Penalty balks

Posted on May 13, 2014 by barczablog

We often hear about the beauty of sports, that soccer –aka “football” to most of the world– is “the beautiful game”.  The aesthetic pleasures found in sports vary of course.  Winning really helps, don’t you find? When you lose, things never look quite as rosy.

I’d like to think I can discuss this dispassionately, but then again that may be something I am particularly well equipped to be, as a fan whose teams are mostly out of the race.  I was remarking to a friend that the World Cup and the Stanley Cup are similar for Toronto Maple Leaf fans.  Just as Canada never seems to play the final tournament, so too with the Leafs.  Who I’m rooting for becomes a kind of academic exercise.  Ir’s not yet the All-Star Break but the Blue-Jays are already eating the dust of the division leaders: and that’s okay.  The Raptors gave us an unexpected thrill this spring, even if they were on the sidelines after a very closely matched playoff with the Nets.  Now it’s back to normal for Torontonians: watching the rest of the world play.

It’s been said we make great commentators.  We’re a country of observers, it seems.  Marshall McLuhan, Northrop Frye, John Kenneth Galbraith, Glenn Gould..  Maybe this goes hand in hand with our relationship to our team sports: who –in Toronto at least– haven‘t won a championship in a long time.

I want to speak to one fundamental aspect of sport, namely justice.  Team sports have rules, and sanctions of some kind for breaking those rules.  I would argue that the aesthetics of a game are inseparable from the sanctions for transgression and the way rules are enforced.  Need I remind you that I live in a city where it appears to be okay to smoke crack or drive drunk, at least if you’re a rich political figure.  At one time I thought our society was fair because the rules were the same for the poor & the rich; silly me, how could I believe such nonsense?  I believe the enforcement of the rules is a system that makes beauty possible.

  • In NFL football if you break a rule you pay a territorial penalty: the position where the ball is scrimmaged is moved a certain number of yards, depending on the severity of the penalty
  • In NHL hockey if you break a rule you pay a temporal penalty
  • In NBA basketball penalties vary in severity, but eventually result in opportunities to score: free-throws
  • In FIFA soccer penalties vary in severity, but penalties in the penalty area are near-certain opportunities to score: penalty kicks

I’m falling out of love with hockey, tired of

  • a macho culture that substitutes thuggery for skill (if you need someone to explain this to you ask Don Cherry, the apologist for hockey players who substitute toughness for real skill: something like Cherry himself come to think of it)
  • rule changes that are touted in the autumn (when the season begins) but never enforced come springtime (aka playoff time)
  • a tendency to call the game differently at the end of the season.

Imagine any other sport working this way.  Can you imagine a baseball game where the strike zone is different in October than in April?  A football game where pass interference or holding infractions are defined differently in the playoffs than at the beginning of the year?

But that’s exactly how hockey works, which is why I find it hard to watch in the spring.  Not because the Leafs are out.

And so, in the interest of making hockey a bit more like the sports that I can count on –NFL, NBA, baseball, even FIFA soccer– here are some modest proposals.

  • Overtime in the regular season?  Why not make it 3 on 3 (goalie included)?  Surely the goal should be to reward skill. Teams that skate would prosper in that scenario.  And while you imagine that, imagine that the referees will actually call penalties: every penalty all season long.  Now picture that 3 on 3, when a team gets a penalty, and the power-play team pull their goalie (three skaters against one + goalie).   Unfair?  Or is it simply the way it works in those other sports –such as soccer or basketball– where penalties are understood to lead to scoring, are understood to bring about –wait for it– justice.
  • Here’s a way to make every NHL team a bit more prosperous with an easy rule change, something with a precedent.  At one time hockey was played with seven skaters a side (goalie plus six), and then they changed it from seven to six.  Players are bigger and stronger, right?  Some are having issues with concussions from the bone-jarring collisions.  What if the NHL were to again reduce, from six to five?  Suddenly every rink would feel bigger.  Suddenly skating ability would matter more, and body-checks would be harder to do.
  • Sometimes a team gets a couple of penalties, and — gasp — the team is then two men short.  And at this point, do the players suddenly stop committing infractions?  Of course not. Often you’ll see a play where two or even three infractions occur all over the ice within a few seconds time.  The referees seem to be prisoners of a kind of political correctness, not wanting to interfere in the outcome of the game.   It’s madness, when they enable a culture of thuggery and rule-infraction.  The penalty box will have two people in it, and subsequent infractions seem to be invisible. Referees don’t call the rules.  But what if they did? What if you escalated penalties, in fact making it anathema to commit a third penalty instead of something one can do with virtual impunity.  You have two penalties, and when the third happens, why not really clobber the perpetrator?  How about a penalty shot on the spot?  How about a two-man penalty shot, given that single man penalty shots are far from certain of scoring..?  Just as FIFA penalty kicks are almost certain goals, NHL penalty shots should be something to be feared, a genuine deterrent to the infraction.  Or what if the third infraction were required to sit in the box, awaiting the end of the previous penalty before the clock even starts…?
  • Fighting should be eradicated. It’s unhealthy for the poor guys who get pounded on.  Stick infractions should be treated as a priority foul. There should be no such thing as two minutes for high sticking.  Do we put people away for six months when they commit murder?

Okay I’m dreaming.  This isn’t’ meant to make Toronto a winner. This is meant to make hockey fun to watch again given that I always watch the playoffs, with the Leafs on the sidelines.  The NBA and the NFL are truly fair, which means that they are genuinely beautiful to watch.  While there are stunning moments in the NHL it could be so much better.  Clutch and grab hockey is really a way to allow mediocre talent in, because there aren’t enough good players.  It’s a bit like deciding to hire singers with bad voices, people who sing flat in a musical or opera, because you can‘t afford good voices.

The World Cup is coming soon.  It’s a beautiful game because it’s just, fair.  Same with baseball & basketball & football.

Would that it were so for hockey.

Posted in Sports | 4 Comments

10 Questions for Ann Cooper Gay

Posted on May 12, 2014 by barczablog

Every now and then I get the opportunity to interview one of the key figures in the Canadian opera scene, people such as Stuart Hamilton or Marshall Pynkoski.  Ann Cooper Gay is another such figure.  I’ve known Ann a very long time.

