I thought about what to call this, the first free concert of the season from the Canadian Opera Company at the Richard Bradshaw Auditorium:
Alpha & Omega? (no… too Biblical)
Ave Atque Vale? (no…obscure)
Alumni Reunion? (hm….partly)
Lotfi Mansouri (1929 – 2013), former COC General Director. Click for further information from COC’s website
The first program of the season is normally a beginning, introducing new members of the COC’s Ensemble Studio. But it also felt like an ending, what with the passing less than a month ago of Lotfi Mansouri. The concert, dedicated to Mansouri’s memory, was presented with a great sense of the occasion, in the presence of many of the originals from 30 years ago.
This concert was therefore more than just the introduction of the new cohort:
• Pianist Michael Shannon
• Soprano Aviva Fortunata
• Mezzo-soprano Danielle MacMillan
• Baritone Clarence Frazer
• Bass-baritone Gordon Bintner
• Tenor Andrew Haji
• Mezzo-soprano Charlotte Burrage
General Director Alexander Neef & former Ensemble member Janet Stubbs both bore witness to Mansouri’s place in the history of the COC, and his generous mentoring. The retrospective serves to remind us how far the COC have come in such a short period.
The performances were all good, although (recalling our conversation in class last night about opera singing as exhibitionism) some performers boldly embraced the occasion, taking the stage in the tiny space more confidently than the others. I was especially impressed by Claire de Sévigné (a returning ensemble member) & Bintner, and delighted with the playing of Shannon throughout, especially in his accompaniment to the two Richard Strauss pieces on the program.
As an encore, former Ensemble member Simone Osborne (back in town for the new Boheme that opens next week) sang a heartfelt “When I have sung my songs” as a fitting conclusion to the event, accompanied by Ensemble Music Director Liz Upchurch.
However retrospective it felt, it’s a very promising beginning to the new season.
Click logo for more info on the current COC Ensemble
Stuart Graham is a teacher, a singer & founder of Atelier S. The Saskatchewan born baritone received his formal education at the Faculty of Music of McGill University with Bernard Turgeon. Graham has been heard in recital, oratorio and in opera in Canada, the United States and in Europe accompanied by orchestras and ensembles, such as: l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, I Musici de Montréal, the Saskatoon Symphony, Silesian State Opera, Slovak State Philharmonic (Košice) and the Oakville Symphony Orchestra. His performance in the world premiere of Edifice by Arlan Schultz was broadcast by CBC, the BBC, Radio-France and the Bavarian Radio. In 1993, Mr. Graham made his New York debut as invited artist in recital as part of the Riverside Chamber Music Series (Riverside Church, New York, NY.). His most recent solo outings include performances of “Yo Vivo” by the Spanish composer Angeles Lopez-Artiga at the Palau des Arts (Valencia, Spain), and as featured soloist, along with his colleagues of the Opera Nacional Bellas Artes (Cd. de México), in performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Orquesta Sinfónica Silvestre Revueltas in Celaya, México (national telecast on Canal 40).
Recent solo recitals include “Destino” with Mexican pianist Eduardo Núñez in the historic Teatro de la Republica in Querétaro, Mexico (broadcast live by Radio Querétaro), “Le Chasseur Perdu”, accompanied by Claudette Denys (l’Opéra de Montréal) and narrated by Stuart Hamilton at Glenn Gould Studio and “Fate” accompanied by pianist José Hernández, with songs of Rachmaninoff, Poulenc and Mahler’s “Kindertotenlieder”.
In anticipation of Atelier S celebrating WagnerFest on October 11th, I ask Graham 10 questions: five about himself and five more about the event.
1) Are you more like your father or your mother?
Baritone & pedagogue Stuart Graham
I’d have to say that I am pretty much an even mix of both my mother and father. But, I would definitely have to say, quoting Hillary Clinton, it “took a village” to raise this one. Growing up in rural Saskatchewan, in a RCMP family, we moved often as my father’s career progressed. It was a childhood where, once I was old enough to go to school, the whole town was our playground. 10 hour games of “hide’n seek”, riding my bike 5 miles on dirt roads to visit my friends on their farms. It was a brilliant place to grow up. We were “free-range” children. They were certainly different times and everybody lived/played outside the house and interconnected with the community as a whole. But, if I ever did anything wrong, my mother would have received a dozen phone calls declaring my misdeeds before I would arrive home. Living in small towns with a population of 1200 people and 14 well-populated churches of various denominations, my mother got a lot of calls. That said, being the eldest son of the commanding officer of the local RCMP detachment, I kept my nose clean. I didn’t have a choice. I never got invited to those parties.
But, one of the most important elements and influences of my environment growing up would have to be the cultural diversity we partook in. Every town we moved to was of a different cultural root. One place would have been homesteaded by Russians, another Polish, French Metis, German Mennonite. The grand parents of my school mates were the founders of these towns I grew up in and, in that, I was immersed in their food, their music, their language and way of life. It, forever, made me very curious about different ways of life and living those perspectives.
2) What is the best thing or worst thing about being artistic director of an institution such as Atelier S?
Atelier S is an entity that really has it’s own mind and life force. It is a notion that continues to grow from a spark that ignited when I first started seriously teaching as Artist in Residence at the Centre Culturel de Drummondville in the mid 1990’s. I had just quit my corporate day job in Montreal and my partner at the time was just hired as artistic director of a dance company and artistic counsel for the Festival Mondial de Drummondville. For me, it was chance to build my life exclusively with my music both as performing artist and pedagogue. “As talent presents itself, I am compelled to find a way to present it…” was an early quote I gave in an interview in the Québec media about one of the first showcases I mounted. That pretty much says why I do what I do. Most days it’s a gift and a privilege. And there have been times that it’s been an absolute curse.
