Thursday’s noon hour concert at Metropolitan United featured soprano Teresa Tucci with pianist Ivan Jovanovic in a varied programme of opera arias, art song and musical theatre numbers.
Teresa Tucci at Metropolitan United
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Tag Archives: handel
Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson remastered
In 2003, in conjunction of a revival of Peter Sellars’production of Handel’s Theodora at Glyndebourne ,Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson went into the studio and recorded a Handel album with Harry Bicket and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. That album was released to great acclaim in 2004. It’s now been remastered and the new version will be available on October 17th.
The album contains all of Irene’s music from Theodora including superb versions of “As with rosy steps the morn” and “Lord, to Thee, each night and day”. There’s also the cantata Lucrezia where she is accompanied by Harry Bicket on harpsichord & chamber organ, Stephen Stubbs on 10-course lute and Baroque guitar, Phoebe Carrai on cello and Margriet Tindemans on viola da gamba. There are also two arias from Serse; “Se bramate d’amar, chi vi sdegna” and “Ombra mai fu”. Continue reading
The Passion of the Dollar
Walter Sutcliffe’s staging of Handel’s Brockes Passion, recorded at the Halle Festival in 2023, would be disturbing under any circumstances. Watching it during and just after the US elections borders on the unbearable.
Lindsay and Rondepierre shine in Acis and Galatea
My review of Opera Atelier’s production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea is now up at Opera Canada.
Photo: Bruce Zinger
Les Violons du Roy
Quebec based Les Violons du Roy performed on Sunday at Koerner Hall with soprano Karina Gauvin and contralto Marie-Nicole Lemieux. The music was all drawn from Handel’s English language oratorios and featured orchestral pieces and a number of arias and duets. These works are some of my favourites so I was a bit surprised that I didn’t enjoy the concert as much as I expected.
All is Love
All is Love, which opened Thursday night at Koerner Hall, is a remount of the 2022 Opera Atelier show which, for various reasons, nobody much saw. It’s a staged series of quite eclectic (mosly) opera and ballet excerpts around the theme of “love”; which means pretty much anything goes.
All is Love preview
Tuesday’s lunchtime performance in the RBA was a preview of the upcoming Opera Atelier show All is Love which is essentially a remount of the February 2022 show that nobody much saw because it happened during a blizzard with most of downtown closed due to “trucker” activity.
Norcop and Koldofsky Prize recital 2024
Thursday lunchtime in Walter Hall saw the 2024 edition of the annual recital by the winners of the Norcop Prize in Song and the Koldofsky Prize in Accompanying. This year’s winners are mezzo-soprano Nicole Percifield and pianist Minira Najafzade.
Complete and satisfying Alcina
The new recording of Handel’s Alcina from Marc Minkowski, Les musiciens du Louvre and a rather starry line up of soloists is very good and quite interesting. It’s very complete. As far as I can tell all the ballet/dance music is included and so are all the Oberto scenes and all his arias. In all the staged performances I’ve seen (live or video) one or both are usually heavily truncated and I have seen versions where Oberto doesn’t feature at all.
There was one thing that puzzled me a bit. The relatively large (40 or so) orchestra includes trumpets and bassoons but not horns. I think this is unusual but maybe someone more knowledgeable might comment? In any event there’s some really good playing, quite often at very fast tempi in the instrumental sections. Minkowski also gets a really wide range of colours from the orchestra. A good example is the low strings in “È gelosia”. Continue reading
Opera Atelier 2024/25
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
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