New from Opera Revue

“My favourite opera lunatics”™ have a new parody up on line.

On the heels of Toronto Transit Parody, The Ontario Place For(d) All and the Toronto Housing Opus, We now get Les MisérLoblaws set to the tune of “At the End of the Day” from Les Mis (remember Jean Valjean, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child),. Lyrics by Alexander Hajek, performance by Alexander Hajek, Danie Friesen, Claire Elise Harris and Greg Finney of Opera Pub fame. Audio engineering by Michael McKenzie.

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Opera Revue at Castro’s

I went to Opera Revue at Castro’s on Sunday afternoon.  It’s the first time I’ve been to a regular Opera Revue show in a while because of geographic and scheduling constraints plus, of all their locations, I prefer Castro’s and they haven’t been there in a while.

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Even more debauched

Wednesday night at the Dakota Tavern there were two Debauchery at The Dakota shows from Opera Revue and various more or less scantily clad friends.  We caught the early show.  It was a BDSM show (Bizet, Donizetti, Saint-Saëns, Mozart… what were you thinking?).  Actually this iteration probably stayed more operatic than previous Debaucheries though there were also plenty of show tune, cabaret and even comedy rock numbers plus, of course, burlesque.

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Ruckus at the Revival

The second Ruckus at the Revival from Opera Revue was subtitled “The Parody Edition” and with the odd exception that’s what it was.;  Music by Mozart, Sullivan, Delibes and more supported witty lyrics about Opera Revue’s perennial bêtes noires.  Doug Ford (and all his little Satanic demons), the TTC, the housing crisis, Toronto drivers and the rest got exactly what they deserved to the audience’s approval and delight.  Most of the words and a good deal of the singing here from Opera Revue stalwarts Danie Friesen and Alex Hajek.

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Into December

dec23First some late calls for November:

  • The Early Music folks at UoT are doing Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Trinity St. Paul’s on the 21st and 22nd.
  • November 22nd and 23rd there’s a 20th anniversary concert for Autorickshaw at Heliconian Hall presented by Confluence Concerts.
  • Amici Chamber Ensemble have an afternoon concert on the 26th at Trinity St. Paul’s called The Winds of Time featuring chamber music for wind instruments from the 18th to 21st centuries.

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Additional September and October gigs

leavesHere are a few shows that didn’t make it into earlier listing posts:

  • Opera 101 at the Redwood Theatre at 4pm on September 23rd and October 7th is a free recital programme organised by Alexander Hajek.
  • There are a couple of highly experimental audience participation shows at the Theatre Centre.  In asses.masses the audience creates a video game based on the story of a herd of unemployed asses.  In work.txt which runs September 27th to 29th the audience “designs a welcoming space for collectively processing “working” in capitalist metropolitan cities”.  I’m going to the latter.  I don’t think I’ve been in/at a show of this kind since I was an undergrad.

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Debauchery at the Dakota

collarSo on a grungy corner of Dundas and Ossington lies a grungy cellar dive; the Dakota Tavern.  It’s not an obvious place to do opera though a mash up of opera and burlesque is more plausible.  And so that’s what we got from the Opera Revue crew (Alexander Hajek, Danie Friesen and Claire Harris) and four burlesque dancers.

The music was appropriately chosen; some Phantom, Don Giovanni, Carmen, some Weill plus show tunes.  Basically mine the repertory for stuff that is a bit edgy and plays with ideas of sexual consent or lack of it.  Ironically the goody bag that was raffled off at the interval include, apparently, an Armadildo.  I say ironically because I had spent my lunchtime with the cast and crew of Colleen Wagner’s new play Armadillos which is also (at least in part) about sexual consent or lack of it. Continue reading

June is almost upon us

june2023June is fast approaching and, as ever, it’s one of the odder months in the performance calendar.  Here’s what has caught my eye (so far).

  • June 1st to 25th at Crow’s is Alex Bulmer’s Perceptual Archaeology (Or How to Travel Blind).  This is a show for blind and sighted people about, well, travelling blind (literally).  Since blindness is my worst fear I don’t know whether I can do this one.  We’ll see.
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