Last night was the fifth concert in memory of Rachel Krehm’s sister Elizabeth. This year it was held in the rather cavernous and imposing Christ Church Deer Park, an Anglican church at Yonge and St. Clair. The concert opened with an elegiac piece for strings written by Jean Coulthard for the coronation of Elizabeth II. Then Rachel gave us a beautiful and moving account of Mahler’s Rückert Lieder. Um Mitternacht(*) is a particular favourite of mine and seemed especially fitting here. It was the full orchestral setting with Evan Mitchell conducting his extraordinary orchestra. They were back after the break for a thoroughly compelling account of Tchaikovsky’s great sixth symphony Pathétique. What’s remarkable is that this isn’t an orchestra that has a permanent basis. It’s a group of musicians who come together for these concerts and make great music on modest rehearsal time. It’s especially impressive that these things always seem to happen in huge churches with churchy acoustics rather than a concert hall and they still sound terrific. As in previous years, this was a fund raiser for the ICU at St. Mike’s and once again it looked like mission accomplished as there was a very decent audience in the church.
Details are now available for Opera 5’s double bill Suffragette featuring the works of Dame Ethel Smyth. The show will feature two works; Fête Galante, a rather grim “dance dream”, in a somewhat Stravinskian style, and the feminist opera The Boatswain’s Mate, which makes extensive use of folksong tunes. In her day Smythe tended to be written off by the critics for being too masculine so it will be interesting to see how the works have fared with time.
It’s that time of year when it’s traditional to do best of the year lists. Fortunately this is all about music because in most other respects 2016 was a bit of a horror show. So here goes. As far as opera proper was concerned it was a pretty good year. There were no real howlers in the COC’s season. It was solid and, at its best, better than that, For me, Ariodante was the standout; an intelligent, thought provoking production backed up by extremely good acting and singing. I was really expecting to like the Claus Guth Marriage of Figaro more than I did. I enjoyed it but I was a bit perplexed by the lightening up that had taken place since Salzburg in 2006. Opera Atelier had their best show in quite a while with Lucio Silla but even Wallis Giunta couldn’t save a misconceived Dido and Aeneas.
Last night was the third memorial concert for Elizabeth Krehm in support of the ICU at St. Mike’s. This year the piece was Mahler’s Symphony No.2 appropriately enough. It’s a piece I’ve lived with for a very long time and it never fails to move. It’s a curious contrast with the Fourth which we heard at the symphony last week. If 4 gives a naive and optimistic view of the afterlife, 2 is much darker, more troubled and less certain. Even the very beautiful Urlicht is not without its sense of angst and the final movement is majestic, powerful and has the deepest possible sense of yearning.
operaramblings 