How long? I remember a time before Mr (Errol) Gay came into the picture.  I saw her Anne Truelove redeem Henry Ingram’s Tom Rakewell from the Nick Shadow of Peter Barcza at the U of T‘s Opera Department production.  Ann played the organ at my first wedding, accompanying Peter singing my setting of William Carlos Williams’ poem “The Rewaking”.  Even then I knew her for musicianship, energy, a unique personality, and it must be said, a deep well of patience and loving kindness because I know I must have been a pain in the butt.  I may be conflating roles, but I am sure I recall a Despina and a Mimi, although hehehe it‘s awhile ago.  But in other words, the Ann Cooper Gay who has been running the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus knows the medium from the inside out, as a gifted musician, singer, actor, and working artist before she undertook the complexities of running a company.

Mentorship was something extra Bradshaw was known for. He's gone, Ann Cooper Gay is still at it...

Mentorship was something extra Bradshaw was known for. He’s gone, Ann Cooper Gay is still at it.

Excuse me if I digress, but the opportunity to remember Richard Bradshaw –and through his eyes to recall earlier days for Ann & the CCOC– is something I can’t pass up, as I cite both a letter from Richard Bradshaw to Ann Cooper Gay, plus a photo, showing Bradshaw-the-mentor with his heart very much on his sleeve.

Dear Ann,

You really are a most magnificent triumph in every way. Quite how you got that thing together with all its sometimes puzzling complexity, I don’t know, but it must have taken a will and enthusiasm that nobody has in quite such measure as you.  I thought it was a remarkable achievement and many, many congratulations to you all (and to your excellent pianist)!

Love,
Richard.[Richard Bradshaw, General Director Canadian Opera Company]

Librettist Kaitlin Bryski

Librettist Kaitlin Bryski

As Bradshaw implies, it’s a huge undertaking.  Recently I interviewed a CCOC alumna Kate Applin, and realized that Ann is an important figure who is often under the radar.  Sometimes her charges appear in COC shows –the children in Tosca or La boheme or  Carmen.  The three genii in Magic Flute were CCOC singers. But at the same time, Ann keeps commissioning new operas from Canadian composers, recruiting young singers to replace those who have grown up with her as a role model, producing, fund-raising….  The latest such project will premiere on May 29th at the Enwave Theatre, Norbert Palej’s East o’ the Sun and West  o’ the Moon, libretto by Kaitlin Bryski.    I feel privileged to know Ann and Errol (who has composed some of the CCOC operas), for all this time.  It seems especially apt that I’m assembling Ann’s responses on Mother’s Day, a time when we celebrate and honour mothers & nurturing spirits in our families and among us in our culture.  Ann is a genuine mother figure even if she still has the energy and cute smile of the ingenue.

On the occasion of the May 29th premiere I ask Ann ten questions: five about herself and five more about CCOC and her work

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

Ann Cooper Gay (photo: Tom Sandler)

I am probably a good mix of both my parents.  I love to dream and create and I am curious about most things in this world and beyond.  I am passionate about learning and have enjoyed learning other languages and several musical instruments.  My father’s sisters sang and played and my mother sang and played the piano.  I wouldn’t describe my family as a musical one, but my parents made sure that I had a piano and a flute as well as good private teachers and my brother had his trumpet.

I was born in North Texas and grew up in South Texas where my father ran a store and my mother taught school.  It was a small town along the Gulf Coast, but the opportunities were there in the form of very excellent musicians.  The church organist (trained at the Chicago Conservatory of Music) taught me theory & organ and I started playing the organ at age 10; I was already playing flute by this time and the band director had attended the University of Michigan and had also studied under William Kincaid (principal flutist of the Philadelphia Orchestra).  His wife was my beloved piano teacher and choral director.  What are the odds of finding this caliber of teachers in a small coastal town anywhere?  There is a system in the States called the All-State Bands/Orchestras/Choirs run by the individual State Music Educators Assn.  It’s all done by audition, is quite competitive, allowing advanced music students the opportunity to rehearse and perform with like-minded peers under the direction of top-notch guest clinicians.  I lived for All-District, All-Region, and All-State Band.  I also enjoyed being a majorette and a cheerleader – I must have enjoyed performing because it wasn’t a huge stretch to become an opera singer.  I also liked to plan events and work with people and that led right into teaching and conducting.  I like to think of myself as a salesperson for music.  I believe in the power of music to change lives. I am a huge fan of the music program emanating from Venezuela  –  El Sistema.

2) What is the best thing or worst thing about being Artistic Director of a company such as Canadian Children’s Opera Company?

The best thing is watching the kids grow up, improve as singers and actors, develop leadership skills, and to see their pride when they have done a really good job.  The hardest part is having to choose kids to sing lead roles over other kids who would love to do the roles, but aren’t yet ready to assume that responsibility – both vocally and dramatically.  This is my 14th year (I can’t believe it) and the job I accepted in 2000 has evolved into something much more.  I suppose the difficult part of the job, as it has developed over the fourteen years, is that one doesn’t really have a proper down time.  That is partly my fault (I have trouble saying “no”) and the lack of funds to hire more staff.  We have a great staff – both administratively and artistically and a wonderfully supportive board of directors.  Locating proper funding is the real challenge, and that’s true for every arts organization.

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

I like to watch Jeopardy and The Agenda (TV).  I listen to, and attend when time permits, operatic, symphonic, and celtic music concerts.

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

The ability to reserve quiet time for myself…I’m working on it and I can see the benefits to one’s mind and body.

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

I enjoy hearing daughter Erin sing and learning more about early music from her, sewing, reading, genealogy, discovering interesting postings on YouTube, & gardening now that the weather is better.

********

Charwomen from A Dickens of a Christmas (Errol Gay, composer, & Michael Albano, librettist/stage director)

Charwomen from A Dickens of a Christmas (Errol Gay, composer, & Michael Albano, librettist/stage director). Photo: Michael Cooper.

Five more about Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus and their upcoming production of East o’ the Sun and West  o’ the Moon.

1) How does being Executive Artistic Director of Canadian Children’s Opera Company challenge you?

