Tag Archives: kim

Zoraida di Granata

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Zoraida di Granata is an early serious opera by Donizetti.  It’s set in Muslim controlled Granada in 1480.  The city is under siege by the Spanish and the usurper Almuzir is in control and wants to marry Zoraida, daughter of the former king, but she’s in love with Abenamet, leader of the aristocratic and warlike Abencerrages.  Almuzir makes Abenamet commander in chief of his army and entrusts him with a sacred flag.  If he returns victorious and with the flag he gets Zoraida but if he loses the flag he’ll be executed as a traitor.  Naturally Almuzir has arranged for his sidekick, Ali, to betray the flag to the Spanish.  The victorious hero is going to be executed but Zoraida promises to marry Almuzir if he spares Abenamet.  Then the lovers meet secretly and after the statutory rowing about Zoraida betraying him Abumet exits.  But Ali has overheard the conversation and gets Zoraida sentenced to death for treason.  Only a knight showing up to defend her in trial by combat can save her (that again!).  Of course it’s Abenamet in disguise and he beats Ali who fesses up.  The clan want to kill Almuzir and Ali but Abenamet forgives them and in return gets the girl.

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Mahabharata – part 2

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There’s a change in both style and pace for part 2 of Why Not Theatre’s Mahabharata.  (See review of part 1).  The stage band is gone and the whole back wall is given over to video screens.  Sometimes the whole is used and sometimes just the top half; often using split screen effects.  Hana Kim’s projections are front and centre in this instalment.

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Flaming Toscas and oinking hogs

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Last Wednesday’s noon hour concert in the RBA was a collaboration between the Canadian Art Song Project and the UoT Faculty of Music.  It was an all Canadian programme; mostly living composers and mostly in a lighter vein; hence the title Songs of Whimsy and Humour.

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Traditional Butterfly at the COC

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The Canadian Opera Company opened it’s “new to Toronto” production of Puccini’s Madama Butterfly on Friday night.  It’s a production that’s been around for a while having premiered in Houston in 2010.  It’s almost entirely traditional.  The one concession to critics of Puccini’s rather sordid tale is that Butterfly’s age is raised from fifteen to eighteen. The original concept was Michael Grandage’s but it’s revival directed here by Jordan Lee Braun. Continue reading →

Lively Pirates at TOT

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Toronto Operetta Theatre opened a run of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance at the Jane Mallett Theatre last night.I think it’s got everything one could expect from a modest budget G&S production and maybe a bit more.  Bill Silva-Marin’s production is energetic with a lot of stomping, marching and mincing going on which makes the small stage (even smaller than usual as the band is on stage) look lively and busy.  The chorus is good and sings idiomatically.  The principals also appear to understand the genre and there’s some good acting and good, at times excellent, singing.

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Riffing off Shakespeare

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Back to Summerworks on Wednesday night, this time at the Theatre Centre, to see a double bill of works derived (loosely) from Shakespeare plays.  Both works were experimental but in utterly different ways.  Lady M (Margaret) is 60 minutes of carefully crafted physical theatre intended for both Deaf and hearing audiences with great attention to detail and a minimalist aesthetic.  i am your spaniel, or, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare by Gislina Patterson is longer at around 90 minutes and is a mad cap series of vignettes exploring Shakespeare’s punctuation, patriarchy, capitalism, life as a trans person and yoghourt among other things.

01 Lady M (Margaret)_Photo by Dahlia Katz

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Ryan Davis and friends

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To another excellent Confluence Concerts production last night at Heliconian Hall.  This one was curated by Confluence’s Young Artistic Associate Ryan Davis; composer, violist and electronic Wunderkind.  He was joined by a very talented group of young musicians; Kevin Ahfat (piano), Bora Kim (violin), Daniel Hamin Go (cello) and Jonelle Sills (soprano) plus the vocal talents of Confluence stalwart Suba Sankaran.  The programme was built around English and French romantic music plus Ryan’s own compositions influenced by that tradition.

ryandavisandfriends

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Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s Poppea

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In 2017 Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists, the Monteverdi Choir and a rather distinguished group of specialist baroque singers toured semi-staged versions of the three main Monteverdi operas, which were also recorded for video. Being a bit skeptical about the idea of videoing semi-staged performances I decided to take a look at L’incoronazione di Poppea (because it’s my favourite of the three) before committing to the trio. Bottom line, despite some stylish singing, good acting and excellent playing I can’t really see the point. There are good fully staged versions of all three operas available on video and, for me, especially watching at home, it’s hard for a semi-staged version to fully engage my attention.

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More Youtube projects

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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.

hbd!

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Songs of Travel

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The main purpose of yesterday’s RBA concert was to showcase the prodigious talents of the five members of the COC’s Orchestra Academy; Isabel Lago and Ah Young Kim (violins), John Sellick (viola), Mansur Kadirov (cello) and Peter Eratostene (bass).  The first half of the programme was the Allegro from Dvorák’s String Quintet No. 2 in G Major.  This was very nicely done and served as a satisfying prelude to the main event.

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