Tonight was entirely an orchestral night for the Toronto Symphony. No concerti, no soloists, just the virtuoso players of the TSO in two big works, one a world premiere.
As Gustavo Gimeno suggested in his program note, tonight’s pieces “examine what it means to be human.”
Gastavo Gimeno leading the Toronto Symphony
And while they both offer a chance to showcase the orchestra, they contrast one from the other.
It was a large audience at Roy Thomson Hall, receptive to the exuberant new work by Daníel Bjarnason and totally ecstatic in response to Tchaikovsky’s valedictory symphony.
The world premiere before intermission I Want to Be Alive is a Trilogy for Orchestra. I remember hearing the opening segment in June of 2023, but it made much more sense now in the full context with the other two parts.
1-Echo (Man needs man) 2-Narcissus (We need mirrors) 3-Pandora’s Box
The program notes explained that Bjarnason was inspired by Stanislav Lem’s book Solaris as far as the first two titles, although artificial intelligence is a big part of the subtext. That being said, I simply listened to the music played by the TSO. The first two are similar ideas although not in the music we heard. Bjarnason assembled a huge orchestra with a big percussion contingent, provocatively erupting from the rear of the ensemble in the first segment. The second was much more soulful, softer, lyrical in its introspection. I was intrigued that at a time when the pathology associated with Narcissus is so frequently discussed in social media, that what I heard was something more sympathetic than I might have expected.
Gustavo with his eyes on the percussionists at the back of the TSO (Photo: Allan Cabral)
And then we came to the third impressive movement, very much what you’d expect from the title. Although Bjarnason tells us that the one thing left in the box is “hope”, for most of this movement he presents us with what we would expect. The first word that came to mind is “disorder”, or more accurately, complex rhythms to challenge the percussionists and the conductor. Pandora unleashes chaos on the world, and especially upon the conductor and his percussion section. I was reminded of Stravinsky’s Firebird, as the buildup to full orchestral tutti was polytonal, and remarkably flamboyant. Eventually things settle down, perhaps in the sense of the hope the composer sought to suggest, although in the wildest passages I was not afraid, but stimulated. It’s exciting stuff. Once again I wonder if Gustavo might someday record this with the TSO, showing off the excellent players.
It was especially exciting to be able to applaud the composer on the occasion of the World Premiere.
Daniel Bjarnason and Gustavo Gimeno, before the Toronto Symphony (Photo: Allan Cabral)
After intermission it was time for the Pathétique.
I can’t help thinking of the Canadian Opera Company’s Tchaikovsky, Eugene Onegin conducted by Speranza Scappucci that opened last weekend, taking tempi faster, making dramatic climaxes bigger than I have ever heard them.
Ditto Gustavo Gimeno. I bring this up, mindful of Gustav Mahler: who was largely misunderstood for decades but only figured out much later. I wonder if maybe we are only starting to really understand Tchaikovsky a century later, after so much time when critics condescended to a composer, disparaged for seemingly wearing his heart on his sleeve. If your goal as an interpreter is to play up the cantabile, exploiting the melodic schmaltz without pushing the orchestra to its limit? perhaps you miss the point, captive of an obsolete tradition.
Gustavo gave us the most dramatic reading of this work that I have ever encountered. For most of the first movement that meant softer phrases, mezzo-forte or softer, until the big climactic passages near the end of the movement. The 5-4 second movement was done with great subtlety, very fast and very understated until climactic passages when Gustavo encouraged the brass to open up a bit more. Yes maybe this is a pattern, and it’s one I like.
The Allegro molto vivace was true to its name, faster than I’ve ever heard it. When it’s done a bit slower, it’s easier to play, but Gustavo is never looking for the easy path. I’m surprised at how clearly they articulated the inner voices. While there’s a positive energy to the movement it is followed immediately by one of the saddest things Tchaikovsky ever wrote, especially when the conductor makes no pause but presses forward. We go from a kind of manic macho exultation to sighs of despair in the closing movement.
It was Tchaikovsky’s birthday last night (also Brahms). I think Gustavo and the TSO gave us a proper celebration honouring a composer who continues to inspire amazing performances. The concert program is to be repeated Saturday night.
“Photos by Allan Cabral/Courtesy of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.”
Yuja Wang played his 1st piano concerto with the Toronto Symphony a couple of weeks ago, and the TSO play his 6th Symphony later this week. This weekend the Canadian Opera Company have revived the production of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin seen here in 2018. Opening night was last Friday and I attended the second performance on Sunday afternoon.
Onegin is better in 2025, as my headline should suggest. Much better. In a show originally directed by Robert Carsen and designed by Michael Levine, with revival Director Peter McClintock, assisted by Marilyn Gronsdal, surely the most valuable participant is Speranza Scappucci, who conducted the COC orchestra and chorus.
Conductor Speranza Scappucci
The COC orchestra could sound as soft as silk or build to a genuine ferocity when necessary. She found a level of passion in the Polonaise, the Cotillion or the Ecossaise, each a backdrop of the drama unfolding before us onstage.
At times Speranza dispensed with the baton, as in the aria that comes just before the duel between Lensky and Onegin, “kuda kuda”.
Speaking of kuda kuda, I was especially impressed with the singing of our Lensky this afternoon.
Evan LeRoy Johnson showed us a voice with remarkable capabilities that reminded me of the 20th century tenor Jussi Björling, with the ability to sing so gently that it verged on falsetto even as he properly supported the sound, or gradually making a crescendo to a big sound. He was very musical, wonderfully expressive.
Olga (Megan Marino), Lensky (Evan LeRoy Johnson; photo: Michael Cooper)
As I consider Jussi to be one of the greatest singers of all time, please assume that my comparison is meant as the highest praise.
Andrii Kymach in the title role had a very Russian sounding delivery, in the sense that I hear him making his voice darker than sounds entirely natural, even as he managed all the vocal challenges of the role. I wonder how the voice will sound in a decade as I worry that his darkening is not a choice conducive to longevity. Right now he sounds powerful. And his acting was a key to the success of the production.
Lauren Fagan as Tatyana is so much at the centre of the opera at the beginning that one might question the title of the work. I think it’s normal though, indeed we come to the end of the opera named for the man, but the woman is the one with our sympathies, every time. Tatyana is one of those roles that should be “can’t miss”, should be the one we care about at the end, especially if we saw youthful vulnerability in the letter scene, alongside dignified maturity in the passions she gives us in the last scene. I think Lauren’s Tatyana is more sympathetic than most, even as we admit that in this opera we always will like or love Tatyana.
