Last Tuesday lunchtime in the RBA we got a sneak preview of some of the music that will feature at this year’s 20th anniversary Toronto Summer Music.
There was soprano Caitlin Wood with Philip Chiu performing three French chansons; at least one of which will feature in Mary Bevan and Roger Vignoles’ Walter Hall recital. Cait herself will be performing as part of the cast of Brian Current’s opera Missing during the festival.
Here are my top picks for May.
Come Closer is a new opera with music by Ryan Trew and text by Rachel Krehm. It’s scheduled to premiere at Factory Theatre on June 13th but last Wednesday in the RBA we got a preview of some extracts. Come Closer deals with Rachel Krehm’s relationship with her younger sister Elizabeth who died in 2012. It started out as a song cycle setting seven of Elizabeth’s poems and now has narrative added to create a stage work. Yesterday we heard four extracts with Rachel playing herself and Jacqueline Woodley (who I hadn’t seen for far too long) as Elizabeth. Accompaniment was piano trio with Evan Mitchell conducting.
Tuesday’s concert in the RBA was at the unusual time of 5.30pm and it was rammed. Whether that was a function of the time slot or the following that Schmaltz and Pepper have built up in the short time they have been around I don’t know but it was impressive. And so was the concert. Schmaltz and Pepper consists of some amazingly versatile and virtuosic musicians; Rebekah Wolkstein on violin and vocals, Eric Abramovitz on clarinet, Drew Jurecka on lots of stuff, Jeremy Ledbetter onb piano and Michael Herring on bass.
Duo Oriana consists of soprano Sinéad White and lutenist Jonathan Stuchbery. They gave a lunchtime concert in the RBA on Tuesday. Unsurprisingly most of their repertoire consists of lute songs from the 16th and 17th (and even 18th) century but they have recently branched out with the Toronto Book of Ayres which sets verse by contemporary Toronto poets. We got to hear that for the first time on Tuesday.
So Thursday lunchtime I went to see Karoline Podolak and Wesley Harrison supported by Mattia Senesi and Brian Cho in the RBA. It was a “schmaltzy” programme (Wesley’s description not mine!). The whole thing consisted of arias and duets from La Traviata, The Barber of Seville and Don Pasquale with a bit of Lehar and a final Prayer chucked in.
It was the sort of rep that if it came up on University Challenge any opera goer would be hitting the buzzer in under two seconds! And it’s all lovely of course. It was beautifully sung by two beautiful people with two excellent pianists. They sing beautifully separately and wonderfully together and Karoline’s coloratura is spectacular. It’s rep that fits them like a glove at this stage of their careers and I’m not going to bore you with a blow by blow account. It was unalloyed, undemanding enjoyment made all the better by being in the RBA on a sunny day!
Photo credfit: Karen E. Reeves.
Thr RBA concert on Tuesday lunchtime was a preview of Opera Atelier’s upcoming production of Charpentier’s David and Jonathan. Besides the usual Opera Atelier chat there was some useful information on the piece and the production and some excerpts.
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
Last Wednesday’s noon hour concert in the RBA was a collaboration between the Canadian Art Song Project and the UoT Faculty of Music. It was an all Canadian programme; mostly living composers and mostly in a lighter vein; hence the title Songs of Whimsy and Humour.
Last Friday’s lunchtime concert in the RBA was given by the France-Canada Academy of Vocal Arts at the University of Toronto. That mouthful is the moniker of a collaboration between the Faculty of Music and the Académie Francis Poulenc. So this last week members of the AFP had been in Toronto working with students and faculty here on French chansons and canadian art song. Fridays concert showcased six singer/pianist teams singing French song rep from both sides of the Canadian Channel.
operaramblings 