Tag Archives: mcintyre

Electric Messiah again

Posted on by
Reply

It’s the fifth year that Soundstreams has put on Electric Messiah which I guess means it’s pretty much becoming a holiday tradition.  This iteration may just be the best yet.  This version seemed quite stripped down compared to some years and all the better for it.  It’s centred around rearranged (and shortened) excerpts from the Handel work supplemented with some personal touches for the cast.  This time the “band” was Wesley Shen on harpsichord, Joel Visentin on keyboards and electric organ, Joel Schwartz on assorted acoustic and electric guitars and Adam Scime directing from the (laptop) keyboard which controlled lots of effective electronics.  SlowPitchSound was there on turntables with Lybido dancing.

ElecMessiah2019-photobyDahliaKatz-8729

Continue reading →

…let me explain

Posted on by
1

letmeexplain…let me explain is a new CD of Canadian art song (mostly) from soprano Christina Raphaëlle Haldane.  The first set consists of three arrangements of Acadian folk songs by by Carl Philippe Gionet.  The three are quite different.  L’Escaouette is fast, high, rhythmic and very high energy.  Tout Passe is much more elegiacal while Wing Tra La is very playful.  They are sung quite beautifully with piano accompaniment from the arranger.  Ahania’s Lament is a longish piece in which Blake’s text is set by Samy Mousa.  It’s a tough sing with a lot of high exposed passages against a minimal accompaniment.  It’s a piece that it’s easy to get drawn into.  It’s a good vehicle for Haldane’s crystalline upper register.  Piano accompaniment by M.Gionet again.

Continue reading →

Much Ado

Posted on by
Reply

11160680_986649388020560_2336906169017147576_nI really wasn’t at all familiar with Berlioz’ Béatrice at Bénédict before last night’s opening of a production by Metro Youth Opera at the Daniels Spectrum.  All I knew was that it had something to so with Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and a reputation for being rather tedious.  For the record it’s basically the Shakespeare play shorn of all the darker elements; no Don John, no fake funeral, resulting in a RomCom in which the title characters, after much verbal sparring,  are finally brought to admit that they are in love and get married along with Claudio and Héro.  Further compressed a little (Somarone is axed) for this production it runs a pleasingly untedious two hours or so.

Continue reading →

Chéreau Ring – Siegfried

Posted on by
Reply

Chéreau’s Siegfried is even less obviously “industrial” than his Die Walküre.  There’s a forge of course but there rather has to be.  Other than that we get workshop, forest and lair pretty much as one might imagine until, of course, we end up back at the ruin where Brünnhilde waits.  Brian Large injects lots of smoke at every opportunity.

1.forge Continue reading →

Chéreau Ring – Die Walküre

Posted on by
Reply

The second instalment of Patrice Chéreau’s 1980 Bayreuth Ring cycle is set, like Das Rheingold, in a sort of industrial bourgeois late 19th century.  One would almost say steampunk if that were not an anachronism.  Actually the “industrial” side is much less evident than in the earlier work.  There’s a sort of astrolabe/pendulum thing in Valhalla but that’s about it.  Setting aside, the story telling is very straightforward; so much so that it takes a real effort of the imagination to get into a mindset where this production could ever have been considered controversial.  It’s quite literal; Brünnhilde has a helmet and breast and back plates (worn over a rather severe grey dress), Wotan has a spear, Siegmund has a sword.  There’s not an assault rifle or light sabre to be seen.  It is though dramatically effective.

1.hundinghall Continue reading →

Chéreau Ring – Das Rheingold

Posted on by
3

So much has been written about Patrice Chéreau’s centenary production of the Ring cycle at Bayreuth that I approached reviewing it with some trepidation.  I have decided to write about it “as is”; i.e. to write about what I see on the DVD and leave the undoubted historical significance, perhaps even revolutionary impact of the production, to others.  Also, it’s apparent that what’s on the DVD, filmed in an empty house as was contemporary Bayreuth practice, must differ from what was seen on the Green Hill in certain key ways.  This is a review of what;s seen and heard on the DVD.

1.rhinemaidens Continue reading →

Birgit Nilsson’s Elektra

Posted on by
10

I grew up with the Solti Ring and Nilsson’s Immolation Scene still makes the hair on my neck bristle.  The 1980 video recording of her performance in the title role of Strauss’ Elektra at the Metropolitan Opera really doesn’t have the same effect.  The voice is accurate enough, there’s still a lot of power and the vocal acting is good but somehow the voice seems to have hollowed out and to lack resonance.  Admittedly she’s not helped by the recording which seems to favour the orchestra over the voices fairly consistently.  The other sopranos suffer from the acoustic/recording too but come off better and if Leonie Rysanek really had a high fever it’s not obvious.  Mignon Dunn’s Clytemnestra is also well sung.  The orchestra plays wonderfully for James Levine and gets much better treatment from the sound engineers. Continue reading →