Tag Archives: theatre passe muraille

Indie Operas

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angelsboneComing up later this month is Angel’s Bone; an opera with music by Du Yun and a libretto by the amazing Royce Vavrek.  It’s a chamber opera for amplified voices and small ensemble.  The plot concerns two angels who fall to earth and are ruthlessly exploited by otherwise unremarkable people.  It’s a commentary on human trafficking and the exploitation of youth.  There’s a really good looking cast and it will play at Harbourfront Centre March 22nd to 24th.  It’s already attracted largely positive reviews in New York and Vancouver.  More details including casting and ticketing here. Continue reading →

Migraaaants

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Migraaaants is a theatre piece by Matei Visniec translated by Nick Awde and currently playing at Theatre Passe Muraille in a production directed by Siavash Shabanpour.  The programme describes it as a “dark comedy”.  I’m not so sure.  It certainly has absurdist elements and is occasionally funny in a very uncomfortable way but “comedy” I’m not so sure.  Besides, the subject matter; forced migration and people trafficking into and around the EU, is seriously grim.  The “dark” part is on the money.

Migraaaants promo photo by Zahra Salecki

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January 2024

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jan2024Here’s a look at the start of 2024 in Toronto.

On the 7th and the 9th OPUS chamber music, who feature some of Canada’s best young chamber musicians, have a pair of concerts.  The first is at Trinity St. Paul’s and features music by Rebecca Clarke, Leo Weiner, Anton Webern and Robert Schumann.  The second is at the Arts and Letters Club and includes music by Tcherepini, Klein, Wegener and Beethoven.

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Opera 5 are turning the screw

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Those who know me are probably fed up of hearing me lament how slow the indie opera scene in Toronto has been to recover post plague.  Well here’s some good news on that front.  Opera 5 will be mounting a fully staged version of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with the proper thirteen piece chamber orchestra at Theatre Passe Muraille in June next year.  Yea!

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Canoe

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Canoe; libretto by Spy Dénommé-Welch, music by the librettist and Catherine Magowan, had its world premier at Trinity St. Paul’s on Friday evening.  It’s a complex work and adopts some interesting approaches to telling an Indigenous story within the conventions of European opera.  It’s effectively directed, on quite a minimal but functional set (Lindy Kinoshameg), by Dénommé-Spy and Moynan King.

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(L-R): “Gladys” Nicole Joy-Fraser, “Debaajimod” Michelle Lafferty, “Tree Spirit” Conlin Delbaere-Sawchuk, “Constance” Kristine Dandavino

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And so to September

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sept23The new season starts to ramp up in September.  My month will start at Factory Theatre on the 7th with Mary Beath Badian’s The Waltz; a coming of age drama set in Saskatchewan.  That runs until the 17th.  The following night there’s a screening at the Four Seasons Centre of Atom Egoyan’s new film Seven Veils that was created in conjunction with last season’s production of Salome.  A young woman is tasked with remounting her former mentor’s production of Salome.  It stars Amanda Seyfried, Ambur Braid, Michael Schade and Michael Kupfer-Radecky.  It’s a chance to see the film ahead of the official premier at TIFF.  More details and tickets here.

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The Wager

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Theatre Gargantua’s production of Michael Gordon Spence’s The Wager, which opened last night at Theatre Passe Muraille takes as its starting point Alfred Russell Wallace’s (the other natural selection guy) bet with a Flat Earther to prove that the Earth is round.  He does do, of course.  Or at least to the satisfaction of any reasonable person but merely succeeds in provoking a storm of personal abuse and insults from the Flat Earther.  All of which tends to prove the old adage that arguing with a crackpot is like wrestling with a pig.  You get covered in s**t and the pig enjoys it.

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Hook Up

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Hook Up is a 95 minute musical theatre piece from composer Chris Thornborrow and librettist Julie Tepperman.  It’s been a while coming.  I saw the first inklings of it at Tapestry Briefs in September 2013.  That morphed into Selfie seen in workshop in October 2015.  Now it’s morphed again.  The basic characters are still there and some of the plot elements but the focus has shifted from cyber-bullying to sexual consent and the context from high school to first year university.

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Tapestry 18/19

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tapestry1819Tapestry’s 2018/19 season has been announced.  There are two new operas plus Tapestry Briefs and Songbook IX.  So here’s the lineup:

  • Tapestry Briefs: Tasting Shorts runs September 13th to 16th 2018.  Four singers perform short works plus drinks and tapas.
  • Hook Up, which runs January 29th to February 10th 2019 at Theatre Passe Muraille is a partnership with that company.  The libretto is by Julie Teppermann with music by Chris Thornborrow.  It looks like a sort of “coming of age” piece about starting university.  The singers are Alicia Ault, Nathan Carroll, and Jeff Lillico.  None of them are known to me but a quick Google suggests actors-who-sing/musical theatre rather than opera.
  • Songbook IX is scheduled for March 2019.  No further details at this stage.
  • Finally, and of most interest to me, is a new work co-produced with Opera on the Avalon.  It’s called Shanawdithit and tells the story of the last recorded surviving member of the Beothuk Nation in Newfoundland, and the extinction and erasure of her people. The libretto is by Yvette Nolan with music by Dean Burry and it will be performed by an indigenous cast headed by Marion Newman.  This will run on yet to be announced dates in May 2019.  I’m excited about this one.

More info here.

Suffragette

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Opera 5’s double bill of Ethel Smyth one acters, Suffragette, opened last night at Theatre Passe Muraille in productions by Jessica Derventzis. The second piece, The Boatswain’s Mate, was in every way the more successful of the two. It’s a straightforward enough story.  Mrs. Waters is a widow and landlord of The Outlaw (renamed in deference to the production’s beer sponsor).  She is being very unsuccessfully courted by retired boatswain Harry Benn.  Mrs. Waters doesn’t want or need a husband but Benn decides that by enlisting a casual acquaintance, the former soldier Ned Travers, as a fake burglar from whom he can “rescue” the hapless landlady, he can impress her sufficiently.  Much mayhem ensues but the upshot is that Mrs. Waters takes a shine to the hunky soldier and they, at least, live happily ever after.

O5-The Boatswain's Mate #3

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