10 Questions for Dan Mousseau: Hamlet

Posted on November 4, 2015 by barczablog

I had the pleasure of meeting Dan Mousseau at Ryerson Theatre School, a remarkable training ground for many of the best actors in this country. You can surmise his range from the fact he’s been cast as both John in Miss Julie and Fluther Good in The Plough and the Stars, two of the most divergent parts one could imagine from the same young actor. It’s rare enough for an actor in his early 20s to be cast as Hamlet (although this is surely how I would prefer the casting, not with some virtuoso who is too old for the part), rarer still for an actor to get to do the part twice at such a young age. But so it is for Dan, who has already undertaken the role of Hamlet for Shakespeare at Play, an online compleat Shakespeare.

Dan Mousseau as Hamlet at Hart House Theatre (photo: Scott Gorman)

Dan Mousseau as Hamlet at Hart House Theatre (photo: Scott Gorman)

And he’ll portray the Prince of Denmark at Hart House Theatre beginning November 4th. I was glad to ask Dan ten questions: five about himself and five more about playing Hamlet.

1-Are you more like your father or your mother?

This is a tough question because I think that everyone is inherently a sort of combination of both. I see how I am a lot like both my Mom and my Dad. It’s funny actually as I get older I feel like I’m more like my Dad where I felt more like my mom in my younger years. My Mom has a wonderful compassion and sensitivity that I think I have inherited. My Dad has an incredible spirit, drive and fortitude. My Mom can also be a bit too sensitive and anxious and my Dad has a temper, both of which I’ve also inherited. At the risk of not answering the question, I think I’m a pretty equal serving of both and I am grateful for it!

2-what is the best thing about what you do?

I struggled with this for a long time when I really decided I wanted to be an actor. I desperately wanted to help people as a kid and always saw acting as an extraneous, elite career.

However, the deeper I get into this career the more I realize how absolutely necessary it is for all of us. I’m going to broaden this to all of the arts for right now, because I think that’s the necessary thing. People need art as a reflection of themselves and the world around them. To criticize the world and who we are as individuals in this world.

Hamlet himself says it in his speech about the players. He says the purpose of playing is “to hold, as twere the mirror up to nature; show virtue her own feautre, scorn her own image and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.” I think that says it all. There was a very specific reason that art was created and it fills a very important hole for humanity to see who they are, to escape and to relate with each other through honest communication.

Break that down into acting, the ability to tell these incredible stories with my incredible fellow actors, is the best part. And it’s in these stories that I think people see themselves. To have the job of portraying these things as honestly as possible to connect to someone is a really cool thing. It’s like everyone in that room believes in magic for that one moment of connection.

3-who do you like to listen to or watch?

Surprisingly, I’m not a really avid music listener. I love music but for whatever reason I just never got into listening to it in my day to day life. I do become obsessed with certain songs or albums. I keep listening to Kendrick Lamar, Kings of Leon and Pink Floyd right now. I love George Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” actually, as a random side note. But overall, my love for music is just growing, but music is such a huge part of the show it feels like it fit to start listening to more now.

I love movies and TV, I’ve been watching a lot of Parks and Rec, Rick and Morty, Walking Dead, and the Graham Norton Show. I just finished Mad Men, which was a treat, I’m sad its over.

I really love dramatic movies, I have a taste for the drama and the weird, I guess. I just saw Goodnight, Mommy at Tiff Bell Lightbox, which was creepy as hell. But I love watching Sam Rockwell’s work, Daniel Day Lewis, Paul Thomas Anderson, and I really love Ryan Gosling. Haha, I feel like there’s a type that like Ryan Gosling, but I do dig his work. Number one for movies though is Stanley Kubrick, hands down.

4-what ability or skill do you wish you had that you don’t have.

Practically, for my work, I wish I had a photographic memory and a capacity to relate to any person and circumstance.

But I would either love to learn to play an instrument or learn another language. I would love to fill in the holes of my French knowledge. Those may be cliché answers but that’s it for me.

5-when you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?

Spend time with my girlfriend. Haha, but all mushiness aside, I love videogames and I love reading. It would most definitely be one of the two. And the joy of having an amazing girlfriend is you can do either or both while you’re together.

Dan Mousseau (photo: Scott Gorman

Dan Mousseau (photo: Scott Gorman

Five more about preparing Hamlet.

1-Tell us about the challenges of learning the role of Hamlet, one of the longest roles in the language.

Before doing Hamlet for Hart House, I was fortunate enough to do it for a company called Shakespeare at Play. SAP is an App that combines a filmed video of a Shakespearean play with the text itself, which allows the reader to read along with the video simultaneously.
Doing that version, which is technically educational, we couldn’t cut a single word from Hamlet, which meant I had to learn all 2600 lines, or thereabouts. And each line is up to 10 words. Shakespeare also wrote in what is called Verse, a kind of arrangement of poetry, and prose, which is just like everyday writing. This means that the 2600 line number is a bit relative.

Basically Hamlet is onstage for 85-90% of a 5 hour play, and the majority of the text is him speaking to his friends, parents or the audience. And when he speaks to the audience, and often when he’s speaking to everyone else, he uses monologues (14 or more lines in a row). It’s a ton.

I am fortunate enough to be a bit of a sponge with lines. I find they sink in quite easily, especially when it comes to Shakespeare because the words have a rhythm that finds its way into the actor’s body. Although there were plenty of parts where I had to just repeat, repeat, repeat the lines to get them firmly in my head. I try to repeat one line, then learn the next line and repeat them both and I keep doing that until I’ve made a bit of a tower of lines, if that makes sense.

So having done Hamlet before, uncut, it was nice during this process, in which our amazing director Paolo and dramaturg Susan Bond, have made cuts, that I could just allow some of the lines to come back to me. Sometimes I have to watch that I don’t say too much!

2- Talk about the age of the character of Hamlet Prince of Denmark, and how you feel about portraying him in Paolo Santalucia’s production at Hart House.

This is a great question, as Hamlet is technically 30, it says in the script. There’s an interesting thing that happens as a result of Hamlet being a younger person, I think. So much of what Hamlet does is impulsive, while at the same time being withdrawn or thought out to the point of cowardice.

