Regular readers will know that I’ve seen my fair share of shows by Opera Revue but pretty much always in a bar or pub and as the band always says “The more you drink, the better we sound”. Thus it was with some trepidation that I went to see them in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre on Wednesday. It was the core gang; Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek, Claire Harris. No ringers (except for the person who forgot to turn off their phone).
Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play opened at Canadian Stage’s Berkeley Street Theatre on Wednesday night. The TL:DR version of this review is that it’s raunchy, extremely funny and rather disturbing. The more considered version contains spoilers so you might want to stop here if you are planning to see it soon.
German food conglomerate Dr. Oetker are promoting their new up-market frozen pizza offering, Suprema, in a unique way. They have commissioned a 15 minute opera called, unsurprisingly, Suprema from the good people at Opera Revue. It’s a jolly romp about a sculptor (Danie Friesen) whose creation (Alex Hajek) comes to life and gets hooked on pizza. Accompaniment is by Claire Harris on piano and pre-recorded strings (Drew Jurecka). It’s short, well executed and fun.
It’s free, you don’t need a ticket and there is rather good free pizza after each show. It’s playing in the TD Music Hall (i.e upstairs at Massey Hall). There are three shows this afternoon and a bunch next weekend. Times and so forth here.
Photo credit: Darryl Edwards
It’s been a while since I’ve been to a regular Opera Revue show and they were playing my favourite of their regular venues; Castro’s yesterday. Also, besides the usual gang of Alex Hajek, Dani Friesen and Claire Harris there was Alex Hetherington, so I went. I had a great time. It was classic Operas Revue; some arias, some music theatre, Kurt Weill and a couple of parodies. And Alex H. Boy does she sound loud in a small space like Castro’s! Plus this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to hear her sing the Countess from Marriage of Figaro (which will surely lead to expulsion from the Mezzos Guild).
Sunday night at the Redwood Theatre featured Opera Revue’s antidote to Christmas shows, Bach Humbug! As a card carrying Grinch I could scarcely fail to attend. Plus the beer is good at the Redwood. So what did we get?
There can be few poets whose work resonates as widely as that of the Ayrshire ploughboy and philanderer Robert Burns. His influence has been felt from Bengal to Massachusetts and beyond. Celebrating that influence was the the point of Confluence Concerts’ Robert Burns – A Passion for Freedom curated by Alison Mackay which played at Heliconian Hall on Friday and Saturday evenings.
The Redwood Theatre was packed on a wet Sunday evening for the latest gala from Opera Revue. This time the theme was circus with guests Kalen Davidson juggling and setting things on fire, Haley Shannon on aerial silks, Ambur Braid doing Ambur things and Walter Bowen Braid jumping through hoops. The usual gang; Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek and Claire Elise-Harris were of course also clowning it.
Opera Revue teamed up with Opera Atelier for a show called Trills, Chills and Thrills at the Redwood Theatre on Sunday evening. The usual gang of Danie Friesen, Alex Hajek and Claire Harris were joined by tenor Ben Done and mezzo Kathryn Rose Johnston for a programme of opera arias and musical theatre numbers that (sort of) turned the plot of Handel’s Acis and Galatea (OA’s upcoming show) into a murder mystery.
There was music on spooky themes by Britten (Turn of the Screw), Schubert, Handel (of course), Corigliano (Ghosts of Versailles), Lloyd Webber (Phantom, natch), Verdi and more. It was glued together by a narrative in which the mermaid/nymph Galatea is murdered and despite being turned into sushi her ghost returns to wreak its revenge. And there was one of the dances from Acis and Galatea (Julia Sedwick and Eric da Silva). Continue reading
The Canadian Children’s Opera Company is reviving Dean Burry’s adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit on its twentieth anniversary. The first performance was on Friday evening at the Harbourfront Centre Theatre. It’s really quite an achievement to condense a 320pp novel into an 80 minute opera respecting the constraints of writing mostly for young voices. It’s clever. It’s structured as twelve discrete scenes and most of the singing is choral. Groups of performers; essentially sorted by age cohort, represent the various “tribes” of Middle Earth; hobbits, humans, elves, dwarves etc. There are a limited number of solo roles and dialogue is used rather than recitative so exposed solo singing is kept to a minimum. This all provides meaningful roles for lots of performers without creating “impossible to cast” ones.
Wednesday night at the Dakota Tavern there were two Debauchery at The Dakota shows from Opera Revue and various more or less scantily clad friends. We caught the early show. It was a BDSM show (Bizet, Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Mozart… what were you thinking?). Actually this iteration probably stayed more operatic than previous Debaucheries though there were also plenty of show tune, cabaret and even comedy rock numbers plus, of course, burlesque.
operaramblings 