Atelier S how it is today and certainly for the programming of this season (study and performance), provides me with an enormous source of excitement. The wonderful artists and the remarkable depth of their talents that have come to this playground to be coached, challenged and mentored is humbling. With the creation of the Artist Incubator Professional Program and its growing network of internationally renowned associate faculty, I feel we are providing an important resource for the emerging artist that is seeking direction as they transition from student to professional artist.
3) Who do you like to listen to or watch?
At the end of the day, I love to listen to silence. Listen to waves. As for musical taste, I’m all over the map. Although I do draw the line at rap and anything heavy metal. But there are exceptions. I was thoroughly enchanted listening to Metallica, played by the Kronos Quartet, while browsing CD’s in a shop in Prague.
Watch? For fun? I am really into animation, with a particular addiction to Futurama. On the more serious side, I enjoy art films.
4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
The ability to keep up with technology. Final Cut Pro is the bane of my existence!
5) When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
Engrained from my childhood, and certainly the 15 years of living in Québec, I love to entertain, cook. Travel and immerse into new cultures. Ride my bike.
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Five more about WagnerFest on October 11th
1) Please talk about the challenges in running a company such as Atelier S.
I have been very fortunate for the fantastic opportunities and the many profound insights of mentorship that I have received as I have grown up musically both in N. American and in Europe and for that Atelier S has really become an “Artist Incubator”, a “Musical Playground for the Emerging Artist”. This season I am so honoured to have the collaboration of teachers and artists that are leaders in the global industry of opera. Bernard Turgeon and Jeannette Aster have been enormous influences in my artistic life and development and I am thrilled that Atelier S is able to provide a forum where emerging talent can workshop and cocoon with these esteemed teachers. We are also very much looking forward to presenting 2 days of masterclass with soprano Lyne Fortin as part of our Bel Canto Opera Role Study Workshop.
Atelier S is a place where an artist can come and try things, play outside the box and discover “truths”. One of the great hurdles that an emerging artist has is the disappearance of that physical playground of the music school once they have graduated. We provide an environment and resources (coaching, masterclasses and public performances) where the young artist can continue their development and have a place to properly exercise and prepare for their next step.
One of the main on-going topics of conversation that I have with several of my colleagues is the so very rapidly changing dynamic of the industry of Opera and how to adjust our approach to a) get into the business, and b) stay in the business, and at the same time constantly evaluate how to remain relevant as an artist and maintain the integrity of the art. In my head, it is sometimes like an unending loop of Hans Sachs and Die Meistersinger.
2) what do you love about Wagner, as you prepare for WagnerFest
I love that one can not fake Wagner’s music. If you do, you get hurt! Wagner is like an extreme sport. It’s profoundly sensual music and it really demands that you draw upon your entire being to bring his music and vision to life. A great man once said to me… “Stuart! There is nothing more boring than a comfortable artist!” Wagner’s music certainly holds one to that task!
3) Do you have a favourite moment in your program?
Wow. That’s a very tough question. Immersed in the moment with Wagner’s music, any instant is completely mind-blowing. But my favourite aspect of this program is the collaboration with my colleagues in this project. We have all come together with an excitement for this music and for this very rare opportunity to present it. I’m thrilled, humbled and profoundly grateful.
4) How do you relate to Wagner’s works as a modern man?
No doubt the subject of Richard Wagner and his music can be very contentious and for as many people talk about it, there are that many differing opinions. Things have been said and feelings have been hurt. He didn’t have an easy life, but he had something to say and I think most serious artists can relate to that on so many levels.
For myself, a part from that and what anybody might have to say about his music, it’s about the humanity of his characters. Even as I present Wotan in our scenes from Die Walküre, a deity, what he lives, his conflicts, choices, consequences, his arguments, they are so human, visceral. The conversation is timeless.
5) Is there anyone out there who you particularly admire, and who has influenced you?
Baritone & pedagogue Bernard Turgeon
Without a doubt I have to mention my main musical parents Bernard and Teresa Turgeon. They have been the biggest influence on how I do what I do, especially as a teacher/mentor. They really brought forward the notion of “we build the voice by building the person”. Others who have been incredible and generous mentors to me are Claudette Denys, Jeannette Aster, Joan Sutherland, Diana Soviero, Jose van Damm and, currently, Maestra Teresa Berganza. These great artists pretty much share(d) a common perspective of approach to the artform. But, what spoke volumes to me and was unique to each of them individually was the glint in their eye when they shared and mentored me and my fellow artists.
To quote Bernard Turgeon from his speech at his induction into the Canadian Opera Hall of Fame last December 2012…
” We are the custodians of this art form…invest time in it …and it will give you things that you have never even dreamed of ! “
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WagnerFest (click for further information including artists’ bios)
Friday, 11 October 2013 at 8:00 p.m.
Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of RICHARD WAGNER starring:
SUSAN TSAGKARIS, soprano (Brünnhilde / Isolde)
RAMONA CARMELLY, mezzo (Fricka / Waltraute)
STUART GRAHAM, baritone (Wotan)
CHRISTOPHER BURTON, piano
First Unitarian Congregation of Toronto
175 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto, Ontario M4V 1P7
The Tapestry Briefs are a dozen short works from a handful of collaborators who were paired off for one project, then –like speed dating—matched with a new partner on the next project. It’s hard to know whether the specimens in the experiment were the new creations or the members of the audience exposed to those creations. But we’re all given a chance to learn.
I’m possibly the wrong person to comment on such an exercise. I don’t believe there’s ever such a thing as bad theatre, because any piece can be salvaged or appreciated in some way. To be fair, these little pieces were handed to a phenomenally talented bunch, who surely helped shine a great deal of light on these brief fragments. No matter what you think of the pieces being performed, the interpretations were stunning.
