10 questions for Stephen Lord

Posted on December 31, 2013 by barczablog

Identified by Opera News as one of the “25 Most Powerful Names in US Opera”, Stephen Lord is a conductor known for his sensitive handling of singers.  In my review of April’s Canadian Opera Company production of Lucia di Lammermoor I said the following:

Stephen Lord was quite magnificent to watch, deliciously flexible with the COC orchestra in following the singers no matter where they wanted to go, one of the most impressive displays of musicianship I have ever seen.

That’s not surprising, considering that Lord began his career as a pianist, before becoming a coach & accompanist.  Lord also teaches and mentors artists, whether in his previous role as Music Director at the Banff Festival Opera, or more recently as artistic director of opera studies at New England Conservatory.  He is currently music director for Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, formerly was music director of Boston Lyric Opera, and has led productions at companies such as Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, and English National Opera.

On the occasion of the new Canadian Opera Company production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera I ask Lord ten questions: five about himself and five more about his work on the COC Ballo.

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

Conductor Stephen Lord (photo: Christian Steiner)

You know, I think I am truly a 50/50. I used to look like my mother, now I look like my father – especially when passing a shop window and seeing my reflection. “Who is that old man?” I am intensely curious about things like weather and all sorts of world news, farming (he was a fruit grower), etc. But I am at times hyper energized like my mother who, at 87, is doing quite well.

2- What is the best thing & worst thing about being a conductor?

I came to conducting late after having spent my first fifteen years in career as a coach and, even luckier, coach to many of the great singers ending the golden age of the 50’s and 60’s and then the best of the singers in my generation. So the BEST thing about being a conductor is that the thing that challenges so many opera conductors – the theatre and the vocal styles – is second nature. As a pianist I was always slightly nervous as playing a wrong note was anathema to me and, since I came to piano in my teens, I never truly had the assurance of those that start in their single digits. In spite of that it all seemed to work, but the comfort level was an issue. When I started conducting, the possibility of wrong notes is someone else’s problem! I was suddenly liberated to conduct the music, live the music, be inside the music and the feeling when younger of loving it so much you wanted to climb into the stereo speakers, is now a realized sensation. And I can do theatre when doing opera. I spent a lot of time on stage in my past in various types of plays, shows and even operas and so realizing the theatre in music and discovering it is a huge joy for me. While there are no doubt greater conductors than I everywhere, the fact that I know theatre and am intensely interested in it is my ace in the hole.

The worst part of conducting opera, and there is a downside are the long periods away and on the road in unfamiliar digs. I am not someone who does this job as a step in last minute thing as I love being involved in the whole process. And this takes time to rehearse, work out various aspects musically and theatrically, etc. The average away time is 6-8 weeks and when one goes from one to the next with little time between, it becomes a living nightmare. But there IS the music and some truly wonderful colleagues. Right now, in the Ballo cast, I knew everyone but two, some from their very beginnings. So one is never lonely for the familiar. And meeting the terrific director, Sergio Morabito, and working with him is incredible fun.

COC Music Director Johannes Debus (photo: Bo Huang, 2012)

The COC, a company I have been involved with in many capacities since the early 80’s, is a welcoming, warm and first rate operation. This starts from the top with Alexander Neef and Johannes Debus, plus my old friend Sandra Horst and many others. This is great compensation for the sometimes devastatingly lonely times alone in terrific but strange digs.

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

Wow. This is a tough one. I have to drive a lot and in my car I have Sirius radio and I often listen to The Metropolitan Opera Radio. This is at times thrilling (older performances with idols like Melchior, Bergonzi, Tebaldi, Sutherland, etc.) and sometimes shockingly disheartening, especially in the years 1990 to the early century. Now, however, I hear people on there I either knew in the beginning of my career or, in some cases, actually started a career and it is wonderful to hear them all grown up and giving of themselves so well.

In the USA, we have NPR, which is terrific and gives me thought provoking subjects to follow.

As for music, just last week on a long car trip it was the whole MESSIAH (which I admit I didn’t hear as I was singing along too much), Carlos Kleiber doing Beethoven and Dame Myra Hess. Sirius also has a Frank Sinatra station, and Elvis station and a 40’s and 50’s pop station. These make me smile as they were sincere and you could still understand the words.

I rarely play piano any more. I developed tendinitis when I was at the end of that career from playing in Dallas on a terrible piano. And that was probably good since I started learning my conducting scores away from the keyboard and in my head. It helped develop my ear and score reading abilities. I have the urge to play piano occasionally again, though, and might get back to it.

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

Woodworking

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

I confess to being a terrible gardener and I just love doing it. I prune too aggressively, and don’t design what I plant carefully, I love buying guy toys by John Deere (my Gator is an especially fun one and the new, big, and more rugged lawn mower might just be coming). One more admission — while pruning on a ladder by myself with a chain saw, I did cut too aggressively, the limb pushed me off the ladder, I landed in a pile of rocks, broke four ribs. Mercifully, or not mercifully, my head hit grass between the rocks. So I am terrible and love doing. I also love working on ways to improve my home. Being on the road is dangerous because I start thinking of what to do next.

Stephen Lord (Photo: Christian Steiner)

Stephen Lord (Photo: Christian Steiner)

*******

Five more about Ballo at the COC

1-Please talk about the challenges in leading the COC production of Un ballo in maschera.

I used to think some operas were relatively easy to conduct. The older I get the more I realize the folly of that stupid notion.

Because we are dealing with humans on the stage and humans in the pit and humans in the public experiencing it live, the unknowns are tremendous. Sometimes conducting an opera like Ballo is rapturous, sometimes conducting any of them is triage as one tries to analyze all sorts of real time issues and find solutions to them in a split second. Because we have such great resources available in the form of past and/or favorite recorded performances, a great challenge is forgetting what one has heard and inventing it fresh. And, of course, there are naturally times when you’re used to hearing one thing but tailoring to the available forces is the immediate issue. Also, when one has a very strong point of view, as our production does, one has to constantly remind the singers that the action follows the music and the sometimes untraditional action is not the beginning but the end result of the music itself. Theatre in opera comes from music but many fine young singers use the action as an end result. But the music inspires the action, the words inspire the music, and the action is a result of the other two. If a singer thinks the production style is their biggest job, we can get lost. It is my job to bring them back to the truth of the music as their primary impulse.

Ballo has a lot of back stage music, which is always a worry as you can’t see them. Mercifully, I have Sandra Horst, who is brilliant doing that along with the chorus.

The other great challenge, of course, is that the roles in this opera are big, full, grown up opera roles. And with these, come the pressures on the singers to stay in tip top form because if one is in less than best form, the piece cannot happen.

Musically, the challenges in this piece start with the libretto. The poetry of Piave in something like TRAVIATA, for example, is direct. This libretto has some very atypical word and sentence structure and some very unusual text for Verdi. And this affects the musical phrasings. So learning these and getting them into the brain is difficult.

On the plus side, of course, is the COC orchestra. They know opera and play it with heart and soul.

2-What do you love about Ballo?