Carsen addressed it in his director’s note: “When we first began to work on our production, we noticed that sometimes Tatyana tends to dominate the narrative.“
The first three scenes are really all about Tatyana and her response to Onegin (1-meeting him, 2-writing the letter to him and 3-humiliated by his polite words of rejection).
Carsen continues: “But ultimately it is Eugene Onegin’s story, so we thought it would be interesting to tell it as much as possible from his point of view. To that end we shaped the production as a memory piece, with the action of the opening musical prelude beginning at the end, at the very moment in which Tatyana rejects and leaves Onegin.“
And so the first scene before the opera begins and after intermission give us a brief glimpses of Onegin miserably alone: as we shall see him at the conclusion of the opera.
Onegin is the classic Byronic figure, bored by his surroundings and distant from everyone around him. In this version Onegin is more objectionable, more blatantly misanthropic in his behaviour. Whether it’s due to directorial input or the singer’s idea, Andrii played the role in such a way as to emphasize the insincere mind-games in the party scene that lead up to his duel with his best friend. I find this choice makes him and the ensuing catastrophe more completely believable even as Onegin is made far less sympathetic as a result. I remember in the 2018 version Lensky seemed to be over-reacting to Onegin and indeed that is usually how I perceive him. This time I was intrigued to find myself sympathizing more fully with Lensky because Onegin seemed to be that much more of a deliberate jerk. I think too this means we are even more torn at the end, the outcome hitting extra hard because Onegin’s fall seems so totally self-inflicted.
Or maybe it’s just that the conducting and musical performances overwhelmed me so totally. And the audience seemed more fully persuaded than any performance I saw either in 2018 or before when I saw this production on the High Definition broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera. The blatancy of Andrii’s portrayal shifts the balance for me. I have always felt Tchaikovsky loves Tatyana and Lensky, the two whose music seems the most convincing, but past productions often felt false, not fully getting me there. I think between Speranza’s committed conducting and the darker reading of Onegin, that we were won over fully.
I found myself asking questions after.
When Prince Gremin sang about the blessings of age, having found and married Tatyana, it seemed astonishingly apt that someone sitting just in front of me had their telephone go off, ringing at least four times, while the owner (a senior like myself) was too ashamed to admit it, too inept to shut it off. As a senior I’m compulsive about my smartphone, believing that if I ever get too old to silence my own phone I’ve resigned from the community of live performance, having violated the social contract.
Eugene Onegin (Andrii Kymach) Prince Gremin (Dimitry Ivashchenko, photo: Michael Cooper)
Michael Colvin showed us his remarkable range singing the role of Monsieur Triquet. I don’t mean range in the usual operatic sense of how high or low they can sing, so much as dramatic capabilities. Michael is also seen in a few electrifying moments as the Fool in Wozzeck, having previously blown me away with his brilliance as Thomas Scott in Louis Riel. It’s great to see him having a good time onstage.
Monsieur Triquet (Michael Colvin; photo: Michael Cooper)
The choral set pieces were crisp and energetic, especially the delightful scene where a female chorus clear leaves from the centre of the stage.
What do the leaves signify? In the scene a few moments before Onegin comes to respond to Tatyana’s letter, the women sweep leaves to make a space on the stage. While these are surely dead they do suggest life. It’s a balletic scene that may not mean anything but is wonderful to watch.
COC Chorus (photo: Michael Cooper)
The opera does not carry the generic designation of “Literaturoper” as I mentioned in the Wozzeck review last week (a genre of literary text set to music without intervention of a librettist), but there are times when the absence of a real librettist is evident. As Carsen noticed, the opera seems to be about Tatyana at first, as the story only shifts focus to Onegin in the later scenes. Emily Treigle as Filipyevna and Krisztina Szabó as Madame Larina ground the opera in a calm normalcy, that sets up what’s to come. I love these opening scenes even if they’re not as fraught, not as Byronic, just pastoral and Russian. Olga (Megan Marino) is in the opening scenes, and comes to play a big part in the development of the conflict that leads to the opera’s catastrophe, although she is mostly on the sidelines once things get really serious.
Filipyevna (Emily Treigle) Madame Larina (Krisztina Szabó; photo: Michael Cooper)
Eugene Onegin continues with performances May 7, 9, 15, 17 & 24.
Tonight’s concluding concert of Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra’s 2024-25 season is like a perfect mirror, as I reflect on questions of nationalism, artistic leadership and approaches to programming.
This concert was the concluding evening of Linda Rogers’ tenure as the Executive Director, a period of remarkable success for the SPO. She joked that “I think this is the 4th time I have retired,” a reflection of how indispensable she has been.
Dr. Paul Tichauer (SPO Chair & cellist), Linda Rogers, and Conductor Ron Royer
This time perhaps it will be different as Linda’s successor Helen Nestor has been officially announced.
Helen Nestor
The concert demonstrated again how brilliant Linda can be. Although Danielle MacMillan’s beautiful picture graced the cover of the program she was unwell, unable to perform tonight. And so Linda got on the phone to find a replacement at the last minute. Mezzo-soprano Hillary Tufford was called sometime between 11:00 am and noon, agreeing to undertake Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer with very little rehearsal on the day of the concert!
Mezzo-soprano Hillary Tufford
Yes Hillary was excellent, the SPO wonderfully attentive as conductor Ron Royer led a careful interpretation that was the highlight of the evening. Everyone seemed to be listening to one other. The cycle can sometimes sound a bit savage in places if an orchestra gets carried away: but Ron kept them in check.
But I wanted to just frame this around the evidence of organization and culture. We even had a visit from David Smith, the MPP for this Scarborough riding, a reminder of the superb support the SPO receives from multiple levels of government.
David Smith, MPP for Scarborough Centre
That’s Linda again, because she’s been the one filling out and sending in the grant applications.
As I think back on the concert we heard tonight, rebuilt slightly due to Danielle’s unfortunate illness, it’s clear that the SPO are superbly well-organized.
After we sang Oh Canada and heard from the MPP, we saw the short film originally meant for the second half of the evening, namely All Things Serve the Earth. I discovered that AI isn’t just plagiarism software but can sometimes do amazing creative things. In the film Brueghel’s paintings come to life, accompanied by the music of Bruno Degazio. Bruno’s music and the film were but the first original composition of the night.
The unfortunate casualty in the program was a performance of “Walk with me” from the Songs of Hope project, composed by Shreya Jha. Here’s a video showing what we lost.
So while we didn’t get to hear Danielle’s live performance of “Walk with me awhile”, we heard a bit of her singing in the video of Bruno’s song.