This is a very good question.  How does CCOC keep me engaged?  Well, I am never without something to do:  that is, to think about, to decide upon, to figure out, to talk to staff about, to read hundreds of emails, to listen to new auditions, to listen to existing choristers and hear their progress, to answer parents’ questions, to attend board meetings, to interview potential staff (both artistic and administrative), to assist with fundraising, but most important is the necessity to plan rehearsals so that all material is covered and the children and youth will be able to present the music with confidence.

2) what do you love about programming & commissioning & producing with CCOC?

This is probably a walk down memory lane, but productions where the children and youth have contributed the most effort – musical and dramatic – toward making the opera a huge success.  I love to hire professional singers to appear with the CCOC and they are terrific role models for the children.  We’ve had many over the past and before my time, Ben Heppner, was a much-loved performer.  In Harry Somers’ A Midwinter Night’s Dream, we had James Westman, Michael Colvin and Allyson McHardy; Dean Burry’s The Hobbit allowed us to work with John Fanning; in Errol Gay/Michael Albano’s A Dickens of a Christmas we had Mark Pedrotti, Ryan Harper, and James McLean; in Errol Gay/Michael Albano’s Laura’s Cow we had Andrew Love and CCOC alumni:  Marta Herman, Tessa Laengert, and Adanya Dunn.

Director Joel Ivany

Director Joel Ivany

We’ve had wonderful stage directors starting with Tom Diamond, Duncan McIntosh, Valerie Kuinka, Joel Ivany [directing the current production], and Michael Albano.  Our collaborative partners have provided opportunities that we might never have been able to experience:  Canadian Opera Company, Toronto Symphony, Soundstreams Canada, Hannaford Street Silver Band, and the TENORS.  From the inception of the RUBIES, the gala run by Opera Canada, the CCOC has opened the festivities.  Ruby Mercer, our founder, also founded Opera Canada, so it’s a very lovely evening celebrating one of Canada’s visionaries in the field of opera.  When I started in July 2000, there were only about 90 children in four divisions; we now have 150 kids in six divisions plus an outreach program called OPERAtion KIDS (in its sixth season).  The total membership fluctuates between 150-190, depending upon the season.  One thing I’m really pleased about:  when I started in 2000, there weren’t a lot of graduates going into opera studies.  Of course, there was always the brilliant Karina Gauvin and we’re enormously proud of her.  Over these past 14 years, we’ve seen the numbers increase in the number of grads entering university and pursuing a degree in music.  Some are already attached to German opera houses and that pleases me greatly.  Our grads tend to go to U of T, McGill, Western, Laurier, UBC, and the Glenn Gould.  Over the years I have been proud to hire alums to teach various choruses or work in an administrative position – Bronwen Low, Sophia Perlman, Tessa Laengert, Katy Harmer, Liam Falkenheim, and Adanya Dunn.  The new (not so new, now!) directors at the COC (General Director, Alexander Neef, and Music Director, Johannes Debus) have welcomed the CCOC and we enjoy a wonderful working relationship with both of them.

3) Out of the complex planning and development cycle, what’s your favourite moment when you mount an opera?

I have two favourite moments:  1) when I come up with the idea and watch the librettist and composer react; 2) the buzz of the opening performance and the closing performance because the children and youth are so engaged and excited.

Ann's caption: "Our favourite cafe in Yorkville -- Coffee Mill, where I can practise my three sentences in Hungarian!!! Errol, Michael, myself, Johannes, Erin -- just having lunch together."

Ann’s caption: “Our favourite cafe in Yorkville — Coffee Mill, where I can practise my three sentences in Hungarian!!!  Errol, Michael, myself, Johannes, Erin — just having lunch together.”

4) Please put CCOC into context, in a culture that doesn’t always value music education or classical culture.

Leslie, I asked Errol to put these thoughts into a paragraph or two and I think he has written something very, very fine.  So, here is his contribution to this question:

CCOC is the only organization in Canada (and possibly the world) that commissions and performs operas written for and performed by children.  There is an important cultural and philosophical corollary to this factual statement.

When children are exposed–positively–to an artistic format other than that with which they are bombarded mercilessly by the purveyors of crass commercialism, they tend to respond in an unusual fashion:  they attain a sense of discernment.  This is not to say they abandon the culture of their peers, but they do develop the ability to make informed distinctions among their cultural options.  This is, of course, what education is all about:  leading one to be able to make enlightened choices.  The understanding of “high” art is, by definition if not by popular consensus in our times, a goal towards which any educated person should strive.  Opera is perhaps its most complete manifestation in that it combines almost all of the separate elements of that all-encompassing term.  Although “grand opera” may not have as much “traction” in the 21st century as it has had over the previous 400 years (it’s always about money, isn’t it?), chamber opera–and yes, children’s opera–have, I think, a future that  will only grow in status and appeal.  The longevity and accomplishments of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company attest to it.

5) Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you? 

Obviously my husband, Dr. Errol Gay, who has shown patience in teaching me the craft of conducting, especially orchestral; my first opera mentors (musical and dramatic) were Dr. Herman Geiger-Torel (General Director, COC), Ernesto Barbini (COC conductor), Madame Irene Jessner (voice), James Craig (conductor/coach), Constance Fisher (stage director), Leon Major (stage director), Jan Rubes (singer & stage director), Bruce Lunkley (voice), Edward Matthiessen (voice), my friend — your brother Peter Barcza (baritone), Dr. Grady Wilson (organ),  and huge thanks to the larger-than-life, former General Director, COC, Richard Bradshaw, who believed passionately in the CCOC.

********

Canadian Children’s Opera Company’s production of Norbert Palej’s East o’ the Sun and West o’ the Moon runs May 29th to June 1st at the Enwave Theatre at Toronto’s Harbourfront.   poster

Posted in Interviews, Opera | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Questions of identity

Posted on May 11, 2014 by barczablog

Do you know who you are?

Today’s performance of the Canadian Opera company production of Roberto Devereux  at the Four Seasons Centre seemed like an investigation of identity.

