The free concert series in the RBA kicked off on Wednesday with, as usual, a performance by the artists of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. Owing to illness only five singers performed and only one of those, Emily Rocha, was a returnee. The other four singers and both pianists were newcomers. It was short but enjoyable.
The last great castrato, we are told, was Vellutti who was a favourite with many early 19th century composers. Tuesday night’s concert at Koerner Hall as part of Toronto Summer Music was a tribute to him with counter-tenor Franco Fagioli accompanied by L’Orchestre de l’Opéra de Versailles and their flamboyant violinist/conductor Stefan Plewniak performing music associated with Vellutti interspersed with orchestral music from (mostly) the same operas.
Rossini’s early opera seria Tancredi is set in Syracuse in the early 11th century and turns on two rival families coming together in the face a threat from both Byzantines and Saracens. The hero is the knight Tancredi, secretly in love with the daughter of one of rival families. Jan Philipp Gloger’s production filmed at Bregenz in 2024 updates it to the present with the families being rival drug gangs and the “threat” the police. There’s a further twist. Tancredi is a mezzo role and always sung by a woman. Here Tancredi is played as a woman pretending to be a man; at least to everyone except her lover Amenaide.
The last concert of the season in the COC’s free concert season took place in the RBA on Thursday. It was the farewell concert for Queen Hezumuryango and Wesley Harrison plus a second farewell for Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi.
Rossini’s Adina was written in 18i8; two years after Barber of Seville, but wasn’t premiered until 1826 in Lisbon, after which it pretty much disappeared. It’s a bit difficult to see why it fell out of favour, unless it’s because at 90 minutes or so it was considered too short, because it’s a pretty classic Rossini comedy with a silly but amusing plot and enjoyably frothy music.
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.
Without notice or fanfare the COC season announcement landed in my email inbox at 11.30 this morning. I kind of miss the old 10am press conference which at least offered an opportunity to ask about the rationale of some of the decisions. I guess though that the number of people writing about opera in Toronto these days would fit in a phone box so maybe it’s too much to hope for. There are some mildly surprising aspects to the announcement. There’s no Mozart or Puccini nor, more consequential, any sign of the various new opera projects that COC has/had under development which do have a bit of a habit of disappearing without trace. There’s also no “second stage” production. I guess that experiment is done. So it’s six main stage productions in the traditional three pairs.
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Tuesday’s RBA concert with members of the Ensemble Studio was themed around composer rivalries though not the really toxic ones. No Mozart/Salieri or Wagner/Meyerbeer here! The most convincing as a rivalry was the first; Berlioz vs Rossini. So Queen Hezumuryango sang “Le spectre de la rose” with some sensitive handling of the text and a pretty fiery “Cruda sorte” from L’Italiana in Algeri with plenty of emotion. I definitely like her voice more when she’s going for drama as she’s got plenty of power and expressiveness.
Next up was Duncan Stenhouse with four pieces that illustrated the complex relationship between Brahms, Wagner and Dvořák. “Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht” from the Vier Lieder Op. 96 and “Při řekách babylonských” from the Biblické písně were sung with excellent control and expressiveness but if there’s a connection it’s not obvious to me. The two operatic pieces though; “Běda!, Běda!” from Rusalka and “Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge” from Das Rheingold have, I think, more obvious affinities; both dramatically and musically. Both were very well sung. It’s so good to have a genuine bass in the Ensemble again! Continue reading
Wednesday lunchtime saw the members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio kick of the free concert series season in the RBA. It was good. Pianists Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi started off in fine style with a four hands version of the overture to The Barber of Seville and then it was on to the singing.
The Met HD in cinemas line up has been announced for 2024/25 so here’s my take on it. The first thing to notice is that there are only eight shows. There have been ten per season since 2012/13 and twelve before that. This is likely a reflection of the problems with audience numbers that all North American opera companies have been having. In the same time period the COC has cut back from 65-70 main stage performances per year to 42 and the Met’s “in house” audience problem has been well publicised. So what does that leave us with?
operaramblings 