Before Hillary sang the Mahler cycle, we heard from the SPO playing the first of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, and after they gave us the world premiere of Rachel MacFarlane’s La Danza Nocturna, an SPO commission. Rachel composed a fun piece reminding me of Rossini in its strong dramatic statements, its energy and melodic invention, larger than life in its playfulness.
After the intermission we heard Borodin’s 2nd Symphony, featuring a great many impressive solos from the wind players, particularly horn, oboe, flute & clarinet in the Andante movement.
I was thinking about Sol Hurok, a man who influenced the way entertainment was promoted in the 20th Century. I remember hearing from an architect that the big halls built around North America were meant for star attractions, based on assumptions and business models that may be now out of date. Bigger is not necessarily better. A small local venue such as the Salvation Army Scarborough Citadel might be ideal for some things, as we saw tonight. I am again bathed in the intense sounds of this orchestra, a richness of sound I can’t get in a bigger hall, able to see facial expressions and the emotions of the artists. The community of Scarborough is a big part of the experience.
We are hearing a lot about buying Canadian. Especially at a time like this one it’s good to feel that our tax dollars are truly supporting Canadian culture.
This spring season of the Canadian Opera Company feels a bit like the second coming of Alexander Neef, their former General Director. Next week we’ll be seeing the revival of Robert Carsen’s Eugene Onegin, a production that Neef brought to Toronto in 2018. But this week it’s Wozzeck, a show I saw in the Metropolitan Opera’s High Definition series in 2020, announced this way:
“A co-production of the Metropolitan Opera; Salzburg Festival; the Canadian Opera Company, Toronto; and Opera Australia.”
More than five years later, the co-pro has finally come to Toronto, long after Neef left Toronto and even his successor Perryn Leech left the COC.
The other fellow in the picture is even more important.
COC Music Director Johannes Debus and COC General Director Alexander Neef. (Photo: bohuang.ca)
Johannes Debus and the COC Orchestra met all the challenges of Alban Berg’s score, except perhaps one. In the scene when the Drum Major comes into the barracks, to boast about his conquest of Marie, the whistles weren’t easily audible. Except for that tiny silly detail, the orchestra and the chorus were absolutely perfect! I had to mention the whistle to underline my appreciation for what Debus and company accomplished. The lyrical last moments for each of Marie and Wozzeck were truly breath-taking, gorgeous and beautiful even if they were also eerie and grotesque.
Wozzeck is the pinnacle of 20th Century modernism, the top of a mountain first discerned by Liszt, shaped and climbed by Wagner, Strauss and Mahler. While there’s dissonance in the score, it’s not atonal, but the music is difficult.
But if you have seen this Wozzeck you’re probably ready to label me a music nerd, given that I am omitting the real key figure in this production, one of the most remarkable stagings I’ve ever seen on a COC stage, namely the director William Kentridge.
William Kentridge (photo: Norbert Miguletz)
Kentridge has a fascinating vision of the opera. We see a design that seems to relocate the story to the period of the First World War. Okay, that’s what I assumed: until I heard him explain on Youtube that what we’re seeing is “a premonition of the First World War”.
Wozzeck meets the Doctor in Act I, image from the Salzburg production
So the puppet child wears a gas mask.
Image from Salzburg production showing puppet wearing gas mask
Kentridge leads a brilliant team, presenting something different for the Toronto version of Wozzeck, including Co-Director Luc De Wit, Set Designer Sabine Theunissen, Costume Designer Greta Goiris, Original Lighting Designer Urs Schönebaum, Revival Lighting Designer Mikael Kangas, Projection Designer Catherine Meyburgh and Video Control Kim Gunning. Yes Wozzeck is played by the COC Orchestra and sung by a remarkable cast of singers, but first and foremost you will be immersed in the flamboyant images of Kentridge’s vision for Wozzeck.
Ambur Braid as Marie continues her winning streak at the COC, inevitably the most sympathetic person onstage regardless of the composer or the style she’s required to play. I never doubted her for a moment as the mother of a puppet-child, indeed she will move you to tears. I think Michael Kupfer-Radecky is a more believable Wozzeck than the Met’s star Peter Mattei, a singer whose ambition to be an artist got in the way of the credibility of his portrayal of this sad everyman in the High Def broadcast (which gives us extreme closeups).
Peter Mattei in Wozzeck at the Met. (Photo: Paola Kudacki/Met Opera)
Michael felt so much more direct, and wonderfully musical. I’m not sure whether I was crying in the scene between him & Marie in Act II where he gives her some money because of Ambur’s response or the way he sang his lines, before his exit. OMG, so gorgeous. I guess it helps Ambur to be hearing that exquisite unaffected delivery. I’m envious, they get to hear each other every show.
Michael Kupfer-Radecky as Wozzeck and Ambur Braid as Marie (photo: Michael Cooper)
The first voice we hear is Michael Schade as the Captain, berating Wozzeck in the opening scene. We’ve seen so many superb portrayals from Michael, it’s no surprise he gives us such a fascinating Captain. In Kentridge’s theatrical world it’s a caricature such as we might find in Commedia dell’Arte, a self-consistent wooden stock figure that bounces back and forth between quirky and grotesque. There are other comic stock figures who torment Wozzeck. Anthony Robin Schneider is the Doctor, whose experiments will lead to immortality and possibly kill his subject.
Anthony Robin Schneider as the Doctor and Michael Schade as The Captain (photo: Michael Cooper)
And the other tormentor is a Miles Gloriosus, the bullying Drum Major of Matthew Cairns.
Ambur Braid as Marie and Matthew Cairns as The Drum Major (photo: Michael Cooper)
Wozzeck also has a friend named Andres although the scene where we might see Andres as upbeat, in contrast to the torment Wozzeck is getting in the other scenes, is rather dark in Kentridge’s interpretation. Owen McCausland handled all its challenges including the high C in the tavern scene, effortlessly.
Owen McCausland as Andres and Michael Kupfer-Radecky as Wozzeck (photo: Michael Cooper)
In the conversation after seeing this new Wozzeck we were somewhat perplexed. Alas the theatre was not full, even though what we saw is a powerfully cinematic experience, an overwhelming combination of images and performances. My friend Alexander Cappellazzo thought it was the mostcompletely relatable combination of story, action and music that you will find on an operatic stage.