For one thing, there’s the opera’s plot, which concerns Elizabeth I and intrigues surrounding her.  In Donizetti’s opera we’re not coming at the story from the usual pro-British perspective but instead from the Catholic side.  It makes Mary Stuart a tragic hero (different opera but part of the “trilogy”), and quite possibly portrays Elizabeth more truthfully than what we get from Hollywood.  This is a vain & troubled Elizabeth, which is something unexpectedly edgy when you’re watching a bel canto opera.    So be advised, this is not what you’d expect.

Stephen Lawless’s productions of the trilogy are self-referential, particularly in the last scene of the last opera.  We’ve been in a kind of Globe Theatre replica, in recognition that in her world surely Elizabeth was in some sense a performer with an audience.  I avoided speaking of this aspect the first time I saw the production because I dislike spoilers; yet today, where I deliberately sought a front row seat for a full-frontal experience of the last scene, and knowing what was coming I was still so bowled over I was without a voice for a long time.  The last scene is very much about Elizabeth coming to terms with who she is, both her private sense of herself and the larger spheres such as the political and the historical.  In a good production at a special moment, it doesn’t change anything knowing it’s coming.

Leonardo Capalbo as Roberto Devereux and Sondra Radvanovsky as Elisabetta in the Canadian Opera Company production of Roberto Devereux, 2014. Conductor Corrado Rovaris, director Stephen Lawless, set designer Benoît Dugardyn, costume designer Ingeborg Bernerth and lighting designer Mark McCullough. Photo: Michael Cooper

Leonardo Capalbo (from earlier in the run) as Roberto Devereux and Sondra Radvanovsky as Elisabetta in the Canadian Opera Company production of Roberto Devereux, 2014. Conductor Corrado Rovaris, director Stephen Lawless, set designer Benoît Dugardyn, costume designer Ingeborg Bernerth and lighting designer Mark McCullough. Photo: Michael Cooper

And the identity of our Elizabeth was of course the main reason I had intended to be there in the front row.  This was a chance to see Sondra Radvanovsky again from very close up.  Sometimes good performances don’t look quite as good from up close.  I’d been very moved, for example by Lucy Crowe’s singing in Hercules when seen from afar, as I’d been moved by Alice Coote; up close I found Crowe histrionic and unconvincing (but still nice to hear) whereas Coote, who’d already moved me blew me away even more up close.   Similarly, Radvanovsky was ready for her close-up.  She made me cry three times (at least) in Aida a few years ago, so I wasn’t really surprised.  I didn’t expect to be reduced to a blubbering mess at the end, by the solemn horror with which she–literally– steps into her place in history to end the opera.

Maybe the biggest identity question for me today was the title role.  Ernesto Ramirez, who was the cover for Roberto Devereux, got the nod today.  Knowing that people were coming to see Radvanovsky from all over the world, I can imagine the pressure Ramirez must have felt when he was told he’d be getting a performance.  And so –speaking of theatrical drama– this was the classic drama within a drama.

Tenor Ernesto Ramirez

And Ramirez knows who he is.  While I was grooving on Radvanovsky’s voice, I was wondering how the young tenor would approach the role.  I say this because I recall seeing something rather interesting in the run of Aida, a matter of identity and self-knowledge.  Radvanovsky shared the run with a young soprano named Michelle Capalbo (coincidentally the same name as the tenor who sang earlier in the run). Here’s what I wrote in my blog back in 2010, just after I started.

Radvanovsky enticed the Rhadames of Rosario La Spina to sing louder than he probably intended.  By Act IV, he was a spent-force, after heroically singing himself out earlier, cracking and fading.  On the night I saw him with Capalbo, on the other hand, he stayed within his usual limits, and as a result never cracked.  At times the voice sounded lovely.

In other words, singing opposite one of the most powerful voices in the world, do you know who you are and continue singing as you should, or try to perhaps be something you’re not, press, and sing yourself out (as La Spina clearly did)..?  So I wondered if the same thing might happen to Ramirez, singing opposite such a powerfully-voiced soprano.  But no.  Ramirez knows who he is.  The singing was thoughtful, well-planned.  I have not heard a performance that was so accurately pitched in a very long time. Every single note was exactly on pitch, including two high B’s in his final scene.  I believe there may have been other posssible interpolated notes –that Capalbo gave us on opening night– that Ramirez had the good sense to skip.

Ramirez is not Pavarotti –again speaking of identity– but to my ear, the resemblance is striking.  The line, the lovely precision attack on high notes… but one big difference.  The Great Pavarotti was known to be an instinctive singer who did not read music.  Ramirez? I saw him accompany his wife Michelle on clarinet at a concert I reviewed, as she sang ““non piu di fiori” from La Clemenza di Tito.  Later? He sang “Grenada”, among other things.  I hope this is the big break that shows the world what Ramirez can do.  Who have we heard around here who sounds as good?  Stephen Costello, Ramon Vargas? lovely sounding to be sure, but Ramirez is genuinely in their league, and i swear, a prettier voice.  Yes he does sound like Pavarotti.

Could this be a scene from some operatic equivalent to A Star is Born?  Perhaps it should be.  Ramirez seemed fearless even though the costume didn’t quite fit, even though he’s required to be all over the stage in business that’s above & beyond the singing, for instance as Bottom in a brief snippet from A Midsummernight’s Dream complete with ass’s head.  But I don’t trust the opera world.  I’ve seen too much mis-casting and bizarreness of late –here and abroad– to believe that could happen.  It should happen, the same way the voters of Toronto should wake up and elect someone competent as Mayor.  Sure, I don’t mind if my friends take drugs or drink.  But I wouldn’t want the plane I’m on to be piloted by a drunk.  I’d want someone competent in the driver’s seat.  I want to win my case, not get drunk after losing my lawsuit with the fun chubby guy who’s my lawyer. And yes, I am accustomed to seeing singers who can’t find the right pitch sharing the stage with people who sing perfectly, and nobody in the audience or running the company seeming to give a damn or know the difference.

Sorry, I don’t mean to be negative on a night that was surely a triumph for all involved.  Speaking of identity, what am I doing exactly and who am I?  I’d like to be the one who builds up rather than tears down.   Last night left me feeling sad both for what I saw and for what I felt unable to say.

Tonight? My faith is restored.