While I’m a fan of Carla Huhtanen, Kristina Szabó, and Peter McGillivray, this was my first time seeing and hearing Keith Klassen, completing a splendid quartet of singers, all singing new music entirely from memory, often grabbing us with the drama of their portrayals. Jennifer Tung & Gregory Oh were their inspired music directors.
I will always defend the value of experimentation and happily validate the laboratory as a privileged place. One must suspend judgment with anything genuinely new, because one doesn’t always know what one has. Surely it takes a few hearings to know what one really has, and in each text there are many possible interpretations. No, I’m not saying I liked it all; quite the contrary. But—speaking for example of the single work that bothered me the most (which I shall not name) –there is still much to learn in such encounters between text and music. The one I liked the least, the one that leaves me saying “I would have set it differently” is, curiously, the strongest demonstration of the value of such an exercise. Perhaps the composer is still happy with what s/he made of that libretto, a scenario that had me thinking back to Steve Martin’s line in Roxanne: “did you lose a bet with God?” In other words wow what a difficult text to set, asking a singer to sing into the face of someone they are in the act of stabbing. Wow. And while I think I’d do it differently (why must it be so loud, at a moment of such stunning intimacy? Yes you’re killing him, but he’s not deaf, nor are we): again, that was such an impossibly challenging text to set, I would want to see it again before really passing judgment. (And isnt it amazing that one is taken to a place of insight where one second-guesses the comsposition and looks so closely at possibilities. However one feels about the results, this one shows what can be learned) All I can really say is, i’d do it differently, (perhaps the composer thinks so too, now that s/he’s seen it?), and how else would one find this out without someone daring to set this difficult text. It was arguably the most purely operatic moment of the evening, the most powerful five minutes of all, gripping and troubling. My reaction against it is surely evidence of a kind of success. This piece hits a nerve. How else do you find out whether your model plane will crash without attempting to make it fly? I submit that if five people see something, and while four hate it, and the fifth thinks the plane flew, you have a success. Opera is not usually a medium for mass appeal.
Some of the subjects seemed more operatic than others. There’s one for instance that had the audience screaming with laughter with its references to social media, that reminded me of an SNL sketch. But I felt SNL does this better and so I wonder what you gain by setting this to music, other than proving that opera can be written about this kind of subject. Yet again, we’re in a lab. Maybe someone else builds on this, taking that insight and writing something amazing, bring it to the next level. We were looking at building blocks, research for a future project.
I was most impressed with two of the pieces that undertook big themes, which is how I understand opera, by the way. Big themes are what opera does best. While they’re only five minutes they could easily be expanded to something much longer. In one—libretto by Morris Panych, music by Cecilia Livingston– we hear from a person in their last moments, then discover the darker perspective of the attendant who witnesses death on a daily basis. Livingston’s score differentiated their mental states & moods in a properly Wagnerian way, very subtly making magic in just a few short moments, the words & music effortlessly flowing. And it was over.
The other was from librettist Nicolas Billon & again scored by Livingston, where a woman’s sleep is disturbed by voices she’s hearing that her husband can’t hear; as with Joan of Arc we may wonder whether she’s hearing angelic messengers or is simply mad. And as with her other opera, Livingston creates two parallel dramaturgies, one in the fanciful sounds & textures of the woman & the accompaniment, the other in her husband’s banal voice of sanity.
There are at least two wonderfully funny works. There are a couple of very daring pieces, very original in their sonic landscape. None of these is boring, although –as I mentioned—there’s one that I quibbled with, a very powerful piece of music-theatre.
I have one last thought to put out there, and this shouldn’t for a moment be thought of as a rejection of the exercise. It’s the agnostic admonition I recall from someone in the educational world, commenting on IQ tests. People sometimes mistake IQ tests for intelligence tests, where what they really test is your ability to take IQ tests. In other words these collaborative exercises are wonderful for building skills in collaboration, musical scene building, problem solving (how do I set X to music? How do I organize this thought into text that might be singable?)… and how to write a five minute opera.
That’s not quite the same thing as writing an opera that can hold the stage for an evening. But I suppose it’s probably a good skill that can’t hurt.
Tapestry Briefs continues until September 22nd at the Ernest Balmer Studio at 9 Trinity Square in the Distillery District, a great deal of music and drama, a wonderful assortment of talent.
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra could drop the word “baroque” if they wanted. Tonight I heard more evidence that they can play just about anything.
Their program was all Beethoven, namely the first and second symphonies, plus the overture to Creatures of Prometheus, a natural curtain raiser because it’s in the same key as that first symphony.
The evidence continues to mount that they’re not just purveyors of historically informed performance from the Baroque, even if they recognize this as a core competency, and the music that has served them well over the decades of audience building. In May 2012 they played Beethoven’s Eroica symphony & Mendelssohn’s Italian symphony, and last winter offered a powerful version of Mozart’s Requiem with Tafelmusik baroque choir. And in perhaps their boldest venture, they gave us Weber’s Der Freischütz with Opera Atelier.
So even if they can play romantic music, why change a successful formula, after all? Audiences haven’t complained. But I must sound as though I am complaining (I am a shit disturber) maybe because I like romantic music much more than baroque.
Tafelmusik sound different from what we may be accustomed to, with (for example) the Toronto Symphony, or the sounds of modern orchestras playing Beethoven on recordings. It’s a sweeter, more plangent sound. At times the brass can be jarringly loud. And curiously, so too the strings, at least when they’re playing a lot of notes, as happens in the last movement of the 2nd symphony of Beethoven, a rushing rustling sound like water, something you feel because it’s very subtle. There’s a fullness to the music that simply can’t happen with a modern orchestra.
There is an assurance to their performances of Beethoven that suggests they should play more of this repertoire. I see the smiles on the players’ faces at times during the performance.
