Tag Archives: sy

Last “upcoming” post before the summer

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illumin.jpgThings are really starting to slow down so this will be the last “upcoming” post before the summer lull when this feature will go on hiatus.  Next week there’s the final vocal concert of the season in the RBA.  It’s on Tuesday at noon when Karine Boucher will perform Ravel’s  Shéhérazade with Charles Sy joining in with Britten’s Les Illuminations.  On Sunday 21st at 5pm in Mazzoleni Hall, Christina Campsall has a recital of 20th century works including the challenging Messiaen piece, Poèmes pour Mi.  It’s free.

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Maometto II

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Rossini’s rarely performed opera seria Maometto II opened at the Four Seasons Centre last night in a production by David Alden and with substantially the same cast as when it played in Santa Fe on 2012.  This is the restored Maometto in the edition prepared by Hans Schellevis in an attempt to get as close to Rossini’s initial Naples score as possible.  So, no happy ending and all the complexity of Rossini’s original design.

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The four (bearded) tenors

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Ensemble Studio tenors, like saints’ noses, only seem to come in multipacks these days.  There are four of them until the end of the season and today they were all on show in the RBA.  It was clearly a popular move as the good folks were lined up outside almost to Richmond Street before the doors opened and they didn’t all get in.  Maybe it was the beards.  Are bearded tenors the new black?  The program was fairly predictable.   Andrew Haji , Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure and Aaron Sheppard each gave us a well known and popular aria, with two from Charles Sy, before we got to the inevitable arrangements for four voices of three Neapolitan songs and, of course, the encores.

March29RBA3

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The week in prospect

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alcina_365sqBack to relative quiet!  The main event in the coming week is the GGS spring production.  They are doing Handel’s Alcina.  The cast includes Meghan Jamieson, Irina Medvedeva, Christina Campsall, Lillian Brooks, Joanna Burt, Asitha Tennekoon and Keith Lam.  Leon Major directs and Ivars Taurins conducts.  The publicity material suggests a 1920s setting.  Anyway it’s at Koerner Hall at 7.30pm on Wednesday and Friday.

There are a couple of kid friendly March break concerts in the RBA.  Tuesday sees what seems to have become an annual event; Kyra Millan’s Opera Interactive.  This year she is joined by Tina Faye and Charles Sy.  Then on Thursday Cawthra Park Chamber Choir and conductor Bob Anderson, one of the GTA’s leading school choirs, present various choral traditions and styles from the Renaissance to contemporary Canadian works.  Charles Sy, a Cawthra Park alumnus also features in this one.  Both at noon of course.

Then at the  Newmarket Theatre on Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2pm opera Luminata are performing.  This is a rather odd spectacular thing with taped orchestra and pyrotechnics.  I haven’t seen them but they got a rather more positive reception than I expected last time around.  www.operaluminata.com for details.

Coming up

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letravail_365sqIt’s getting a bit busier again.  This afternoon there are a couple of concerts.  At 2pm in Mazzoleni Hall you can catch Mireille Asselin and Brett Polegato with Peter Tiefenbach and Rachel Andrist in a painting themed program of lieder, artsongs and chansons called Le travail du peintre.  At 4.30pm at Metropolitan United Church Bach’s Mass in B Minor meets German film maker Bastian Clevé’s film The Sound of Eternity.  The soloists are Marjorie Maltais, Geoff Sirett, Jennifer Krabbe and Charles Sy plus the Orpheus Choir, Chorus Niagara and the Talisker Players.  I suppose it would just about be possible to do both…

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Night of the living mezzos

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As previously revealed the line up for last night’s Centre Stage; the COC’s gala competition cum Ensemble Studio final audition featured four mezzos, two sopranos and two baritones.  Not a tenor to be had.  As was the case two years ago the competition was split into two parts; a late afternoon session for an invited audience and an early evening public session separated by a cocktail reception.  Each singer presented one aria in each session.  Accompaniment was provided by the COC Orchestra with music director Johannes Debus.

The Lieutenant Governor with the contestants

The Lieutenant Governor with the contestants

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And so it begins

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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…

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More Shakespeare brushing

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Karine White

Karine White

Yesterday afternoon I went to see the UoT Opera program’s show Brush Up Your Shakespeare.  It was substantially the same as the program they gave six months ago in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre so I ‘m just going to comment on changes of one kind or another.

There were a few extra numbers.  Danika Lorèn sang the Poison Aria from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.  It’s an interesting voice.  There’s lots of power but maybe isn’t quite fully under control yet.  Still, easier to refine a powerful basic instrument than get anywhere with a small one.  One to watch.  William Ford sang Macduff’s O figli mie! from Verdi’s Macbeth.  That’s a pretty bold call for a student and he wasn’t bad at all.  This time we also got a sort of catalogue raisonnée of the program from director Michael Patrick Albano with contextual information on each number.

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Postcard from Morocco

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Dominick Argento’s 1971 work Postcard from Morocco is unusual.  It’s opera meets Ionesco meets acid rock.  It’s a weird and wonderful kaleidoscope of scenes and music “about” a group of characters who seem to have nothing in common except that they have showed up at a railway station in Morocco c. 1914.  Michael Cavanagh’s production for UoT Opera plays it straight veering to OTT which seems about right.  This piece doesn’t need directorial “interpretation” but it does need careful organisation and lots of energy.  Cavanagh’s approach provided plenty of both.

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Our saucy ship’s a beauty

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hms_pinaforeAnd so is Michael Albano’s new production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore which opened last night at the MacMillan Theatre.  It’s been a long time since the UoT Opera Division did G&S but it was worth the wait.  Fred Perruzza’s straight forward unit set was really brought to life by a fast paced and lively production.  From the very beginning of the overture we had members of the crew cavorting and dancing (Choreographer Anna Theodosakis) in a  manner perhaps owing more to Broadway than D’Oyly Carte and the better for it!  The set, a quarter deck with a gallery, provided cabin doors and traps in the deck for characters to come and go (including conductor Sandra Horst appearing from “below” to take her bow).  And of coming and going and dancing there was plenty.  There were some more than decent dancers in the chorus too.

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