Alexander Cappellazzo
He compared it to Taxi Driver, suggesting that maybe it shouldn’t be promoted as a conventional opera: because of course that’s not what it is. We wonder: how do we get this across to the potential audience? What should the COC do differently to promote this absolute jewel of a production? I feel sad, seeing the best opera performance today that I’ve seen in a long time in a half-empty theatre. I’m reminded of the conversations I’ve been having about popularity, a tricky concept. I believe Wozzeck could be sold out if the audience knew what they were getting. Maybe we need to see Kentridge’s edgy designs, the overpowering stage picture, rather than the usual operatic sales-job with its focus on the singers. It’s more like a movie than an opera, and it sweeps you away.
Okay a bit more nerdy stuff, then I’m done. Wozzeck is an example of a genre called “literaturoper”, a genre that isn’t terribly well-known. If the opera is an adaptation from a play or work of literature one could make the case that it’s a literaturoper. Salome and Elektra by Richard Strauss, Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy take a play and adapt it without the intervening step of a libretto, such as you’d find with La boheme or Traviata or Carmen. Wozzeck is a fascinating case given that the original is a framentary play reassembled by Karl Emil Franzos, who has a dubious claim to fame. He’s responsible for mistaking the title of Georg Büchner’s fragmentary play Woyzeck as Wozzeck instead. I am not surprised, speaking as someone whose handwriting used to be pretty terrible in the days before I started using laptops & smartphones instead. And while I have never seen Eugene Onegin mentioned for inclusion in the list of literaturopern, maybe it also belongs there given that Tchaikovsky adapted the work from Pushkin’s poem. Or maybe the designation doesn’t mean much of anything.
I’m looking forward to seeing Onegin next week, as we come up on the renewal deadline for COC subscriptions mid-week. Yes I will renew my subscription. I’m looking forward to seeing Wozzeck again later in the run, but this time sitting up close. Kentridge’s production makes this opera fabulous to watch from any distance, exciting from any seat in the house.
Wozzeck continues with performances May 3, 8, 10, 14, 16.
In 2021 the COVID pandemic disrupted the plans by Soundstreams to present their original production Garden of Vanished Pleasures, a music-theatre work about Derek Jarman, the gay activist, film-maker & poet who died of AIDS related complications in 1994, devised by director Tim Albery. Soundstreams gave us a virtual version online that I reviewed here.
This weekend Soundstreams premiered a live version meant to realize Albery’s original intentions at Canadian Stage’s Marilyn & Charles Baillie Theatre. There is a final Sunday matinee remaining (for information).
I expected more of a difference between the online work (which I loved) and its new live version, presented by four singers (Mireille Asselin, soprano, Danika Lorèn, soprano, Hillary Tufford, mezzo-soprano & Daniel Cabena, counter-tenor), three live musicians (Hyejin Kwon, music director & piano, Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh, viola, Amahl Arulanandam, cello) and a lot of CGI effects projected on the back wall of the Berkeley St Theatre. I thought I was watching exactly what I had seen in 2021, which was actually an exciting work.
To open my review back in 2021 I said “I wondered whether one needs to know Derek Jarman, as I watched Garden of Vanished Pleasures for the first time.” Today I feel even more certain that it is not necessarily an advantage to be a Derek Jarman fan, coming to something like this. I recall my frustrations encountering the poetry of Lord Byron, noting the discrepancy between the phenomenon of Byronism and his actual poems. Jarman is a similar larger than life phenomenon whose actual films & poems are largely unknown. But that doesn’t matter when you come to Albery’s music theatre piece. I call it Albery’s even though there are other creatives, including two composers and several poets, who contributed to the piece.
Composer Cecilia Livingston
Composer Donna McKevitt
Sometimes I use questions of genre to try to get a sense of what I have seen and heard but I am hesitant in this case. The printed program gave us names for 22 segments. Let me show you and forgive me if this starts to seem reductive.
1 Sweet Wisdom Music: Donna McKevitt 2 What If Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 3 Silver Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Walter de la Mare 4 Translucense Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 5 Parting Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Janey Lew 6 Nature Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 7 Kalypso Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Duncan McFarlane 8 I sit here immobile Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 9 Two Dreams Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Cecilia Livingston 10 Prelude to Sebastiane Music: Donna McKevitt 11 Sebastiane Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 12 I am a mannish muff diving size queen Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 13 Adam & Eve & Punch-Me-Not Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 14 Impatient Youths Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 15 Mercy Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Duncan McFarlane 16 The System Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 17 No Dragons Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 18 Kiss Goodnight Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Cecilia Livingston 19 Snow Music: Cecilia Livingston; Text: Walter de la Mare 20 A Prelude Music: Donna McKevitt 21 I walk in this garden Music: Donna McKevitt; Text: Derek Jarman 22 February Music: Donna McKevitt
I have been hesitant to speak of authorship except to mention Albery. In the program note by David Jaeger, where I’ve read about Albery’s process assembling music from Donna McKevitt and Cecilia Livingston, it reminded me of a film scoring process, where the music feels subordinate to text & image. The presentation onstage reminded me of a song cycle, sometimes sung by a soloist, sometimes by several of the singers. I heard some people speak of this as opera. Maybe.
When I recall the seminal words of Richard Wagner in Opera and Drama, he summarized the history of opera as a medium meant to employ music for dramatic purposes (to make theatre), that usually used drama for musical purposes (to make music). And there’s nothing wrong with doing the usual operatic thing, to make music that gives us the chance to hear wonderful voices and musicians, whether we call it a song cycle or opera or music-theatre. I think that’s really what Garden of Vanished Pleasures does, showing off the four fabulous voices under the careful leadership of the conductor.
Hyejin Kwon, music director & pianist (photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)
We’re in the last few days before a federal election causing varying degrees of derangement and stress. Friday night I escaped to a Toronto Symphony concert. You can’t trust reviews from someone who is going mad, which is why I want to frame my experience seeing Saturday’s matinee of Garden of Vanished Pleasures from Soundstreams.
MPP Kristin Wong-Tam, violist Brenna Hardy-Kavanagh, cellist Amahl Arulanandam, Soundstreams Artistic Director Lawrence Cherney, David Parsons Ontario Arts Council.
Before the show began we were reminded of how fortunate we are here in Toronto, in a little pre-show talk from MPP Kristin Wong-Tam. While there was no explicit mention of our neighbors to the south but yes, we are lucky and the election is Monday. “Woke culture” is still mentioned by one of the political parties seeking to run the country. While Jarman’s story may be a dark one it serves as genuine escapism, validating norms that some seek to challenge and even to erase.
That made Garden of Vanished Pleasures feel especially cathartic, accompanied by superb visuals, projections designed by Cameron Davis. All four singers sounded wonderful and intelligible too.