What do I love about Ballo? Well, let me start by saying I have never been driven to be rich or famous and so I have been fortunate enough to be able to only do pieces I either love or that are very interesting and curious to me. There may be times when I wish I would just go and phone something in and take the money but that is not me. So, Ballo is a piece I love and I am honoured to have been invited to do it. This way we start with the wanting to show my love for the piece by being involved with it again. For the one and only audition I ever did and play on piano, I chose Amelia’s second act aria as the aria selection. I love the danger in the piece — the vocal danger of the role of Amelia and the conquering of the repertoire’s most difficult high C, the length of the role of Riccardo and the stamina it takes to do this, the dangerousness of the dramatic situation – all of these make the superhuman challenge of doing a super performance of this opera make me love its challenge. It is like Everest – it is THERE.

At this point in Verdi’s oeuvres the orchestral writing gets more and more exposed for solo instruments. The cello has quite long stretches of solo writing. The English horn in Amelia’s aria seems a prelude to the oboe writing in AIDA. The trombones probably play more in this opera than in any other of Verdi. In this period of Verdi, everyone has great challenges on stage, chorus, pit, backstage. And my challenge is to see that it is all of one style, theatrical, beautiful, and in the rare occurrence that something goes wrong, to do my best to fix it.

3) Do you have a favourite moment in Ballo?

I think for me the most thrilling moment in this opera is the moment in Act 2 when Amelia confesses her love to Riccardo, the tenor. This is, of course, one of those moments when one’s assistant comes and says “Maestro, the orchestra is too loud here.” I of course listen but also realize that there are times, very occasional, when the sum of the parts (orchestra and singer) is greater than any one thing. The overwhelming moment here in the orchestra tells us more than the singers do. In our age of having recorded performances always perfectly balanced (like the unrealistic MET HD performances) our public oftentimes gets lulled into thinking singers are always forefront and forget that at times the orchestra becomes the soloist. I am not one of those bombastic kind of guys, but there are times you just have to let the race horse run.

4) How do you feel about Un ballo in maschera as a 21st century performer?  

And now we come to the hornet’s nest!  This probably is worth a whole book of writing. And I have some very strong opinions here. I am totally for whatever brings the piece to life. I think an issue with what some people call Regietheater is that those that produce it bring a particular and often peculiar personal idea to the fore without truly knowing the people in the seats. But the personal and expensive point of view, while interesting, at times supersedes the spirit of the music and the interest of the public. This does not at all mean that these things should not be tried. But the producer who forgets his public and, like a spoiled child, says LOVE IT OR LEAVE have now often reaped the “rewards” and people have left.

Think of the great pianist Glenn Gould who made his career on the works of Bach played on an instrument Bach could possibly never have imagined. The spirit of the music is always there and it brought a lot of this music to the attention of the public. Now, had he worn a clown suit while playing it, the music would  have been lost for the distraction of cosmetics. And yet he updated the performance with an instrument the public could relate to.

I firmly believe that the rise of this kind of production (and don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it when done well and musically) coincided with a precipitous decline in musical and vocal standards in the world. I am not talking the early music repertoire, because that is vocally and conductorially less demanding. I am talking about the style of singing that is athletic and as dangerous as NASCAR. I am talking about the singer who has to bat 1.000, while a star ball player can be in a slump and still be paid millions. When the dinosaur generation died off, who on the norm studied longer and at younger ages and were immersed in the repertoire in their cultures and families, replacing them has been a struggle, with exceptions of course. So to replace the visceral thrill that made opera so very popular, people felt forced to replace that thrill with a more intellectual/personal/controversial sort of thrill which, when done badly drives the public and donors away and, when done well, at least has the press and spin doctors abuzz.

My conducting colleagues need to shoulder some of the blame for the bad stuff. When they show up at the end of the rehearsal period and have no input into the process and THEN complain, they have no legs to stand on in my book. Bear in mind I am talking about new productions here, not revivals for which one has been hired. But the uninvolved conductor has been one of the reasons this art form has suffered some bruises. I think even with a production of dubious taste a conductor can make a difference and help the producer by motivating the action with the music and keeping the cast on a tight leash stylistically.

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

Conductor Tullio Serafin (click photo for more information: scroll down to Tullio Serafin)

Conductor wise, one cannot deny Toscanini, Carlos Kleiber, Tullio Serafin, Antonino Votto, Mitropoulos. Directorially, there is always Jean Pierre Ponnelle, a true renaissance man whose work in the whole repertoire and not simply a niche was exemplary and musical. So many singers have touched my heart they are impossible to name.

But those I admire most? With no question I admire those who are out there, leaving home and family to entertain the public. Each and every one of them.

And if they get the added thrill of a great performance that moves him, all the better.

*********

Stephen Lord leads the Canadian Opera Company production of Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera that opens February 2nd (further information).

click for information about tickets to the production, originally from Berlin Straatsoper (Photo: Ruth Walz)

Posted in Interviews, Music and musicology, Opera | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 15 Comments

TOT Land of Smiles

Posted on December 28, 2013 by barczablog

Every work is really several possibilities, depending on the emphases in the interpretation.  There are several operas inside each opera, several musicals inside each musical.  And this is particularly so when we speak of operetta, a form that can seem like a special class of opera, or simply a popular musical, depending on which direction favoured by the interpreter.  Yes, musicals are operettas.  Die Fledermaus, Chicago, Land of Smiles and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels may seem like a broad range until we recall that opera includes Actéon and Zauberflöte, Aida and Zaide…and so much more besides.

When I see a musical at Stratford or Shaw (Niagara-on-the-Lake) they don’t usually let anyone onstage whose speech isn’t pristine.  For them—those sacred institutions of acting & speech—their priorities are clear.  Whatever music goes on, the dialogue takes precedence, the story-telling and dramatic values over-ride musical concerns.  Sometimes that bothers me because I may not like the musical effect; but I understand their philosophy and with their brand I know what I’m getting.

Click image for ticket information

Toronto Operetta Theatre is a different brand.  The pre-show talk for Lehar’s The Land of Smiles, currently playing at the St Lawrence Centre, rightly alludes to the inter-cultural issues in the work, but would situate the work in a line with such serious operas as Madama Butterfly and Turandot, rather than more recent musicals such as South Pacific or Flower Drum Song.  Lehar’s work can be understood for its broad comedy or its fabulous music.  TOT didn’t miss the opportunity to showcase singing talent, as i believe that’s the TOT brand in a nutshell: emphasizing the great vocals above all.

It’s a truism about musicals that the music begins when the words can’t go any further, saying what cannot be expressed through words alone.  This is certainly true of this Lehar score.  We’re listening to schmaltzy waltzy melodies in Act I, an idiom that may have been popular at one time, but nowadays feels at least as distant as the Roaring Twenties. And then we’re whisked to another far-off musical realm, this time an evocation of China in pentatonic harmonies plus a bit of chromaticism to give us more schmaltz.  While at one time the mid-European waltzes may have been understood as heimat or homeland, both places now feel equally remote & artificial.

Tenor Ernesto Ramirez

Artistic Director Guillermo Silva-Marin gives his story-telling to wonderful singers, and so, while their dialogue may at times resemble the lead-up to an aria, they do give us an endless series of brilliant solos or duets.  Tenor Ernesto Ramirez has a wonderfully fluid line and brilliant high notes, while soprano Lara Ciekiewicz matched him high note for high note.  They made a sympathetic couple both visually and in the way their voices blended, and ably supported by the TOT orchestra led by Derek Bate.

