More shows to enjoy…
October 11th to November 6th at Crow’s Theatre it’s Rajiv Joseph’s Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. “During the chaos of the 2003 American occupation of Iraq the lives of two American marines intersect with an Iraqi gardener as they search through the rubble of war for friendship, redemption, and a toilet seat made of gold.”
October 26th at 8pm at Koerner Hall Philippe Jaroussky is appearing with Ensemble Artaserse. It’s a rare chance to hear somewhat controversial countertemor Jaroussky sing with orchestra in an ideal venue. The concert includes works by a range of baroque composers. Some of the material is relatively familiar; “Cara sposa” from Rinaldo for example, but much is by less well known composers such as Hasse and Ferrandini. Artaserse Ensemble is a leading period instrument band that, besides Jaroussky, has appeared with such singers as Cecilia Bartoli and Andreas Scholl.- October 27th – 30th at Alliance Française it’s Tapestry’s Tapestry Briefs: Les Shorts qui chantent. This will showcase scenes created at the very first bi-lingual LibLab. Direction is by Tim Albery.
- October 26th to November 12th at Hart House Theatre, Howland Company and Hart House Theatre have a modern adaptation by Paolo Santalucia of Chekhov’s Three Sisters.
- November 3rd at 5.30pm it’s Centre Stage at the Four Season’s Centre, live for the first time in a while. It’s the usual format; cocktails and snacks, a competition for aspiring voices and, for the well heeled, an on-stage dinner.
If you are buying tickets look out for deals. There’s a fair bit of discounting going on. Some shows have clearly sold very well but others not so much. The post pandemic bounce back looks a bit anaemic right now.
It’s not much of a secret that I’m a bit fanatical about new opera. This year Tapestry has two really exciting looking premieres in Toronto. Later in the year there’s Brian Current’s Gould’s Wall which, as an ex climber, I just have to see but first, in fact coming up next month, is RUR: A Torrent of Light by Nicholas Billon and Nicole Lizée. It’s about robots and it’s a collaboration with OCAD U who are developing some way cool technology for the show. There’s now loads of really good preview material about the show on Tapestry’s Youtube channel. So I have two suggestions to make:
Two interesting and very different news items about the Toronto arts world appeared yesterday. The first is essentially good news. Loose Tea Music Theatre announced the hiring of a General Manager (Tim Crouch), a Director of Marketing (Rochelle Smith) and a Director of Development (Francesco Corsaro). This is a pretty big move for what has been, for as long as I can remember, pretty much a one woman band. Loose Tea is pretty much the only company in town that’s focussed on politically committed music theatre so this could presage some interesting developments. More on this 
operaramblings 