One of these seasons Tafelmusik should program a complete Beethoven symphony cycle. They would never throw down the gauntlet, and lay claim to being the best orchestra in Toronto because it’s not their style. Perhaps it’s a matter of testosterone (Tafelmusik has been led by a woman rather than a man) taking a more feminine approach in sharing leadership among several artists, such as Bruno Weil for Beethoven, Jeanne Lamon (for many years), Ivars Taurins for Messiah and great choral works, and David Fallis with Opera Atelier: and they are the richer for it.
Of course there’s room in Toronto for more than one great orchestra. But I am frustrated, wanting to hear them undertake so many more works of the period.
Schubert’s symphonies?
Schumann’s symphonies & piano concerto
Mendelssohn’s other symphonies & overtures, and perhaps the music from A Midsummernight’s Dream
Berlioz… but his works require too many players, I fear
Conductor Bruno Weil
In the meantime, I am always eager to hear their Beethoven. Bruno Weil leads crisp readings on the fast side, as one would expect in a historically informed performance such as this one. At times Weil encourages powerful climaxes & a dissonant approach that seems to want to show us how daring Beethoven could be. To me it sounds very fresh, very new, yet elegant, balanced, witty and as brilliant as we’d expect Beethoven to sound. Dare I say it: this is the real Beethoven. Tafelmusik make it their own.
Tafelmusik’s concert of Beethoven Symphonies 1 & 2 continues this weekend on Sept 20th & 22nd at Koerner Hall.
David Warrack is writing an oratorio on the life of Abraham, the Biblical patriarch. I’m thrilled to be participating in a concert presentation of excerpts. We’ve had some rehearsals, with about a week to go until the concert at Metropolitan United Church on September 23rd .
Warrack explains the context this way:
Abraham sits at the base of three great religions, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, with intriguing connections to other faiths as well. This oratorio tells the story of this historic figure, but also uses the opportunity to ask why we cannot work together when we all come from the same place. Based in history, and believing in the essential goodness of man, the message of this work is that by reaching out, we can find solutions.
Composer David Warrack
The project is much more than music & words, but an excuse for interfaith dialogue. The composer wants to get a conversation going, so it’s no wonder that the work concerns communication and debate.
Here’s the plan for the next couple of years:
Preliminary presentation of 4 selections at Metropolitan United Church on September 23rd with appearances by Moshe Hammer & Jackie Richardson, as part of an interfaith conference.
3 performances in early 2014 in a church, a synagogue, and a mosque, with 5 soloists, a small combined choir, a chamber ensemble, and organ
Full performance at Massey Hall or the Sony Centre in the 2014/2015 season
Warrack’s plan is as much about religion as it is about art. It’s delicate.
Delicate? Some people don’t care who they offend. For instance. I’m reminded of a moment in Richard Strauss’s opera Salome. The Jews in Herod’s court have heard that the captive John the Baptist has supposedly seen God, leading to a debate about the nature of God. It’s very dramatic, and undignified, as the music seems to mock them and their intense faith. Some call this scene anti-Semitic.
Faith & religion are a delicate matter! Now imagine the delicacy of Warrack’s task, in seeking to present something that can be shown to three faith communities, not only without giving offense, but in hopes of sparking dialogue.
I jumped at the opportunity to participate in this presentation of excerpts of the work on the occasion of the interfaith conference. And so it seems that the oratorio probes and enacts the interfaith question, as though the oratorio itself were an inter-faith conference. But in another sense the oratorio is meta-faith or pre-faith, asking some fundamental questions about our natures and how we approach such questions, both within and outside our faith communities.
Warrack’s music is predominantly tonal, very chromatic, and not at all like his usual music-theatre idiom nor his jazz music. The chorus we were working on today is precisely the opposite of what Strauss wrote, because it dignifies everyone involved. At times we’re asked to sing dissonant music; there’s one place where I sing with another tenor a semi-tone away, while another place the basses are a major seventh away. At times we’re echoing phrases from other vocal parts a beat or two later. It’s a dense web, but each of us with conviction whether we arrive at discord or harmony.
Metropolitan United Church
It’s new. There’s something magical in bringing a new piece into the world, particularly when it’s not derivative. There are passages whose complex textures remind me of Paul Hindemith, one passage that suggests Frank Zappa, and yes, there are places where the disciplined modernist Warrack becomes the romantic Warrack. The ambiguous harmonies and extended chords lead us (the choristers) a merry chase. Our adventures in tonality are a perfect parallel to the discussion.
Bruce Barton: playwright & artistic director of Vertical City
Tonight at a performance of Bruce Barton’s YouTopia I was reminded of the difference between the mandate of University of Toronto’s “Drama Centre” (recently renamed “Centre for Drama, Theatre & Performance Studies”) and various theatre schools such as Ryerson or York, where actors learn their craft. No, this was no training ground for thespians; we were in a kind of laboratory exploring the possibilities of drama.
The work –or should I call it an installation?—is subtitled “A Vertical City Performance” and not, please note, a student show, as far as I could tell. As the program tells us
Vertical City is a professional Toronto-based interdisciplinary performance hub that has been operating since 2007, initially inspired by the desire to confront aerial movement with theatricality. Vertical City now focuses on a broad cross-section of intimate interdisciplinary intersections.
Yes, it looked like a laboratory.
YouTopia is many things:
Kiran Friesen and Adam Paolozza
Sci-fi homage to the 1960s, complete with references to films & music
A complex inter-disciplinary piece dense with meanings
An enactment of a society out of balance. If we are on the verge of a precipice, how better to show that than to enact the physical reality of that precariousness in the air above our heads?
The most meaningful use of aerial work I’ve ever seen. Vertical City supposedly seek to “confront aerial movement with theatricality” (or so it says above), but this goes one step beyond, inserting aerial movement as an essential expressive element.