Land of Smiles is mostly a light & sunny work, romantic & schmaltzy, and also funny with only occasional glimpses of darkness, depending on the emphasis of the director.  For the most part Silva-Marin connected Lehar to the operatic pathway of high art rather than surrendering to low comedy, even though from time to time the text leads us into deliciously zany territory.

I was especially impressed by Keenan Viau’s fearless portrayal of the court eunuch, repeatedly playing up double entendres, in stark contrast to Curtis Sullivan’s furiously deadpan uncle.  I found Act II – where the comedy hit its stride—much more enjoyable than Act I, which was gorgeously sung but uneventful.  Land of Smiles is a charming tale of exotic romance, at times in danger of being hijacked by its own comedy, but Silva-Marin never allowed the anarchic wackyness to overwhelm the romance.  At its heart this is a cute and touching story, one that wears its heart on its sleeve in three-four time.

Land of Smiles continues at the St Lawrence Centre for seven more performances this weekend and next, concluding January 5th.

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

Pollyanna’s Picks for 2013

Posted on December 26, 2013 by barczablog

Last year around this time you might have seen “Pollyanna’s Picks for 2012”, a list looking “through the rose-coloured glasses of someone who prefers to avoid negativity.”  Had I not been knocked back to the Stone Age by a power failure I would have done this sooner.  Forgive my tardiness, but first I had to celebrate Christmas and then reconnect to the internet.

Anniversary commemorations  It was an odd year celebrating the bicentennials of Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi, the centennial of Benjamin Britten, and the 50th anniversary of the death of Francis Poulenc.  Highlights?

  • The Canadian Opera Company found time for a single opera from each of Wagner, Britten & Poulenc this year.  Although Verdi was allocated two operas neither of them fell during 2013 itself (Il trovatore in the fall of 2012, and Ballo in maschera coming early in 2014): and so he’s absent from my list.  Tristan, Peter Grimes, Dialogues des Carmelites all happened in 2013.  The most special event in this group? A toss-up between Tristan and the Carmelites. On the one hand a rejuvenated Ben Heppner, the offbeat video of Bill Viola and especially the  COC orchestra under an inspired Johannes Debus made Wagnerian magic.  But Robert Carsen’s well-traveled Carmelites starring Adrianne Pieczonka and Isabel Bayrakdarian was every bit as powerful.
  • After seeing the high-definition broadcast of the Metropolitan Opera’s Parsifal I’m eager to see this co-production of the Met, Lyon Opera & yes, the COC finally show up here in Toronto, even if it’s unlikely we’ll get a cast to match the dream team onstage at Lincoln Centre.

Books:

In a year of anniversaries Paul Kildea’s book Benjamin Britten: A Life in the Twentieth Century seemed to be the most successful book concerning the four commemorated composers (Poulenc, Verdi, Britten & Wagner): a book I did not fully read and didn’t review.  I was most intrigued by two very different books:

  • Thomas Adès’ Full of Noises: Conversations with Thomas Service was a book I couldn’t put down, even if the book was happy to return the favour. Howzat? its chief quality was its readiness to put down other composers.  Wagner was Adès’ most famous target, famously called “a fungus”.  As I observed in one of the pieces I wrote about the book –as I said, I couldn’t put it down—Adès rhetorical stance and dismissive language made for fascinating  reading even if I was fighting it most of the way.
  • I couldn’t put Stuart Hamilton’s Open Windows down either, but for a very different reason.  For starters, the karma is precisely the opposite of Adès, but this is also a fun read, an unavoidable and important book for anyone who cares about Canadian singing & opera.  Hm, time to read it again.

Most impressive singer     

  • Franz-Josef Selig is the male voice that impressed me the most because I had the privilege of hearing two very different performances –his intimate concert “Love’s Dark Shore”, and his portrayal of King Marke in Tristan und Isolde.
  • On the female side, I’m not as sure, and so I’ll cite two women. Shall we call it a tie?  Wallis Giunta’s concert at Glenn Gould Studio showed several different approaches to singing, after she’d gone completely incognito channelling Michael Cera in her nerdy portrayal of Annio in La Clemenza di Tito.  That would be the winner if I hadn’t just been blown away last week by Jacqueline Woodley’s singing and (yes) dancing in the AtG Messiah, to go with her brilliance nine months ago in the 40 short dissonant pieces of Kurtág’s Kafka-Fragments.  It’s not as though there weren’t other wonderful female voices, especially Adrianne Pieczonka in Dialogues des Carmelites, Ambur Braid’s Mozartian triptych (a bespectacled Konstanze, a charismatic Queen of the Night plus a Vitellia that I missed), or anything featuring Carla Huhtanen, always versatile, likeable, and amazingly in tune.

Excitement?

I’ve alluded to Richard Bradshaw’s stated aim to produce the best theatre in Toronto. This was not a year when anything onstage at the Four Seasons Centre was anywhere close to that goal.

  • Not when one could see big companies produce Lepage’s Needles & Opium (Canadian Stage) or Adam Paolozza’s hysterical The Double (Tarragon).
  • Not when smaller, leaner companies were creating magic without benefit of big voices or big expenditures.  Small companies? Against the Grain Theatre set the bar very high with two remarkable productions.  In the summer their reboot of Mozart as Figaro’s Wedding may have been the best thing seen all year, while their recent Messiah was every bit as original, seeking to blow the cobwebs off the oratorio.  But there was also Opera Five’s brave Halloween program of three operas based on stories by Edgar Allan Poe.  There was also Loose Tea Music Theatre’s in your face Peter Brook Carmen.  I have to also mention the workshop of Savitri & Sam, an opera I’m hoping to see staged, and Tapestry Briefs, a very promising laboratory for future works.
  • While I spoke of two COC commemorations, their production impressing me the most was Christopher Alden’s Clemenza di Tito featuring Isabel Leonard & Michael Schade, an interpretation managing to critique and problematize its text while never obscuring the original meanings.
  • One of the most stirring nights wasn’t opera but a concert, namely The Minimalist Dream House Project from Toronto Summer Music.  The willingness to break free from convention inspired me even if one couldn’t miss the tension in the room between those loving it and the more conservative patrons.

Comeback of the year?  That would be Ben Heppner, a man who sang two wonderful portrayals in Toronto during 2013, and who is reborn on radio as congenial and lovable host when he’s not singing.

Ave atque vale (or hail & farewell)

  • Topher Mokrwezski is off to Calgary with occasional visits to Toronto if we’re lucky
  • New York City Opera, sadly bankrupt
  • Nelson Mandela
  • Lotfi Mansouri
  • Lu Massey

Happy New Year.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 7 Comments

Born on December 22nd

Posted on December 21, 2013 by barczablog

If you’re a child born on December 22nd you might grow up perpetually frustrated because of the proximity of your birthday to Christmas.  There you are, early in the sign of Capricorn, and everybody’s celebrating someone else’s birth instead of yours.

Bummer.

But this is still an auspicious birthday.

It’s the day in 1808 when several remarkable pieces of music came kicking and screaming into the world at a long concert by Ludwig van Beethoven.  I’m most interested in the premieres of the masterpieces, namely the Sixth Symphony, the Fifth Symphony (the sequence they were played in, not how they’re numbered) and his Fourth piano concerto.  There was lots more Beethoven (the Choral fantasy, excerpts from the Mass in C and even more besides), but those are the works that make this such a special event. 