Posted in Opera, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Quixotic Ride

Posted on May 10, 2014 by barczablog

On Thursday May 22nd Stephen R. Clarke will be lecturing on “Chaliapin: A Portrait in Recordings” as part of the Canadian Opera Company‘s free noon-hour lecture series.  I wonder if Clarke will play any examples from Massenet’s Don Quichotte?  Unfortunately Clarke’s lecture comes near the end of the run of Don Quichotte at the COC, but I‘m very interested to hear what Clarke will play and what he‘ll have to say.

The opera –and of course the role –of Don Quichotte was created for Chaliapin by the composer Jules Massenet, and premiered in 1910.     Don’t confuse his portrayal of Massenet’s creation with his later portrayal in a film made much later.

Although designed explicitly for a great star, Massenet at this time had come a long way from the virtuosic writing in Manon.  The orchestral textures brilliantly stay out of the way, allowing a singing actor a relatively easy ride  (with or without a horse) through the role.  While it’s a clever vehicle for a star, it’s never caught on among the standard rep operas, being a relatively flimsy vehicle lacking any big numbers or memorable arias.

We’ve come a long way since then.

I had the misfortune to blunder into an article in the Toronto Star writing about the Stratford production of Man of la Mancha and the COC Quichotte (“Don Quichotte inspires two very different shows“) , and as a result conflated them in my mind on opening night Friday May 9th.  I don’t think it was a good idea for the COC to encourage this thinking.

Yes, I loved Ferruccio Furlanetto, who gives a very good performance as the Don.

But it’s not good that I was sitting there watching a Massenet opera, thinking it could just as easily be a road-show production of a musical.  The chorus, usually a pillar of COC productions, seemed very uninspired, possibly because at times they’re asked to take on very unsympathetic roles.  There’s a miraculous scene where a camp of bandits –played by the chorus plus Michel Corbeil in a non-singing  role as head bandit–surround the Don, who’s on the verge of being killed, until the Don moves them to a spiritual transformation.   Perhaps Director Linda Brovsky wanted young buff bandits in the front, but it was a bad choice.  Old and grotesque, particularly if they had the tiniest inkling of commitment & dramatic interest in the scene, might have made a difference.  From where I sat, I saw Michel Corbeil persuading me,  surrounded by a bunch of singers who probably miss the magic of the Donizetti & Handel operas they’ve been in over the past few weeks. They posed very nicely, but otherwise seemed altogether static, as they did in other scenes as well.

The set is a ponderous and obvious assembly of books.  While I found the concept moving and beautiful at first (even if it’s been done at the COC let alone everywhere else), that was before being made to sit through a series of long scene-changes that chose to ignore the music Massenet gave us for that purpose (at least two entr‘actes were staged, rather than employing that music to cover the movement of these humongous books).

I won’t say much more about Don Quichotte -as you can tell what I felt– but I do want to address something I’ve been wondering about for months now, namely casting.  I don’t envy the singers because they seem to regularly take roles that seem ill-advised.  Forgive me if this sounds arrogant, and yes I know there are complex political issues underlying casting decisions.

I saw Allyson McHardy do an unbelievably wonderful job singing Dejanira in Handel’s Hercules with Tafelmusik a couple of years ago.  But of course the Sellars Hercules arrived with its cast etched in stone from the previous incarnation, so forget Canadian McHardy it had to be Alice Coote –who I really loved by the way.  Last week McHardy seemed miscast in Donizetti, singing opposite Russell Braun, who also seemed miscast.  Braun is a subtle actor whose skills were wasted in Trovatore the year before as the villainous Count di Luna, just as I felt they were mis-applied in Roberto Devereux.  But Quinn Kelsey would have been amazing in the Donizetti, admittedly a younger man than Braun, but with a fabulous bel canto sound that was totally mis-used in Don Quichotte.  Kelsey was an awesome Rigoletto recently at the Four Seasons Centre with wonderful top notes; but the role of Sancho Panza is a bass baritone. Every time Kelsey ventured above middle C I kept waiting for the voice to ring out: except that’s not how it’s written.  It’s written in a halting style that seems to short-circuit anything melodic, and not so different from what Richard Strauss gave to Sancho Panza, whose music is what you’d expect from a humble servant.

Sorry let me get back to that road show production of the musical I was talking about… remember?  We used to disparage those things as a mediocre product.  But at least when Lion King or Wicked  blow into town they’re not also supported by tax dollars.

There I was, staring at Johannes Debus conducting the mediocre product I watched tonight, starring Ferruccio Furlanetto (who was wonderful), Quinn Kelsey (who was wonderful pretending to be a bass-baritone, stunningly beautiful in that one lyrical prayer in the last act), Anita Rachvelishvili (fairly good in a generic sort of way…sorry to say), the indifferent COC chorus… and I thought it could be a road-show musical.  It was melodramatic and sentimental, and the crowd ate it up, the way they eat up Lion King, and likely will eat up Man of La Mancha at Stratford, and it should have been much better.  The production continues at the Four Seasons Centre until May 24th.

Excuse me as I take refuge in what I consider a brilliant adaptation of Cervantes, namely Richard Strauss’s tone poem.  I feel fairly certain Massenet knew this music, given that he calls upon the cello for one of the most moving of the entr’actes; Strauss‘s tone-poem is a double concerto, where Sancho Panza is the viola and Don Quixote is the cello.  So let’s be clear –before I give you Strauss– that Massenet’s opera is meant as a vehicle, one that the right singer can indeed ride for all it‘s worth.  Furlanetto does a wonderful job.  It could have been better, but maybe that’s asking too much.

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | 4 Comments

Art Installation: The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha

Posted on May 9, 2014 by barczablog

“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment

ART INSTALLATION, THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN, ON DISPLAY AT CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY’S FOUR SEASONS CENTRE

Toronto – The Canadian Opera Company showcases a quixotic suite of sculptures by Toronto-based new media artist Mitchell F. Chan this May at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in honour of the company’s spring production of Massenet’s opera Don Quichotte, opening May 9 and running for seven performances until May 24, 2014.