I’m 22 and we’re playing my Hamlet a little bit older since I think I read a little bit older onstage, 24-5 or so, which means I’m still younger than Hamlet himself and definitely younger than the usual casting of Hamlet. It’s strange to me that usually an older man or woman plays Hamlet. although I understand the need to have an experienced player at the centre of a show, what comes out of a younger or age appropriate actor playing Hamlet is something quite tragic in my opinion.

It’s the difference between seeing a young person with potential, a heart full of love, and a confused mind tossed about between these massive forces versus a middle aged person going through a bit of a crisis. The intensity of the parental relationships makes more sense to me since Hamlet is in the transition of letting go of his parents when this happens, he is going to Wittenburg, but he isn’t fully independent yet, which is a stage that is very vulnerable. To have this all (the play) happen at that stage, a stage we’ve all been at, is heartbreaking. The play happens right when Hamlet is discovering who he is as a person.

And right when he has it, he dies. It’s the loss of a great potential, a young, beautiful person who had their whole life ahead of them but is torn away too soon. I think Shakespeare wrote it that way for a reason.

3- in Shakespeare at Play – a Canadian website where one can see entire plays on video—you play Hamlet. Talk about the differences between the intimacy of a video reading and what you’ll be doing on the Hart House Theatre stage.

There definitely is a huge difference. As I mentioned before I had to know every single word for the video, which was one hell of a challenge but we could take multiple takes and it was broken up into shots.

There is nothing like “doing it live” as they say. Once we started doing the show from start to finish, I actually got to feel in my body what it felt like for Hamlet to go through this play. Who the people around him are and what happens to him. And it’s one hell of a journey, he goes through a lot.

When we filmed Shakespeare at Play, we started with the final scene. On the first day of shooting, I died. If was a challenge, and was an excellent acting challenge, to make that real and give the audience the feeling of what he’s been through before that moment. There are certain realities in shooting a film, who is available and when, that have to be taken into account. It’s different when you do a show top to bottom.


That also means its hard on the body, it has been hard on my voice and it is tiring. I’m swimming in buckets of sweat by the end of the first act. The set we have is amazing and tactile but that also means I’m climbing throughout the show too. And, in terms of vocal performance, I have to make sure every word I say is heard, even to the back row of the theatre. That’s a lot different than when I had a mic attached to me in the filming and I could whisper some lines.

That being said, having the energy of the audience is something that can’t be replaced. And going on the full journey that Hamlet goes through is extremely humbling and touching, plus this is several years later which means I’ve grown as a person and I hope my performance reflects that.

4- Playing Hamlet can be a humbling experience, a role where you are inevitably compared to some great actors from previous generations. Please talk about how it feels stepping into the role at this time in your career.

It is pretty humbling thinking about the amount of actors that have done this before me and the calibre of actors they all were or are. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is being screened in theatres at the same time, no pressure! He’s amazing! Hopefully people will still want to see ours. Because the thing is, no two Hamlet’s can ever be the same.
I try to limit my intake of interpretations while I’m working on something, because I often worry that I will see something I like and then try to use it for my Hamlet. Doing this will feel fake to the audience and actor alike because it is a thing that didn’t come out of the actor, it isn’t organic, its like doing an impression of someone else playing Hamlet. I just saw Jonathan Goad’s Hamlet at Stratford too, which was hard to get out of my brain!
I try to look at Hamlet in terms of my life and what he means to me. I also look at the different ways I can connect to him, relate to him. We talk about what he wants and I find out what and who is important to him, how he reacts to events and situations and what his hopes and dreams are.

Despite the vast history of this character, the more he is me and mine, I think the more true and resonant it will be with the audience. That’s the goal.

5- Is there a teacher or influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

There are too many to count! I am always influenced by my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends and teachers.

I want to say a huge thank you to everyone in the cast, in the crew, Paolo, Susan, Emma our assistant director, Jeremy our stage manager and everyone involved. It’s the people that im surrounded by every day doing this show that inspire me.

*******

Hamlet begins at Hart House Theatre November 4th, running Wednesday – Saturdays until November 21st.

Posted in Books & Literature, Cinema, video & DVDs, Dance, theatre & musicals, Interviews, University life | Leave a comment

Psycho and the art of horror with the Toronto Symphony

Posted on November 1, 2015 by barczablog

For Halloween the Toronto Symphony presented their latest film with a live accompaniment, namely Psycho. A film buff might call it “Hitchcock’s Psycho.“ A film-music buff might prefer “Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho” which is closer to how I see it.

Without Herrmann? You lose one of the most distinctive moments in cinematic history, namely the shower. Hitchcock visualized it as a silent sequence. Herrmann saw it differently: not for the first time.

Yes it was a fun evening, verging on a happening, just like previous films in this series (Back to the Future and Vertigo). Some of us accepted the challenge to dress in costume for the occasion, as did members of the TSO. There were at least two Norman Bates’s, wearing a gray wig, one portrayed by yours truly.me

In the orchestra not only did we see several distinctive characters, but one player even came as the shower, complete with a curtain & curtain rod plus something resembling a shower head; and miraculously the “water” didn’t hit her instrument as she managed to keep playing.

At one time horror films were normally “B” pictures, the trashiest of the trashy. And yet, in the latest British Film Institute poll (in the Sept 2012 issue of Sight & Sound),  Psycho tied for # 35 in the poll, one of four Bernard Herrmann films in the top fifty (Taxi Driver is tied for #31, Citizen Kane is #2, and Vertigo is #1). While I don’t believe Psycho will ever displace Vertigo at the top of that list, I actually think it’s a far better film, and that Herrmann’s score for Psycho might be the best score of all.

How is it that the score for this black and white film can seem to be scored in black and white? (although come to think of it that’s literally true of all musical notation). Herrmann used only strings, severely limiting his expressive vocabulary and in the process, perfectly matching Hitchcock’s film. The dry astringent music was so much more than a commercial product, a daring piece of art that never gets old. Vertigo is a sentimental relic in comparison.

Psycho gives me one of my favourite moments in the film music course I teach at the Royal Conservatory.  We watch the shower scene the way Hitchcock watched it at first, which is to say, silently.  And just like him, we observe that it doesn’t work terribly well without the music.

Cinematic Music: How We Hear Film (click for more information)

Cinematic Music: How We Hear Film (click for more information)

We also do the opposite: listen to that music without any shower or knives. It’s a curious thing, that this music can actually be beautiful and abstract, when lifted out of its Bates Motel context.

