Last Wednesday’s lunchtime recital was given by soprano Lauren Fagan; currently appearing as Tatyana in the COC’s Eugene Onegin, and pianist Rachael Kerr. Things kicked off with a selection of three songs from Berg’s Sieben Frühe Lieder. What struck me here, apart from some really nice expressive singing, was Lauren’s ability too spin a line out coherently.
Dmitri Shostakovich died on 9th August 1975; the day after my 18th birthday and I remember the feeling of sadness and hurt I felt when I heard the news. The 50th anniversary is being celebrated by a fair number of concerts featuring the great man’s works including one given my members of the COC Ensemble Studio in the RBA on Thursday.
The material featured was comparatively unknown even by the standards of Shostakovich songs which are, in general, much less well known than his symphonic and chamber works. Matters started playfully enough with a four hands arrangement of Waltz No.2 played with appropriate whimsy by Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi It was followed by the first of two sets by Duncan Stenhouse; two of the songs from Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op.46. Using text by Pushkin allowed the composer to express sentiments about authority that would otherwise have been very risky and these pieces are sombre. They were very solidly sung with some impressive floaty high notes, variation of colour and fine work by Senesi. Shostakovich rarely lets one forget he started out as a pianist! Continue reading
Wednesday’s lunchtime recital in the RBA was given by Wirth Vocal Prize winner Sara Schabas and pianist Alexey Shafirov. It was a varied and virtuosic programme. Five composers and five languages were involved and the works performed ranged in date from the 1815 to 2000.
Alex Hetherington and Ariane Cossette’s last recital as members of the Ensemble studio happened on thursday lunchtime in the RBA. It was charming. We got a varied selection of art songs bookended by a couple of opera duets. They opened with “Miro O Norma… Si, fino all’ora estreme”. They blended well with Ariane, as Norma, displaying considerable power and richness of tone without overwhelming her Adalgisa.
Rose in Bloom is a new recital CD from coloratura soprano Erin Morley accompanied by Gerald Martin Moor. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. There’s some really nice singing and playing but some of the music choices leave me a bit cold.
Saint-Saëns “La libellule” is a good start. It’s quite dramatic with opportunties for Morley to show off her considerable coloratura chops. It’s followed by Rimsky-Korsakoff’s “The Rose Enslaves the Nightingale” which is quite exotic with oriental touches and allows Morley to display a more lyrical side. Berg’s “Die Nachtigall” shows she can sing classic German Lieder with style and feeling and then there’s a bit of a chance to show off with Saint Saëns four minute long vocalise “Le Rossignol et la Rose”.
This year’s Toronto Summer Music; theme “Metamorphosis”, kicked off on Thursday evening in a packed Koerner Hall. It was TSM at its best; the concept a bit odd, even a bit mad, the execution brilliant and the result exciting and very enjoyable. Basically take two seriously virtuosic pianists and as the late, lamented Humphrey Lyttleton might have said “given then silly things to do”. Well they weren’t really silly, just a bit unusual.
Yesterday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was the last for the year in the vocal series and featured members of the Ensemble Studio. Rachael Kerr was scheduled to do about half the accompanying but illness prevented her from playing so some hasty reprogramming meant that what we got differed somewhat from the printed programme but it was still a very well put together effort.
Yesterday’s lunchtime recital in the RBA was given by soprano, Vanessa Vasquez and pianist Miloš Repický. It was a well constructed programme though there were few surprises. The first set was three Strauss standards; Ständchen, Breit’ übermein Haupt and Befreit; the last dedicated to Vanessa’s teacher who died recently. They were all well sung with appropriate emotional emphasis and, best of all, both performers appeared to be enjoying themselves.
This afternoon I saw Gerry Finley and Julius Drake in recital at Koerner Hall. In other words, two supreme exponents of the art of lieder at the top of their game in a hall with near perfect acoustics. They performed Beethoven and Schubert settings of Goethe texts, some Tchaikovsky and some Rachmaninoff, which gave Julius ample opportunity to show off. They finished up with settings of folky things by Copland, Barber, Respighi and Britten. The last was The Crocodile; a very silly and funny piece I hadn’t heard before. The encore was by Healey Willans and Gerry gave a very nice plug for the Canadian Art Song Project. Insert standard list of adjectival phrases describing top notch singing and accompaniment. My humble scribing is not worthy.
Not taken today. My phone pictures were awful
The opening concert of Off Centre Music Salon’s season was a programme of Russian romantic and post romantic works, songs and piano pieces, entitled Russia Cast Adrift. The first half of the afternoon was devoted to the sort of songs that explain why “smert” is one of about six Russian words that I recognize. It kicked off with a Rachmaninoff prelude played with vigour by William Leathers before going into a series of songs by Sviridov, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Glière, Arensky and Mussorgsky. The singing was shared by soprano Nathalie Paulin, mezzo Emilia Boteva, tenor Ernesto Ramirez and baritone Geoffrey Sirett with Boris Zarankin and Inna Perkis at the piano.
operaramblings 