Diapente, with guest Felix Deak on viola da gamba presented a concert of music by John Dowland and some of his contemporaries at St. Thomas’s Anglican on Tuesday evening. It was a generous selection of pieces arranged for various combinations of the musicians available; Jane Fingler (soprano), Peter Koniers (countertenor), Jonathan Stuchberry (tenor and lute), Alexander Capellazzo (tenor), Martin Gomes (bass) and, of course, Felix Deak (viola da gamba).
How many Indigenous artists does it take to make an Opera Indigenous? That was one of many questions up for discussion at Stories Don’t Die presented by the Artists of Indians on Vacation at the Terminal Theatre on Saturday afternoon. The backdrop to all this of course is the withdrawal of Edmonton Opera from their role in the creation and presentation of Ian Cusson and Royce Vavrek’s Indians on Vacation in February following the not entirely unexpected “revelation” that Thomas King; author of the novel on which the opera is based, is not Indigenous as he had long claimed. Edmonton Opera chose, unilaterally, to pull out after a protest by a small group of Indigenous activists in Edmonton. To the protesters, the false claim by Thomas King was reason enough to cancel an opera they hadn’t seen but is it? The Artists of Indians on Vacation clearly believe otherwise and Stories Don’t Die makes a strong case for its survival and further development.
Octet, by Dave Malloy, opened at Crow’s Theatre on Wednesday evening. I guess it’s Crow’s big musical this year; a kind of follow up to Pierre, Natasha and the Great Comet, but it’s actually a very different kind of show. One major difference is musical. All the singing is a capella which puts extra demands on the singers (and isn’t unpleasantly loud). The whole cast; eight of course, are really rather good singers and pull off the solo and ensemble numbers extremely well. They can also act and they are backed up by a really effective lighting plot Imogen Wilson) and video (Nathan Bruce) that pretty much replace the set, which is pretty basic.
Back to the Tranzac last night for the first Toronto performance of Against the Grain’s national tour of the Joel Ivany transladaptation of Puccini’s La Bohème which started it all back in 2011. The Tranzac has changed a lot and so, of course, has Against the Grain. The room is way smarter, they brought in a proper piano to replace the one that Topher plonked the first performance out on (and which memorably accompanied Jonathan MacArthur’s rather startling Hitler a few years later). And not in any way to knock that first cast it’s a sign of AtG’s rising stature that this time they are fielding a cast that would not be out of place in most regional houses in Canada.
Against the Grain Theatre today announced their 2019/20 season which will be their tenth though I don’t think back then there really was a “season” as such. In many ways it’s their most ambitious yet.
It was the last concert of Confluence’s inaugural season last night. The theme was “At the River” and the venue the rather splendid (if somewhat popish) St. Thomas’ Anglican on Huron Street. It rather epitomized what I have come to expect, and love, from this series. The musical styles on display were eclectic; classical, folk song, pop/rock, jazz with East and South Indian, Middle Eastern and Indigenous elements all well to the fore. There was also some poetry including an unintentionally hilarious piece in praise of the idyllic Don River. There was also a large and accomplished ensemble and a lot of joy and sheer fun.
Opera 5 opened a run of Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Factory Theatre last night. It’s arguably the most conventional thing Opera 5 have done. It’s a (very) mainstream piece. There was no accompanying themed food or drink (a glass of Rotsina?). There was no audience participation. There weren’t even Aria Umezawa’s characteristically minimalist touches. What there was a carefully constructed Barber for reduced forces directed by new Artistic Director Jessica Derventzis and conducted by Evan Mitchell.
Casting has now been announced for The Overcoat: A Musical Tailoring; an opera by Morris Panych and James Rolfe based on Gogol’s short story by way of Panych’s 1990s theatrical version. The opera is a co-production of Vancouver Opera, Tapestry Opera and Canadian Stage and will premiere in Toronto’s Bluma Appel Theatre (March 29th to April 14th) before heading to the Vancouver Playhouse (April 28th to May 12th).
Todays concert in the UoT’s Thursdays at Noon series at Walter Hall was given by baritone Giles Tomkins, soprano Elizabeth McDonald, pianist Kathryn Tremills, clarinettist Peter Stoll and cellist Lydia Munchinsky. The music they played was sometimes in familiar combinations of players and sometimes very much not. Hence the title.
All families, they say, have secrets. Few perhaps are as lurid as what came to light at 29 Kintyre Avenue, Toronto (about 2km from here) in the summer of 2007 when a contractor renovating the house discovered the mummified body of an infant wrapped in a 1925 newspaper. Incredibly, the CBC was able to track down the last surviving member of the household from that era, a 92 year old woman living in a retirement home in up-state New York. Her recollections, which formed the subject of a short two part radio documentary, provided a lot of context and background but few hard facts. Who the baby was and how it came to be under the floorboards remains very much a mystery.