Daniel Cabena, Mireille Asselin, Danika Lorèn, Hillary Tufford (photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)
Mireille Asselin, Hillary Tufford, Daniel Cabena (photo: Cylla von Tiedemann)
Tonight is the first of three voyages into the heart of the hispanic as imagined in music, guided by Toronto Symphony Music Director Gustavo Gimeno, a program to be repeated Saturday and Sunday that feels like a genuine celebration.
Gustavo Gimeno conducting the Toronto Symphony
While Roy Thomson Hall was completely sold out last week for concerts featuring guest soloist Yuja Wang, tonight there were still tickets available but then again we can’t expect Yuja every night. Last week is was the glory of Slavic composers Janacek & Tchaikovsky, but I am especially happy to trust Gustavo showing us his Hispanic roots. as he did tonight.
Yet there were no weak spots in the pieces curated for our pleasure tonight:
Perú Negro by Jimmy López The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires by Astor Piazzolla (arranged by Leonid Desyatnikov) –intermission– Dance Scenes from the Living Room by Liam Ritz Suites No. 1 & 2 from Carmen by Georges Bizet (arranged by Fritz Hoffmann)
The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires resembles a baroque violin concerto at first glance, played by soloist Karen Gomyo, with a small string orchestra backing her. That is until you hear the work, the strings sometimes powerfully rhythmic in their attacks, sometimes making sounds as if they had concealed percussion among them, taking us into something much more fun. The musical idiom dances on the edge of something classical and something like a popular dance both in its energetic vitality and the variety of ways the instruments were used, especially Karen’s solo part.
Violinist Karen Gomyo
But of course this is not Vivaldi’s familiar old Four Seasons even if each of the four movements offers a witty quotation from the baroque violin concerti. Although we giggled aloud when we recognized the familiar music it was subtly done.
Karen followed with a superb encore, Tango etude #3 by Piazzolla.
And unlike Yuja last week, she told us what she was playing which is a big help.
The evening’s title was Bizet’s Carmen Suites, as we closed with a pair of suites running roughly half an hour. For me the biggest tragedy of Carmen is that Bizet died without any inkling of the success the opera would find. The premiere and the composer’s death happened 150 years ago. In that half hour we didn’t exhaust the melodic riches of the score. Gustavo has such a superb rapport with the TSO that we were spellbound. I heard no phones going off, a silent audience enraptured by what we were hearing.
Jimmy Lopez’s Perú Negro started our evening with another flavour of music that, while recognizably hispanic in its rhythms, took us into a much more modernist idiom than what was to follow.
After the intermission came a piece that I thought of as the highlight of the night, as it was a great pleasure to applaud the young composer himself on the occasion of the world premiere, namely Liam Ritz’s Dance Scenes from the Living Room, a TSO commission. I saw when I googled that he was born 1996, in other words he’s not yet 30 years old.
Liam Ritz
It is refreshing to read a program note about a modern composition that is accurately described and evoked. I only wish I could hear it again to delve deeper. (And I quote) The piece “reimagines the freedom of dancing in one’s living room, lost within the music, carefree, and without inhibitions. It’s not just a celebration of that inner child, but an invitation to rediscover that same joy and freedom as an adult”.
Gustavo turned the TSO loose for eight minutes of flamboyant fun. Arguably every composer wants to show us who they are, to win us over with their music, right? Well consider me won.
The TSO will be back with the same gorgeous pieces Saturday and Sunday.
I have never seen Roy Thomson Hall as full as it was tonight, Wednesday April 16th. They had a cop directing the cars out of the underground parking garage: because so many people came to see Yuja Wang play the piano with the Toronto Symphony conducted by Gustavo Gimeno.
No wonder. Is she more or less acknowledged as the best piano player in the world right now? Forgive me, it’s absurd to try to compare as though there were a competition.
Yuja Wang rehearsing with Gustavo Gimeno and the TSO
Speaking of competitions, tensions were thawed when Van Cliburn won the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the height of the Cold War in 1958 playing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. Hard hearts accomplish nothing, let us open our hearts to beauty, whatever its nationality.
But I saw on social media that Yuja’s teacher Gary Graffman doesn’t allow his students to enter competitions, doesn’t believe in them. In a post I saw on Slipped Disc, Graffman said “‘I was totally against competitions,’ he says. ‘I didn’t allow Lang Lang or Yuja Wang to compete.’“
And they’re fine without competitions. She is simply the best.
Gustavo Gimeno, Yuja Wang (photo: Allan Cabral)
We’re having a bit of a Tchaikovsky Festival in Toronto. The Canadian Opera Company will be presenting Eugene Onegin next month, and the TSO and Gustavo will be giving us Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique Symphony (aka #6) in a couple of weeks. That’s on top of the ballet season built around his Nutcracker, Tchaikovsky’s annual gift to their bottom line.
Tonight though it was a concert featuring Yuja Wang playing Tchaikovsky’s 1st Piano Concerto in a sold-out hall. As the program note observed, Tchaikovsky has often been met by condescension: perhaps because he’s popular, wearing his heart on his sleeve. The academics will someday catch up to the public who know beauty when they hear it.
Cartoon by Jessica Mariko @caffeinatedkeyboardist
Yuja’s Tchaikovsky is unique. The soft passages are shaped so beautifully, so clearly articulated, sometimes so soft you lean forward to hear them, for instance in the cadenza to the first movement, the piano sounding like a singer’s meditation, sometimes arriving with great power. Don’t let her size fool you, she has an athlete’s stamina and reserves of power. The TSO responded under Gustavo’s baton, held in reserve until the climactic passages ending the first and last movement,
Yuja Wang and the TSO in rehearsal
There was an explosion of applause and in response Yuja gave us three wonderful encores.
I think the first one was Danzon #2 by the Mexican composer Arturo Márquez. I only knew this because of my friend Yoel Becquer, the lovely young trombone-player sitting beside me at the concert. I took a selfie to properly credit him.
Leslie & Yoel after the concert
Second encore? I don’t know, I’m guessing it’s a Ligeti etude because it was similarly virtuosic & challenging as that first amazingMárquez piece, and I know that Yuja has played & recorded several of them. Beyond that, I’m just guessing. [next day I was told by TSO “SHOSTAKOVICH/arr. Yuja Wang: String Quartet No 8 (Met. 2)”]
So at this point Yuja had already given us the concerto and two remarkable encores.
And she came back for a third, the sixth Philip Glass Etude. While I’ve played the piece it does NOT sound this way when I play it (cue the laughter). Not even close.