Any one of these inserted into a modern program is likely the highlight, given that these three are so powerful.  It’s hard to imagine anything one could program with any of the three that would overshadow or overpower them.  But what if you suddenly picture all three together on one program?

Now imagine hearing even one of those pieces for the first time.  I think of these two symphonies and the Eroica as being especially ground-breaking, that an audience accustomed to Mozart and Haydn and grappling with Beethoven’s new chamber works would still have been flabbergasted by any one of these works.

Just for the sake of a popularity contest –the sort of thing I usually detest except as far as it might tell us something about audiences & culture—which one do you think is the most popular right now?  I toss the question out having no clue what the answer might be, but pondering the implications of such a question.  We could look at how many performances are programmed –the way operabase.com tabulates opera popularity—but that would miss recordings and downloads.  We could consider appropriations recorded in IMDB for film-scores or look at Beethoven’s overall filmography   (where you find 1204 entries of which # 1201 and 1185 seem to be the Pastorale aka Symphony #6; but there appear to be many more entries for the bagatelle Für Elise and for the moonlight sonata).  Churchill used the dit dit dit dah of the Fifth because it signifies V for victory via morse code.

Winston Churchill: Image source: Sunlituplands.org

I heard a safety chime system at the University of Toronto that plays a series of tunes when doors are open, including bits of Christmas carols, popular songs and yes, that opening motto in C minor.  Okay, so in other words both symphonies seem to have penetrated into our collective unconscious.

How important are they? I don’t propose to evaluate such things.  But it’s hard to imagine Liszt and Wagner without these two symphonies, and many other composers besides.  And while I can’t trace the direct influence of the concerto on subsequent works, it too is a work of daring & originality.

Just when you were mulling over those these great compositions, I’m going to derail your train of thought.  Dec 22nd might be the date of that famous concert, but it’s probably best known–in musical circles at least– as the birthday of Giacomo Puccini, a composer of some of the most popular operas.  Speaking of popularity, I will again think of operabase.com, who tabulate opera performances worldwide, helping companies assess which composers are most likely to help them pack the opera house, and thereby stay afloat in one of the most expensive art-forms.

In their 2012-13 stats Puccini has moved up a spot, nudging out Mozart for #2, behind Giuseppe Verdi who is #1.  Here’s what Operabase reported in 2009-10

1          Verdi    2211    (28 Operas)
2          Mozart 2101    (24 Operas)
3          Puccini 1740    (12 Operas)

…and in 2012-13

1          Verdi    2586   (28 Operas)
2          Puccini 1893   (12 Operas)
3          Mozart 1883   (27 Operas)

If Puccini objected to being born so close to Christmas I’ve seen no evidence that he either minded, nor that it hurt him.  Still, i won’t be thinking of Happy Birthday for either him nor those famous Beethoven compositions, not when all those amazing tunes are competing inside my head.

How about yours? 

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays | Leave a comment

Crowdfunding Glennie-WSO-Ho

Posted on December 20, 2013 by barczablog

“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment.

Dame Evelyn Glennie, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra &
Composer Vincent Ho
Launch Indiegogo Campaign For New Recording

First recording with a major Canadian orchestra & first foray into crowdfunding for Glennie

For Immediate Release – Toronto, ON – December 3, 2013: Virtuoso percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) and Canadian composer Vincent Ho have teamed up to launch a crowdfunding campaign (Indiegogo) for a new recording of Ho’s critically-acclaimed percussion concerto, The Shaman. The 60 day campaign is being launched today, Tuesday, December 3, and will end on February 1, 2014.

Since its world premiere in 2011 with Glennie and the WSO, conducted by Alexander Mickelthwate, The Shaman has been hailed as a triumphant success, receiving unanimous acclaim and rave reviews. It has been described as a powerful work that merges the spiritual world of Native American culture with the modern classical world to create a compelling journey. Oscar, Grammy and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer, John Corigliano, says of the work: “I heard the world premiere of The Shaman, and was blown away by it. The work is masterfully written, with gorgeously complex sections contrasting with simple and elegant statements. I love the piece.” While concertgoers in Winnipeg, Toronto and Taipei have experienced Glennie’s phenomenal performances of it first-hand, this new recording would enable listeners to experience it worldwide.

To support this campaign, please visit: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dame-evelyn-glennie-the-shaman

Given the success of the work, Glennie, Ho, Mickelthwate and the WSO have made plans to record The Shaman for worldwide distribution. The Shaman is a large-scale work of 33 minutes, and Ho remarks: “the costs for making a high quality recording of a work of this scope are extremely steep.” As such, the team is appealing to the public through the Indiegogo crowdfunding platform in order to raise a minimum of $85,000 CAN. The recording will become the featured work on a Vincent Ho compilation album, to be released for global distribution in the 2014/15 season. The recording sessions are scheduled to take place in May 2014, following Glennie and the WSO’s performances of The Shaman in Winnipeg – just a week before its next performance at Carnegie Hall in New York City on 8 May 2014.

About the work, Ho comments: “For me, Dame Evelyn Glennie is a modern-day shaman. I always felt that her performances were more than just visual or aural experiences – they were ‘spiritual’ events. She has the uncanny ability to draw the audience into a magical world and take us on wondrous journeys that are beyond material existence. Every performance she delivers leaves the audience spellbound and spiritually nourished. So there is no question that she is the perfect interpreter for this piece.”

This project is a first foray into crowdfunding for both Glennie and the WSO. In the video of the Indiegogo campaign, Glennie comments: “With The Shaman, I have had this chance to explore a sound world that is always evolving and developing; and that curiosity is always on fire. The fact that we can now communicate together and make it our project is very special indeed.” This will also be her first recording with a major Canadian orchestra, and of a work by a living Canadian composer.

There is a range of donation incentives as part of the Indiegogo campaign, including: personal thank you notes, advance downloads of the recording, autographed copies of the score, tickets to a Winnipeg performance of The Shaman, original jewelry designed by Glennie and, at the highest level, an exclusive invitation to dine with Dame Evelyn Glennie, conductor Alexander Mickelthwate and composer Vincent Ho.

Dame Evelyn Glennie is the first person in musical history to successfully create and sustain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. As one of the most eclectic and innovative musicians on the scene today she is constantly redefining the goals and expectations of percussion, and creating performances of such vitality that they almost constitute a new type of performance.

Born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1975, Vincent Ho has emerged as one of the most exciting composers of his generation. His works have been hailed for their profound expressivity and textural beauty. Since his appointment to the WSO as composer-in-residence in 2007, Ho has presented a number of large-scale works that have generated much excitement and critical praise. His Arctic Symphony has been described as “a mature and atmospheric work that firmly establishes Ho among North American composers of note” (Winnipeg Free Press). His percussion concerto, The Shaman, composed for Dame Evelyn Glennie was hailed as a triumph, receiving unanimous acclaim and numerous standing ovations. His cello concerto, City Suite, composed for Canadian cellist Shauna Rolston, received similar praise. In September 2010, Vincent Ho was signed by the prestigious Promethean Editions.