Watching this live performance of the Psycho score was hugely instructive. It’s a chamber orchestra this time, a much smaller & tighter ensemble than for either Vertigo or Silvestri’s Back to the Future. In fact the sound is powerful yet never very loud. Wow, amazing that the effects are every bit as powerful –that is, terrifying – as ever.  At the opening it sounds quite a bit different from what I’m accustomed to on the DVD, because in the big Roy Thomson Hall space the balance is slightly different. The basses are more clearly audible than they are on the DVD. The violins are not nearly so edgy, their treble tones sucked up by the hall. I wonder whether the sound on the DVD (and the film) has been corrected, the treble boosted. There is extra presence on that recording, and I suspect it’s an artificial effect, now that I’ve heard the score played. This music is very pretty.

I can’t help noticing similarities to other shows & works I’ve seen lately.

  • The last scene with the psychiatrist is a prototype for so many scenes, so many forensic investigations up to and including the harrowing scene with Allegra Fulton as the lawyer in The Trouble with Mr Adams, and Owen McCausland’s observer in the Canadian Opera Company’s Pyramus & Thisbe.
  • Melodrama is far from dead, I am realizing. There seems to be no choice by any of the main characters in Hitchcock’s great trilogy (Vertigo, North by Northwest, or Psycho), and yet one of the truly brilliant things about Gord Rand’s script (The Trouble with Mr Adams) is how he creates three powerful scenes, carefully shaping the plot so that none of the peronages has any real scope for choice or agency. If you stop and think about it for a moment, while we’re told in our English classes that melodrama is an old genre that’s dead, when we look at film and much of modern drama it ain’t necessarily so
  • Watching a film you’ve seen a zillion times on a big screen? It’s brand new.  There are things you can’t see on a small screen at home.

The film score is the great new musical genre that continues to fly under the radar, a century after its birth. For the TSO to present these films is one of the most exciting things one can see in Toronto, a way to see films as though they were brand new. In this and other projects, the TSO are making good on their promise to give us new ways to hear music.

I’m all ears.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Painting set free by JMW Turner

Posted on October 31, 2015 by barczablog

When I was a teenager I discovered the great English painter Joseph Mallord William Turner (23 April 1775 – 19 December 1851) at around the same time that my infatuation began with the other romantic artists in other media. In poetry that meant especially Coleridge, Shelley, Byron and Keats.  In music that meant Berlioz, Liszt, Wagner and Debussy.   In visual art? Turner, Goya, and Gaugin were the ones I admired so much that I plastered their images all over my wall, buying books full of their pictures.  And so for a time i lived with  reproductions of “Rain, Steam & Speed” and “The Fighting Temeraire” on my wall (among others), obsessed with Turner’s approach to light & atmosphere.

The Fighting Temeraire (from http://www.william-turner.org, where you can see a great many more of Turner’s paintings)

When the works of a famous artist suddenly turn up in front of you there are at least two impulses at work.
1. You want to see great art as in: paintings that are done well, that move you somehow, or that are examples of great skill
2. You want to see great art as in: paintings that are famous or influential or that move you because you’ve seen them (or works like them) in art books.

The Turner show that just opened at the AGO “Painting Set Free” brings a great deal of great art to town. You will likely feel that you’re in the presence of amazing art, especially if you look at the date. Nobody in the world was painting this way this early: except of course Turner, a painter who feels like the godfather of the Impressionists, the first 20th century painter, even if he happened to die in 1851.   It’s a juvenile concern, but while I experienced #1 (the delight in great artistry) as far as #2 is concerned (the thrill of seeing a famous painting in person), I was sad that I didn’t see those favourite Turner paintings in this show, possibly because they’re national treasures of incalculable value. But then again he was such a prolific painter that there’s still lots of genius on display.  There are plenty of other images that resonate with the same sort of power in this show, whether it’s the romantic images of “War The Exile and the Rock Limpet” (including a very unique depiction of Napoleon) or the “Snow Storm” painting that is so prominent as you enter the gallery.

Self-portrait (from http://www.william-turner.org ), 1799

This is the sort of show that you can visit over and over, indeed I believe one needs to see it more than once. We’re especially looking at Turner’s last decade, the work from the 1840s, when the painter did some of his most daring work. At times one almost experiences vertigo as Euclidean space is compromised in swirls of wind & rain & surf. If we were to think of the continuum between accurate representation and pure abstraction, we see an artist moving further away from the more conservative style to something so daring as to leave the audience behind. At the time, Turner was ahead of his time, not fully understood & appreciated by the average viewer even if he developed a following among artists.

I must go back for another look.

Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Personal ruminations & essays | 2 Comments

10 questions for Sarah Thorpe: Heretic

Posted on October 31, 2015 by barczablog

Toronto native Sarah Thorpe studied Theatre at York University, receiving her Bachelor of Arts Degree with Honours in 2007, and also the theatre department’s Mira Friedlander Award for achievements in theatre writing, criticism, world and Canadian theatre studies. Sarah’s affiliation with director/actor/ choreographer Michael Greyeyes at York led to her involvement in the world premiere of Thomson Highway’s Pimooteewin: The Journey, the first opera written in Cree, produced by Soundstreams Canada in February 2008.

In 2009, Sarah co-founded Soup Can Theatre, a Toronto based company dedicated to reinterpreting older works for a modern audience, and new works inspired by older pieces. Their inaugural production – a cabaret homage to the music and artistic influence of 20th century German composer Kurt Weill called Love is a Poverty You Can Sell – was remounted in the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival, and was selected to be part of the Best of Fringe series at the Toronto Centre for the Arts. Soup Can has continued to have several successful productions, becoming a well-known company in Toronto’s indie theatre community, and Sarah has received local award nominations for her directing work. In 2015, Sarah wrote and performed in Heretic, a solo piece about the life of Joan of Arc, hailed as ‘a stunning one-woman show’. Soup Can produced the premiere production, and Sarah’s performance was met with acclaim from the press and public. Working as an actor, director, producer, and arts administrator, Sarah credits her well-rounded theatre education for giving her the perseverance and knowledge to thrive in Toronto’s artistic community.

On the occasion of the remount of Heretic in November, I asked Sarah ten questions: five about herself and five more about her work with Soup Can Theatre.

