Sondra Radvanovsky was due to give a recital in Koerner Hall on Thursday night but she cancelled due to illness. Toronto Summer Music did extremely well to find a replacement of the calibre of American mezzo J’nai Bridges at such short notice. While many people turned their tickets in for refunds and others, it seems, just didn’t show up, those who did were treated to a performance by Ms. Bridges, accompanied by the ever reliable Rachel Kerr, that most certainly did not disappoint.
This year’s Toronto Summer Music; theme “Metamorphosis”, kicked off on Thursday evening in a packed Koerner Hall. It was TSM at its best; the concept a bit odd, even a bit mad, the execution brilliant and the result exciting and very enjoyable. Basically take two seriously virtuosic pianists and as the late, lamented Humphrey Lyttleton might have said “given then silly things to do”. Well they weren’t really silly, just a bit unusual.
Ahead of Opera Atelier’s upcoming production of Handel’s The Resurrection (La resurrezione) at Koerner Hall next week (6th to 9th April) there was a lunchtime preview in the RBA on Tuesday. Later that day I sat down with director Marshall Pynkoski to find out more about the work, OA’s relationship to it and its rather tortuous journey to the Koerner Hall stage.
The GGS’ production of Jonathan Dove’s Flight opened at Koerner Hall last night. This is going to be a somewhat unusual review and my thoughts about the piece itself should be taken in the context of what I’m about to write. The basic plot of Flight is, for me, quite literally the stuff of nightmares and by the third act I was having vivid and very disturbing flashbacks. This undoubtedly skewed my opinion!
There was never a chance that Emily D’Angelo’s solo recital at Koerner Hall was going to be a steady procession of German lieder and French chansons with the odd Broadway number thrown in and it wasn’t. It was what D’Angelo fans would expect and (some of us at least) crave; lots of women composers and lots of contemporary music. There were five sets.
The first linked Hildegard von Bingen, Arnold Schoenberg and Missy Mazzoli. I’m going to focus on the Mazzoli. There was “Hello Lord” from Vespers for a New Dark Age and “You Are the Dust” from Songs from the Uproar. Both of these are stage works scored for chamber ensemble and electronics so they sound very different in piano score. Emily sang the with great purity and clarity and Sophia accompanied beautifully though there’s just no way one can capture the synth pop inflections of Mazzoli on piano. That said, it was a great advert for two works a I really admire. Continue reading
It’s the time of year when people start to make season announcements. First out of the blocks is the Royal Conservatory of Music with the Koerner hall line up. It’s more a teaser than a comprehensive announcement but there’s some interesting dope in it. On the vocal front Peter Sellars is back with the LA Master Chorale; this time with music by Heinrich Schütz. That’s on February 7th 2024. There’s also a recital by Ema Nikolovska with Charles Richard-Hamelin on March 24th 2024. If you haven’t erased all memories of the pandemic you will probably remember that Ema’s streamed recital with Steven Philcox was the highlight of the grim summer of 2020. The Glenn Gould spring opera will be on 2oth and 22nd March 2024. There are also some pretty classy orchestral visits with Daniel Barenboim conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin and Yannick Nézet-Seguin bringing the Philadelphia Orchestra. Full details of the season will be released in June but tickets go on sale next Tuesday. There’s more information on programming and ticket options here.
Here’s what I’m looking forward to in February plus a few gigs I can’t make:
The 21C Festival gave us new works by Ian Cusson and Stewart Goodyear yesterday afternoon. The first half of the programme was three works by Ian Cusson inspired by paintings by Hieronymus Bosch. The first was The Garden of Earthly Delights scored for piano and violin and played by Duo Concertante (Timothy Steeves and Nancy Dahn). Slow melodic, evocative sections are interspersed with livelier, somewhat ecstatic, sections using the upper ranges of the violin extensively. I think it effectively catches the various moods of Bosch’s complex triptych.
January is looking quite promising on both the music and theatre front but there’s not a lot of opera… Here’s what’s in my agenda.
January 11th to 14th the TSO have four performances of a concert that includes Mozart’s Requiem with a good looking line up of soloists.
Back to the Royal Conservatory; Koerner Hall this time, for more Kronos Quartet last night. It was a bit of a mixed bag. I’m starting to understand that I really enjoy this group when they are doing music; however weird, but not so much when they are preaching.
Kronos photographed in San Francisco, CA March 26, 2013©Jay Blakesberg
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