There was a whole other half to the program before intermission.
Jocelyn Morlock’s My Name is Amanda Todd is a surprisingly powerful piece. I am of two minds about it, given that its subject is so powerful. When I heard it the first time, at a National Arts Centre concert a few years ago, I was very moved (and tearful): but likely was impacted by the powerful story of Amanda Todd that underlies the composition. Tonight I had another strong response, with additional sadness over the recent untimely death of the composer.
Jocelyn Morlock
I have been reading Time’s Echo, Jeremy Eichler’s 2023 book about music and the Holocaust, that suggests that music can help preserve histories & messages after the eye-witnesses have died: an idea I find interesting yet troubling. Can Morlock’s music tell us about Amanda Todd? I’m not sure, and I think the question is kind of complex, perhaps asking too much of the composition, taking us to the limits of what any music can do. All I do know is that Gustavo brought energy and inspiration to the work. I found myself intrigued and moved by a vulnerability I experienced in the beginning part, music that had me asking myself what I was feeling. At times the voices interact, the different parts seeming to quarrel, discuss, even fight, and eventually find something more unified by the end. I couldn’t help myself, reading Amanda Todd’s story into the music. Gustavo honours the piece, a fascinating emotional tone poem to begin our evening.
Speaking of music with powerful associations, the next work was Janacek’s Sinfonietta, a piece that will enjoy its centennial next year, and that I associate with former TSO music director Karel Ancerl, having heard his recording of the piece with the Czech Philharmonic. I love this piece. I was overwhelmed by what the TSO accomplished under Gustavo’s direction tonight, and hope someday that the TSO records this piece. Oh my God. I think Ancerl always pushed the pedal to the metal in the big brass sections, asking for fortissimo whenever there was an option, while Gustavo is subtler, going for a gradual build-up to the radiant ending. This is one of those times when Roy Thomson Hall’s acoustic sounded really good, the huge brass complement filling the hall perfectly.
Toronto Symphony trumpets (photo: Allan Cabral)
Gustavo invited all the inner voices to come through regardless of whether they were dissonant or not.
Maybe I’m a bit sentimental but when I thought of Ancerl who survived Auschwitz to come to the Toronto Symphony in 1969, I imagined him listening in the stunning perfect last few minutes, as my tears flooded down my face. Yes flooded.
Yuja and Gustavo and the TSO will be back to play the Tchaikovsky and Morlock and Janacek again Thursday and Saturday at 8;00 pm at Roy Thomson Hall. I believe they’re also sold out.
Lorne Michaels
I was thinking Saturday Night Live should get Yuja as their musical guest. Lizzo sang two decent songs this past week, better than the usual. Years ago SNL had Luciano Pavarotti on and surely could afford Yuja.
There’s nobody better.
Come on Lorne!
Gustavo Gimeno, Yuja Wang, Toronto Symphony (photo: Allan Cabral)
Opera Atelier brought their opulent 2022 Versailles production of Marc Antoine Charpentier’s 1688 opera/ballet David and Jonathan to Koerner Hall in Toronto. Artistic Director Marshall Pynkoski reminded us last night in his pre-show speech that the company began forty years ago.
This version of the story largely matches what I recall from the Bible, a story that goes from something happy to something much darker including something like madness. Everyone is happy when David defeats the Philistine giant Goliath. But King Saul becomes jealous of the young champion, driving David away, turning upon his son Jonathan and becoming more erratic and demented. Although David and Saul’s son Jonathan love one another, both Jonathan and Saul both eventually die in battle. David becomes King of Israel, heartbroken in the midst of the celebration.
While the Old Testament may be the source, it’s presented through an operatic lens including a witch who conjures a ghost in the Prologue, a trouser role to add an intriguing layer of ambiguity and moments of joyous celebration, fierce passion, jealousy, madness and death.
David (Colin Ainsworth) embraces a dying Jonathan (Mireille Asselin, photo; Bruce Zinger)
The style of the work is ideal for Opera Atelier, showcasing their dancers. Instead of arias, Charpentier’s arioso builds up dramatic tension until it’s released through divertissements in dance and/or chorus. Before intermission the set-pieces are mostly celebratory dance, while after intermission we see dances including sword-play, choreographed by Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg and Fight Director Dominic Who.
A program note from Marshall & Jeannette says “For our 40th Anniversary we wish to reiterate our conviction that period performance is not a museum. It is a threshold–a point of departure and new discoveries”. Looking back on those four decades, one has to admit that not only have they and Opera Atelier been exploring and articulating historically informed performance practices, but we in the audience have been learning how to understand what’s put before us onstage. For this 17th century opera / ballet the gap between historically informed performance and modern interpretation seems narrower than usual, or in other words the work for Marshall and Jeannette on this production feels especially authentic.
Artists of Atelier Ballet (photo: Bruce Zinger)
Gerard Gauci’s set is a perfect match to the wooden surfaces and colour scheme of Koerner Hall’s interior.
In this my first experience of the opera/ballet, I was not always clear on what I was seeing as there’s some ambiguity in the work & its presentation. When we are seeing the happy faces of David or Jonathan, or during the Prologue I had no problem. But the complex scheming and plotting of Achis (the Philistine King, played by Christopher Dunham) and Joabel (the Philistine general, played by Antonin Rondepierre), messing with Saul (the Israelite King, played by David Witczak) left me sometimes unsure whose rantings I was hearing.
Achis (Christopher Dunham) and Saul (David Witczak, photo: Bruce Zinger)
I wonder if there is a movement vocabulary or gestural language to assist in differentiating? except that if Marshall and Jeannette employed these techniques (ways of standing, posing, singing, to signify madness or anger or jealousy) I am not sufficiently literate in these elements to easily decode what I saw. Or maybe it’s simply that the opera is new to me and I will understand it better next time.
The principals were effective, working with the gorgeous sounds of the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Tafelmusik Chamber Choir, conducted by David Fallis, sensitively ensuring that the singers were never covered. At times the choir, singing from the balcony, seem to address thoughts inside a singer’s head, as in the scene where Jonathan (Mireille Asselin) contemplates his conflicting loyalties and the upcoming battle. The sanest happiest characters at the heart of the story are the title roles of David (Colin Ainsworth) and Jonathan, surrounded by intrigue and lunacy. It’s a thrill hearing the powerful tenor voice of Colin Ainsworth, a stalwart performer for Opera Atelier.
