M’dea Undone; music by John Harris , libretto by Marjorie Chan, opened in the Holcim Gallery at the Evergreen Brickworks last night in a production by Tim Albery. My review, still a WIP, will appear in Opera Canada in due course though it has triggered some more general thoughts about “new opera” that I might explore here. It’s worth seeing just to experience the unconventional performance space. There are three more performances tonight, tomorrow and Friday. Here’s a photograph.
Tag Archives: tapestry
Building the audience for indie opera
Opera America recently awarded a series of grants to opera companies for audience development. Most of these grants went to mainstream opera companies; usually “the big guy in town”. $35000 though went to Toronto’s Tapestry Opera. Yesterday I met with artistic director Michael Mori to find out what it was all about.
Upcoming events for April/May
Perhaps the most exciting prospect is that from May 26th to 29th you can catch the world premiere of M’dea Undone, a collaboration between Tapestry and Scottish Opera, at the Evergreen Brickworks. The libretto is by Marjorie Chan with music by John Harris in this retelling of the classic story of love and betrayal in the context of today’s perpetual war against whatever. Tim Albery directs with Jordan De Souza conducting. The cast includes Lauren Segal, Peter Barrett, Jacquie Woodley and James McLean.
Turning the Tables
Last night’s Tap:Ex Tables Turned lived up to the hype. It was a pretty incredible experience but extremely difficult to describe. The first half consisted of Nicole Lizée’s reprocessed clips from classic films (The Shining, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Birds, The Graduate and, of course, The Sound of Music but there were others). It was mostly short loop stuff; for example, the ball bouncing scene from TSoM over and over again. Beside the sound from the film there was live accompaniment from Ben Reimer on a variety of tuned percussion instruments and Carla Huhtanen with a variety of vocal effects and weirdly disturbing acting, helped along by the fact that she does look a bit like Julie Andrews, especially exploding Julie Andrews. I think there may have been more electronics from Nicole in the mix too. It was weird and fascinating and very enjoyable.
Michael Mori on Tap:Ex Tables Turned
Yesterday I met with Tapestry Opera Artistic Director Michael Mori to ask him about their upcoming how Tap:Ex Tables Turned. What follows is an attempt to distill an hour and three quarters of wide ranging conversation into something readable without, I hope, distorting what Michael actually said too much.
We started by talking about “How on Earth he came up with the idea?”. There a few key themes here. First, Tap:Ex is about exploration and experimentation with new forms of performance practice. This is rooted in Michael’s belief that “opera is inherently a popular genre” and that the task is to find a way of doing “it” that connects with a modern audience. He firmly believes that the audience for beautifully sung spectacle in a large opulent theatre is inherently limited and that we need to find ways to connect new audiences probably through different ways of presenting work (he mentioned choreography for example) and by using more intimate, less intimidating venues. He cited Philadelphia’s willingness to take risks with second stages versus the compararive lack of success of companies that had tried to experiment in a large house. He also quoted statistics that suggested that the “new audience” problem is less to do with getting people to the opera once but much more about how to get them to come back for a second and subsequent time.
In like a lion
Good heavens it’s March already! There’s lots coming up in the Toronto vocal music scene. This Saturday sees George Benjamin’s Written on Skin in concert performance with the TSO at Roy Thomson Hall. Chris Purves and Barbara Hannigan from the original cast are singing with Bernhard Landauer coming in for Bejun Mehta as the Boy. The composer conducts.
More news and stuff
Upcoming gigs that haven’t made it onto the page here yet include Tapestry Songbook V which will include highlights from works such as: The Perfect Screw (Abigail Richardson/Alexis Diamond), a cheeky comedy about a woman in search of the perfect screw—a Robertson or a Philips; The Shadow (Omar Daniel/Alex Poch-Goldin), a melodrama where a mailman disguises himself as a suave bachelor at the turn of 20th century Barcelona; In this World, George is Heartbroken (Lembit Beecher/Hannah Moscovitch), a psychological exploration of the demented imagination of a middle aged couple paralyzed in routine; and Noor over Afghan (Christiaan Venter/Anusree Roy), a story of a woman who, upon discovering her terminal illness, begs her sister to take her place at the altar as she flees on her own wedding day. The performers will be (now fully bipedal) baritone Peter McGillivray and pianist Stephen Philcox. It’s at 8pm at the Ernest Blamer Studio and the $24 tickets include a reception afterwards. The snag? The COC’s Don Giovanni opens that evening.
Also coming up is The Whisper Opera, a Soundstreams presenetation in partnership with New York’s International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE). The venue, The Theatre Centre at 1115 Queen Street West only seats 52 and there are only six performances and we are promised it will never be recorded or done on a bigger scale. Sounds intriguing. Anyway, right now, the first three performances are being discounted 40% (regular $57.50 – do the math) from the Royal Conservatory Box Office using promo code LISTEN. Good until January 16th.
Moving into January
I wrote “2015” on a cheque today. Scary. Anyway, what’s on in Toronto as the new year dawns? Quite a lot as it happens. Here are my picks.
December 9th sees Anne-Sofie von Otter in recital at Koerner hall. She’s not doing opera anymore and who knows how many more chances there will be to see her in Toronto?
Best of 2014
Well not so much “best of” as the good stuff that really made my year. It was a pretty good year overall. On the opera front there was much to like from the COC as well as notable contributions from the many smaller ensembles and opera programs. The one that will stick longest with me was Peter Sellars’ searing staging of Handel’s Hercules at the COC. It wasn’t a popular favourite and (predictably) upset the traditionalists but it was real theatre and proof that 250 year old works can seem frighteningly modern and relevant. Two other COC productions featured notable bass-baritone COC debuts and really rather good looking casts. Atom Egoyan’s slightly disturbing Cosí fan tutte not only brought Tom Allen to town but featured a gorgeous set of lovers, with Wallis Giunta and Layla Claire almost identical twins, as well as a welcome return for Tracy Dahl. Later in the year Gerry Finley made his company debut in the title role of Verdi’s Falstaff in an incredibly detailed Robert Carsen production. I saw it three times and I’m still pretty sure I missed stuff.