Chan’s creation is entitled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha and is now on display in the Isadore and Rosalie Sharp City Room, the glass-enclosed lobby of the Four Seasons Centre. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is available only to those patrons attending one of the remaining performances in the COC’s 2013/2014 season, including Roberto Devereux, which the COC is presenting in repertory with Don Quichotte.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha pays homage to the famous literary tale of the eccentric knight-errant of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which inspired Massenet’s opera. Created by Chan in 2010, the installation is composed of three separate pieces: The Ingenious Gentleman, Portrait of the Artist as Cervantes and Don Quixote, which together produce a translation of Cervantes’ novel through the medium of water vapour.

The Ingenious Gentleman writes out, letter by letter, the entirety of Cervantes’ Don Quixote by using water vapour to emit columns of clouds to form the shape of a given letter. The letters appear as an arrangement of “cloud pixels,” scrolling upwards over time.

Portrait of the Artist as Cervantes is assembled from dehumidifier parts and pulls ambient water vapour from the air and deposits it onto blank paper sheets as water droplets. It’s assumed that this water vapour literally contains the content of the novel having originated from the letters created through The Ingenious Gentleman.

The final piece in the trio, Don Quixote, concludes the metamorphosis with a display of transubstantiated water on paper. The once blank pages from Portrait of the Artist as Cervantes have been bound into hardcover editions with the paper sheets now slightly deformed by absorbing the water droplets that make up the “content” of Cervantes’ book.

Mitchell F. Chan has exhibited in galleries across Canada and the United States. He made his American gallery debut in 2009, exhibiting alongside Robert Rauschenberg at the Alan Avery Art Company in Atlanta. In the same year, he was named a Trustee Scholar in the Art & Technology department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is one of the co-founders of public art and design firm Studio F Minus.

Tickets to the COC’s productions of Don Quichotte and Roberto Devereux are $12 – $332 (includes applicable taxes), and are available online at coc.ca, by calling 416-363-8231, or in person at the

Four Seasons Centre Box Office (145 Queen St. W.).

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A Celebration of Jeanne Lamon

Posted on May 9, 2014 by barczablog

At the end they handed her a bouquet, and she immediately separated it into discreet flowers, walking among her colleagues handing one to each.  It was a moment that was so typical.

Jeanne Lamon with her colleagues

Tafelmusik Music Director Jeanne Lamon (Photographer: Sian Richards)

Jeanne Lamon has been in the process of stepping down from an over 30 year tenure as music director and principal violinist with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra.  As she told us tonight, in the first of a series of celebratory concerts in her honour, she’s not precisely going away.   There are future projects on her horizon, such as an academy of period performance, and a couple of years of transition for Tafelmusik, when she’ll serve as an artistic advisor.

One can’t measure the contribution of such an individual, but suppose we look at what she leaves behind.  Tafelmusik have not had a deficit in many years (I forget the figure quoted tonight, but it’s a number any arts organization could envy). They’re doing many things right, and I look first at the leadership model.  It’s not based on testosterone or male ego, because of course Lamon shares the podium, a distinctly different leadership model than what‘s traditional for symphony orchestras.

This is a culture of humility.  I saw a sample walking in, when I bumped into Alison MacKay, who has contributed more than just her abilities as Double Bass player, but also as a gifted programmer.  She walks up to me and compliments me, but that is the Tafelmusik style, one of generosity, humility, and dare I say it: love.  Lamon joked somewhere recently that her role as leader is one where she can avoid the limelight, because she’s shy.  And so she shares and in the process, the orchestra gains.

In addition to MacKay’s contribution from within, there are others.  There’s Ivars Taurins, who used to play in the orchestra, and who leads the Tafelmusik Baroque choir, the man who portrays Handel for us in the annual singalong Messiah.  There’s David Fallis, of Toronto Consort and the Musical Director of Opera Atelier, challenging the orchestra with everything from Lully to Weber, from Monteverdi to Mozart.  And then there’s Bruno Weil, who has led the orchestra through their Beethoven cycle.

Tonight’s concert will be repeated.  Normally i’d wonder if the magic can be replicated from something that felt so much like a “happening” (a concept that probably dates me) but the source of this chemistry is the relationship between the orchestra and their devoted audience, who will come out each night.  The first part of the concert gave us a little music heavily laced with thank yous, moments that Lamon took to express her thanks to the various parts of the organization.  Just as she’d given a rose to each player, she seemed to thank everyone in the organization.

The program came in three big chunks:
1) “Audience choice” (meaning a few pieces chosen by responses on a website somewhere, perhaps via social media? )
2) “Inspired by Purcell”, three sets of variations on themes by the English composer
3) “Jeanne’s choice”: music chosen by Lamon herself

In a concert with so much emotion, I would still like to call attention to a few spectacular highlights.  The item #2 hints at something unique in my experience.  To honour Lamon, sets of variations were composed that received their premiere tonight.    I know of one precedent in musical history, when a group of composers (including Schubert & Beethoven) were approached to compose a variation on a theme by Anton Diabelli, Beethoven deciding to write a full set of 33 in response.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this has been done other times as well, but I don‘t know for sure.

This time? nineteen different individuals from the extended Tafelmusik community participated, including the partner conductors (Fallis, Weil and Taurins), as well as many of the orchestra’s players: including Lamon herself in a final variation.  It seemed very much like a kind of communion, whereby they not only played together but created the piece as well, christened in performance tonight.

The variations were mostly well within the baroque sensibility of the three Purcell tunes.  Some were overtly comical, quoting recognizable melodies both as part of the playful exercise and as part of the celebration.  Some were more serious.  At times most of the ensemble stood watching a few players, while at other times everyone was engaged.  I sincerely hope the compositions are recorded, not just to commemorate this moment in honour of Jeanne Lamon, but because I believe the music is worthwhile.

The third section was a highly personal set of performances that Lamon chose and arranged, a disparate series of pieces played without interruption or applause.   The sinfonia that begins Monteverdi’s Orfeo –and as I had believed at one time, seemed to begin the form of opera once and for all– began the second half, a procession that grew in its repetition.  We heard an arrangement of the duet “pur ti miro” set for oboes instead of human  voices.  While these may have been Lamon’s favourites, it looked and sounded as though she’d chosen pieces loved by the ensemble.   We heard Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau, JS Bach, including a breakneck reading of the closing Allegro from Brandenburg Concerto no 3.

