So last night at the Tranzac, as part of Against the Grain’s Opera Pub, Queen Hezumuryango and Ryan Nauta did a version of the “Seguidilla” from Bizet’s Carmen but with the roles reversed. It was the Pride Edition after all. Turns out it’s not the first time I’ve heard Carmen gender bent. Not so long ago I heard Korin Thomas-Smith sing the “Habanera”.
So what, I asked myself, would a completely gender bent Carmen look like and would it work. Set it in some female led society and i think you can swap all the roles pretty easily. Michaele would be sort of like Werther; a bit of a mummy’s boy. Escamilla would still be a bullfighter. A cowfighter would be silly! The rest of the characters work with minimal adjustment I think. And for once it woudn’t be the soprano who got the chop.
BTW, the rest of Opera Pub was pretty good too with even more gender bending as Ryan also sang “Quondo men vo”. There was a really nice account by Queen of “Printemps qui commence” from Saint-Saëns’ The Barber of Gaza Samson et Dalila. There was Mozart and art song and lots of musical theatre numbers. And Greg Finney got in some G&S (try stopping him!).
And that’s a wrap on Opera Pub for 2025/26 but it will be back at the Tranzac in the Fall.
Here are a few shows that didn’t make it into earlier listing posts:
Here’s a look ahead to March.
Things are starting to liven up again in the Toronto scene. Here’s a look ahead to the balance of September and the first half of October. This week sees a performance of Weill’s Little Mahagonny by VOICEBOX at Gallery 345. That’s on Tuesday 25th at 7.30pm and will be followed by a wine and cheese reception. Tickets are available at Eventbrite.
So it looks like January is finally over and that means we can look ahead to next month. Things are definitely winding down. There’s the last Opera Pub of the season on the 3rd at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club. The Vancouver Symphony is appearing with Bramwell Tovey at Roy Thomson Hall on the 26th with the highlight being Marion Newman singing Ancestral Voices; a piece Tovey wrote for her. Also that evening the Canadian Children’s Opera opens a two performance run of Alice Ping Yee Ho’s new piece The Monkiest King. That’s at the Toronto Centre for the Arts.
After the madness of November, December is much quieter. Messiahs aside there are only a handful of events of note. On Saturday at 7.30pm at Runnymede United Church the Cantores Celestes Women’s Choir have a concert of seasonal music which includes Kim André Arnesen’s Magnificat with Adanya Dunn as soloist. On Tuesday 5th the noon recital in the RBA features Simone McIntosh and Stéphane Mayer. The program hasn’t been published yet but I’m told it includes the Berg Seven Early Songs and a number of songs by Frank Bridge. On Thursday evening at 9pm it’s Opera Pub Night at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club. The theme is Messiah Pariah. You have been warned. The operatic event of the month is Against the Grain Theatre’s 
operaramblings 