Last night the Canadian Opera Company announced the line up for the 2017/18 season. It was all pretty much as predicted. My predictions post got five out of six right and Dylan was right on the money down to timing. So what do we get?
The fall season features, finally, Tim Albery’s production of Strauss’ Arabella first seen at Santa Fe. Erin Wall, as expected, takes the title role while Jane Archibald, in one of three season appearances, sings Zdenka. The Mandryka will be one of the few high profile imports, Tomasz Konieczny. There are welcome appearances for David Pomery as Matteo and Claire de Sevigné as Flakermilli. It’s a season full of Ensemble Studio graduates. Patrick Lange conducts. Partnering Arabella is Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore in a production by James Robinson adapted to set the piece in pre WW1 Niagara on the Lake. Simone Osborne and Andrew Haji play Adina and Nemorino with Gordon Bintner as Belcore. This is, I think, the first time I’ve seen husband and wife as soloists at the COC though the Pomeroys have been seen on stage together quite a few times. Brit Andrew Shore rounds things out as Dulcemara. Yves Abel makes his COC debut in the pit.
I’ve just been listening to Revive; a new recital disk from Elina Garanča. It marks her move into more dramatic territory as she enters her fifth decade. It also says quite a lot about how she wants to develop her career. There’s a very personal introductory essay titled Strong Women in Moments of Weakness and it seems to me that she’s looking to find her place in the 19th century French/Italian romantic/verismo repertoire as opposed to, say, Strauss or Wagner. Certainly the pieces on the disk represent roles like Eboli, Didon, Delila and Hérodiade, as well as some more obscure stuff like Musette from the Leoncavallo La Bohème and Anne from Saint-Saëns Henry VIII.
operaramblings 