Here’s what I’m looking forward to in a busy November.
UoT Opera presented a show of mostly Mozart arias/scenes in a semi staged fashion directed by Mabel Wonnacott in the RBA on Wednesday. Although each scene was credited in the programme the parts weren’t specified and since I don’t know this new group of students I’m only gong to name names where I’m sure!
The new season starts to ramp up in September. My month will start at Factory Theatre on the 7th with Mary Beath Badian’s The Waltz; a coming of age drama set in Saskatchewan. That runs until the 17th. The following night there’s a screening at the Four Seasons Centre of Atom Egoyan’s new film Seven Veils that was created in conjunction with last season’s production of Salome. A young woman is tasked with remounting her former mentor’s production of Salome. It stars Amanda Seyfried, Ambur Braid, Michael Schade and Michael Kupfer-Radecky. It’s a chance to see the film ahead of the official premier at TIFF. More details and tickets here.
It was the “farewell to the Ensemble Studio” show for Vlad Soloviev and Jonah Spungin yesterday and they put on a great show enhanced by an informal, witty approach. Jonah’s singing was excellent. I especially liked his take on Wolf’s “Der Feuerreiter” and a set of Swedish songs by Wilhelm Peterson-Berger. He clearly has power to spare and can be subtle too. Nice going.
English baritone Roland Wood, accompanied by Simone Luti, gave a rather unusual, themed, recital n the RBA on Tuesday lunchtime. It was structured around the typical career path of a baritone and was narrated engagingly by Wood with lots of fun being had with the traditional rivalry between tenors (useless wimps who always get the girl) and baritones (evil sociopaths who never do).
Wednesday’s lunchtime’s concert in the RBA was a recital by baritone Önay Köse, currently singing Banquo at the COC, accompanied by pianist Stephen Hargreaves..There were three sets of four songs; the Ibert Quatre chansons de Don Quichotte. four pieces from Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch and the Brahms Vier Ernste Gesänge.
Things happening next month…
But first this month… on April 27th to 29th male soprano Samuel Mariño is appearing with
Tafelmusik in a programme titled Higher Love: Virtuoso Arias. Details here.
Crow’s Theatre has a couple of shows. True Crime opens on the 2nd. It’s a short run. Preview on the 1st then closes on the 7th. It’s basically a one man, semi-improvised show about an imprisoned con man. The Chinese Lady, which runs 5th to 21st (previews 2nd to 4th) in the smaller Studio Theatre tells the story of the first Chinese woman in the USA. Written by Lloyd Suh and directed by Marjorie Chan it should be interesting. There’s also Boom X. Rick Miller plays over a hundred characters to narrate events from 1969 t0 1995. It runs from the 10th to the 28th. More details at crowstheatre.com.
I have a written a couple of times in the last year about Alex Roth’s Songs in Time of War which sets poems by Du Fu in translations by Vikram Seth. The cycle was performed. again on Wednesday in the RBA by Lawrence Wiliford and friends just as they did last August in the Music Garden. My review of that performance gives information about the songs and the ensemble that it seems pointless to repeat.
Ahead of Opera Atelier’s upcoming production of Handel’s The Resurrection (La resurrezione) at Koerner Hall next week (6th to 9th April) there was a lunchtime preview in the RBA on Tuesday. Later that day I sat down with director Marshall Pynkoski to find out more about the work, OA’s relationship to it and its rather tortuous journey to the Koerner Hall stage.
It’s that time of year when departing members of the COC Ensemble Studio give their farewell recitals in the RBA. On Tuesday it was the turn of Midori Marsh and Alex Halliday and they did it in style. The programme was interesting and the music making excellent. Although they alternated sets it’s probably easy to deal with each singer in turn.
operaramblings 