Next week things get rather busy. There’s all the Hannigan shenanigans at UoT ; lecturing, masterclassing, concerting, walking on water, details here. There are a couple of lunchtime concerts in the RBA. Tuesday sees Gordon Bintner and Charles Sy perform Schumann’s Liederkreis and Britten’s Les Illuminations while on Thursday Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure appears with the members of the COC Orchestra Academy and their mentors.
The amazing Barbara Hannigan is in town next week teaching at the UoT. There are a number of events open to the public and free. Here’s a list:
Tues, Jan 19, 10:30 am, Walter Hall
Lecture – Show and Share: Living and Surviving as a Singing Artist
Tues, Jan 19, 12:10 pm, Walter Hall
Master Class with U of T Opera students – featuring excerpts from the contemporary operatic repertoire centering on The Machine Stops, a new opera by the Faculty’s student composer collective.
Wed, Jan 20, 3:10 pm, Room 330 @ 80 Queen’s Park
Interactive session – Dare to Compare: session with composers, pianists and instrumentalists from U of T’s contemporary music ensemble.
Thu, Jan 21, 12:10 pm, Walter Hall
Master Class with U of T Voice students – featuring songs and chamber music of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Fri, Jan 22, 5 pm, Walter Hall
Concert – Performances by Faculty of Music singers and pianists after their training with Barbara, as well as from Barbara herself with pianist Professor Steven Philcox.
ETA: She’s also appearing with the TSO on Jan 27 and 28 singing Correspondances by Henri Dutilleux. There’s no stopping her!
Danika Loren
Today’s lunchtime concert in the RBA featured the assembled students of UoT Opera in a staged programme called The Art of the Prima Donna. It was a sequence of mostly ensemble numbers drawn from the core 19th century rep. Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Puccini, Donizetti, Bellini, Bizet and Rossini all featured with works made famous by the great divas of the era’ Patti, Pasta, Malibran etc. Linking narrative, which skipped over who slept with Rossini, was provided by Michael Albano who directed the staging with Anna Theodosakis. Sandra Horst headed up the musical side and accompanied with help from Sue Black, Kate Carver and Ivan Jovanovic. Continue reading
Yesterday was slightly bizarre in that I was at two concerts of contemporary, or at least very modern, music. The first was at lunchtime in The RBA where the Array Ensemble presented two works by female Canadian composers; Linda Catlin Smith’s Hieroglyphs and Barbara Monk Feldman’s Love Shards of Sappho, both for soprano and chamber ensemble. Continue reading
Yesterday saw the first free concert of the season in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. It was a chance to see the 2015/16 Ensemble Studio; two new singers, one new pianist and six singers and a pianist from last year. The format was one aria per singer with few surprises. We also got to hear the core quartet casting for the Ensemble Studio performance of Le Nozze di Figaro later in the season. No surprises there either; Il Conte – Gordon Bintner, Iain MacNeil – Figaro, La Contessa – Aviva Fortunata, Susanna – Karine Boucher. That leaves four tenors for the other roles…
Three things on the calendar this coming week. Tuesday 22nd sees the first free noon concert of the season in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. As custom seems to dictate it’s the Ensemble Studio performing. The full programme is here. It’s also the first gig with Claire Morley in charge.
Friday 25th and Saturday 26th, Friends of Gravity (who curiously do not include our cats) are presenting an intriguing looking version of Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins. The show is at 8pm at St. Bartholomew’s Church on Dundas Street East. Tickets and details.
Also on Saturday, Metro Youth Opera have a season launch party/fundraiser at Opera Bob’s (a watering hole owned and operated by bass Robert Pomakov) It’s at 5pm. Details and tickets.
It’s starting to get busy again.
It’s almost September which means there may even be stuff to write about soon. Here’s what’s in my calendar so far.
August 31st at 12.15 pm there’s a concert in the Music on Mondays series featuring soprano Rachel Krehm and an orchestra conducted by Evan Mitchell performing Dove sono by Mozart, selections from Strauss Op 27 and Dvorak’s 8th Symphony. It’s at Holy Trinity Church near the Eaton Centre. PWYC suggested $5.
The Canadian Opera Company has just announced the 2015/16 season line up for the free lunchtime concert series in Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre. Now under the curatorship of Claire Morley there’s the usual incredible array of chamber music, dance, piano, jazz and world music as as well as, of course, the vocal series.
The on/off saga of the Ensemble Studio’s promised Janáček’s The Diary of One Who Disappeared came to an apparent conclusion yesterday. It had been postponed at least once and even this morning the COC website is advertising a complete performance with two soloists and a small chorus.
It didn’t happen. What we got was a recital by Owen McAusland singing some excerpts from the Janáček plus Vaughan William’s The House of Life and Britten’s Les Illuminations. It was his last performance as a member of the Ensemble Studio during which time, among many other things, he sang several main stage performances as Tito covering for a sick Michael Schade.
There may be cheerful songs in Russian but I’m not sure I have ever heard one. Certainly there were none on offer at the Four Seasons Centre today when Ekaterina Gubanova and Rachel Andrist offered up a recital of Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky works. There’s a reason why one of three Russian words I can recognize is “Schmert”. Depressing as the texts may have been these were truly wonderful performances. Gubanova has a dark, very Slavic colour though she can brighten it when she chooses and she’s utterly fearless singing with great passion and, yes, there was a high C in there.
operaramblings 