About The Shaman

Dame Evelyn Glennie has performed The Shaman with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (January 2011), the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (March 2011) and the Taipei Chinese Orchestra (May 2012). She will reprise the work with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (May 2-3, 2014), and with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra (June 27-28, 2014). On May 8, 2014, Dame Glennie and the WSO will perform The Shaman at New York’s prestigious Carnegie Hall.

Praise for The Shaman

  • “Ho’s work is entrancing and hypnotic even when the music builds to one of its many crashing crescendos.” – Winnipeg Free Press
  • “Who better to deliver a challenging new work than the unique Dame Evelyn Glennie…Her sharp focus on the music never fails to spark a similar rapt response in the audience…[The Shaman] has a driven trajectory with jazzy rhythms and cross-rhythms, and contains an energetic cadenza. It rushes to an exciting and abrupt ending – and a totally wild audience response.”  – ConcertoNet.com
  • “The percussion soloist is the shaman and it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to conjure more musical magic on stage than Dame Evelyn Glennie. She moves with an arresting combination of force and grace…” – The Toronto Star

For more information, please visit:

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dame-evelyn-glennie-the-shaman
Vincent Ho: http://vinceho.com/

For further information & interview requests for Vincent Ho and Evelyn Glennie, please contact:
Francine Labelle/flINK
416 654-4406
labellefrancine@rogers.com

Media contact for The Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Mickelthwate:
Lisa Abram, WSO Director of Marketing & Communications
204 949-3981
labram@wso.mb.ca

Posted in Press Releases and Announcements | Leave a comment

My Person of the Year

Posted on December 17, 2013 by barczablog

I added “my” to the headline because otherwise a reader would assume I’m referencing the annual feature in Time Magazine.

Given the usual content in this space you might expect me to pick a composer or a performer.  Pollyanna will still offer his picks for 2013, just as I did last December.  No, this is a different sort of message I suppose.

This is a year when I noticed a few people.

Nelson Mandela passed away near the end of the year.  While the story of his life has been tidied up, the blemishes air-brushed away, he was a real person, genuinely larger than life.  What I most admire about him? I am not sure whether I am more impressed by his steadfast opposition to the leadership in South Africa, his willingness to go to jail for his beliefs, or his enlightened refusal to hold grudges.  He is a man for the ages, one of the great men of the 20th Century.

Where the 20th Century was a time of heroism, the 21st Century?  more like  a century of absurdity and banality so far.  The biggest blip on the radar this year is the Ford phenomenon in Toronto, a pair of brothers who seem to be changing the rules.  In a real sense Rob Ford must be Man of the Year, the unavoidable topic that has been #1 in the news.  Yet I leave it to others to deal with that story.  I don’t pretend to understand it, and most assuredly won’t celebrate either of the brothers in this space.

Hm no that’s not accurate.  At one point I actually thanked Mr Ford for helping Torontonians appreciate our library system: one of the best in the world.  Without the acrimonious conversation started by his acidic critique, would we ever have properly taken inventory, noticed what fabulous resources we had?  I said thank you to him.

Pope Francis?  I am pleased at his performance so far.  Who ever expected a real Christian as a Pope (which is to say, a compassionate champion of the poor, rather than the leader of a big political organization)?  Our expectations in the office-holder, after the last one especially, are so low that we jump for joy at the slightest thing.  No question, Francis is remarkable, breaking the mold.  But for me he’s not my person of the year.

At the same time I keep reading about Edward Snowden.

Today I saw something adding to the accumulating pile of evidence already pointing to the importance of this brave figure, one story among many saying the same thing.  Was Mandela a moral compass?  his choices were –however brave they undoubtedly were—inevitable.  But he did not really face anything ambiguous, just daunting, terrifying and evil.  He was brave & a perfect role model precisely because he faced down an authority that needed to be challenged and taken down, looming unavoidably.

Edward Snowden (Photograph: Sunshinepress/Getty Images)

Snowden?  This man discerned wrong where others did not.  That is an entirely different sort of bravery.  Indeed, it’s ironic to be putting it alongside a Pope, given that he’s understood to be infallible.  But of course it’s one thing to be infallible a priori—which is more or less, being right because you’re the boss—and something else again to be right because of your finely tuned moral sense, without any guarantees, without any support.

This story quoted above suggests his vindication, judges confirming that his moral compass points to the true north, when others had no clue, or kept silent when they knew they were doing wrong.

Snowden would have been considered a hero in the America of a century or more ago, when freedom was valued above safety.  Since September 11th 2001 the game has changed, if you’ll excuse the choice of words.  Given the primal importance of fear in the national psychology –it’s the cornerstone after all—no wonder personal security now trumps respect for our fellow human.

Warfare is prosecuted automatically by drones that sometimes hit the right target, and sometimes take out innocent people.  But when security is most important, accuracy and respect for life are inevitable casualties.

Michael Moore

I admire Noam Chomsky and Michael Moore, Jon Stewart and Adbusters.  Like Mandela they say what needs saying. Admiring them makes me feel good because the media make it easy, with Facebook pages, fans, friends with whom i can discuss their positions and laugh at their wit.  They are brave people, but at least they have some kind of consensus of support behind them. And their positions are not just intelligible but well-known to both those in opposition and those in agreement.  We know where they are on the moral compass.

Snowden is the bravest man I know because he doesn’t have an audience or a cheering section.  My mind boggles at his bravery, without any parallel i can think of other than the one we are reminded of at Christmas season: the one generously risking Himself in a higher calling.  Hopefully he will not follow the obvious martyr’s path that’s been blazed for him.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays, Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Blessedly unfamiliar

Posted on December 15, 2013 by barczablog

1-Messiah Promo Image 1The Sunday church service the morning after the ATG Messiah (and the effort to do it justice in my review) is like a meditation on what does and does not work in a ritual.

As I ponder Christianity I keep coming back to one central idea, that I never see anyone state.  It’s important in understanding why people desert the church & to perhaps understand what brings some of us –me for instance—back.

(I wonder, too, if it’s relevant to people also deserting opera, but that’s a parenthetical thought, for now).

Religion is hard.  Is that a crazy idea?  I don’t think so.  In other centuries –when churches were full and believers were the norm rather than the exception—I don’t believe (excuse the choice of words) anyone noticed how difficult it is to do Christianity well –or any other religion, I reckon.  It’s not a thing, but rather it’s a process, involving human interactions.  I suppose we might call Christianity a discipline, both the practice of the faithful and the ministry as well.

The main thing though is to recognize that while disciplines are sometimes practiced well, sometimes…? Not so well!  Is it a radical thing to say that Christianity has been let down by shoddy practice, arrogant clergy & entitled elders not putting the stewardship of the religion high enough in their list of priorities?  If they were neglecting that care in the service of others –for instance, forgetting to properly recruit members in their lavish care for the sick, or the poor? I’d feel better.

But of course that’s not what’s happened, has  it…

As I watched the service this morning my experience –a joyful one to be sure—was thoroughly informed by the ATG Messiah experience from last night.  I was struck by how something that’s overly familiar –whether it be a Christmas carol, or a passage in Messiah—benefits from being made unfamiliar, breaking out of the strait-jacket of ritual. I was going to talk about semiotics and signification, but i am already risking losing the 2 people who might be reading this, so i will stifle the impulse to be pompous & academic.  I will try to be simple & intelligible.

