Tag Archives: wilson

Oklahoma!

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oklahomaSo, you may ask, what is Opera Ramblings doing reviewing a recording of Rodgers & Hammerstain’s Oklahoma!?  Well, it’s a project in the same vein as my reviewing the Bru-Zane recordings of more or less forgotten late 18th and 19th century French operas.  It’s an attempt to put the piece in the context of its early performances and also to look at how it was originally performed for, like many early 19th century French operas, if and when Oklahoma! does get performed it’s usually in a style very different from the original   The occasion for doing so is a new Chandos recording that attempts to reconstruct the sound of the original 1943 Broadway run.  That the recording is very high definition and released in SACD format only increased my interest.

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Barbara Hannigan is the Snow Queen

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As written, Hans Abrahamsen’s The Snow Queen is a fairly dark piece that cleaves pretty closely to the original Hans Christian Andersen story. The production at the Bayerische Staatsoper (in an English version adapted by Amanda Holden from the original Danish) and recorded in Munich in 2019 takes it to a new level of complexity and darkness. Director Andreas Kriegenburg has added additional avatars of the children Gerda and Kay to the scene creating three Gerda/Kay pairings. There are the children as children played by actors. There’s an adolescent pair played by mezzo-soprano Rachael Wilson as Kay and an actor, Anna Ressel, as adolescent Gerda and a forty-something couple played by soprano Barbara Hannigan as Gerda and actor Thomas Graßle as Kay.

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Tamara Wilson and Russell Braun in concert

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The first virtual offering if the COC’s season is now available at coc.ca.  It’s a ninety minute concert featuring Tamara Wilson, Russell Braun and the COC orchestra with Johannes Debus conducting. The choice of rep is fairly “safe” with plenty of Verdi and Puccini though there’s quite a lot of Wagner too.  Both singes are in good voice; Tammy Wilson very much so.  Her “Ben io t’invenni… Anch’io dischiuso” from Verdi’s Nabucco is dramatic and there’s a moving “Vissi d’arte”, “Tacea la notte placida… Di tale amor” from Il Trovatore gives evidence of flexibility and precision as well as power in and she gives an excellent Liebestod to finish.  Russell sounds really lyrical especially in that concert favourite “Mein Sehnen, mein Wähnen” and in Wolfram’s “O du, mein holder Abendstern”.

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Der Messias

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Der Messias is the German version of Handel’s Messiah as arranged by Mozart.  The translation dates from 1775 and is by Klopstock and Ebeling drawing heavily on the Lutheran Bible.  My German isn’t good enough to say how “archaic” it sounds to a modern German speaker but it certainly seems to be quite singable.  In any event it was presented in Salzburg during this year’s Mozartwoche in a staged version by Robert Wilson.  The arrangement adds a substantial wind section and changes the voice parts in places.  For example Doch wer mag entraten (But who may abide) is given to the bass rather than one of the high voices.

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Cendrillon – dream or nightmare?

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The libretto of Massenet’s Cendrillon is much more ambiguous than Rossini’s straightforward La Cenerentola and given that we all “know” the Cinderella story exploiting those ambiguities is likely to prove attractive to a director.  Fiona Shaw, whose Glyndebourne production was revived in 2019 under the revival direction of Fiona Dunn, finds rather more than. most.

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Turandot as symbolism

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Robert Wilson’s take on Turandot is interesting.  It’s symbolic, even ritualistic and it’s perhaps best seen as a performance of a performance.  It’s certainly not in any way naturalistic.  Throughout the characters are “abstracted” by colour scheme in costume and make up and they move in highly stylized patterns.  This is especially apparent in Act 3 where when Liù dies nothing happens.  She just stands in a pose.  She and Timur then walk back and forth across the stage a few times before slowly processing into the wings.  It’s the same with the final scene with Calaf and Turandot.  They never even touch each other which makes Calaf’s rather lurid description of what he’s going to do to Turandot seem even rapier than usual.  The words and the music (the IMHO overblown Alfano completion) seem at odds but maybe make sense in a ritualistic way.  The approach does make for some very striking stage pictures though.

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I Will Fly Like A Bird

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flylikeabirdI Will Fly Like a Bird is a chamber opera for two voices and six instruments composed by John Plant to a libretto by J. A. Wainwright.  It deals with the story  of Robert Dziekanski, a young Pole who was fatally tasered by police at Vancouver Airport in 2007.  It’s not dramatic or angry.  It’s more of an elegy recounting the hopes and aspirations of Robert and his mother who waits for him in Kamloops.  It’s often very beautiful and very, very sad,

The two characters; Robert and his mother, are sung by baritone and soprano with support from string quartet, piano and clarinet.  The music is tonal but quite modern in feel.  There are certainly no concessions to musical theatre but it does have a few “songs” notably a drinking song.  The music really feels apt for the story and is geared more to allowing the singers to convey the text than show off.

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Looking ahead to September

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September starts the slow ramp up to the new season.  The first thing in my calendar is Mysterious Barricades on September 14th from 1pm to 2pm in Walter Hall.  This is a series of coast to coast, dawn to dusk concerts in aid of Suicide Awareness.  Russell Braun, Monica Whicher and Nathalie Paulin are all involved.  It’s free but ticketed.  Check the link for details.

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Voicebox: Opera in Concert 2019/20

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vblogoThe line up for Voicebox: Opera in Concert has been announced for the 2019/20 season.  There are four shows:

  • The season opens on Sunday, October 20, 2019, with a double bill by Maurice Ravel, L’enfant et les sortileges and L’heure Espagnole.  It’s a common pairing and often a very funny one. It’s piano score with Suzy Smith playing., The cast includes Holly Chaplin, Anika-France Forget, Danlie Rae Acebuque and Joshua Clemenger.
  • Sunday, December 1st, 2019 sees some welcome Janáček.  We don’t see near enough of his work in Toronto.  This time its Katya Kabanova.  It’s not the jolliest of pieces but it’s musically and dramatically top drawer.  The cast includes Lynn Isnar, Emilia Boteva, Michael Barrett and Cian Horrobin with Jo Greenaway at the piano.
  • There’s a remount of Charles M. Wilson’s Kamouraska, premiered by OiC in 2009, on Sunday, February 16th, 2020.  It’s based on Anne Hebert’s novel about a tumultuous love triangle that plays out near a village in Quebec, with tragic consequences.  The cast includes Jennifer Taverner , Aaron Dimoff and Matt Chittick. Robert Cooper leads the orchestra, cast and chorus.
  • The season closes on Sunday, April 5, 2020, with snobbery with violets in the form of Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur.   The cast includes Sally Dibblee, Romulo Delgado aand Geneviève Lévesque  Narmina Afandiyeva at the piano.

All shows are at the Jane Mallett Theatre.

 

Is Iago a nihilist?

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I managed to catch the fourth performance of the COC’s current run of Verdi’s Otello last night.  It’s a David Alden production that first aired at ENO and it’s a very dark take on an already dark story.  It’s set maybe circa 1900 and the sets are stark but the lighting is dramatic with lots of contrasts and giant moving shadows.  The overall Zeitgeist seems to be of a society that has seen too much war; a sort of collective PTSD.  This comes over in a number of ways.  The scenes that usually lighten things up a bit; the victory celebrations in Act 1, the children and flowers in Act 2, don’t here.  In fact they are downright creepy.  There’s also a female dancer, used rather as Christopher Alden used Monterone’s daughter in Rigoletto, who clearly doesn’t expect good things from returning soldiers.

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