Category Archives: Books & Literature

A Poet’s Love

Posted on May 28, 2014 by barczablog

Writing in Opera’s Second Death, Slavoj Zizek claims that opera served a purpose at one point, before Freud & the invention of psychotherapy.  Watching “A Poet‘s Love”, tonight’s concert from Talisker Players & baritone Alexander Dobson , I had parallel … Continue reading →

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Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult letters

Posted on May 25, 2014 by barczablog

I first encountered the romance between Franz Liszt and Comtesse Marie d’Agoult in Impromptu, a film full of famous artists in the script (Chopin, Liszt, Sand) and on the screen (Judy Davis, Hugh Grant, Mandy Patinkin & Bernadette Peters).  Impromptu … Continue reading →

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Looking at Lully

Posted on April 16, 2014 by barczablog

There are two departure points for this little excursion. 1) Opera Atelier’s Toronto revival of Persee opening next week 2) Joseph Kerman’s departure from the realm of the living, earlier this year. In Opera as Drama Kerman looks at a … Continue reading →

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Hallelujah Sellars

Posted on March 29, 2014 by barczablog

Hallelujah Junction is: 1) A place. When John Adams went there –so he said recently—he figured that it would make a great title for… 2) A musical composition. And so it came to pass, a composition for two pianos. And … Continue reading →

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Olsen writes about Syberberg’s Parsifal

Posted on January 26, 2014 by barczablog

In October 2007 I wrote the following review for the Wagner News (the newsletter of the Toronto Wagner Society), concerning Solveig Olsen’s massive book analyzing Syberberg‘s film of Parsifal.  I’m pulling it out again because I’m thinking of Syberberg’s film … Continue reading →

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Adapting Martin Chuzzlewit

Posted on January 24, 2014 by barczablog

Just had the first run of Martin Chuzzlewit which I am directing at Ryerson. It is by Charles Dickens in a great adaptation by Michael Hollingsworth. The text has sixty seven scenes and forty characters. Dickens thought the novel his … Continue reading →

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Ongoing Upheaval

Posted on January 6, 2014 by barczablog

I had the most curious experience during my second look at The Great Upheaval, the imported show from Guggenheim’s Collection at the AGO. The first time through I more or less bought into the official story of this show, an … Continue reading →

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Symbolist horror

Posted on October 12, 2013 by barczablog

What’s in a name? Sometimes we grab onto something in a name, think we know what we have, and miss something else through our assumptions.  We’re so enamoured for instance with the mystique of the rose, but we don’t usually … Continue reading →

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Histories

Posted on September 5, 2013 by barczablog

As I revised the outline for “The Most Popular Operas” (a course I teach here at the University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies, beginning September 18th), I was asked as usual to recommend books. I used to suggest Roger … Continue reading →

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Political Beethoven: time for truth

Posted on August 13, 2013 by barczablog

Do modern times sometimes upset you? seeking to escape? It’s a nerdy question naturally.  If you’re alive, you’re in modern times, no matter how preoccupied you allow yourself to become, lost in a video-game, biography, opera DVD, soap opera… (you … Continue reading →

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