Tag Archives: uot opera

March 2023

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march2023Here’s a look ahead to March.

March 3rd and 5th, Opera York are presenting Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts.  Details are here.  Also on the 5th at 1pm Opera Revue are playing a new venue; The Aviary in the Canary District.  (They are playing another new venue, Granite Brewery, on the 12th.  Opera Revue your source for craft beer!)  And the following night at 7.30pm it’s AtG’s Opera Pub at the Drake at 7.30pm.

From the 9th to the 12th it’s UoT Opera’s spring offering at the MacMillan Theatre.  This year it’s Arthur (not George) Benjamin’s A Tale of Two Cities.  Benjamin is probably the only opera composer to be shot down by Hermann Göring.  I’m not sure what, if anything, that says about his music.

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UoT Opera in the RBA

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It’s been three long years since the UoT Opera Program students performed in the RBA.  Unsurprisingly none of the current crop are familiar to me at all.  They are a strong group though and I look forward to seeing them again over the course of the academic year.

Yesterday’s programme was a curated and directed selection of duets and larger ensembles from 19th century repertory.  Introductions were provided by Sandra Horst who conducted and Michael Albano and Mabel Wonnacott who directed.  With fifteen singers involved in a show lasting well under an hour including the intros there wasn’t really enough time to get more than a very superficial idea of what each singer is capable and so I think it would be inappropriate to write a conventional review.  Let’s just say that it was wonderful to see them back, a great way to spend a lunchtime and that there was some very classy singing.

UofT4

Watch this space…

As the season ramps up…

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fallintoLooking ahead to the next few weeks:

  • From September 11th to 25th Crow’s Theatre has a show; The Shape of Home: Songs in Search of Al Purdy.  This is a sort of staged song cycle exploring the words and ideas of “Canada’s unofficial poet laureate”.

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Up and tubing

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This will be a bit of an “odds and sods” round up.  First off, check out Natalya Gennadi and Catherine Carew’s latest offering on Natalya’s Youtube channel.  The music is very good but the animated effects are amazing.  Over at Against the Grain you can see Joel Ivany interviewing HE Adrienne Clarkson who is always interesting to talk to.

hbdmarch

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Coming up at UoT

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Alex-Hetherington-Mezzo-Soprano-Headshot-scaledIt’s Norcop Prize time. On March 11th at 1.10pm there will be a pre-recorded recital by mezzo-soprano Alex Hetherington and pianist Dakota Scott-Digout, this year’s recipients of the Jim and Charlotte Norcop Prize in Song and Gwendolyn Williams Koldofsky Prize in Accompanying. Free on the UoT Music Youtube channel. I shall miss watching it with Jim N!
It should also be time for UoT Opera’s spring performance. Last year, their Mansfield Park (March 13th) was my last pre-plague live show. This years festival of one act operas has been postponed and will now be streamed on April 22nd to 25th.

Around the tubes

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Once more the week’s Youtube offerings show that digital works best when it’s “made for digital”.  Who’d a thunk it eh!  Anyway there’s very watchable new content on Youtube from Alexander Hajek, Opera Revue and Domoney Artists.  Best of all though is a new short film called Sempra Libera from Carsen Gilmore and the very good soprano Michelle Drever.  If you like the look and feel of Morte you’ll love this.  It’s really dark.  It’s the grimmest take on Violetta I’ve seen; Natalie Dessay included!

sempralibera

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Into March

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groundhogPickings are still decidedly slim in terms of locally created on-line content with many postponements due to the current lockdown in Toronto.  What I have lined up is as follows:

  • The UoT Opera Student Composer Collective’s annual show is being streamed at 2.30pm on Sunday 21st February.  This year it’s called Escape Room and it’s a comedy with a scenario of characters trapped in a darkened room with no memory of how they got there.  It’s being streamed via Zoom and preregistration at this link is required.
  • The COC has a roundtable on Gender and Opera on its Youtube channel on March 5th at 7pm.
  • Confluence Concerts are offering a tribute to John Beckwith; specifically his songs, on March 7th at 2pm, 5pm and 8pm.  That’s on Confluence’s Youtube channel.
  • Tapestry have two shows coming up on their Youtube channel.  March 6th at 8pm sees Mireille Asselin and guests perform a range of works celebrating their French heritage.  Then on March 27th at 8pm Morgan-Paige Melbourne performs Where Do I Go?; an intriguing looking mixture of piano and dance.

There’s also new short but fun content on the appropriate Youtube channels from Opera Revue, Alexander Hajek and Domoney Artists.

Do check to make sure that there aren’t further changes before planning your life around these events!