as nailing the three high D flats.  Szeto was a most accomplished accompanist. Great dress too!  New Yorkers can catch these two in the Marilyn Horne Song Celebration at Carnegie Hall on Saturday where they will perform the same music.

Jan19RBA4

Continue reading →

Traviata redux

Posted on by
Reply

Nederland, Amsterdam, 02-05-2013. Muziektheater, DNO: La Traviata voorgenerale orkest.Last night we saw the last performance of the current COC run of La Traviata, this time with the alternate cast.  Joyce El-Khoury, Andrew Haji and James Westman came in for Ekaterina Siurina, Charles Castronovo and Quinn Kelsey.  We were also sitting in Ring 3 rather than lower down which gave a rather different perspective; perhaps not showing off the clever lighting for the intimate scenes quite as well but much more effective, by giving greater depth, for the party scenes.

Continue reading →

Night of the living mezzos

Posted on by
3

As previously revealed the line up for last night’s Centre Stage; the COC’s gala competition cum Ensemble Studio final audition featured four mezzos, two sopranos and two baritones.  Not a tenor to be had.  As was the case two years ago the competition was split into two parts; a late afternoon session for an invited audience and an early evening public session separated by a cocktail reception.  Each singer presented one aria in each session.  Accompaniment was provided by the COC Orchestra with music director Johannes Debus.

The Lieutenant Governor with the contestants

The Lieutenant Governor with the contestants

Continue reading →

Next week

Posted on by
Reply

DSC_6619-704x1024There are a couple of biggies coming up next week.  On October 7th and 8th the amazingly talented and apparently fearless Barbara Hannigan is singing with and conducting the TSO.  For all I know she’ll be tap dancing and doing hand stands as well.  It’s her conducting debut with this orchestra. The programme features works by Nono, Haydn, Mozart, Ligeti and Stravinsky.  8pm Roy Thomson Hall.

Continue reading →