1-Are you more like your father or your mother?

I inherited great qualities from both of them. They’re both musicians and business owners, so they get the artist lifestyle and running a small business, and how difficult, unpredictable, and incredibly satisfying such a lifestyle it can be.

Sarah Thorpe– HERETIC

2-What is the best thing or worst thing about being a theatre artist?

Specifically in the indie theatre scene, I’d say that the worst thing is feeling like you constantly have to scrounge, for anything, because there’s so little money so you can rarely just simply pay for something, like a newspaper ad or an expensive prop. And when you wear so many different hats as an indie artist (performer/ writer/ director/ producer/ publicist/etc) it just gets so exhausting. But there’s a flip side to that, of course. Having to scrounge also teaches you how to be resourceful, how to make the most of your budget and stretch your dollars. And certainly, I think the best thing is seeing the final result on stage and (hopefully) how all the hard exhausting work paid off.

3-Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Oh man….. my tastes in entertainment are all over the place. What I watch and listen to really depends on the day, my mood, what I’m doing. Two constants I’d say are Tom Waits, since his music is so varied that there’s always something of his that will suit my mood, and nine times out of ten I have to end my day with an episode of Coronation Street. I find it has a great balance of serious drama, comedy, and banal ‘every day’ plot lines. I’m addicted to it….. and I must be a middle aged British woman at heart.

4-What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

Other artistic pursuits that I didn’t pursue as much as acting and directing, like music, dance, and visual art. I miss doing those things sometimes.

5-When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?

Cooking, going to the movies, going to theatre, and hanging out in my favourite places in the city, like Kensington Market, the Beaches, and Roncesvalles.

Sarah Thorpe

Five more about writing/perfoming HERETIC!

1-Please talk about how you reconcile the different sides of yourself, as you function as a writer, as a performer & co-director.

For this reboot, I focused on the writing first: what parts of the earlier version did work, what didn’t work, what did I want to change, add, or cut? So I was definitely in writer-mode first in order to ensure that I was telling the story the way I wanted to tell it, the way I felt it. Once that was done, it’s in the hands of the rest of the creative team to help make it a living thing, and I’m in actor-mode at that point to put these characters on their feet. My goal as a co-director is to have some say in the execution of the piece, design elements, etc. Our team on this reboot is so fantastic, so talented and hardworking; it was so easy to put what I had written into their hands. There’s a lot of trust and collaboration, which for me has made the process so enjoyable and so easy to jump around in my different roles.

2-HERETIC was presented in another form earlier this year. Please tell us about the work and how it’s changing in this new incarnation.

The first production, more of a workshop, that we did in April 2015, was the first play I had written. The inspiration for even creating a piece about Joan of Arc initially came from being so moved by one of her monologues in Shaw’s Saint Joan (a piece I’ve performed for auditions before) that I felt compelled to explore this emotional connection further. I’m not religious, but I don’t think one needs to be to find her life fascinating. Joan of Arc is often presented and portrayed in this very holy and patriotic light: the courageous martyr who was burned at the stake, a national hero of France. What I find doesn’t really feature in renditions of her (whether artistic, literary, etc.) is that she was a teenage girl, the daughter of farmers, illiterate and uneducated, and how extraordinary it was that she managed to challenge the patriarchic and clergy-dominated status quo of the time. What interested me was finding the vulnerable human beneath the saint. We meet Joan in her afterlife, and she is reflecting on her life and the decisions she made, breaking down the preconceptions of her to say “This is me. This is who I was. This is how I felt. This is why I did the things I did.” I reconstruct her life, playing Joan as well as a number of other characters that play prominently in her story. I set out to create the private, personal moments that people wouldn’t have seen, moments that wouldn’t have been recorded in historical volumes. This new incarnation keeps the same tone and style of the original piece, but I wanted to dig a bit deeper into her private moments. What was going through her mind when she picked up a sword and stepped onto the battlefield for the first time? Did her faith wane at all when she was put in prison and accused of heresy? If it did, how would that have affected her?

3-Please talk about monodrama. How did Joan move you and how do you feel about this as a portrayal…Do you identify closely to her, and why did it feel like the ideal way to tell the story?

What I identify with in Joan’s story is how she never gave up her cause, no matter how dire the situation or impossible the task. While my circumstances certainly aren’t a matter of life and death in a war-torn nation, as an indie artist I identify with that because sometimes creating art, presenting that art, and trying to make a living out of that art seems impossible with little to no administrative infrastructure, no annual operating or project-based grant funding, and no physical ‘home base’. We rely on ticket sales, donations, and fundraising, we rent spaces that we can hopefully afford, we do a lot of bartering, and do all this while working at other jobs and having multiple other commitments. It’s exhausting and does seem impossible at times, even to me. But I love what I do so much that I know I could never give it up for anything. I always want to keep going. I always want to keep getting better. I get a buzz and happiness from it I don’t get from anything else. That’s how I know I’m doing the right thing by not throwing up hands, yelling “Screw this! I quit!”, and walking away.
Heretic is the only solo theatre I’ve done as an actor. What I still find challenging about it is not having another actor to feed off of. When you’re working with other actors, you are (hopefully) tuned in to each other as scene partners, and you simultaneously support and challenge each other; there’s a give and take. There’s play. With doing a solo piece, I’ve found that I’ve had to rely on my own imagination to create that give and take among the multiple characters I play. It’s like I’m still that weird little kid I was playing dress up alone in my room or in the backyard, relying on pure imagination to make it real and immediate.

4-Please talk about the politics of your show, and why it’s important.

This is medieval France, towards the end of the Hundred Years War (essentially an inheritance dispute over the French throne between France and England, and England was winning): a very male-dominated, church-dominated, superstitious, and war-torn time and place. Joan was so devout in her beliefs and so focused on her mission to drive the English out of France that she didn’t let the societal status quo deter her in any way. Even though it was considered a sin, she wore men’s clothing and cut her hair short due to the practicality of such gestures: she was living the life of a soldier, fighting, leading, and working with men, and it was a method of protection against sexual assaults. The Dauphin, who eventually became France’s King Charles VI thanks to Joan, even had a suit of armor made specifically to fit her. Even without education, she had a deep understanding of Catholic doctrine and could hold complex theological debates and discussions with men of the cloth. Priests were peoples’ first point of contact with God, but the people regarded Joan as that point of contact, seeing her as a holy vessel. The time of her joining the French army was when they finally had militaristic successes in the war. People believed in her and that her mission was truly divine, but the English feared her and believed that the voices she claimed she heard were evil. She was a strong, intelligent, and independent young woman who was just doing what she felt was the right thing to do, and that made her a dangerous force in the eyes of many who ultimately did everything in their power to remove this ‘threat’. With the longstanding but renewed focus on women’s rights and equality, this story is still important now because Joan was a woman who was very ahead of her time. Even though it ended up costing her her life, she challenged those who accused her of ‘upsetting the order of things’ until the very end.