As Lamon told us in her introductory words, it’s not something you can capture in video, but something you get from live performance.  The electricity between the players and the audience, and in the delightful glances between the players must be seen to be understood.  I’d go again and again if I could.

A Celebration of Jeanne Lamon continues: May 9-11 & 14 at Trinity st Paul’s Centre, Jeanne Lamon Hall and May 13 at George Weston Recital Hall. 

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews | 1 Comment

COC casting change announcement

Posted on May 8, 2014 by barczablog

“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment

CASTING CHANGE FOR CANADIAN OPERA COMPANY’S ROBERTO DEVEREUX

 Toronto – The Canadian Opera Company regrets to announce that Italian tenor Giuseppe Filianoti will not be returning to the company’s production of Roberto Devereux, currently in performance at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. As previously announced, Filianoti withdrew from the title role for the first three of seven scheduled performances, and circumstances continue to prevent his return to the stage. American tenor Leonardo Capalbo stepped into the role on April 25, 29 and May 3, 2014 and was met with overwhelming popular and critical acclaim for his portrayal of Roberto Devereux.

 

For the production’s next performance on May 10, 2014, Mexican tenor Edgar Ernesto Ramírez appears as Roberto Devereux. An emerging voice on the international opera stage garnering rave reviews for his distinctive Italianate sound, youthful exuberance, and expressive musicality, Ramírez appeared with the opera company last season as Ruiz in Il Trovatore and has been understudying the role of Roberto Devereux for the COC this spring. He has performed to great acclaim for audiences in France, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and the United States, and makes Toronto his home.

For the final three performances of Roberto Devereux on May 15, 18 and 21, 2014, the COC welcomes Spanish opera star José Bros in his company debut. One of the leading tenors of the romantic bel canto repertoire, Bros has appeared in starring roles with major opera houses around the world including Teatro alla Scala; Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; Wiener Staatsoper; Teatro Real; Gran Teatro del Liceu; and the houses of Hamburg, Munich, Rome, Tokyo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, Berlin, and Naples, among others.

The COC’s Roberto Devereux, starring superstar soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as Queen Elizabeth I, opened on April 25 to rave reviews that proclaimed it “a night to remember” (Charlebois Post), “puts the ‘grand’ back into ‘grand opera’” (Toronto Star), is “a moving production that examines, with heart-rending power, the price of power and love, and the danger of combining the two” (Bachtrack), and that “the audience gets caught up in the beauty of the music, the taut of power of the often thrilling solo performances, and the electric voltage of vocal athleticism and emotional depth meshing in perfect combination” (Globe and Mail).

A limited number of tickets are available for the remaining performances of Roberto Devereux. Tickets are $12 – $332 (includes applicable taxes) and may be purchased online at coc.ca, by calling 416-363-8231 or in person at the Four Seasons Centre Box Office (145 Queen St. W.).

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The Tempest Replica: Icing and Cake

Posted on May 8, 2014 by barczablog

click image for more information

Tonight Toronto got another look at Kidd Pivot, Crystal Pite’s company from out west.  While this may be new to us, it’s not really new.  Just as Dark Matters –brought to Toronto by Canadian Stage back in 2012— was already 3 years old, similarly The Tempest Replica originated in 2011 (roughly three years ago), a co-production with several companies in Europe & North America.

The title is a splendid way (the use of “replica” in particular) of addressing one of the work’s fundamental issues: that it is a very original and self-conscious adaptation of Shakespeare‘s last play, The Tempest.  Forgive me if I blather on a bit about the mechanics of adaptation, an obsession of mine.

Pite and her team followed much the same pattern as seen in Dark Matters.  On that occasion I observed that the first half of the show was in some respects the most dynamic & theatrical, whereas the last half was pure dance.  Tonight I’ve seen another show more or less following that pattern, leading me to wonder if my sense of what‘s best in the show diverges from hers.

The first half-hour was a miracle of compressed exposition, using almost no words whatsoever, a bold series of choices, considering the poetry of the source play.  But if Pite’s objective is to set up dances exploring the relationships among the characters it’s an understandable choice.  I didn’t find that much was added beyond the first twenty minutes of the work, which, as I suggested, runs through the story with quiet eloquence.  Those dances are stunning explorations of dynamics, and yes, they’re also wonderful dance for the sake of dance.

I’m going to invoke Richard Wagner as I so often do, a touchstone of dramaturgy, and someone who could distinguish between icing and cake.  Speaking of opera in his seminal Opera and Drama, Wagner observed that composers had mixed up means and ends; whereas opera had been invented as a dramatic form utilizing music, it turned into a medium employing drama to make music.   I wonder if I can adapt that axiom to the dance realm?

What struck me about The Tempest Replica was that some people (me!) might like different parts of the show than other folks (the choreographer especially).  The brilliant opening section — to my mind the best part– served to set up the dance explorations that follow, that likely were the parts choreographer thought were best.  Was that flamboyant exposition nothing more than an intro to the dance part that comes later? or was the dance really there to decorate the core of the story, told at the beginning?  Or to put it in the language of my headline, I wonder how you decide which part is icing and which part is cake?  Don’t get me wrong, I love the dance; but in some respects it reminded me of  the celebratory –and redundant– dances in the second act of Nutcracker.  The drama had already been more or less settled, particularly in a tale such as The Tempest, where the protagonist is an invincible magician, in effect the one who creates the production. If, however, you recognize dance as an end in itself, if you love watching beautiful movement, then everything before is merely a preamble to how Pite explores the relationships.

I saw a movement vocabulary reminiscent of Dark Matters, where the protocols of power & control begin with puppets and then are further explored among dancers.  On that occasion the dance seemed like a necessary expansion of something introductory.  With Tempest, too, we see a great deal of analytical dance, where human interactions are probed as power relationships.  Prospero dominates, but so too, Ariel.  And at times we see one or another figure like a thing, a puppet controlled by an animator figure.

By the end I was mightily impressed by the intelligence of the adaptation, seeing cleverness everywhere.  Yet it left me somewhat cold at the end, a tour de force to be sure, but one whose sense of warmth eluded me. I felt as though i’d been outsmarted. 

