The last Koerner Hall concert of this year’s Toronto Summer Music riffed off the Vienna Phil’s traditional New Year extravaganza with lots of Johann Strauss waltzes and the cheesiest fake Magyar (mezzo) soprano arias from operetta. I was skeptical when I first saw the programme but it turned out to be extremely enjoyable; partly on account of excellent musicianship and partly because everyone involved was having so much fun.
The last great castrato, we are told, was Vellutti who was a favourite with many early 19th century composers. Tuesday night’s concert at Koerner Hall as part of Toronto Summer Music was a tribute to him with counter-tenor Franco Fagioli accompanied by L’Orchestre de l’Opéra de Versailles and their flamboyant violinist/conductor Stefan Plewniak performing music associated with Vellutti interspersed with orchestral music from (mostly) the same operas.
My review of Thursday’s performance of Brian Current and Marie Clements’ MISSING at Toronto Summer Music is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo: Lucky Tang
Schmaltz and Pepper were back at Walter Hall on Wednesday night as part of Toronto Summer Music. It was a generous two hour programme featuring some of the music on their recently released CD; like “Mozart the Mensch” and “I’m Sorry Mama” plus plenty of new stuff.
British soprano Mary Bevan and pianist Roger Vignoles gave a recital of French chansons in Walter Hall on Monday night. The concept was that the songs were paired; one being a setting of Baudelaire by a male composer and the other song by a female composer of the the same period. With two exceptions all the composers were French and with one exception from roughly the fin de siècle. So Duparc, Déodat de Séverac, Fauré Debussy and de Bréville were paired variously with the predictable; les sœurs Boulanger and Pauline Viardot, and less predictable; Mel Bonis, Marguerite Canal, Amy Beach (American) and Jeanne Landry (Canadian and much later).
My review of the performance of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea that opened Toronto Summer Music is now up at La Scena Musicale.
Photo:Lucky Tang
July in Toronto is really all about two festivals; the Toronto Fringe Festival and Toronto Summer Music.
The Fringe runs July 2nd to July 13th and there are more than 100 shows on 20+ stages. There’s a huge range of performance styles; drama, comedy, clowning, musicals, stand up etc. Most shows run an hour or less and the standard ticket price is $18.75 though there are plenty of discounts plus multi show passes as well as free events at the Fringe Hub which this year is at Soulpepper with events also across the street at Old Flame brewery. Quality varies a lot. Some shows are excellent; Monks last year would be a case in point, but others a re a bit meh. But that’s the point really. You can see what looks interesting to you. All the details are here.
I’ve been following the development of MISSING; an opera with text by Marie Clements and music by Brian Current since early 2017. There’s an article principally about the project in the Summer 2017 edition of Opera Canada. But I’ve yet to see the opera on stage. It’s had multiple productions in Western Canada but this July will see it’s first performance east of the Lakehead when Toronto Summer Music present it in concert format. That’s at Koerner Hall on July 24th.
Marion Newman in MISSING at Pacific Opera Victoria – Photo: Dean Kalyan
Last Tuesday lunchtime in the RBA we got a sneak preview of some of the music that will feature at this year’s 20th anniversary Toronto Summer Music.
There was soprano Caitlin Wood with Philip Chiu performing three French chansons; at least one of which will feature in Mary Bevan and Roger Vignoles’ Walter Hall recital. Cait herself will be performing as part of the cast of Brian Current’s opera Missing during the festival.
Here are my top picks for May.
operaramblings 