In a church –as in the opera house–the newness, the departure from familiarity & ritual is inherently unsafe and risky.  While it’s not so uncommon to speak of performances as risky, we don’t usually associate risk with church: and maybe that’s the problem.  But I connect this to one of the central conversations in opera, concerning Regietheater (aka “director’s theatre”).  While opera is often understood as moribund –if not dead– for its respectful treatment of a large body of old works, a more radical approach would be to seek to make a familiar piece of text seem unfamiliar.

I am reminded suddenly of a regular blog written by Rev. John Elford, a Methodist Minister friend of mine called Keeping Jesus Weird.  How better to understand the Gospels –or Handel’s Messiah—than to seek  to make the repeated and the familiar seem new and even problematic? to seek out the edgy and the strange instead of sweeping it under a rug.

That’s what I especially welcomed in the AtG show last night, and i realize, that’s also what I seek out in church each day.  If our texts or performances don’t feel fresh and new, they’re old and stale.

It’s true with theatre and opera.  It’s true with bread and wine.  Why shouldn’t it also be true of ritual?  If that weren’t difficult enough –finding the right creative  path– one needs to balance also with the competing preferences of the congregation / audience (between  those seeking the preservation of what is, with those seeking  something new).  I like  some familiarity.  Am i average, normal?  I wonder.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged | 4 Comments

AtG Messiah: without a net

Posted on December 15, 2013 by barczablog

We were promised something different, and they delivered.

Against the Grain Theatre’s Messiah took a familiar piece and added something without disturbing the essential gold.  Handel, Isaiah, Revelation (etc) are well served, in a piece entirely true to the  name of the company.

Choreographer Jennifer Nichols

Choreographer Jennifer Nichols

Choreographer Jennifer Nichols and director Joel Ivany take what is usually a static exercise for formally attired solists, chorus & orchestra, and make it seem fresh & new.  Tonight was the first performance of what I’d like to see repeated every year if at all possible.

I don’t know whom to credit between Nichols & Ivany, although the soloists deserve my first tip of the hat for undertaking this, namely Jacqueline Woodley, Krisztina Szabó, Isaiah Bell and Geoffrey Sirett.  It’s a truism that singers can’t move the way actors do because of the rigors of their discipline.  I had an eye-opening experience a decade or so ago at a vocal workshop, when asked to sing while tumbling on a floor.  Breath control—let alone solid support—are very hard to achieve when you’re also performing such activities as walking or dancing, let alone bending or contorting.

The degree of experiment in AtG Messiah needs to be framed against that double backdrop:

  • the departure from the norm (static singers in tuxes & black dresses)
  • the remarkable achievement of singers, especially the four soloists, undertaking a great deal of movement during solos that are already taxing without movement

I believe they could pack a much larger space, because there’s a hunger for this kind of nourishment.  Nevermind whether purists would love every number, as this isn’t a piece aimed at purists (although I’d love to step outside with the purists and argue with them,  as there’s justification for everything I saw, both artistically and spiritually).  Toronto’s a funny town, as I’ve observed before.  Robert Lepage can do no wrong in these parts, and perhaps now so too with AtG, whose following will grow with this bold piece.

With a genuine experiment one doesn’t know what one is getting into, what the outcome will be.  Nothing could be more “against the grain” than that sense of wondering whether it will work, of seeing artists undertaking a project where they put themselves at risk.  I sensed that there were a few drivers or influences at work that influenced the way the movement was composed. I suspect that in rehearsal some soloists were bolder or more ambitious in what they undertook, over-eager to bound around the stage (and perhaps show their enthusiasm for the director & choreographer) during numbers where some of that load could have been shouldered by the chorus.  I wondered as I watched the experiment whether things unfolded in rehearsal as expected (ie choreographic choices for a particular soloist).  Would Ivany and/or Nichols do anything differently were they to stage it again next Christmas (with the benefit of hindsight)?

Have i mentioned everyone? Ah yes, I should mention this small chorus, a very capable group of Toronto singers mostly working from memory, and also conscripted into the corps de ballet.  There was so much to take in, from the dramaturgical choices, for instance in choral numbers sometimes given to the four soloists by Music Director Christopher Mokrzewski, the deployment of bodies around the stage by Ivany & Nichols, and the interpretations of those intrepid soloists.  And the collaborative team that is AtG really seems to revolve around the teamwork between the two key players, namely Mokrzewski and Ivany, stretching the basic template in so many ways, but ultimately being rock solid.  Nothing Ivany throws at Mokrzewski –including rebel elves  stealing the baton out of his hand–ever phases him.  The small orchestra filled the space wonderfully, using modern instruments with what i’d call a historically enlightened approach (hep rather than my usual “HIP”?), drawing on the best historically informed practices. Mokrzewski has been exposed to the  best (both Harry Bicket at the COC and the assorted talents local & imported at Opera Atelier), developing his own approach. Whatever quirkiness was blocked onstage or in the auditorium, Maetro M followed without fail.

Soprano Jacqueline Woodley

Soprano Jacqueline Woodley

All four soloists handled their physical challenges, although Nichols pushed each in different directions, finding a substantially unique movement vocabulary for each, perhaps channelling the music, or possibly the character of the singer.  I had the impression that Ivany understood each of the voices as a kind of consistent character, or found a through-line for each one that probably governed the movement Nichols assigned to each.  Soprano Woodley was largely celebratory, having so many of the happiest moments, where alto Szabó was pushed in a darker direction befitting her role delivering some of the darkest lines of the entire piece, particularly in “He Was Despised”.  Yet later I was reminded of Fred & Ginger, watching Szabó and tenor Bell during “Oh Death”: and why shouldn’t they seem to be having fun with that happy piece?

Speaking of fun –spoiler alert! If you’re seeing AtG Messiah Sunday stop reading, come back tomorrow—the most joyful presence was surely bass Sirett.  “The trumpet shall sound” was genuinely celebratory. “All we like sheep” was an unexpected show-stopper.

Director Joel Ivany

Director Joel Ivany

Where does AtG go from here?  I think there’s no place that’s off limits, no text that’s inappropriate.  Tonight was a fabulous first time –like their first Bohème in a bar—taking Messiah where it had never been before.   I heard beer bottles falling over during Messiah solos, laughter and happy applause of a sort I don’t usually associate with this work. Yes we all stood for the Hallelujah Chorus (and what an odd town this is considering how well it was sung for a brief boisterous singalong).

Now I dearly hope it will be back next year.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

10 Questions for David Ferry

Posted on December 12, 2013 by barczablog

I first encountered David Ferry as an actor, even though he’s also a director, a dramaturg and a great teacher with extensive experience in theatre, television, film and radio.  In that production of Othello Ferry created the most astonishing Iago, a likeable friendly fellow whose latent seething anger propelled the entire tragedy.

Ferry has played in most of the country’s major houses including the Stratford Festival , the National Arts Centre , Centaur Theatre , the Royal Alexandra Theatre , Tarragon Theatre , Toronto Free Theatre , the Citadel Theatre , Vancouver Playhouse , Theatre New Brunswick and the Banff Centre for The Arts . He has also worked Off-Broadway and in Los Angeles.