The Tempest Replica continues at Canadian Stage until May 11th at the Bluma Appel Theatre.

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Ernesto Ramirez to sing Roberto Devereux

Posted on May 7, 2014 by barczablog

The Canadian Opera Company scheduled seven performances of Roberto Devereux.  The COCassigned the first three performances to Leonardo Capalbo in the title role, and he did a marvelous job from what i saw & heard.

Giuseppe Filianoti was scheduled to sing the next four, beginning Saturday May 10th.  I say “was” because something has changed.

It’s come to my attention that Ernesto Ramirez (the cover) will sing the May 10th performance.

I’ll be there.

Posted in Opera, Press Releases and Announcements | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Synesthesia III

Posted on May 4, 2014 by barczablog

Synesthesia III was a collaboration initiated by FAWN Opera, who reached out to The Seventh Art.  We saw a series of films with –mostly– live original music.  FAWN found the composers & organized the –mostly–live performance, while The Seventh Art procured film-makers.

FAWN Artistic Director Amanda Smith

The word “synesthesia” can mean many things, but for me is a reminder of the avant-garde of the 1890s in Paris, seeking the symbolist dream of a synthesis of the arts across the senses.  I suspect that FAWN’s artistic director Amanda Smith & the rest of the FAWN team are every bit as ambitious in our own century.

For me this was like a genuine laboratory, a study of the art of film music from first principles.  Just to really make us appreciate what music brings to the equation, we were first given a film without music, Dalsza Modlitwa by Sofia Bohdanowicz.  We heard sneezes and chairs moving and our own presence breaking the illusion.  Music covers up all those noisy people who distract me from my one-on-one relationship with the film, preventing me from falling deeply under its spell.  In fairness Bohdanowicz’s film was genuinely magical, a ghostly trace in honour of a lost grandmother.

Then we began a series of films each of which presented a different set of requirements for a composer.  FAWN artistic director Amanda Smith said as she brought us back after intermission that the collaborations had aimed to bring together good film-makers with good young composers: an aim that I believe was achieved.

Sometimes the music and the film seemed to be fighting.  Two of the early examples displayed very strong musical personalities that seemed to impose new meanings upon the film, in a manner we’ve seen in Regietheater or “director’s theatre”, a common phenomenon in opera.  This is not to suggest there’s anything wrong with that, but rather that we’re accustomed to music in a very compliant & subservient role, a post-production add-on that slavishly upholds whatever the director wants (at least in the commercial realm), rather than adding an additional interpretative layer.   And it turned out I was wrong about one of those films, given what we heard in the brief interviews conducted of film maker Stephen Broomer & composer Trevor Hewer, by Christopher Heron of The Seventh Art.  Where I’d seen Broomer’s film as abstract, Hewer saw something melancholy & even sentimental, and put that into his score; but it turned out this is precisely what Broomer was aiming for,  so they were clearly on the same page.

More often, the music worked in the conventional ways of film-music, which is to say, that it drew upon the images, creating a layer that was supportive & seemed to be a logical outgrowth of what we were seeing.

Conductor & composer Patrick Murray

I was most impressed by a score that wasn’t actually played live.  Patrick Murray, who conducted the FAWN ensemble of five players + a singer, created and recorded an electronic (digital or electro-acoustic? I don’t know) composition to go with BOOTLEG, a film from Liam Crockard.  BOOTLEG is simultaneously the most conservative film in terms of its dramaturgy (I suppose I mean the relationship between film images & music) , yet most daring both in terms of the nature of what we saw and what we heard.  Here’s a quote from the program explaining the premise:

“In an homage to the dodgy concert videos of yesteryear, Crockard distorts his video to a point of pure abstraction, more akin to the textural film experiments of someone like Stan Brakhage.  Interestingly, this effect is achieved through the excessive use and abuse of iMovie’s built in “stablize and zoom” function, designed specifically to transform the most amateur iPhone video into something legible. “

And then Patrick Murray says this:

“When creating the music for Bootleg, I wanted to honour the same artistic process of degradation that Liam Crockard began his film with.  Audto samples from the original “bootleg” videos are severely distorted and overlaid with new sounds created using spectal synthesis of still frames drawn from the processed film.  Disorienting and overwhelming, the music nevertheless enhances the range of emotional intensity inherent in non-representational, abstract film.”

If Wagner himself had been scoring this film he couldn’t have honored it more perfectly in his score.  At times it was loud & raucous, yet this was music, not noise, and matched the abstracted visuals remarkably well.

Sometimes, as in Christine Lucy Latimer’s The Magik Iffektor we were in the presence of profound ironies, bringing me giggles even though they were very poignant.  The Iffektor –if i understand the title, speaking of profound ironies–is in fact a device for processing found VHS footage, enhancing some colours, with the result that we were seeing something both old and new, something grotesquely altered even while being familiar.  It’s a reminder that in some cases the line between adaptation and parody is narrow indeed.  Patrick Arteaga’s score stayed out of Latimer’s way, letting me have the aforementioned giggles.  As Arteaga remarked, it was an open work, which is to say, not overly determined but ambiguous, an effect that the composer preserved & even enhanced.

In Blake Williams’ The Storm the understatement of the film nicely matched an under-stated score by Amanda Lowry.  Williams explained that he’d had the opportunity to shoot in Galveston just after Hurricane Rita, but in landscapes temporarily deserted due to evacuations.  I was strongly reminded of Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi.

Looking upon the exercise, I couldn’t help comparing this in with Tapestry’s recent “Tapestry Briefs”, a series of brief operas bringing librettist & composer together.  Is it my imagination, or was this more fun & even festive experience precisely because it wasn’t opera?  In this atmosphere everyone was safe to experiment, accepted & appreciated for their adventurousness, something I don’t always experience in the operatic realm.  I think the problem is not so much the medium as the opera audience. And yes, I think opera is much harder.  Why?  Perhaps because these were mostly abstract and oblique connections between the film & the music, where anything goes really.  The live singing actor changes everything.

I hope FAWN will try something like this again.  Of course when I said this very thing to Amanda Smith ( “please do it again!”) she said they had done it before.  This was Synesthesia III after all (and i missed I & II).  I am glad to know that there will be a IV..!

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