It reminds me of opera. While singers tell stories with their singing, operas are usually written as a pretence for singing. There’s often a tension between singing for the sensuous pleasure of vocal beauty, and the drama being enacted (some works being more at one extreme than the other). Similarly in dance or ballet, we have works that use movement or dance for drama, balanced with dance that is an end in itself. And as with opera (at least), there is a back-forth between different discourses that build and release tension, one for action, one for passion. But instead of recitative and aria, we have cerebral (dense layers of speech plus some music) and physical (aerial movement) as the two chief discourses playing off one another.
While I was watching aerial movement –mostly Kiran Friesen—I couldn’t help thinking that the whole piece was a great excuse to get lost in watching the accomplished handling of bodies in the air, to marvel at clever compositions and configurations.
Entering the space, one is confronted with an astonishing construction filling the performance space. The set design is by Sherri Hay. I was reminded of two different Ring cycle designs and a current AGO show:
Robert Lepage’s Machine, a representation of the protean world, but especially scary (to performers or traditionalists) in how it demoted the singers. As with Lepage, this machine is the real star. Much of the time Lepage’s set is like an installation, an ongoing meditation on the meaning of the operas in concrete form. So too, with Hay’s set, a kind of sculptural treatise on our material world.
Michael Levine’s design for Die Walkuere for the Canadian Opera Company’s Ring Cycle
Michael Levine’s Ring set is much more representational, but still at times a mixture of abstract & concrete, and often a big mess. At times it looks unsafe to walk on for the performers. That’s what I felt with Freisen and Adam Paolozza, bravely clambering around in this bizarro world.
Ai Weiwei’s monumental piles of material came to mind. This is a very ambiguous set, that simultaneously seems infatuated with itself –a big technological aggregation—and ironic – as Murphy’s Law begins to rear its head, machines that break down.
Barton’s text is a funny mix, sometimes bleak & dystopian, but as often, invoking children’s stories & films.
YouTopia continues until September 22nd at the Studio Theatre, 4 Glen Morris Ave. www.totix.ca
I only found out who John Mills-Cockell was after the fact of encountering his music without knowing who he was. A tune by Syrinx –“Tillicum”— was my first encounter with sounds that have been near & dear to my heart, a composition with an Eastern flavour showing the protean utility of electronic sounds.
Many especially in the Toronto area will recall the television series The Stationary Ark, with Gerald Durrell, for which JMC supplied engaging music.
JMC has been a pioneer of electronic music in Canada and around the world. I read in his bio that he presented what’s called the first real-time music synthesizer performance in the 1960s with Buckminster Fuller. JMC has been an explorer, teacher and pathfinder ever since. His music is heard in film, TV, radio, and live theatre, with commissions to write original dance scores for the National Ballet, Royal Winnipeg Ballet & Toronto Dance Theatre, and he seems to have worked with most of the important directors in Canada, such as Brian Richmond, Peter Hinton, Ken Gass, Guy Sprung & Richard Rose.
Savitri and Sam is an opera JMC has been developing with a libretto by Ken Gass. After their workshop back in 2008, Gass & JMC revised the work, and are now ready to put it back into workshop the week of September 23rd in Toronto. That’s the occasion for me to ask John Mills-Cockell ten questions: five about himself, and five about the work on Savitri and Sam.
1-Are you more like your father or your mother?
Composer, musician, innovator, teacher John Mills-Cockell
My mother, Emily, died when I was 6 months and because my father was poor and trying to establish a career for himself, devastated by the loss of his wife, I went into an orphanage for a couple years . Finally he married the young nurse who cared for me during that time, Cynthia.
My father was a violinist in a Palm Court type trio for several years before he had to concentrate on raising a family. He frequently played with friends who came to our house when I was a boy. I have 2 younger brothers and we all took music lessons, but for some reason I’m the one who carried the torch. However, Dad travelled a great deal. He was in fashion and spent much time in Europe, New York, Montréal to buy dress fabrics.
Am I more like my father or my mother? I don’t know, but obviously the fact that he was a musician and that music was always part of our daily lives was seminal.
I joined a church choir when I was 5 and learned to read music. This probably would not have happened without him. He was a regular in the choir. Cynthia attended church only occasionally.
2- What is the best thing or worst thing about being a composer?
Labels are certainly a trap. Even after all these years one feels hemmed in and limited by them. Interesting that you have picked this particular ‘worst thing’.
The best thing is clearly the incredible opportunity I have to express myself for others’ pleasure & interest. I love creating music in all contexts.
3- Who do you like to listen to or watch?
Of course I’m passionate about theatre, just as much as I am about music. Almost everything else I choose to spend time doing is directed towards feeding my desire to create music: concert music, and music in various multidisciplinary settings: theatre, film, dance, whatever; music in all forms and genres. It is a mistake to dismiss any possibilities for expression without at least having a crack at it. The only problem is that our time here is limited.
4- What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
For the next 2 weeks I’m facing an ensemble of singers in the recording studio with only rudimentary skill in conducting, even though I have acted as musical director in a variety of contexts for most of my life! Even though I’m considered by some to be a pioneer in electronic technology used in music creation, every time I use my smartphone it’s an awkward battle
5- When you’re just relaxing and not working what is your favourite thing to do?
I walk my dog at home on Vancouver Island. Cook with my partner, Jean. Drink coffee.
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Five more about the creation of Savitri and Sam for Factory Theatre
1-How does scoring Savitri and Sam challenge you?
Although it is a large scale work incorporating various musical & theatrical traditions, I believe Savitri & Sam is not difficult aesthetically compared to some contemporary operatic works. The story, dramatically and deftly depicted by Ken Gass, is so compelling. The characters are both operatically theatrical and believable so that audiences will care about them and hopefully be swept away by their performances.
The work is comic as well as tragic, powerfully resonant for anyone concerned with human rights. It’s themes resonate universally, far beyond the multicultural backgrounds of the characters and the panoramic setting of northern British Columbia.
Librettist, director, and teacher Ken Gass
2- What do you love about composing music, particularly collaborating with Ken Gass?