The Prologue was for me a highlight, Mireille Lebel singing powerfully at the bottom of her vocal range, as the Pythonisse (a witch) conjuring the spirit of Samuel (Stephen Hegedus), who tells Saul (David Witczak) that heaven has abandoned him, similar to what we can read in 1 Samuel 28. It was compelling theatre to watch a 17th century take on madness as seen in the gradual decline and collapse of Saul.
Charpentier’s David and Jonathan will be presented again at Koerner Hall this weekend with performances Thursday April 10 and Saturday April 12 at 7:30 pm, and Sunday April 13 at 2:30pm. For tickets click here.
Marshall Pynkoski and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg in Versailles (photo: Bruce Zinger)
Madelaine Rose is an accomplished Toronto based multi-hyphenated internationally recognized award winning creator. She is an actor, producer and director with experience and training in both film and theatre. You can read a more detailed bio here on IMDB. I saw & reviewed Madelaine Rose in 2017 in Flea in her Ear and had hoped to work with her a few years ago in a production (that didn’t happen) so of course I’m a big fan.
Now Madelaine is doing her one-woman show Passed Down as part of Solo’d Out, a festival of solo plays at Red Sandcastle Theatre that runs April 17-27. Passed Down opens April 19th. I wanted to discover more about Madelaine and Passed Down so I asked her a few questions.
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Barczablog: Are you more like your father or mother?
Madelaine Rose : I often talk about how I feel like I was raised by a village. That village included my parents, but also my siblings, my grandparents, step-parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, biological family and chosen family. And I think I’m a little bit like all of these folks that had a hand in raising me.
My Mum is so creative, and I definitely feel like I get that from her, but my Dad is very logical and practical, and I feel like I also get that from him. I feel like my performer hat is from my Mum, and my Producer hat is from Dad.
But also somehow I feel like I’m so much like my grandmother, Pam Hobbs. She’s quite possibly the coolest person I’ve ever known, she is 95 and has truly no clue how old that is, she’s an author, and she spent so much of her life travelling the world and writing articles about the places she travelled to. She’s such a brilliant writer and I always thought the writing gene must have skipped me, until a couple of years ago when I finally started writing plays. Like this one!
Madelaine Rose
BB: What is the best or worst thing about what you do?
Madelaine Rose: I have the same answer for both! The best thing I do, is that I get to wear so many hats in this industry, the worst thing I do is also that I have to wear so many hats in this industry. Theatre and the arts in general feel like they’ve changed so much in the past decade or so since I started. I started my journey in this industry as an actor. But it quickly became apparent to me that that wasn’t enough. I started producing, then I fell into directing and eventually writing. I love all of these different facets of my artistic practice that I’ve fallen into. And I feel like each of them has given me a new love and respect for the other. I love producing and pulling a team together, doing things my way by leading with compassion and care. I also love directing and working with actors in such a meaningful way, finding all of the little nuances in a piece and bringing them to light. I have also found a newer love for writing, for putting jokes into a script, or coming up with just the right word for a character to say. But all of that can also be exhausting, especially when you’re doing so many of those things on the same project!
BB: Who do you like to listen to or watch?
Madelaine Rose: I’ll happily listen to or watch a wide range of genres, and mediums, as long as it’s good, or so bad it becomes good again, or really if there’s something interesting about it! Lately I’ve been watching the newest season of Survivor. I grew up watching it so to see that it’s not only still on but going very strong 20 years later is really captivating to me. I’m also part of a movie club which means I watch a different movie every month and meet with some friends to discuss it. Who gets to pick that month rotates, so I’m forever watching a wide range of genres and movies, some of which I’d never have thought to watch before which is part of the beauty of it!
BB: What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
Madelaine Rose: I’m not always the most technically inclined, I mean I can pass when it comes to tech stuff, but in the theatre and film worlds I am completely lost past the point of being able to plug things in and knowing the image I’m looking to create. It’s probably for the best though, being able to collaborate and work with others who are more knowledgeable in other areas is one of the best parts of creating theatre and film.
I’d also love to be able to paint, it seems so relaxing and there’s something so lovely about visual mediums where you have such a tangible product at the end.
BB: When you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?
Madelaine Rose: Hiking! Being outside in general.
Often after a big project, after I’ve spent so many months working like crazy on something, the best way for me to decompress and ground myself is to go for a long walk in the woods. Bonus points if there’s good company and snacks!
BB: What was your first experience of live theatre ?
Madelaine Rose: I think one of my first experiences with theatre was when I took drama classes as a kid. We definitely needed some sort of outlet as kids, especially me (I was definitely that hyper kid who never stopped moving), and I think the idea of sports bored my Mum so she put us into theatre instead. Little did she know, with me anyways, it would stick! I remember being bummed that I didn’t get cast as the lead, but I also don’t remember ever having stage fright. I don’t think there was ever an ounce of fear in me as a kid at the thought of running onto a stage in front of however many audience members. Those classes ended in a show on one of the biggest stages I’d performed on still to this day, and someone video taped it. I’ve since watched it back and I absolutely flubbed my lines, and yet I loved it! I hammed it up and made the audience laugh. I was like 8.
BB: Tell me about your upcoming solo show Passed Down.
Madelaine Rose:Passed Down was co-written by myself and the brilliantly talented Rosalyn Cosgrove, who is also directing it, and will be stage managed by Monique Danielle. Rosalyn is based in the UK so all of our meetings have been through video chat which has been it’s own fun, quirky experience, but I couldn’t imagine working with anyone else on this play. Rosalyn and I wrote out a short version of it for a 24-hr play writing contest, and decided to expand it for the festival. We’ve had a really great time finding ways to create tension in the play, to add moments of humour and to really dive into this medium of a one-person show.
This play is about Persephone, a young woman who inherits her Great Aunt’s Victorian-style home after her passing. It’s the first night in her new home, she’s filled with excitement and can’t wait to make this house her own, she’s invited her best friend over to christen the new place with a fabulous dinner. Through a series of phone calls with her Mums, and digging around she starts to learn more about the family history and wonders if the house is the only thing she’s inherited…
BB: The Eventbrite listing says the following: This one-person thriller will have you on the edge of your seat for the full 60-minutes, wondering if Persephone is indeed all alone in this house… or even stage. Be Careful what you inherit! It makes me want to ask: do you really want to scare us?
Madelaine Rose: I do! My director and I have talked lots about using the space in such a way to make the audience feel like they’re in this house with me, like they’re stuck here too!
BB: What are your favourite scary stories?
Madelaine Rose: Shaun of the Dead is one of my favourite movies, and I love the idea of mixing horror and comedy. I think it’s really smart and a great way to take care of your audience, to sort of make them laugh, then scare the heck out of them!
