October is the month things usually really get going again in Toronto and this year is no exception. The calendar for the first third of the month is very busy. Highlights include three free concerts in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre, the opening of two productions at the Canadian Opera Company and Nuit Blanche events at the Canadian Music Centre and the UoT Music Department.
For Toronto folks wanting some more or less academic background on opera in general and the upcoming COC season in particular there are a few options under the cut featuring the COC, University of Toronto, Opera Canada magazine and the Royal Conservatory.
It was quite a party at the MacMillan Theatre this afternoon. The MacMillan opened fifty years ago with a production of Britten’s Albert Herring and this afternoon marked the final performance of a new production to celebrate the occasion. Directed by Joel Ivany, it was a straightforward but lively and very well characterised interpretation that brought out many of the very specific and quirky elements of the local culture while taking it mysteriously up market in some ways. (*). Coupled with very good singing by any standard, and this was a student production, it made for a most enjoyable afternoon.
Encounters was a one hour programme of short opera scenes by student composers to libretti by Michael Albano. It’s the latest in a series of fully staged shows by student composers from the UoT Faculty of Music’s composition programme which has been running since 1997 and has included, for example Rob Ford, the opera. It’s quite shocking that when that showed two years ago, as Dean Don McLean reminded us, the big Rob Ford story was about library closures. Anyway, only one of yesterday’s five pieces featured Mr. Ford.
operaramblings 