Devon Healey’s Rainbow on Mars opened on Wednesday evening at the Ada Slaight Hall at the Daniels Spectrum. It’s a co-production by Outside the March and the National Ballet directed by Nate Bitton and Mitchell Cushman with choreography by Robert Binet.
After the relative busyness of July; Fringe, TSM, August really does look pretty quiet. There are a few things on though:
The National Ballet has announced a season that includes two world premieres, two Noorth American premieres and two Canadian premieres. It makes me wonder whether this isn’t part of why ballet isn’t suffering the same long term audience decline as opera. Worth thinking about.
Anyway the first of the world firsts is a new piece based on Flaubert’s Emma Bovary with a score by Peter Salem and choreography by Emma Pickett. The other is The other is a yet to be announced short work by choreographer William Yong.
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t’s still pretty quiet but there are some things still going on:
August 16th to 20th, the National Ballet has free performances at Harbourfront incorporating a number of partners and an eclectic mix of dance styles. Details.
August 28th at pm in the Music Garden at Harbourfront Lawrence Wiliford and PhoeNX Ensemble are performing Alec Roth’s Songs in Time of War. This one is free and outdoors so “weather permitting”. Continue reading
Yesterday the COC hosted an update session on the Digital Stage initiative and one of its key components; the Performing Arts Digital Lab (PADL). This is a joint project of the COC and the National Ballet) and yesterday’s update curiously coincided with the Federal Heritage department announcing major funding for the next stage of PADL. I’m not going to report on the update in detail because all the materials and the session itself will be archived at coc.ca/digitalstage. (All the stuff prior to yesterday is already there but yesterday’s material wasn’t at time of writing)
Yesterday I received seven assorted emails about cancellations in Toronto plus news from the Metropolitan Opera. Essentially all the major orchestras and music theatre organisations in Toronto are shuttered until at least the end of the month. Events are also being called off elsewhere so check your location situation. Here’s a quick run down:
More news when I have any…. Stay safe!
I was at the second Digital Symposium hosted by the COC and the National Ballet this morning. I was at the first round back in September which was basically an environmental scan that didn’t really evoke much of a reaction beyond noting that there were a lot of shiny technologies and they were expensive so I didn’t write about it. Today was different. In both the plenary session, in which KerrSmith presented their “Horizon Scan”, and the break out groups I was involved in some really deep conversations. I want to try and share some of that with you along with some thoughts of my own. I should stress that anything I’m writing here is personal and provisional and certainly doesn’t represent the views of the COC, the National Ballet or KerrSmith.
Needing something suitable to celebrate Britten’s 100th birthday I decided to go and see the National Ballet’s new show Innovation which premiered last night and included a piece set to the Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes. A Pergolesi Stabat Mater with Emma Kirkby and Daniel Taylor was a considerable additional attraction. I’m not a dance expert so take any comments on that subject that follow as the impressions of a complete non-expert.
operaramblings 