I also really like the series Haunting of Bly Manor. I like when folks take the classic horror movie genre and turn it into something else, like a TV series, or mix it with comedy, or in my case turn it into a play.
BB: Who are your main horror influences?
Madelaine Rose: I’ve only recently found a love for the horror/ thriller genre. Growing up horror wasn’t really anyone in my village’s thing so I wasn’t particularly exposed to it. However over the years I’ve slowly started getting into the genre as more and more critically acclaimed films from the genre felt like a “must watch,” such as Get Out, or Us. Then about 5 years ago some friends from my improv class started a movie club, and one of the members is a Horror professor, so naturally I began watching more horror, and really finding myself getting into the genre. I don’t know that I have any particular influences but I love a good old school horror, or creature feature. I’m a fan of the Scream series and really anything that has become a cult classic.
BB: Is there a genuine lesson to be learned from Passed Down, noting that your poster says “Be careful what you inherit“?
Madelaine Rose: You’ll just have to come check it out to find out for yourself! I do think there are lessons to be learned here when it comes to the story, but also when it comes to playing with the genre, and space.
BB: Talk about the excitement & challenge of a solo show.
Madelaine Rose: I have directed two solo shows in the past, but this is the first one that I’ve written and am starring in! I enjoy directing one-person shows, and getting to work one-on-one with an actor, and often times one-person shows can be very personal, so I’m forever grateful to the actors who bring me on to direct their one-person shows and share than vulnerability and authenticity with me. So creating my own felt like it was inevitable, it felt like it was time.
One-person shows definitely come with their own set of challenges. When I direct them I’m always trying to be conscious not to have my actor simply stand there and just spew their lines at the audience. With only one person on stage it can be hard to keep the show moving and dynamic.
As an actor though, there’s a whole host of other challenges that come up. I will be on stage, by myself, for 60 minutes! That’s a long time! Stamina, energy and the ability to talk for an hour straight all come in to play here.
As an artist though I really like to explore the medium I’m working with and the space I’m in. So I think myself and my director have had a really fun time exploring the ins and outs of the one-person play medium.
BB: You’re part of Solo’d Out: a one-person play festival, brought to you by Sigh No More Productions and Mad Butterfly Creative. Who are they?
Madelaine Rose: Sigh No More Productions is actually my production company (created by myself, Kareen Mallon and Natalie Morgan), and Mad Butterfly Creative belongs to Kelly Taylor, who is also the creator of “Thank U, Ex!” one of the other plays featured in Solo’d Out. Kelly and I met in 2017 when she cast me in her show “Ladies Sigh No More,” she was also acting in this show, and our two characters, Ophelia and Desdemona, were to be best friends (you may even see a little nod to this friendship in Passed Down). Well life imitated art because Kelly and I did indeed become good friends, and have worked together on many projects now. I often describe her as my partner-in-art. Kelly has this incredible ability to dive head first into a project and figure it out on the way down, her ability to just go for it is something that I am always in awe of. She’s the one who grabs my hand and says “let’s jump!”
For Solo’d Out, we came about the idea because both of us applied to a well known theatre festival and neither of us got in. She had a one-person show that she’d toured, quite successfully, across Canada and internationally, but never felt like she was able to do it properly here in Toronto. Whereas I on the other hand had ideas for one-person shows but didn’t know where to put them up. We also knew other folks with one-person shows in need of a somewhere to showcase them, so Solo’d Out was born! We applied for grants, and thankfully Canada Council for the Arts was generous enough to fund this idea. We’re so excited to share these solo shows, and all that this festival has to offer with Toronto Theatre audiences. We’re also hosting this festival at The Red Sandcastle Theatre where “Ladies Sigh No More” went up so many years ago. It feels like a really sweet full circle moment for us.
BB: Do you have any influences / teachers you would like to acknowledge?
Madelaine Rose: First and foremost I want to acknowledge Kelly Taylor, she’s been my partner in this festival, but also my partner-in-art and she’s been my mentor for so long now. I truly wouldn’t have accomplished many of the projects that I have without her influence.
Kelly Taylor
I’d also love to acknowledge some of my early career influences like my professor from York University Aleksandar Lukac, he showed me what it’s like to create weird and wonderful art, much like this show!
Aleksandar (aka Sasha) Lukac
I’m also incredibly grateful to all of the artists, crew, and supporters of Solo’d Out, and Passed Down, putting this festival up has been a dream come true and it’s only possible because of the amazing team of artists who have put so much work into it!
Friday April 4th the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir conducted by Jean-Sébastien Vallée presented Beethoven’s glorious Missa Solemnis to a partially – full Roy Thomson Hall.
Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Artistic Director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
The Missa Solemnis is a perfect showcase for JS and his impeccable baton work leading this big ensemble, the huge Choir cutting off cleanly, entering boldly when asked. As the title suggests, it is a solemn work, among the finest works ever created by Beethoven.
Our orchestral experience came courtesy of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, sounding entirely at home in the warm confines of Roy Thomson Hall.
Missa Solemnis includes a gorgeous series of violin solos during the Sanctus resembling a violin concerto. Bénédicte Lauzière made a stunning account of this intriguing section, where Beethoven’s spirituality takes a somewhat secular form. For me this was the highlight of the evening.
(l-r) Concertmaster Bénédicte Lauzière, Brett Polegato, Jean-Sébastien Vallée and Frédéric Antoun, before the K-W Symphony and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
Speaking of solos we were fortunate to have an excellent quartet of Canadians. Mezzo-soprano Simona Genga was impeccable in her phrasing and dynamics, a big voice at her command when she wanted, subdued and perfectly blended with the ensemble much of the time. Tracy Cantin reminded us of the dramatic sound she brought to the Canadian Opera Company as Lady Macbeth.
(l-r) Frédéric Antoun, Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Simona Genga & Tracy Cantin accepting our applause, with the K-W Symphony and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
It was great to hear tenor Frédéric Antoun (a stylish interpretation) and baritone Brett Polegato (his voice sounding bigger and darker than ever).
This is the first time for me to see the Missa Solemnis in person. It’s a subtler work than the 9th symphony, not as popular and a colossal undertaking. Tonight’s audience received the performance rapturously.
Before the concert I had a chance to chat with my friend Bruce McGillivray, who plays a double bass with the K-W Symphony. I interviewed him back in 2022. We met through our parents, who shared the same room at Bridgepoint rehab hospital in 2021.
Bruce McGillivray and his instrument
It was great to have a chance to reconnect before this wonderful concert.
barczablog 