Things slow down just a little bit in June but with both Luminato and Opera 5’s Opera festival it’s not that quiet. Here’s what’s coming down:
My review of Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah at Toronto City Opera is now up at Opera Canada.
Photo: Dahlia Katz
Contemplating another production of “Carmen”
First a couple of 21C concerts inadvertently omitted from my January listings post. On the 19th in Koerner Hall there’s Fazil Say and friends (including Beste Kalender) in a programme of mostly Turkish music and in the late show in Temerty Theatre the following night Brian Current presents and conducts a concert titled Indigena.
So to February: Continue reading
So what’s coming up in July? Let’s look first at a few late June shows I haven’t mentioned before.
As we head into summer, as usual, things start to quieten down. I only have five shows in my schedule for the month of June:
That’s about it until Toronto Summer Music opens on July 7th.
Here are a couple more shows I missed one way or another.
Tomorrow (October 29th) at 7pm the second of Confluence’s Bach cello suites concerts will be streamed on Youtube.
Saturday November 13th at3 pm at St. Andrew’s Church in Toronto and Friday November 19th at 7.30pm at People’s Theatre for the Performing Arts in Markham, Toronto City Opera are doing Verdi’s <em>Nabucco</em> in concert. It’s the usual formula; young local singers, volunteer choir and piano accompaniment. There will be no surtitles but the libretto will be available plus a narrator. More details here.
A couple of “season” announcements have come in. Inverted commas because it’s all rather provisional with more details to come. Opera Atelier is offering a virtual summer/fall season with a reprise of Handel’s Resurrection from July 29th through August 12th. This time there is a Standard Audio Description; a tool for blind and partially sighted people. The fall sees the final version of Edwin Huizinga’s Angel released as a film that will stream October 28th through November 12th, The cast includes Measha Brueggergosman, Colin Ainsworth, Mireille Asselin, Jesse Blumberg, Meghan Lindsay, John Tibbetts (Opera Atelier debut), and Douglas Williams. An announcement about a return to in theatre perfomances will be made in January.
Photo credit: Bruce Zinger
The third of Saturday night’s webstreams was Toronto City Opera’s double bill of Menotti’s The Telephone and Poulenc’s La voix humaine. The choice of rep makes sense in that it meant that very few people had to be assembled in the Ernest Balmer Studio where the recordings took place though it also looks a bit odd for a company that in normal times is about participation.
The Menotti is essentially a rather weak joke stretched out for half an hour. A man is trying to propose to a girl but every time he gets close to popping the question she either receives or makes a phone call. I thought it was a bit feeble the first time I saw it and it doesn’t wear well. It doesn’t help that it’s hard to imagine anyone wanting to marry this utterly boring girl except, perhaps, her utterly banal suitor. I guess the basic problem is that anything trying to be “realistic” from the US in the 50s and 60s is almost bound to be dull as just about any interesting aspect of human life was off limits due to various kinds of censorship. Anyway, I think TCO got as much out of the piece as there is to be got. The contemporary updating had its witty moments and both Nicole Dubinsky and Johnathan Kirby; backed up by Ivan Jovanovic gave strong performances in the singing and acting departments.
I’ve just received news of programming into the fall and beyond from Tapestry, Toronto City Opera and Loose Tea Music Theatre.
Tapestry have announced three livestream concerts to be shown on their Youtube channel.
Tapestry have also introduced a free “membership program” to create added value for their audience. Details here.
Toronto City Opera’s latest show, at the Al Green Theatre, is Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann. It’s a pretty good choice for TCO since, even with cuts, there’s plenty of fun stuff for the chorus to do and Jessica Derventzis’ production keeps a good chunk of them on stage pretty much throughout. The production concept is straightforward. It gets a late 19th century setting and the three acts are framed as presenting Hoffmann’s story to the group of drunken students. It’s unfussy and works.
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