I caught the second performance of Teiya Kasahara and David Eliakis’ Dichterliebe: Whose Love at Heliconian Hall on Saturday evening. It was part of the Confluence Concerts series and not untypical of the eclectic nature of that series. Also it was a logical continuation of these two partnering on shows that question gender norms in the classical music industry.
I caught the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s second performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at Koerner Hall on Tuesday evening. It’s a piece that’s deservedly famous but I think that this was my first time seeing it live. It’s an interesting piece. It’s not a conventional requiem but nor would I call it “operatic”. It’s far more dramatic than any other mass setting I can think of (even Britten’s War Requiem) but in its own way. Part of it is structural. Verdi keeps bringing back the “Dies Irae” text and music; even right down to. the final “Libera Me”. As his setting for the “Dies Irae” is extremely dramatic (I want to say gonzo but that doesn’t seem very ecclesiastical!) it injects a degree of drama where the core text doesn’t really call for it. FWIW the setting is very loud with choir and orchestra going full out and the timpani being almost scary. It’s particularly so first up where it segues straight into the “Tuba Mirum” with trumpets up on either side of the choir loft.
It’s coming towards the end of the traditional “season” but there’s sill plenty happening. Here’s how I see may shaping up at present (I expect more theatre listings will come in. They tend to be somewhat less notice!):
Wednesday night’s main event in Toronto Summer Music was Teiya Kasahara’s The Butterfly Project performed at Walter Hall. Teiya’s introduction was most interesting. For them, the project is about exploring their Japanese-ness. As the child of a Japanese father and a German mother growing up in Vancouver that’s inevitably a complex thing. When it gets combined with opera and, specifically, Puccini’s “Japanese” travesty Madama Butterfly it gets really complicated. So The Butterfly Project raises some really interesting questions; for Teiya ones related to being a to-some-extent-Japanese performer of works like MB, for me ones related to why this opera fascinates people like Teiya when, frankly, I’d be happy to bin it.
Almost exactly four years after Kye Marshall and Amanda Hale’s Pomegranate played at Buddies in Bad Times in a production by Michael Mori it reappeared at the COC in expanded form in a production by Jennifer Tarver. The basic plot hasn’t changed much so I’m not going to repeat what I wrote about that in 2019. The other changes are, though, quite extensive and I’m not convinced they are improvements.
Watching The Queen in Me at the Canadian Opera Company Theatre last night I thought to myself that this was probably the first time I’d heard Teiya Kasahara singing classic opera arias with an orchestra. Given how many times I’ve seen Teiya on stage that seemed really weird. And that, I suppose, is one major aspect of what this show is all about; how casting is so rigidly stereotyped that it demands that people become something other than themselves to get cast. A tall, muscular, tattooed Queen of the Night isn’t that much of a stretch but a tall, muscular tattooed Cio Cio San or Mimi is a bridge too far.
Photo credit: Gary Beechey
As we head into summer, as usual, things start to quieten down. I only have five shows in my schedule for the month of June:
That’s about it until Toronto Summer Music opens on July 7th.
The third SOS – Sketch Opera Singers from Tapestry Opera is now up on Youtube. It’s quite similar to the previous episodes with inspired lunacy from KrossØver (Teiya Kasahara, Keith Klassen, Krisztina Szabó, Korin Thomas-Smith and a snail but definitely not Simone McIntosh). I think it’s a bit darker and a bit weirder than earlier episodes, even a bit surreal in places. The sketch where people are helped through break-ups by soft toys singing well known arias comes to mind. Still, it’s half an hour of (mostly) harmless fun. Definitely worth a watch.
SOS2 was at least as good as the first instalment. Krisztina Szabó came in as replacement for Simone McIntosh who is back on the west coast and showed that she’s at least as crazy as anyone else involved in this show (even Keith Klassen and that’s saying something). Highlights include Korin Thomas-Smith auditioning for Papageno and being asked to sing everything from Sarastro to the Queen of the Night, Krisztina as a manic photographer, the previously mentioned ABBA-nera, Teiya Kasahara breathing COVID on Keith Klassen and lots more rather dark virus humour. All sorts of people chipped in with cameos and/or music, Michael Mori and Keith Klassen directed with Jennifer Tung and Juliane Gallant providing music direction. Technical quality is excellent and it’s free. It’s only 30 minutes long so there’s no excuse for not watching. It’s available here.
There’s an interesting new project on Youtube from Natalya Gennadi and Catherine Carew. It’s called HBD! Project and the idea is to produce a short themed video each month featuring composers whose birthdays fall in that month. The February pilot is online and it’s a bit different from other “shows” in similar vein that I’ve come across. This one features a song by Alban Berg sung by Natalya with a fluffy puppy, music for cello and piano by Jean Coulthard played by Alice Kim and Hye Won Cecilia Lee and Rodney Sharman’s Tobacco Road sung by Catherine. So what’s new you ask (apart from the puppy)? It’s the graphics with Mozart in a party hat, animated Emily Carr paintings and a look for the Sharman that could double as the witches’ scene in Macbeth. Yes it’s a bit weird but oddly compelling.
operaramblings 