Sunday afternoon saw VOICEBOX:Opera in Concert’s first performance in their new home; Trinity St. Paul’s. The offering was Gluck’s Alceste in the French language 1776 Paris version. Lauren Margison sang the title role with Colin Ainsworth as Admète. Guillermo Silva-Marin directed.
Trinity St. Paul’s has advantages and (perhaps) disadvantages over the Jane Mallett. It’s significantly better acoustically but much harder to do much in the way of staging. It’s a church and it looks like one with lots of carved wood and stained glass! I’m not sure that this is a disadvantage though. Rudimentary blocking with entrances and exits for the principals and concert wear is fine with me given that in either venue full staging wasn’t/isn’t very practical. The value proposition is more around getting to hear operas live that no-one else in Toronto is likely to do. I’m fine with that. Continue reading
Toronto Operetta Theatre are offering a streamed performance of Emmerich Kálmán’s The Csardas Princess. It’s another film made in the Edward Jackman Studio and with TOT’s usual team in charge. The cast includes Lauren Margison in the title role with Michael Barrett as Prince Edwin. The cast also includes TOT regulars Caitlin Wood as Countess Stasi, Ryan Downey as Boni and Gregory Finney as Feri, Rosalind McArthur and Sean Curran appear as Edwin’s parents Anhilte and Leopold Maria.
The COC has announced four additions to the COC Ensemble Studio for 2018/19. I don’t think there any surprises. The three prize winners from last season’s Centre Stage are joined by Lauren Margison, daughter of Richard and currently with the Atelier Lyrique in Montreal. Just for fun I researched how long the four had been on the OR radar. The most recent is Montreal based soprano Anna-Sophie Neher who was unknown to me until Centre Stage. Next would be mezzo Simona Genga; UoT graduate and top prize winner at Centre Stage. She first appeared in these pages in a review of a 
The Canadian Children’s Opera Company have announced their 50th anniversary season. The big news is that the main production will be a new piece by Alice Ping Yee Ho and Marjorie Chan (the team behind The Lesson of Da Ji). The new piece is called The Monkiest King and is based on the legendary (and comic book) character the Monkey King. Like the earlier work it will fuse western opera and traditional Chinese music techniques and instruments. It will play at the Lyric Theatre at the Toronto Centre for the Arts May 25-27 2018.
operaramblings 