Last night I saw the second performance of Tapestry’s latest compilation of short works. As before it was a mix of excerpts from works in progress and potential projects plus stand alone short scenes developed during the LibLab. This year there was an additional refinement. The works were staged in different parts of the building (part of the Distillery complex) and samples of the local goodies were provided at strategic points along the way.
More details have been announced on Tapestry Opera’s season. This week sees Tapestry Briefs: Booster Shots; previously previewed here. January 24th, 2015 sees Tapestry Songbook V with baritone Peter McGillivray and young Canadian singers in concert performing the beautiful and absurd repertoire from Tapestry’s 35 year old Canadian collection.
This evening at 7.30pm at Trinity St. Paul’s The Talisker Players have their first concert of the season entitled Songs of Travel. Virginia Hatfield will be performing the French baroque work Le Sommeil d’Ulisse by Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre and the rarely performed Algoma Central by Louis Applebaum. Also featured is baritone Geoffrey Sirett in Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Songs of Travel and Vally Weigl’s Songs of Love and Leaving. Also on tomorrow.
Tapestry have announced this year’s Tapestry Shorts for November 13th to 16th at the Distillery. There’s a twist this year. Like last year the show will start in the Ernest Balmer Studio but then will move around different venues in the Distillery complex. Some of these locations will feature “booster shots” of flavour stimulants, ranging from craft beer and sake to artisanal ice cream. Think Mill Street, the sake place and Greg’s. Maybe Soma too? Chilli chocolate bleating goat shots? There will be ten shorts performed by Catherine Affleck, Alex Dobson, Keith Klassen and Krisztina Szabò. I’ve seen several of these pieces in workshop and I can’t wait to see them in more polished form. Seriously, this is one of THE opera events in the Toronto calendar. Go if you can.
The complete line up is below the cut.
A few weeks ago I wrote about the Tapestry LibLab; a structured creative collaboration between composers and librettists. Yesterday we got a preview of the results. Twelve works created in this year’s programme were given a run through by the previously announced performers plus singer/dance Eva Tavares. The works will form the basis of this year’s Tapestry Briefs show in November when they will be fully staged.
Tapestry’s LibLab is a collaborative that brings together composers and librettists to create new work. It provides participants with the opportunity to work with several partners in a short period of time. Throughout the week-long program, writers and composers are partnered with one another for one day each. With input from music and stage directors, each pair writes a short piece of music theatre and investigates the collaborative process. Their work is performed at the end of each day by a resident ensemble of singers and repetiteurs, and then constructively critiqued by the group. The best of the works are polished up for a show later in the year (review of last year’s show) and some go on for further development.
Shelter; music by Juliet Palmer, libretto by Julie Salverson, has been ten years in the making. It premiered in Edmonton a couple of years ago, finally, got its Toronto premiere at the Berkeley Street Theatre last night under the auspices of Tapestry. It’s a complex and eclectic piece dealing with what it is to be human in a nuclear age. There are two parallel plots which intersect in a way that makes dramatic sense but violate conventional notions of synchronicity. This is, after all, a piece rooted in post Einsteinian physics. The first concerns Austrian Jewish physicist Lise Meintner, one of the discoverers of nuclear fission. She has been forced into exile by the Anschluss and is seen here refusing to work on the Manhattan project. The second plot concerns a highly stereotypical 1950s American couple Thomas and Claire who meet at a social, marry and quickly produce a child; Hope. Their “American Dream” is shattered when it turns out that the baby glows! Fast forward 21 years and Hope is demanding her freedom in a world from which she has thus far been sheltered. Reenter Meintner, engaged by Thomas to be Hope’s tutor, and still obsessing about the Manhattan project. The final twist comes with the arrival of the Pilot, in WW2 Army Air Corps uniform, who uses a Geiger counter to find his prey. He fails to convince Meintner to change her mind but does persuade Hope to fulfill her destiny as He pilots the Enola Gay to 31,000 feet and a clear sky. It’s weird, disturbing and powerful.
There are a few operatic events coming up in June although, as usual things are slowing down a bit.
On June 1st at 7pm, Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky has a recital at Koerner Hall singing works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Medtner and Liszt. Ivari Ilja will accompany on piano.
Brian Current’s new opera Airline Icarus will open at 8pm on June 3rd at Ada Slaight Hall in the Daniels Spectrum complex. The piece stars Krisztina Szabó and Alexander Dobson, among others. Tim Albery directs. The show runs until June 8th. Tickets are $20-$75 and are available here.
Opera 5’s planned Offenbach and Hahn show this week has been postponed to the fall owing to construction delays at the Alliance Française (probably caused by striking air traffic controllers). By way of consolation there’s a pop up party on Saturday at 8pm, also at the Alliance Française (24 Spadina Road). Tickets are $15 on the door. It should be fun as these guys know how to party. Unfortunately I am otherwise engaged which may not be a bad thing. Last time I was at the Alliance Française the Americans started bombing Baghdad.
In a curiously symmetrical move, Tapestry have announced dates for the long delayed Toronto run of Shelter by Julie Salverson and Juliet Palmer. Described as “a darkly comic chamber opera which maps the journey of a family struggling to be ordinary in the atomic age.” The cast includes Christine Duncan, Teiya Kasahara, Keith Klassen, Andrea Ludwig and Peter McGillivray. Leslie Dala conducts and Keith Turnbull directs. It will play from June 12th to 15th at the Berkeley Street Theatre. Ticket prices range from $55-$75 + HST and can be purchased in person at the Canadian Stage Box Office at 26 Berkeley Street, by calling 416.368.3110 or online at CanadianStage. For more information visit TapestryOpera.
The opening weekend of April is almost absurdly rich in opera going opportunities and I’ve already previewed it here. There are updates on the Tapestry/Volcano show Revolutions. This is going to be highly experimental and aims to “test the boundaries of how opera is presented in the 21st century.” by exploring the relationship between physical and musical expression. Marie- Josée Chartier (contemporary dance), stage director Michael Mori, will work with four athletic young opera singers, Neema Bickersteth, Andrea Ludwig, Adrian Kramer and Andrew Love. Unfortunately it’s one night only and I shall be at the opening of Peter Sellars’ production of Handel’s Hercules at the COC. Eric Owens, Alice Coote, Richard Croft, David Daniels and Lucy Crowe are singing and Harry Bicket is in the pit. If that’s not incentive enough the COC is offering a 25% discount if you buy tickets to any two of the three spring operas (the other two are Roberto Devereux and Don Quichotte). Continue reading
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