I am incredibly fortunate that Ken agreed to work with me on the project. He has a much needed instinct, developed through years of play writing and directorial experience, for creating clearly delineated characters who can express complex human situations through a dramatic & meaningful narrative.
In Savitri & Sam we had an opportunity to create a libretto that combines realism with poetic imagery & expression. I think he has done so beautifully. It was an ongoing joy to set the text. Beyond that, Ken has indisputable experience producing many kinds of theatre with many performing artists & designers.
One of the reasons I wished to compose an opera, beyond this amazing and powerful story, was to have an incentive to imagine and set forth dramatically exciting music. Having a narrative like this one was my portal to discovery, forcing me to find fresh colours, melodies, & rhythms.
The poetic clarity of Ken’s text and the incisive quality of his characters inspired whatever I have been able to do with the score.
Of course it is a collaborative process. Inevitably there is a great deal of back and forth about pretty much every detail of the work, from story line, to timing, dynamics, every breath and sigh!
3-Is there a moment in the work that you’re especially eager to see or hear?
The climax of the piece, not to give away too much, is a powerful and violent scene set above the raging waters in the Fraser River Canyon at Hell’s Gate. This is the penultimate scene of the opera and Ken has created a marvellously dynamic spectacle of human passion bordering on the edge of madness. That said, every scene that leads up to this one and to the denouement that follows are hopefully just as gripping in their own way. They are certainly as necessary as the ‘big scene’.
4- How do you relate to the modern world of music as a 21st century man?
When I was a maverick electronic renegade & 12 tone composition student, everything seemed easy. We never though about being ‘modern’. It was simply what was happening, the zeitgeist.
Exciting: Karheinz Stockhausen’s talk on Max Neuhaus’ performance of Kontakt at U of T, Cage & Feldman at Knox-Albright, Zappa at Convocation Hall, later Einstein on the Beach, etc, etc. Now so much feels pretty conventional to me, but it takes great courage and imagination to break free in order to make something ‘new‘ that is ‘meaningful’ and inspiring to audiences. This must come not only from the artist (we must make opportunities as well as dream up works), but also from facilitators, individuals & organizations who lay the groundwork for exciting new art to occur.
5- is there a colleague or teacher you especially admire?
Samuel Dolin (click photo for more information)
The colleagues, other artists mostly, who inspire me are way too numerous to mention. It would be just one or two whom I might think of right this minute. People in my past that had a direct influence on my personal development: Dr Samuel Dolin, my composition teacher, Myron Shaffer who got me into graduate electronic music studies with Gus Ciamaga, composer Ann Southam, composer Udo Kasemets, sculptor Michael Hayden, producer Felix Pappalardi. Only a few.
Information concerning the workshop:
JMC:
The second workshop Ken & I are about to hold after many, many months of preparation, casting, calling favour, interruptions, is an important step in the development path of this work. We’re both excited about it and looking forward to what emerges. At the same time, in parallel, we have been working with record producer William Blakeney at Grant Ave Studio on a complete recording of the piece. Next week I’ll be in the studio with a very fine ensemble of singers to lay down the chorus parts on the instrumental tracks already recorded.
LB:
The workshop is to be held the week of September 23rd, with a public performance on Saturday Sept 28th. Details (how to get tickets) TBA.
Click for Rotten Tomatoes quiz, and NB if you read this article you’ll have the answer to the pertinent question
In The Greatest Story Ever Told, an assortment of Hollywood icons share the screen with lesser known talent, to give the audience a well-known tale. Some of the film works, while other parts are wooden, especially because we’re so busy spotting stars that we’re distracted from the story. Nothing exemplifies this better than the scene of John Wayne as the centurion who stood by the cross during the crucifixion.
He intones the famous line “Truly this man was the son of God”, but sounds as Roman as a cowboy.
I don’t know how to feel about this, given that nobody really expected realism in films made in 1965. For the time it was more or less average, and not the worst.
I can’t help noticing how commercial cinema revisits themes a few times each generation, coming closer or diverging from realism depending on the expectations of the paying public. In our own era such a film might show a centurion speaking some dialect of Latin instead, perhaps with subtitles (as in Passion of the Christ). Hollywood is a factory of anachronism, regularly giving the audience moments that are more modern than accurate (for instance in the careless sprinkling of current colloquiualisms), although each generation gradually gets more realistic than the previous generation in the core facts being presented.
Tonight I saw a film that reminded me of John Wayne’s famously anachronistic delivery of that line, but it wasn’t a Biblical epic. No, I saw The Butler, a film by Lee Daniels that’s a chronicle of the civil rights movement. In fairness, nobody is quite as bad as Wayne.
I liked it very much..! But as a realistic film it’s a lot like The Greatest Story Ever Told:
It’s full of stars in brief appearances as famous people. Jane Fonda is Nancy Reagan, Robin Williams is Dwight Eisenhower. John Cusack is Richard Nixon. I won’t name them all, because part of the fun is in recognizing them. But the fact we’re drawn to those famous faces seriously breaks the illusion, turning it into a kind of star-parade that feels decidedly old-fashioned.
The story majestically unfolds from famous episode to famous episode, as though we were moving through chapters of a Gospel account of the life of Jesus. As soon as the son sits down at the table with the beret we know he’s a Black Panther, which will lead to some sort of political discussion. As with Biblical epics, some of the greatest pleasure is in famous moments seen from an oblique angle rather than directly. I thought of Ben-Hur—a film I love very much –a few times during this film.
There’s a kind of sublime achieved in the film, as in epics such as Ben-Hur, in taking us directly to the heart of a great moment, and if you’re a true believer there will be tears. While I may have been already tenderized by the opera I saw last night, speaking as a guy who loves to cry at operas & movies, I was more emotional at The Butler than any film I’ve seen in a very long time. If you like to cry, you’ll love this film: unless you’re a racist, of course.
