Also in today’s mailbox, the season announcement from the Talisker Players; a group who specialize in mixing music and the spoken word.
The 2013/14 season kicks off with City of the Mind, a concert about cities, ancient and modern featuring soprano Erin Bardua, mezzo soprano Vicki St. Pierre and baritone Joel Allison. The show begins in the 15th century, with Les Cris de Paris, a consort piece based on the cries of street vendors in the French capital. Moving ahead a couple of centuries, Tommasso Giordani’s Addio di Londra, for soprano with violin, viola and continuo, is an ode to a famous but unnamed personage upon his departure from London, entreating him to remember the sights of the city in his travels abroad. The programme also features a rare North American performance of a selection of Wiener lieder and the Venetian Boat Song, a 19th century salon piece by Jacques Blumenthal, for mezzo soprano, violin and piano. Very popular in its day, it is a reminder of the era of the “grand tour” of Europe. Moving into the 20thcentury we start in New York City with excerpts from Leonard Bernstein’s iconic On the Town, arranged by Laura Jones for baritone, soprano and string quartet, and finishing in Toronto with two pieces; Andrew Ager’s Ellis Portal, for baritone, mezzo soprano, clarinet and string quartet, about the city at night; and Erik Ross’s Concrete Toronto for soprano and saxophone.
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Yesterday the Talisker Players ventured into new territory for them with a program of Irving Berlin songs entitled Puttin’ on the Ritz. I’m no expert on Broadway in general or Tin Pan Alley in particular but, I suppose like most people, I’ve been exposed to a lot of this music through TV and films. The Talisker presentation was interesting and unusual in that they employed a string quartet and two classically trained singers rather than a dance band or a pianist and voices from a different tradition.
operaramblings 