5-Is there a teacher or an influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

I have had so many wonderful teachers and and influences over the years, but I have to give credit to the theatre program at York University. I majored in theatre there, specializing in devised theatre and collective creation, and we did a bit of everything from acting and writing to directing, producing, and other production and administrative duties. Those four years prepared me so well for what I’m doing now as a multitasking artist/wearer of many theatre hats.

*******

Soupcan Theatre’s HERETIC starring Sarah Thorpe opens November 11th at Theatre Pass Muraille Backspace, 16 Ryerson Ave, Toronto, running until November 22nd.

Showtimes:

  • Wednesday to Friday at 7:30pm.
  • Saturday at 2pm and 7:30pm.
  • Sunday at 2pm.

Tickets are available through the Arts Box Office and can be purchased three ways:poster

  • Online at www.artsboxoffice.ca
  • By Phone at 416.504.7529 (Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-6pm, Sunday 11:30am-2:30pm, with hours extended to 7pm on performance nights)
  • In Person at Theatre Passe Muraille, located at 16 Ryerson Ave. (Wednesday-Saturday 3pm-6pm, Sunday 11:30am-2:30pm, with hours extended to 7:30pm on performance nights)
Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Interviews | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Explosive Trouble with Mr. Adams

Posted on October 31, 2015 by barczablog

What is the trouble with Mr. Adams? Nothing we haven’t seen before.

As it’s summarized on the Tarragon Theatre website
“The Trouble With Mr Adams is a “brand new play from Tarragon Playwright-in-Residence Gord Rand’ [that] exposes the male mid-life crisis in all its awkward and ruinous glory.”

Every now and then this awkward scenario rears its head in a tawdry news item or on reality TV, a teacher and a student ignoring societal prohibitions to surrender to the call of nature. Nabokov’s novel Lolita and its two film adaptations tell one version of this tale.  The difference between a banal story and a worthwhile play, however, is clearly something Rand thought about long and hard. The exposition is perhaps the least important element, as we are not in a realm of plot & details. Rand puts us into three different conversations, each of which is carried inevitably by the conflict:

  • Scene one: Gary & his wife Peggy
  • Scene two: Gary & lawyer Barbara
  • Scene three: Gary & young Mercedes

What is most exquisite about each scene is the unfolding relationship and how it’s teased out in the writing & the performances. Because it’s a slow-motion train-wreck, we’re not really asking ourselves “what will happen next”, as we might in a film. Instead we’re watching the dynamics between the principals, the pain & suspense, occasional flashes or humour and the inevitable rages, as well as the rationalizations from Gary in each instance. The opening sequence is a bit too wordy, too many long poetic speeches, as it gathers steam, and then when the story shifts –with the discovery of what has transpired—everything is kicked into high gear and we forget all about that literary stuff as the room seems to ignite. From time to time (for instance for an unfortunate half-minute near the end) Rand resorts to that rarefied language, possibly to avert the nastier implications, or maybe because that’s how it’s usually done. But for those contrived moments, his writing is gold, and red-hot with the dynamics between his characters. I could watch it again tomorrow, to see how we get from point A to point B, to observe how each of the characters develops. In that sense this is what one wants in a theatre with live performances, the vulnerable performers aching and suffering before us.

Chris Earle (left) and Philippa Domville in The Trouble with Mr Adams at Tarragon Theatre (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Chris Earle (left) and Philippa Domville in The Trouble with Mr Adams at Tarragon Theatre (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Chris Earle is onstage for the entire 80 minutes, an everyman trapped in his own sophistry. This is a troubling play, as we are invited to step into the shoes of a pedophile, and it’s a disturbing identification even when the teacher is as innocent as Earle’s Gary. Philippa Domville is not at all what one would expect as the wife who confronts her husband. But if we had to listen to her railing, I don’t think we’d get past the first scene, and no one would identify with Gary for even a moment if he were a monster. I am reminded of the commentary on Paradise Lost that observes how Milton tempts us, making it easy to sympathize with the pompous rhetoric of Satan; who would ever read Milton if he simply preached and told us what to think? and so too Rand & his Gary, seductive and all too human.

The second scene takes us to a very different kind of discourse. Where Domville engages with Earle on every level, as friend, as lover, from the conversational to the blatantly physical, Allegra Fulton as Gary’s lawyer Barbara takes us into another sort of encounter.

Christ Earle & Allegra Fulton (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

Christ Earle & Allegra Fulton (Photo by Cylla von Tiedemann)

The story is progressing, and now we’re beginning to see the consequences for Gary in his professional life & in the perception of society, as represented by a colossal deposition sitting on the desk during Gary’s interview with Barbara. Fulton too has a powerful physical presence, although she’s fully clothed throughout, even as the text sometimes challenges us to ignore the polite roles and to regress–with Gary– towards something more purely carnal. The final scene, between Earle and Sydney Owchar as Mercedes, the student who was the focus of the story, is the denouement. I avoid spoilers whenever possible, but suffice it to say that all four players are powerful and convincing throughout.

Director Lisa Peterson has mostly created a kind of seamless production, where one rarely thinks about how it’s done, as we arecaught up in the emotional tangle of the characters. It’s an accomplished piece of work that deserves to be seen & heard.

The Trouble with Mr Adams by Gord Rand continues at Tarragon Theatre’s Extraspace until November 29th.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Embedded in David Warrack’s oratorio Abraham

Posted on October 29, 2015 by barczablog

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built againt it  — Rumi

I am home after standing & singing alongside the Elmer Iseler Singers. It’s been exciting to share the sanctuary of Metropolitan United church with such luminous talents as Richard Margison, Meredith Hall, Theresa Tova, Ramona Carmelly, Hussein Janmohamed, George Krissa, Lydia Adams, composer & pianist David Warrack (and that’s far from a complete list!)…

And it’s over as suddenly as it came together.