So let me be clear. I do not want to knock this film. It reminds me a lot of The Help, another film that was a kind of template allowing us to see the inevitable progression of history –that we are privileged to know with the benefit of hindsight—except that it’s got a different focus.
I am highly sensitive to fictions as I write this. I’ve been thinking a lot about Syria, about the various stories being put out by various governments. I don’t pretend to know the truth, only that one of the wonderful things about this film is that awareness of stories being told & retold. While some of the mechanics of this film are very old-fashioned (see the bullets above), there’s one aspect that makes me smile. I am fascinated by the changing presentation of the discrepancies between fact & fiction. While aspects of The Butler are mechanical, particularly the resemblance to the epic-genre & its story-telling techniques, there’s no mistaking the truths in this film concerning America’s past. As a baby-boomer I watched this, and almost expected to see someone say “this is your life”. And it was, and is. For certain aspects of this film–the most political parts of the film– it’s shockingly accurate.
No wonder the whole Jane Fonda thing has been trumped up in places that fear this film (for instance as in this Fox News Report). They had little problem with Fonda for generations, when she played harmless characters and made them money. Suddenly the film is going to be banned, even as Fonda plays a tiny part, giving a wonderfully sympathetic version of Nancy Reagan? Gimme a break. They fear this film because it reminds you of America’s hypocrisy, its racist past and the strong remaining vestiges to this day.
Verily it’s like a Biblical epic, a spiritual tale as remarkable as anything in the Bible, except we know this one is true. How beautiful, to see the way this film ends.
See it and believe, sorrow for the damned, redemption for the faithful.
When i go to write a new piece here on the blog, i follow the tab to “new post”. We were promised a paperless office, a paperless world long ago, but it never happened. It’s funny to keep bumping into that word “post” as though it were the pole in a fence we just banged into.
Technological change is reflected in the way we tell stories. The plot devices for our plays, our novels, our operas, our films change with us. Writers have been faced with this in the films of the past few years. When people can text, you can’t have the same kind of mis-understandings as in the past. Or can you? Against the Grain managed to reformat old-fashioned mail into a text message in Figaro’s Weddings earlier this year.
Not so long ago, mail figured prominently in popular songs.
Remember “Return to Sender” especially when Elvis sings it? Remember these lines?
“And if it comes back, the very next day,
Then I’ll understand”?
What a different world we live in. The whole drama of this song would be over in 30 seconds of texting.
Remember “She’s Leaving Home”? I won’t blame you if you didn’t. It’s the song nobody ever remembers from Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band , and my favourite song from that album.
There are two pivotal moments in the song that are built around a written note. We hear that she is “leaving the note that she hoped would say more”, and then in the next verse, father is snoring, while “his wife gets into her dressing gown/ Picks up the letter that’s lying there”, and the consequences unfold.
Maybe Elvis’s letter returned to sender situation has been supplanted by texts, but I think people still write notes, clutch handkerchiefs, and yes, feel they’ve been treated thoughtlessly.
Letters aren’t fully obsolete, and so perhaps it’s not so odd that i am still “posting”.
As I watched and listened to Adam Klein’s Winterreise as filmed by Eric Solstein, I came to a song that has long fascinated me, every bit as powerful as the Beatles tune. It came back into my brain, after I saw Loose Tea Theatre’s Carmen Friday night, sitting in the first row, a close-up perspective that I’d recently seen in Solstein’s film.
You can find Klein’s performance 37 minutes and 14 seconds into Solstein’s film.
Or here’s a lovely stand-alone reading of the song by Hermann Prey. Notice the way Schubert’s piano conjures up the gallop of a horse, a possible horn call. It’s so indecently clean, so economical.
Die Post. The phenomenon for this song isn’t simply a letter in a mailbox. It’s a dramatic event: because mail itself was a dramatic event at one time. We still see that drama nowadays (for instance, that Amazon package I was expecting to see Tuesday that was late). But the way the song unfolds feels antique, yet his emotion is so clear. The singer isn’t waiting for a DVD or a book. It’s a letter, and contact with the woman he loved. No, loves, it’s clear in the song.
Von der Strasse her ein Posthorn klingt. From the street, the posthorn sounds
Was hat es, dass es so hoch aufspringt, why do you leap so,
Mein Herz? My heart!
Die Post bringt keinen Brief für dich. The delivery includes no letters for you
Was drängst du denn so wunderlich, why are you so excited
Mein Herz? My heart?
Nun ja, die Post kommt aus der Stadt, And now the post comes from the town
Wo ich ein liebes Liebchen hatt’, where I had a true beloved
Mein Herz! My heart!
Willst wohl einmal hinüberseh’n do you want to again peer out
Und fragen, wie es dort mag geh’n and ask, how things are back there
Mein Herz? My heart
I suppose what I am pondering is pain. Sometimes I wonder, why do people write operas and movies & plays about pain? Why is Written on Skin the great hope of opera, when it’s once again, a tale of men oppressing women? I wish we could get past that, and yes, same thing with Carmen, too. And Schubert’s obsessed singer in Winterreise.
But the songs & operas are haunting precisely because they distill the pain down so perfectly, musical / dramatic vehicles that are irresistible to performers (Klein and Harper and Warner and Hannigan among others) because they’re irresistible to the audience.
Considering that the heroine of Bizet’s opera usually ends up stabbed, I want to make clear that the headline refers to Peter Brook’s La Tragédie de Carmen, a much shorter version of the original, and not the violence meted out by Don José.