An intense actor? Believe it.  And Ferry has also served with Actors’ Equity as vice-president, and ACTRA as the national chair for the Performers section.  He has taught at George Brown College and the National Theatre School, and has served as dramaturge on many new Canadian works. Recently he has edited playtexts for Playwrights Canada Press, including He Speaks, a collection of monologues for men, and a collection of plays by James Reaney.

In January Ferry will be Romeo in Talk is Free Theatre’s new production of The Last of Romeo and Juliet.  In anticipation, I ask him ten questions: five about himself and five more about the upcoming project.

mom with baby daf and dad as young guy 21-Are you more like your father or your mother?

A pretty balanced mix.

Humour and imagination wise, and emotively, more leaning toward my mother. Intellectually and discipline wise, my father. Both my parents were in creative endeavours (theatre) when I was growing up,and were both very supportive of my going to theatre school. My mother had a zany sense of English humour and was great with my friends. She used to phone the swimming pool where I worked summers as a lifeguard and play practical jokes on my fellow pool workers…doing things like booking private parties for Queen Elizabeth. My dad had a very Stoic kind of philosophy and was very even handed with me….made me question myself in a good way. He was in broadcasting and every summer as a child he would take me along to the St. John’s regatta where he would do boat race commentary love on air from his car with me there. He also introduced me to radio acting (I got my ACTRA card at 15) and gave me my early acting input.

Both my parents had lived through the war…met in London during the blitz, and that was hugely important in terms of the framework of the world I related to through their eyes. The parties they had with their friends were fabulous…jazz on the turntable. Pretty frocks and smart suits. Cigarettes and martinis and scotch on the rocks (Dewers and Johnny Walker…pre single malt fashion) real Mad Men aesthetic.

I grew up in a great neighbourhood in St. John’s with dozens of kids on the street and open doors. St. John’s is also probably the coolest city in Canada and very unique with a strong creative life. The school system was denominational and made for a very intriquing class structure. I came to creative discovery at a fantastic time of cultural nationalism there and elsewhere in Canada.

2- What is the best thing & worst thing about being an actor?

The ‘freedom’ of the creative life..in terms of no real ‘nine to five’, same boss world is certainly an attraction. The pure variety of experiences and worlds that it offers to explore.

Of course it is also an illusionary freedom in a sense. One is always within the decision making hands of someone else for the most part. The jobs are hard to come by and the money terrible.

In Canada there also tends to be a strong sense of actors being frivolous or elitist  in the minds of other parts of society. We don’t have a real star system or powerful economic infrastructure with the incentive that success in other cultures can offer.

Many theatres are very lacking in the sense of taking chances (Talk is Free is an exception among small town theatre companies in this sense by the way.)

Emotionally the hardest thing is probably the best thing. To be good at acting, one has to constantly be willing to be vulnerable and curious. To take life and death chances in front of a room full of strangers (the audience.) This can be painful. But the rewards in terms of living an “examined life” are grand.

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

Blue

Blue

I have a lot of younger colleagues with young children right now. I love watching those children. They all seem so bright and alive and playful and joyous. And I love watching their parents going through the joys of first time parenting. As a man whose daughter is long an adult, I feel removed from the worries of early parenting…I know those kids will grow up just fine.

I loved my dog Blue for somewhat similar reasons when he was alive. Every morning he would greet with a sense of “wow, another great day to explore, let’s get going man!”

Andrew Burashko of Art of Time Ensemble

I love watching Peggy Baker dance. We are about the same age, and she really is extraordinary…her ability to keep dancing and getting better as she ages is an inspiration. I love listening to Andrew Burashko (Art of Time Ensemble) play the piano and to him when he speaks at his concerts…he is so smart and I dig his eclectic taste. I love John Pizzarelli and his guitar playing and vocalizing and his sense of humour. I think Chris Abraham (CROWS) is a very smart and inspiring theatre artist.  As is Brendan Healy (Buddies in Bad Times.) I love watching their productions, even if I don’t always get them. I think Tom Rooney is a boss actor. As is Yanna Macintosh, Seana Mckenna, Karen Robinson, Tom McCamus and a slew of others. I love some of our young theatre entrepreneurs and artists…Mitchell Cushman, Jordan Tannahill, Claire Armstrong to name a few. Working with them is the hope of my future creativity.

I love watching musicians play. I love experiencing the work of so many of our visual artists. I find art galleries really inspirational.

I think Katie Mitchell’s book on directing “The Director’s Craft” is very right on.

I like reading plays.

I love watching quarterbacks in football games….they have to have such a view of the whole field and game and its second by second evolution of the play….it’s what good leading actors have to learn to do.

I am a good cook. Cooking is love. It is creativity. It is communication.

Guilty pleasure:  I am hooked on some cooking shows and watch them while I am on the bike or elliptical machine at the gym.

Music is the key to so many creative impulses for me.

I like listening to financial gurus and stock pickers. They are like really entertaining tea leaf readers.

I love novels and poetry and non-fiction…especially when it’s a real physical object I am reading and not an electronic reader.

I love libraries/ especially older ones with the smell of wood polish and old books.

I love the sea. It always has ideas to wash ashore to my imagination. Speak “To be or not to be” from a rock where the Atlantic waves break. I dare you. There is nothing like it.  Exhilarating.

Oh yeah…I love chick flicks. What would Xmas be without “Holiday”?

I love this film too.

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

To play the saxophone like Sonny Rollins. To dance like Gene Kelly. To sing like Frank.

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

Cooking. Bicycling. Travelling.

*******

Five more about the upcoming show.

1-Please talk about the challenges in undertaking your role in The Last of Romeo and Juliet.

Learning and speaking the text well. So that it sounds natural and musical at the same time. Spontaneous and not “acty”. I am fascinated by the challenges (physical,mental, emotional, spiritual) of ageing in an ageist, sexist and  consumerist society. Even (perhaps especially) in our theatre world, older artists are disposed of for the most part like so much used Kleenex. I see so many of my contemporaries simply disappear from the work place…and yet, they have so much to offer younger artists…especially those who are taking over the establishments that produce art. In a society where so many people are entering their sixties and seventies, it should behoove us to tell more stories that reflect the reality of that to the public…not just the youth market take on society.

So I feel a real responsibility in having a smart and sexy and passionate discussion (though this production) of elders and their reality regarding love, loneliness, abandonment, sickness and becoming invisible.

All the actors on stage with me have particular resonance in my evolution as an actor. Jennifer Phipps was in my first professional production while I was still in theatre school (Electra) and was so generous in sharing with us students the ‘stuff’ she knew, the sisterhood/brotherhood of actors. And several years ago we again shared the stage in a wacky production I starred in of Dostoyevsky’s The Gambler. Diana  Leblanc (Lady Capulet), Clare Coulter (The Nurse) and I (Mercutio) acted in a great production of Romeo and Juliet starring Paul Gross 30 years ago. Alex Poch-Goldin and I have acted together several times and I directed his fine and bold play Life of Jude this past summer. Layne Coleman and I recently worked together on a new play which he was directing and we go very far back as colleagues. Luke Humphrey is the son of actors I have worked with on TV and the grandson of the fine CBC producer Jack Humphrey who produced and directed a cool movie I acted in. Its safe to say I first saw Luke when he was a babe in his father’s arms. Sandi Ross and I were both elected union presidents at ACTRA and lobbied in LA for our film industry together. And John Gilbert and I know each other going back 40 years to my first jobs as a Toronto based actor at Tarragon theatre. We are all part of the extended family we love being part of called The Theatre.