Composer & pianist David Warrack

Embedded? That’s in the sense of the embedded journalists of the Iraq War, where the writers lived so close to the warriors that they lost any illusion of objectivity. I’m deep in this project, fortunate to be one of the soloists at Hillcrest Church where composer David Warrack normally hangs his hat. Don’t expect objectivity, as this is more of a love letter.

David used bass Paul Babiak and me, the two of us portraying the voice of God, in the Prelude to the piece. Yes you read that right, two of us are the voice of God. There are a number of ways I come to grips with this, in a project celebrating Abraham, the patriarch of three different religions. If you consider that the holy books (The Koran, the Bible or the New Testament) could be understood as the paraphrase of three different groups, listening to the voice of God, then it makes sense. Why two rather than three? Ah but an Old Testament story such as that of Abraham would be shared by Christianity & Judaism, so you’d only need two voices not three: and please excuse me if that sounds reductive. That’s one way to understand it.

Paul suggested that perhaps God is in the space between our voices, a lovely mystery. And speaking of paraphrases, i hope i did his idea justice in how i represented it here.

A new work such as this one is ultimately a conversation, as the work poses challenges to a series of artists who offer their answers at this time. It’s a bit bewildering to undertake a new work because there are different ways one can sing the same notes. This was less an issue for me –with only a few notes and clear specifications—than for some of the other singers, who had a number of possible options. I was especially fascinated by the work of Richard Margison in the title role, singing at times with a big operatic sound, at other times with a whole range of tones loud and soft. He’s sounding quite wonderful.

Tenor Richard Margison (photo: Katie Cross)

Tenor Richard Margison (photo: Katie Cross)

Abraham seems to have a future, not just because of the warmth of the audience in response. There are plans for future performances, as Warrack continues to add to the piece, which he calls a work in progress. Just as it’s a privilege to be present at a new birth, so too for the premiere of a new work. Assume that I will be at the very least telling you about its next incarnation, when I hope I will also have the pleasure of participating.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | Leave a comment

Mahler’s Symphony No. 2: benefit for St. Michael’s Hospital

Posted on October 27, 2015 by barczablog

Benefit concert for St. Michael’s Hospital presents Mahler’s monumental Symphony No. 2 

TORONTO — An epic Mahler masterpiece takes centre stage on Nov. 16, 2015, in a special concert at Metropolitan United Church to benefit St. Michael’s Hospital (SMH). This annual fundraiser has generated over $27,000 in just two years, with 100% of ticket proceeds going to SMH’s Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit (MS ICU). Presented by Opera 5 general director Rachel Krehm and her family in remembrance of Elizabeth Krehm, this year’s performance offers Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, a monumental work commonly known as the “resurrection symphony.”

Kingston Symphony music director Evan Mitchell conducts the Pax Christi Chorale in addition to a full orchestra comprising members of the Kitchener Waterloo Symphony, the Kingston Symphony, the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra and music faculty members from the University of Toronto. Opera 5’s Rachel Krehm sings the soprano role and is joined by Toronto-based mezzo-soprano Michele Bodganowicz.

The annual fundraiser is presented in memory of Elizabeth Krehm, who passed away at the age of 22 in the MS ICU at St. Michael’s Hospital on Nov. 17, 2012. During her month’s stay in the MS ICU, Liz received a high level of care from the unit’s doctors and nurses, prompting the Krehm family to establish this benefit concert series in her honour.

“As a family of musicians, we believe strongly in the healing and connecting power of music,” says Rachel Krehm. “We held the first memorial concert for Liz in 2013, to mark one year since her passing away. It raised such a significant sum for St. Michael’s Hospital that we decided to make it an annual event. St. Mike’s MS ICU took such good care of my sister during her stay, and we as a family want to support the unit and its staff so that it can continue to offer extraordinary care to patients and their families.”

The concert takes place on Nov. 16, 2015 at 8 p.m. Admission is pay-what-you-can with a suggested minimum donation of $20, and 100% of proceeds benefit the Medical Surgical Intensive Care Unit of SMH. This admission model ensures access for anyone who wishes to attend.

“It is the dedication of our community fundraisers like the Krehm family that helps the St. Michael’s Foundation raise much-needed funds to support the care of the patients who need it most,” says Jennifer Grey, Associate Vice President of Special Events and Annual Program of St. Michael’s Foundation. “This benefit concert has raised over $27,000 in the past two years—an impressive achievement! We wish the Krehm family much success with this year’s event and thank all of the dedicated and generous donors who attend the event each year in memory of Elizabeth Krehm.”

LISTING INFORMATION
Mahler’s Symphony No. 2
Nov.16 at 8 p.m.
Metropolitan United Church, 56 Queen St. E., Toronto
Tickets: by donation at the door (pay-what-you-can)
More info: 647-248-4048 or see www.facebook.com/events/159116471104369/

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NDP delusions: a leader stays on, and what we need instead

Posted on October 26, 2015 by barczablog

Justin Trudeau is a very lucky man. Oh I’m not saying he doesn’t deserve his win. I am ecstatic about the election last Monday, and as mentioned previously, had a Liberal sign on my lawn.

But our democracy needs a genuine conversation among the parties. That isn’t about to happen for awhile, and that’s what I mean about calling JT a lucky man.

  • Conservatives? Harper has resigned. The Conservative Party may leap into a leadership battle. Doug Ford has made noise about being the next leader. In the meantime, however, this party is not going to be able to hold the Liberals accountable, which means lucky Justin (part 1)
  • NDP? Even worse. Yes Mulcair is a great Parliamentarian. But his campaign was a disaster. I pick up my headline from a wonderfully incisive piece on THE LEFT CHAPTER

Whereas the Conservatives will at least have a leadership campaign if not an actual soul-searching, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards for the NDP.

Mulcair will be much more of a thorn in Justin’s side than the conservative leader, at least until they choose someone new. But the NDP are apparently in a time-warp, re-enacting scenarios we have seen before.  I am a former NDP member, having canvassed, having had my heart broken in losing efforts, and a man with huge sympathy for the NDP.

