Category Archives: Essays

WTF?

Posted on October 30, 2012 by barczablog

WTF: What’s the Fach? Okay, okay, I admit I’m having fun with headlines.  I’m still convalescing, while the continent convulses (or as my friend Trevor said “earthquakes to the west of me, hurricanes to the east, here I am, stuck … Continue reading →

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The bat came back

Posted on October 8, 2012 by barczablog

The bat came back: from the dead that is. Forgive me for invoking one of my very favorite animated cartoons (and Richard Condie). I said BAT not CAT.   After many mediocre bats –productions of Die Fledermaus from the Canadian Opera … Continue reading →

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The Gehry-Mirvish Legacy will not be outsourced culture

Posted on October 7, 2012 by barczablog

It’s counter-intuitive for Torontonians.  We’ve become a bit shell-shocked with all the new condos.  More condos must be bad. Someone knocking down a theatre? surely a bad person. If anyone in Toronto has the right to knock down a theatre … Continue reading →

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Gould Burg

Posted on September 26, 2012 by barczablog

Today and this week, we celebrate the 80th birthday of a famous Canadian.  If Toronto is Glenn Gould’s city we live in “Gould burg”.  In the Beaches there’s a plaque not far from his high school reminding us of his … Continue reading →

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Brian Wyers’ bodies

Posted on September 23, 2012 by barczablog

It sounds overblown, but Brian Wyers’ recent paintings are a genuine study in the power of the human spirit. I’ve watched this painter and the drama enacted on his canvases paralleling the struggles of his life, so much more than … Continue reading →

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Big ideas

Posted on September 22, 2012 by barczablog

Elliott Hayes was a playwright & dramaturg, the literary manager of the Stratford Festival for awhile in the 1980s. A friend of mine introduced me to him, a really big deal I thought, an opportunity to maybe get some input … Continue reading →

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Solidarity

Posted on September 21, 2012 by barczablog

I doubt that anyone of genuinely conservative leanings will read this unless they mistake it for an opera review.  Hm someday someone may write an opera about Lech Walesa, perhaps in Polish or Prussian.  But the title of such an … Continue reading →

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I am not my voice

Posted on September 19, 2012 by barczablog

I tried to run away myself To run away and wrestle with my ego—Joni Mitchell One can imagine, somewhere between selfless slavery and imperial command, a middle way.  There’s a place one can imagine in the tao of the performer, … Continue reading →

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September Buzz

Posted on September 13, 2012 by barczablog

In the circles I share in person or online I am thinking about the question of buzz, to which I alluded recently. I’m excited to be going to a brand-new opera tomorrow night, namely Julie Sits Waiting.  It’s hard for … Continue reading →

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Backbone and the moral high-ground

Posted on September 11, 2012 by barczablog

As a Canadian I am sitting back, wondering whether Barack Obama will be re-elected or not, and what impact if any, we’ll see from these events north of the border in Canada. It makes great television, a dramatic pageant ritualistically … Continue reading →

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