Wednesday saw the first lunchtime concert of the season in the RBA. And, of course, it was the COC’s Ensemble Studio performing. Angelo Moretti was away singing in Quebec so there were six singers and two pianists with an aria for each singer.
Soprano and Conservatory student Alannah Beauparlant gave a recital in Mazzoleni Hall on Sunday that showed considerable versatility as well as a nicely developing voice. She sang in six languages and covered all the bases from art song to opera to musical theatre with some Bernstein that lay somewhere in the middle!
The COC’s production of Massenet’s Werther opened at the Four Seasons Centre on Thursday evening. My full review is published at Bachtrack.
TL/DR version… there’s some excellent music making but the production doesn’t really elevate a rather dull, sentimental opera.
@bachtrack
Tuesday’s concert in the RBA was given by students from the France-Canada Academy of Vocal Arts currently being hosted by the UoT Faculty of Music. The music was a range of mélodies, all in French, by French and Canadian composers.
The first of this year’s Les Adieux concerts for departing members of the Ensemble Studio took place Tuesday lunchtime in the RBA. It was supposed to feature Brian Cho, Mattia Senesi, Korin Thomas-Smith and Karoline Podolak but Karoline was indisposed so Emily Rocha (not leaving) jumped in at the last minute.
The rearranged programme worked pretty well with maybe a bit more opportunity for the pianists. Sio, Mattia played the Intermezzo from Brahms’ Op 118. No. 2, which was very nicely done and Brian closed things out with just the piano part from Schumann’s Widmung which works surprisingly well, at least if one is familiar with the song. Continue reading
Without notice or fanfare the COC season announcement landed in my email inbox at 11.30 this morning. I kind of miss the old 10am press conference which at least offered an opportunity to ask about the rationale of some of the decisions. I guess though that the number of people writing about opera in Toronto these days would fit in a phone box so maybe it’s too much to hope for. There are some mildly surprising aspects to the announcement. There’s no Mozart or Puccini nor, more consequential, any sign of the various new opera projects that COC has/had under development which do have a bit of a habit of disappearing without trace. There’s also no “second stage” production. I guess that experiment is done. So it’s six main stage productions in the traditional three pairs.
Continue reading
Massenet’s Grisélidis gets the Bru-Zane treatment. Review at La Scena Musicale.
Catalogue information: Bru Zane BZ105
Wednesday evening’s Shuffle Hour concert at Toronto Summer Music was given by mezzo Alex Hetherington and pianist Vlad Soloviev in Heliconian Hall and carried the curious moniker The Tortured Poets Department. It kicked off with the letter aria from Massenet’s Werther and let’s face it if anyone deserves torturing it’s some combination of Werther himself and Goethe for inventing him (and possibly Massenet for prolonging the life of a character who might otherwise have fallen into obscurity). Whatever, Alex gave a fine, impassioned reading of the aria which set the stage well for what was to follow. Continue reading
UoT Opera’s spring production; Massenet’s 1899 opera Cendrillon, has been transferred to the Elgin Theatre with the MacMillan currently out of commission. They have made some sensible accommodations to the rather unfriendly Elgin acoustic. The orchestra is reduced to about thirty players and placed at floor level in front of the stage. Almost all the stage action takes place right at the front which helped significantly with voice projection.
Pandolfe & Servants
Ariane is a late opera (1906) by Jules Massenet. Now largely forgotten it has recently been recorded by the Palazzetto Bru Zane in their admirably produced series of French rarities. Unfortunately, unlike some of their other rediscoveries I wasn’t much taken with it.
The plot is an odd take on the Theseus and Ariadne story. Ariadne helps Theseus defeat the Minotaur then sails away with him to Naxos taking her sister Phaedra with them. Phaedra and Theseus fall in love and Ariadne is devastated. When Phaedra learns what effect she has had she curses Aphrodite and attacks a statue of Adonis with a rock. Aphrodite causes the statue to fall on and kill her. This is rather more revenge than Ariadne wants so she goes down to the Underworld and trades a bunch of roses to Persephone for Phaedra. On returning to the light Phaedra vows to give up Theseus but it doesn’t stick and she and Theseus set off for Athens. Ariadne drowns herself. Continue reading