I believe there’s a culture of political correctness within the party that is in some ways very admirable, but also dysfunctional. Defeat is normal within the NDP. No I don’t mean they always lose, but I do mean that they lose more often than any major party. When you have 300+ ridings in the country and come away with fewer than 40 members, that’s a lot of defeated candidates, a lot of stoicism, a lot of expressions of gratitude in the face of heartbreak. Now look back at the past decades and you see a great many more defeats, more downcast eyes, more sadness.

Under the circumstances is it any wonder that Mulcair is staying on? This party of heartbreak and stoicism have a high pain threshold, a tolerance for agony you won’t find in the other parties. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, it’s a pain management strategy.  Is the NDP really seeking to become a party that wins, or are they paralyzed by who they have always been: a party of pain & commiseration.  No one in this party lays any blame on Mulcair, who was likely following the strategy he was given, ineffectual as it turned out to be.

But Mulcair staying on gives Trudeau a break because this party have decided to keep banging their heads against the same wall as before. They are now unmasked. Mulcair is no longer the powerful leader of the opposition, oh no.  He’s been revealed as the inheritor of Jack Layton’s mantle who couldn’t nearly replicate that success, as they slipped back to where they usually finish: a distant third.  Our parliament really should be a conversation among strong & articulate alternatives.  We need strong voices on all sides of the House.

Now of course if Trudeau fails to deliver, Mulcair is ready.  The question is, does Mulcair represent the future of the NDP? Or its past..?

Reuters/Canadian Press photo from an article a month ago. The world has changed since then.

Posted in Politics | 3 Comments

Ideal Pyramus and Thisbe

Posted on October 25, 2015 by barczablog

There are several ways to approach opera composition & opera production. I would like to propose that there might be a polarity we could imagine between extremes, given that at least one of those options is entirely in the mind. Is opera ever realistic? It’s a crazy idea when we remember that opera is a form full of singing and dancing personages. Perhaps the sanest operas are those that eschew display and showmanship, that set aside the virtuoso imperative while embracing the ideal nature of the form.

And so this may sound arbitrary to some of you, that I’d divide opera between those seeking to imitate life, and those turning their back on that life, preferring to go inside to represent an ideal world. Oh I’m not saying that this latter group only portray perfection, just that the level of abstraction is so high that we’re in a realm that’s much more concerned with ideas & concepts than character motivation or gut feelings.

The Canadian Opera Company’s new production of Pyramus & Thisbe is really a program of three works, two serving as a kind of prologue to Barbara Monk Feldman’s new opera. I can only offer my own rationale for the two baroque pieces that begin our program:

  • Monteverdi’s Lamento d’Arianna is a brief scene including some of the best known music of the early 17th century.  Excuse me for waxing ridiculous for a moment, as I include a version of the famous tune sung by a MAN, which is perhaps an indication of how far we’ve come in the past 30 years.  I am not really sure why this is there except as a portrait of heart-break, of love that has been lost. But that is exactly what we see on this program. We do not see love enacted, no kisses, no hugs, no smiling eye contact.  This is as modern as Facebook, lovers in that most modern situation: all alone.
  • Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda
    Love is a battlefield as Pat Benatar was wont to say. Whatever your age (and unlike the personages in that song I am not young), the male and the female may seem to be at war.

    We’ve seen a lot of this lately. A couple of days ago I watched another baroque opera concerning a battlefield where man and woman encounter one another. You tell me whether Lully’s Renaud & Armide or Monteverdi’s Tancredi & Clorinda are any more or less realistic than the figure in Benatar’s song. [wow Trey Wilson!]

Speaking of the battle between the genders, it wasn’t too many months since we saw two other operas on the COC stage encompassing a conflict between man and woman. The woman in Erwartung? Or perhaps Duke Bluebeard & his wives? Whether we’re using Schonberg’s expressionist toolkit, Bartok’s more symbolist method, or the baroque operas I cite above, we won’t mistake these stages for the real world.

And that’s all preamble for Pyramus and Thisbe, the third and longest work on the program. We are in an abstract realm, contemplating the meaning of love as though making a forensic examination. I don’t mean we’re poring over bodies or stains on the sheets. But there’s a character onstage who looks just like Peter Falk’s Columbo, played by Owen McCausland. In the battle (Tancredi & Clorinda) it’s as though we’re watching bun raku, that form of puppetry where a story-teller (or in this case, a singer) frames the performance of the puppets (who in this case are a pair of humans), mediating for us.

Owen McCausland as Testo in Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (Photo: Chris Hutcheson)

Owen McCausland as Testo in Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda (Photo: Chris Hutcheson)

Once we’re into the new opera, he continues to be a curious figure divorced from the world he is observing. The stage is populated by chorus members paired off as if in echo of the two main characters. They foreshadow what’s to come in the story, as the men wrap shawls around their necks as though to hang themselves: although we don’t see an actual suicide.

One big reason I mentioned the two operas from the spring (two paragraphs ago) is that once again Krisztina Szabó appears to be the go-to singer for a company taking on new / difficult music, alongside the third principal, Phillip Addis. But I don’t believe this score is anywhere near as challenging as what Szabó took on in Erwartung.  Even so this is a remarkable achievement for all three singers & the chorus. The two Monteverdi works that begin the program call for a totally different vocalism, both in comparison to the new music and indeed compared to what we’re accustomed to hearing.

(l-r) Krisztina Szabó as Arianna with Phillip Addis and Owen McCausland in Lamento d’Arianna (Photo: Gary Beechey)

(l-r) Krisztina Szabó as Arianna with Phillip Addis and Owen McCausland in Lamento d’Arianna (Photo: Gary Beechey)

I feel I should mention director Christopher Alden & set designer Paul Steinberg. With a new work you can’t help wondering whether what we’re seeing is in the score or something superimposed by the creative team. For most of the work, we’re watching performers in front of a flat wall of colourful splashes, suggesting pure abstraction rather than representation. And so when Addis and Szabó tussle as though on a battlefield, we can’t take it seriously as a “battle” but rather as something more akin to Benatar’s song: that is, an amorous conflict rather than genuine warfare. The wall had the additional advantage of affording the singers acoustic support, making it possible for them to be very subtle.