I just saw Loose Tea Music Theatre’s wonderful new production of their adaptation, mostly Brook plus a bit more of Bizet. In conversation with Alaina Viau, the director/producer and adaptor (and maybe i should also call her dramaturg, fund-raiser and promoter), we discovered we had something in common. I hope I paraphrase correctly, but I think we both find Bizet’s opera problematic, and that motivates the adaptation. It’s as though the opera is a ritual slaughter, complete with the cheers of the bullring, as though she were just an animal, a strong woman, sacrificed because she transgresses the usual rules of her society. I can’t deny Bizet’s opera is brilliant precisely because it draws us in like one of those youtube videos of a disaster, a murder you can’t bear to watch, but keep watching all the same. I hate what happens to Carmen, and have had trouble watching it….in its complete version.
I could be wrong, but I believe this is the first time Brook’s version has been done in Toronto, possibly in Canada. It’s a whole new look, and at roughly 80 minutes is well-nigh irresistible. Where have you been all my life, Carmencita..!? Carmen-lite is a greatest-hits show, breath-taking to hear, and much more powerful in its reduced form. Like the Johnny Walker that the hero seems to be swigging, if you take the pure essence undiluted, you will get very intoxicated. In its short time on the stage, La Tragédie packs an enormous wallop. I cried in a couple of places, and no I didn’t expect to be moved this way. If you can’t be bothered reading the review, the executive summary is “SEE IT!”
In the interview from a few days ago Viau explained that José is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and we’re in the period after WW I.
Fight Director and PTSD consultant, Sean Brown, working with Ryan Harper (left) and Cassandra Warner
The first time we see him –during the prelude—we can already see that he’s hyper-sensitive to loud sounds, using alcohol to suppress his feelings. In the first ten minutes, mostly between Ryan Harper’s José and Lisa Faieta’s Micaela, I had to get acclimated to the pace of this adaptation, a very economical texture, with super quick exposition and great tunes, instead of the usual gradual story-telling. Even if you don’t know the story, you can read between the lines; but we’re taken a long way very fast, especially with Cassandra Warner’s seductive arrival. We don’t doddle around with the soldiers, the children’s chorus or the cigarette factory, oh no.
And it all clicks in an instant because Warner is a very beautiful Carmen. She scans the audience during the Habanera as if checking every one of us out (and yes for a moment I was also so swallowed up by the moment that I was wishing her eyes would land on mine and…?), singing of love while every eye is upon her. It’s inevitable that the innocent José Harper plays would be out of his depth, and easily reeled in by her. He’s overmatched by the accomplished extrovert, exactly as the score gives it to us in the longer opera. This is the prescribed dynamic, given that Carmen & Escamillo are confident extroverts singing boastfully to crowds, while José and Micaela are lonely romantics in comparison.
I look forward to hearing how Warner’s voice develops in the years to come. Yes she’s a wonderful actor, physically beautiful, but (oh but I must sound like such a nerd) the voice? The high notes have me wondering what she’ll be singing in a decade’s time. When she hit her top notes I was thinking of a voice like Susan Graham, where she’s on the boundary of being a soprano, and very assured up there, even if her colour is luscious and dark in the middle voice.
Cassandra Warner as Carmen
I believe she’s a conductor’s dream, almost too precise in her near-perfect intonation. I wondered if she’s also an instrumentalist, because I’m not accustomed to singers who sing this accurately.
Where this was my first experience of Warner, I’ve been listening to Harper for awhile. I’ve reviewed him twice before, as Ferrando in Cosi fan tutte with Opera York in 2011, and later that year in Against the Grain’s second mounting ofLa boheme. I’d remarked already at Harper’s comic gift. Not only is he the funniest Ferrando I’ve ever seen, but he brought unexpected lightness to Rodolfo, making the tragic turn of the last act feel deeper than usual. How was this lyric voice, this comic sensibility going to work as Don José, the character that –as mentioned above—troubles me…? At the beginning he was a lot like every José I’ve seen, giving us the intense romantic.
And then we came to his flower song, sung not to Carmen, but as a soliloquy as if sung to the flower. While he’d given us plenty of voice, at this moment we were taken to a still place, a lyric reading of the aria penetrating deeply into the text. I was sitting in the front row, indecently close, and at times had eye contact with this man singing an artificial piece about a flower & love that can sometimes feel genuine and heartfelt in a big theatre. The vulnerability of the comedian was there, except those skills took us to a new place, one of authenticity and depth, even as he sang the aria easily.
And so when we come to the last scene and Carmen faces José, it was not the usual ritual slaughter. Warner stands tall, every line dignified and brave, while Harper’s innocent delivery for the first five minutes reminded me of Anthony Perkins in Psycho, someone who fools us because he seems so gentle & kind. Who could ever suspect that such a sweet voice would do anything violent? But he changes. We watch it, and even in the tiny space at Buddy’s it rings completely true. It has to work this way, or it would make no sense that she’s stood her ground so long, and not run away. I like what Viau does to this scene, what she asks of Warner & Harper, and I believe she’s in touch with us, a society who have (forgive me Georges!) outgrown the ritual slaughter of that 1875 bourgeois opera.
I must also mention two other wonderful performers.
Greg Finney steals the show every time he’s onstage (the funniest one in Against the Grain’s Boheme and again in Figaro), so I am thrilled to see him in a principal role. This is an Escamillo who perfectly matches the extroversion of Warner’s Carmen, a flamboyant man of charmisma unafraid of crowds. Finney’s voice is amazingly versatile, as he gave us plenty of voice in the Toreador Song, yet always gave us a perfect balance in his ensembles. And Lisa Faieta as Micaela made the most of her brief role, especially memorable in a wonderful rendition of the aria we usually hear in Act III.
I was again reminded of AtG’s Boheme, the way this Carmen feels inside Buddies in Bad Times Theatre space, a long way away from a big opera house. Oh my, there’s so much talent in this city, and new companies coming up all the time. Welcome Loose Tea Music Theatre! If you can fit it in, please see this either Saturday night or Sunday afternoon. You won’t be sorry you did.
However retrospective it felt, it’s a very promising beginning to the new season.
barczablog 