Category Archives: Dance, theatre & musicals

#popstarplay life lessons

Posted on February 22, 2020 by barczablog

I heard a wonderful interview with Vivek Shraya on Q earlier today that gave me some  clues as to what I’d be seeing and hearing tonight in her one-woman autobiographical show How to Fail as a Popstar, aka #popstarplay in … Continue reading →

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AF and why

Posted on February 21, 2020 by barczablog

Huge preamble coming. If you want to skip to the review itself, look under the photo.I went to see AF and am daring to review it. I feel I need to say this after having read Yvette Nolan’s piece, responding … Continue reading →

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Brilliantly Problematic Porgy & Bess

Posted on February 2, 2020 by barczablog

Don’t let the headline fool you. When you see that the Metropolitan Opera are producing The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess for the first time in almost thirty years, seemingly selling every ticket to every performance, you might well ask them: … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Literature, Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Framing the Pollyanna proposition

Posted on January 9, 2020 by barczablog

January is named for that two-headed god who is able to look ahead and back. As I ponder the wreckage of 2019 I wonder if Janus was too busy looking down at his phone and not watching where he was … Continue reading →

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Questions for Beste Kalender

Posted on December 18, 2019 by barczablog

Beste Kalender could tell you about the different pathways to success. One can be discovered in competitions, especially if one wins. You can be mentored by great singers. There’s even the Hollywood legend, the understudy going on as last minute … Continue reading →

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Melancholiac at Music Gallery

Posted on December 8, 2019 by barczablog

The best works of theatre or music function as advocacy for the creator. A good production of a play, a great performance of a song, should persuade you of the importance of the work & its author. Melancholiac: The Music … Continue reading →

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Questions about Melancholiac: the Music of Scott Walker

Posted on November 28, 2019 by barczablog

Long ago I stumbled upon Scott Walker, via a cassette with the hand-written inscription The Godlike Genius of Scott Walker. I remember wondering: is this for real? What may have been at least part ironic self-mockery was upon closer inspection … Continue reading →

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Oxymoronic Augmented Opera

Posted on November 23, 2019 by barczablog

I don’t use that word lightly, and it’s not an insult. Some operas are oxymoronic, rife with contradiction, asymptotic in their fascination with impossibilities. Maeterlinck’s play Pelléas et Mélisande is the creation of a playwright who cringed in the presence … Continue reading →

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, Politics, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

New & Improved Don Giovanni

Posted on November 3, 2019 by barczablog

I saw Opera Atelier’s revival of Don Giovanni that’s running at the Ed Mirvish Theatre.  I loved it last time & it continues to thrill me as though it weren’t an opera I’ve known since childhood. But it feels new.  … Continue reading →

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The Bald Soprano

Posted on October 31, 2019 by barczablog

I’ve just seen the Théâtre Français de Toronto production of La Cantatrice Chauve aka The Bald Soprano by Eugène Ionesco, at the upstairs space at the Berkeley Street Theatre. I must apologize that the run is almost over, as I … Continue reading →

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