There is news. The COC has cancelled “in person” performances of Madama Butterfly. Instead it will be “made available as a free digital presentation to current 2021/2022 COC subscription holders who are continuing to support Canadian opera through the donation, exchange, or credit of tickets.” How that works I have no idea.
Also at the COC, they are taking a rather interesting approach to land acknowledgements. You can learn more about it in this ten minute video.
Opera Atelier’s new film Angel premiered last night. It consists of six scenes which, we are told, can be performed as a sequence or individually. There’s a basic theme of “angels” and the texts are drawn from Milton and Rilke (in translation). The score is by Edwin Huizinga and Christopher Bagan with some of the dance music being actual baroque works.
A couple of “season” announcements have come in. Inverted commas because it’s all rather provisional with more details to come. Opera Atelier is offering a virtual summer/fall season with a reprise of Handel’s Resurrection from July 29th through August 12th. This time there is a Standard Audio Description; a tool for blind and partially sighted people. The fall sees the final version of Edwin Huizinga’s Angel released as a film that will stream October 28th through November 12th, The cast includes Measha Brueggergosman, Colin Ainsworth, Mireille Asselin, Jesse Blumberg, Meghan Lindsay, John Tibbetts (Opera Atelier debut), and Douglas Williams. An announcement about a return to in theatre perfomances will be made in January.
Photo credit: Bruce Zinger
Opera Atelier’s webstream of Handel’s The Resurrection premiered on Thursday evening and will be available until this coming Thursday. It’s ticketed and you can buy an access code from the RCM box office. It’s the first Opera Atelier show conceived for webstreaming as opposed to filming a stage performance. The action was filmed in St. Lawrence Hall and the music was recorded at Koerner.
I only have two confirmed events for May. On Thursday 6th there is Tapestry’s Sketch Opera Singers 2. SOS1 was a hoot and the brief excerpt for the upcoming show on Tapestry’s Youtube channel suggests the new one will be fun too. If you haven’t seen it check it out. It’s the famous ABBA-nera by Sven Bizet. Like all Tapestry’s streams SOS2 will be free on Youtube.
Opera Atelier’s fall show Something Rich and Strange was originally conceived as a show that could be given before a (limited) live audience as well as via web stream. That’s obviously constraining compared to a show that is created without a fourth wall and can include location filming. All the other constraints of these strange times had also to be observed. Despite this there was much to like in a show that presented a number of scenes from the 17th and 18th century repertoire plus a couple of “neo-baroque” pieces composed by Edwin Huizinga.
My sense of time, or rather lack of one, has made these “upcoming” posts a bit irregular. So anyway these are things I haven’t mentioned so far.
The usual suspects (check earlier posts for recommendations) are still also mostly producing new content.
A quick reminder that tonight, tomorrow and Saturday see new streams from AtG (A Little Too Cozy prequel), The GGS Fall Opera (Seven Deadly Sins and Lucrezia) and Confluence (Purcell). There’s also new content on the appropriate Youtube channels from Domoney Artists and Alex Hajek.
Yes, Opera Atelier, bar further restrictions on gatherings/performances, is planning to offer two fully staged, costumed and choreographed live shows in the upcoming season, though only for a single performance of each. Both will play at Koerner Hall which is well equipped both back stage and front of house for “social distancing”.
Living Room Music concert series is an eclectic series of events hosted by Isobel Leonard. As best I can tell they are likely to feature music in a variety of genres plus spoken word and dance. There’s a show called Grateful Embrace tomorrow at 7pm tha includes Toronto based baritone Jorell Williams. There’s lots more information on the whole series here. There are links to the video on the AOP page or you can find them on the American Opera Project Youtube channel.
On May 20th at 8pm Opera Atelier are hosting a virtual showcase called Together/Apart. There’s a really good line up of singers, dancers and instrumentalists including Angela Hewitt and Wallis Giunta. All the details are on the Opera Atelier website which is also where the stream will be hosted.
Both these events are free but donations would be appreciated.
