The Glenn Gould’s Spring Opera, which opened on Wednesday night, is an intriguing double bill. It pairs Rossini’s first, and rarely performed, opera; La cambiale di matrimonio with Puccini’s much better known Gianni Schicchi.
La cambiale di matrimonio (The Wedding Contract) is a one act screwball comedy (technically a farsa). It has all the plot elements that see will see over and over in later Rossini comedies; cunning servants, an old man trying to make money out of a marriage, young lovers facing obstacles etc. The plot elements are mirrored by the music; patter songs, breakneck ensembles and an impossibly florid soprano aria, inter alia. In this case they are used in the service of a plot that features a cash strapped English merchant who is trying to marry his daughter off to a rich Canadian who is seeking a suitable bride but she’s in love with a far less wealthy young man. Everyone seems to want to kill the Canadian but he’s fundamentally a nice chap (of course) and he engineers a happy ending
What Brings You In is an album of music for violin and electronics that consists mostly of work that was composed for performance as part of an art installation or a site specific performance or as therapy rather than a conventional concert hall experience. It features violinist Leslie Ting and various collaborators on percussion and live electronics. It’s one of the most “experimental” records I’ve listened to. There are five tracks and I’m going to describe each piece as best I can. Conventional music vocabulary; melody, harmony, rhythm etc isn’t much help! 
It’s a bit of a crazy week coming up. On Monday at 8pm there’s the first in a series of young artists concerts presented by Atelier Rosemarie Umetsu and Yamaha Canada. This one features pianist Cindy Liu in an all Prokofiev program. It’s at Rosemarie’s atelier at 310 Davenport Road and tickets are $20 ($10 student).
operaramblings 