I don’t think I’m ever going to love Mozart’s La finta giardiniera. It has some pleasing music, though oddly the two principal characters don’t get much of it, but the plot is ridiculous and it really outstays its welcome. That said, Michael Patrick Albano’s production for UoT Opera in the MacMillan Theatre at least makes the complexity clear. We never lose sight of who is who; even if the other characters do, and what logic there is in the plot comes through clearly enough. Albano sets it entirely realistically in 18th century dress with set elements efficiently dropped in from the fly loft or carried around by a small band of liveried servants. There’s a fair bit of “park and bark” but then there’s a lot of prosy explaining going on.
I sat down a couple of days ago with Joel Ivany to discuss his upcoming production of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte at the Royal Conservatory. Here are some of the things we talked about.
Slightly off the usual Operaramblings track perhaps, but my attention was recently drawn to a book publishing project that may be of interest. It’s a bilingual Latin/English text of the Mozart Requiem illustrated by artist Matt Hughes in art nouveau style. It’s going to be a 60pp edition with 15 full colour illustrations including gold ink. It’s hard cover bound with the edition size yet to be finalized but quite small. Right now it’s at the Kickstarter phase with a still a little way to go to meet target and allow publication. The book will include an introduction to the piece and the various stories/legends about its completion by the Guardian‘s music critic Erica Jeal and an essay on art nouveau by art blogger and gallery owner Olga Harmsen. There are more details and samples of the art work on Matt’s
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