I like some of Barbara Monk Feldman’s music very much, and think that it’s a worthwhile composition, a wonderful moment as Canadian composition returns to the COC stage after a long hiatus. I wish I could have more of a sense of what she wrote, given that there are some intriguing layers to the text, the words coming from several interesting sources. I’d need to study it further to have a real sense of it. Again, this is a matter pushing the work into an ideal direction, poetic rather than realistic, and therefore very much in harmony with the style of presentation.

I love Turner as much as the next guy, but i don’t expect all the paintings on display at the AGO to be landscapes or portraits.  Who’s afraid of abstraction?  So long as you don’t mistake this for la boheme or Lucia di Lammermoor you might find Pyramus and Thisbe fascinating & beautiful. The COC will present this triple bill of works again until November 7th. For further information click this logo or the pictures above.

Posted in Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts Mahler 10

Posted on October 24, 2015 by barczablog

Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducting the Orchestre Métropolitain

I will put aside the question of the new Orchestre Métropolitain recording of Mahler’s 10th Symphony (Deryck Cooke version) for the moment, to talk about Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who conducts.

Is Nézet-Séguin the most successful conductor Canada has ever produced?

That can be understood in terms of fame, a discography or the quality of one’s output, as understood through “skill” or “musicianship”. I just want to put that provocative thought out there before I go any further, because I think he’s more famous everywhere else than here (except perhaps Québec, which is after all an entirely different world from Anglophone Canada). He made something of an impact as a wunderkind here in Toronto with a flurry of appearances in 2006, but since that time, seems to conduct everywhere else.  And of course i answer the question with a resounding YES.

(sigh)

Not only do I love his work, but everyone I know who speaks of him tends to say the same thing. I made my first acquaintance with him at a production of Pelléas et Mélisande in Montréal back in 2001, an interpretation that I found wonderfully understated & sympathetic to the singers (oh my god that’s 14 years ago and he’s still just coming up to 40 years old). About ten years ago Nézet-Séguin came to Toronto where he conducted Gounod’s Faust for the Canadian Opera Company, the best thing about that production. And just a few weeks ago, he led his first of several performances of Verdi’s Otello for the Metropolitan Opera. Although I did not attend I’ve read reports including words such as “tremendous”, “exciting” “goosebumps” and “electrifying” from those who did. In the gossip of the CUNY opera listserv, Nézet-Séguin is touted as a possible successor to James Levine at the Met; but how could he fit it in, when he’s already conducting in Rotterdam, Philadelphia and l’Orchestre Métropolitain in Montréal? A look at his schedule is a reminder that he is a vigorous young man –like that other Montrealer Justin Trudeau whose recent election victory against older leaders was built first & foremost on legwork & long days—as he manages to lead at least four orchestras in different parts of the world.  They wouldn’t be asking him to conduct if he weren’t good. See for yourself.

click image for more info

While perusing that amazing schedule, I noticed that Nézet-Séguin will be leading the Philadelphia Orchestra in the Mahler 10th come next spring. I wonder how it will compare to what I’ve been listening to incessantly on my car CD player, ATMA’s new release with l’Orchestre Métropolitain?

One of the reasons I left the CD in the car for the past few weeks was due to a bit of a struggle to find a way to do it justice, to ensure that I really found the right words to describe this interpretation. And so the long preamble about the conductor might seem to be an evasion, but in fact I wanted to make more of this review than just to talk about the recording.

So let me just say that, even with the attendant risk of dissuading Mahler freaks, I want to call this a tremendously original interpretation, one that is different from any Mahler 10 I’ve heard before. I’d been persuaded of the importance of Cooke’s version back in the 80s (when Cooke’s version was brand-new) when I first encountered Levine’s reading, at a time when I bought several of Levine’s recordings of Mahler (including this one) leading the Chicago Symphony. At the time my idea of Mahler was largely based on the ultra-romantic approach, especially the versions conducted by Otto Klemperer and Bruno Walter. That may sound odd, how could Mahler be anything but romantic? The references risk a kind of circularity of argument. But I think Klemperer and Walter emphasize the lushness of Mahler, making the works longer by use of slower tempi and occasional rubati. More recently conductors have pushed their Mahler into a higher gear, playing it faster and with greater cohesion. I put Leonard Bernstein at the top of this heap of revolutionaries (given that I credit Walter, Mahler’s friend, with a kind of authenticity to his stylistic choices). Where the big developments in a symphony can seem to take an excruciatingly long time in Klemperer, they become breath-taking when done at Bernstein’s pace.

Nézet-Séguin takes us in Bernstein’s direction without being nearly so frenetic, without any signs of discomfort. The orchestra plays with clarity yes, but also with what sounds to my ears like pleasure. The opening movement builds to that unforgettable climax, but sounding brand-new in doing so as a kind of soft and vulnerable exposition, inexorable but absolutely truthful. There’s a simplicity to it that makes it sound brand new, and so much beauty in that discordant moment that I’ve never noticed before, less a scream than something emerging from deep within. The scherzo second movement erupts in a climax at it conclusion but without that sense of struggle one finds in the slower recordings, nor the stress I experience in Bernstein’s recordings caused by careening so quickly through the music. Not to be reductive, but oh my God, Nézet-Séguin and OM seem to play as fast as is possible while still sounding as though they’re having fun rather than losing control. This is a joy-ride and masterfully done, not a desperate mad dash with the fear of a mis-step. The passionate phrases in the third movement are not overly mystified, as they can be when the pacing is at the whim of a distant conductor taking everything a bit too slowly, the phrases emerging like a reticent confession. No, these emerge exactly as one would want, with a natural rhetoric to them, building to climaxes that feel totally organic, as though the big orchestra were a large athletic beast bounding through the forest at a happy gallop.

The darkness of the fourth movement, with its sudden contrasts of playful phrases hangs together for me better than any performance I’ve ever heard. It’s not morose nor overly introspective, just matter of fact, fatalistic in its surrender to what is on the page. As such we get an inexorable Mahler that moves from great moment to great moment, without suffering over itself, without all the self-congratulations of the older style conductors. The odd juxtapositions between disparate elements with which Mahler confronts us in this work? They’re simple and unanswerable in such a direct reading. Those magisterial closing phrases of the final movement feel that much more profound when the composer is given the benefit of the doubt: that he knew what he was doing.

This man is an amazing conductor and yet he is so young. Perhaps Nézet-Séguin will come back to Toronto sometime, perhaps to lead the TSO or conduct an opera for the COC: if he can find the time.

One can hope.

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