David Ferry as Puck in 1972 A Midsummer Nights' Dream.

David Ferry as Puck in 1972 A Midsummer Nights’ Dream.

 I have been Artistic Director at a Shakespeare Theatre (Resurgence in Newmarket) and directed a good many productions of Shakespeare as well as having acted in his plays many times including some of the greatest parts (Hamlet (twice), Puck (twice), Leontes (twice), Iago, Prospero, Mercutio among others) and I relish working on his plays. I was fortunate to have been in Michael Langham’s company at Stratford some years ago. He is the source (along with the writings of Northrop Frye and many other learned critics) of my professional love of the Bard’s work.

2-What do you love about The Last of Romeo and Juliet?

I love what Mitchell [director Mitchell Cushman] has done in terms of deconstruction of the Shakespeare while using the language of Shakespeare. I love his investigation of ageing, loneliness and memory as well as of ‘love among the ruins’. I love his use of other sources within Shakespeare’s writings to explore themes of madness and loss. I love the setting. I love how he has conceptualized his version to sit within a contemporary retirement home..using the age honoured tradition of a preface/part dumb play to set the scene.

It is the kind of play I wish my grandmother could have seen when she was in a retirement home.

3) Do you have a favourite moment in The Last of Romeo and Juliet?

Romeo’s first sight of Juliet.
His recovery from depression via love at first sight.
His moments at the beginning with the Friar when he is planning suicide.
His discovery of Juliet and his own death because he has lost her.

4) How do you feel about The Last of Romeo and Juliet as a citizen of the sandwich generation?   

I am not really Sandwich generation. My daughter is 41. My parents both dead some time…and I never had to care for them.

I do however remember hitch-hiking to Toronto from Nfld when I was 16, long hair, looking for love and peace amongst the hippies in Yorkville. I visited my grandfather, who I only knew by phone calls at Christmas.  I remember mid conversation he somehow lit the filter end of a cigarette and immediately lost where he was, who I was. It was scary. He had Parkinson’s and was developing a troubling dementia. My first intimation of a fate that could await me one day. I have based my take on Romeo in this iteration of the story in many ways on the inspiration  that moment has offered me.

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

Michael Langham. Click photo for Richard Ouzounian’s obituary from 2011

Michael Langham. James Reaney. Keith Turnbull. Douglas Campbell. Marshall Mason. Landford Wilson. Joe Dowling. Katie Mitchell. Deborah Warner. John Hirsch. Martha Henry. Seana McKenna. Leah Cherniak. Anne Bogart. Douglas Rain. Maureen Forrester. Twyla Tharp. Peggy Baker. Mark Rylance. Kyra Harper.

*******

Talk is Free Theatre presents The Last of Romeo & Juliet running January 9 to 18, 2014 at the Mady Centre for the Performing Arts in Barrie.  Click picture below for  more information.

click image for more information

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Interviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Evangelist Season

Posted on December 9, 2013 by barczablog

One has to be careful with metaphors.  We use them without safety nets or training wheels, which is to say, they’re a kind of figurative language that’s riskier than simile,  those constructions where the relationships in the signification are spelled out clearly.  But even in those there’s always a chance for miscommunication.

I am thinking simultaneously about two separate phenomena that overlap in some interesting ways.

In the last few blog posts I’ve been speaking about art & activism.  I added some comments about criticism to the mix in the most recent one.   And today was the Second Sunday of Advent.  It’s the Sunday when we hear about John the Baptist in the lead-up to Christmas.

And so I’m pondering the relationship between these roles.  I sometimes use the word “evangelist” without being very careful about what the word and the role truly means.  Is a critic ever an evangelist, or an evangelist a critic?

The dual questions suggested themselves as I hearkened to Fred Dizon’s sermon today at Hillcrest, an inspired bit of speaking.  While there may have been others chuckling, I was laughing the loudest as usual.  Fred spoke to his own challenges and those of any established member of a church, as he unpacked some of the facts about John the Baptist.

I’ve encountered him as Jokanaan in Wilde’s play and Strauss’s opera.  It’s surely no coincidence that Jean-Baptiste Day –June 24th—is a day of collective dissent in Québec (google “St Jean-Baptiste Day Riot” and see what comes up), when you look at the character of this voice in the wilderness.

John is a fascinating character, really.  He’s a mess.  He lived in the wilderness, bearded and scruffy, hardly the sort of figure one usually thinks of as a prototypical religious icon. But that’s because a central part of his mythology is rebellion.  No he’s not the Christian trickster god, nor like the Loge / Loki figure from norse mythology.  He’s human, and much more like that guy you went to school with who couldn’t or wouldn’t say the right things to his boss in order to fit in.  But John is also divinely inspired, brave, and showing integrity in his messaging.  He’s in the wilderness because he’s truly outside everything organized and institutional.  I think Fred captured the disturbing essence of John: that he offers a critique of our institutions, and as such a reminder that none of us should ever get too comfortable, especially in our relationship to authority and material wealth.  Compared to him we’ve all sold out.

Is the evangelist ever a critic?  Yes John is the quintessential critic.  But he’s not on the payroll of the NY Times or of any mainstream publications in the Middle East either.  He doesn’t have a regular gig.  Speaking as someone else coming out of left field, I would say that’s not all bad.  When you’re contracted by a powerful organization you have less freedom.  John could say anything he wanted, no matter how outrageous, because he didn’t have to worry about losing his job. John is known for announcing the coming of Jesus, which is to my mind the ideal of the critic.  If someone has seen God or knows the pathway back to Eden I want to hear about it, wouldn’t you? And of course –on the more negative side—John stood up to Herod.  He doesn’t sell out to keep his audience, oh no.  He’s willing to lose his head over his beliefs, as of course he eventually does.

Antonin Artaud

And is the critic ever an evangelist?  I think there are certainly examples.  When I think of bold writers who ignored popularity in the pursuit of the truth  Artaud is the first who comes to mind, although he only resembles John superficially.  Whether pointing to beauty & truth –as though showing us Jesus—or warning of evil—the way John stood up to Herod & Herodias—the template’s there.  The writer can pander to the vanity of a paying public, or challenge them, push them to work a little harder.  Artaud rejected the easy and commercial pathway.

Fred’s sermon was wonderful in pointing to the pathway so many of us prefer at this time of year, the warm and fuzzy version of Advent leading to Christmas, without anything to jar the public out of their usual festival of materialism.  John’s narrative is the honest subtext that’s often omitted because it’s simply too much work.  John’s story is not politically correct, a nasty part of Christianity, like the admonition to the rich people who will never get to heaven.  Can we say that to the people we nag for donations to the church?  Let’s face it, John’s story is one of many uncomfortable truths that can get left out.  And in the process people miss out on one of the parts of Christianity you can be proud of, or in other words, the parts that are difficult & challenging.  A religion with a revolutionary project is tamed by the omission of anything too radical.

Whether we’re speaking of evangelism or criticism, whether we address faith or art (or politics?) I want to read the parts that make the story powerful & edgy.

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