Tag Archives: rba

Nature or nurture?

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The Canadian Opera Company’s Ensemble Studio; its young artists training programme, has an exchange with the equivalent in Montreal. This week the Montrealers are in town and there was a lunch time concert featuring four singers from each programme. Being a big fan of the Ensemble Studio I went along to see how the products of the two programmes compared. I don’t know whether the Toronto programme is harder to get into or provides a more rigorous experience or, likely, both, but in terms of musicianship, stage presence and generally readiness to meet the world, the Toronto singers outclassed the Montrealers. I don’t want to write negatively about young singers who are working really hard so I’m only going to talk positives. The best of the Montrealers was soprano Chantale Nurse. She has a dramatic voice with a pronounced vibrato that was heard to good effect in a Massenet aria; “Il est doux, il est bon” from Herodiade and she was fine in the Mozart ensemble pieces. If her voice continues to develop and gain power she could do very well. I just can’t see the other three progressing to major professional careers. Of the Toronto based perfomers, one of the stand outs, unsurprisingly, was mezzo Wallis Giunta, who is heading for the Met next season. She will likely be a great success in mezzo trouser roles and today did very well with some of Dorabella’s music from Cosi as well as as Annio in La Clemenza di Tito. The other star was Adrian Kramer who continues to develop as a baritone with a leaning to comedy. He’s making a name for himself as Sid in Albert Herring in various locations and the excerpt he sang today shows why; excellent comic timing and presence coupled to a voice that is getting bigger. I’ve heard him sing Papageno from Ring 5 at the Four Seasons Centre so I know the power is there! Locals Neil Craighead and Jacqueline Woodley did fine in more Mozart excerpts and it rather sums things up to say that Jacqueline, as Zerlina, rather outsung her Montreal Don Giovanni.

Adams in Toronto

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John Adams is in Toronto for the TSO’s New Creations Festival. Today he MC’d a free concert of extracts from his operas at the Four Seasons Centre. I feel really privileged to have been able to attend. Adams’ introductions for each piece were thoughtful, informative and deeply human. We had arias from A Flowering Tree, Nixon in China, Dr. Atomic and The Death of Klinghoffer performed by Peter McGillivray (baritone) and Betty Waynne Allison (soprano) with Anne Larlee at the piano. They both did very well with McGillivray being particularly effective, especially in Nixon’s “Mister Premier, distinguished guests”. To be fair to Ms. Allison, Adams’ writing for soprano is fiendish and throttling back a big voice in a fairly small space can’t have been easy.

I’m starting to feel a bit more at home with Adams’ music and to understand better why I like what I do like. Adams’ music seems to work best when it is fairly up tempo and has real rhythmic drive to it. Adams said that very little of his non operatic music is as slow as much of his operatic music and I think that’s significant. He doesn’t do relaxed and/or lyrical as well as the more driven stuff. So Nixon in China works pretty well because it is driven along at a pretty relentless pace and even the set piece arias are mostly fairly brisk. Dr. Atomic drags, has slow passages that lack any other real interest and is correspondingly less effective.

Another lunchtime concert

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Another excellent lunchtime concert at the Four Seasons Centre. This time it was more of the Ensemble Studio with an all Mozart programme. It was consistently very good indeed.

First up Ileana Montalbetti sang the virtuoso concert aria Bella mia famma, addio!. Ileana has an amazingly powerful voice for a young singer and as I was sitting about ten feet away from her I practically got blown away. Lovely work! I really look forward to seeing how her voice matures.

Next Jacqueline Woodley sang two movements from the Exsultate, Jubilate. She is a very winning singer with an infectious enthusiasm and a great sense of comic timing that was better displayed in Batti, batti, o bel Masetto and especially in the duet La ci darem la mano which she sang with Neil Craighead. The duet was very funny indeed. I wonder if I’m the only person who thinks Jacqueline looks a bit like a young Miranda Richardson.

Besides the duet with Jacqueline, Neil sang Madamina, il catalogo e questo, again with very nice comic touches as well as power and beauty of tone. He grows on me. He closed out the concert with a rarity, Per questa bella mano which is a virtuoso concert aria for bass-baritone with an equally virtuosic bass obbligato, provided on this occasion by Alan Molitz.

Before Neil closed things out we also heard the slightly terrifying Ambur Braid sing Non mir dir and the fiendish concert aria Vorrei spiegarvi, o dio. Ambur is definitely at her best in the batshit insane soprano repertoire. She’s agile and accurate and nails the high notes and difficult runs. I wish I liked the colour of her voice better. If she could also pull off a real richness or sweetness of tone she’d be set for superstardom. As it is I find her tone colour a bit harsh and metallic though still very impressive.

Anne Larlee was at the piano and excellent as always.

For added operatic squee bonus points I got to meet Simone Osborne who previously I’ve engaged with a little on Twitter but never met. She is lovely and I’m so glad that her career is starting to take off.

Lunchtime recital at the Four Seasons Centre

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I went to a free recital at the Four Seasons Centre earlier today. The Studio Ensemble cast(*) for the new Magic Flute were performing excerpts. It was really very good. I’ve seen some of the singers before and it pretty much confirmed what I thought the first time. I really think we will see a lot of Wallis Giunta, Ileana Montalbetti and Ambur Braid in the next few years. Adrian Kramer and Christopher Enns look to have bright futures too. The rest of the cast were solid enough they just didn’t grab me quite the same way.

* The Ensemble Studio is Canadian Opera’s training program for young professional singers. Once a year they get to put on a fully staged performance of one of the COC season productions. They are doing Magic Flute at the FSC on February 17th. Tickets are $55 and $22 (ring 5 only). If anyone is planning to buy tickets for the regular performances I’ve got a 15% off discount code you can use.