Ten Questions for Marshall Pynkoski

Posted on October 10, 2013 by barczablog

Marshall Pynkoski is one of Toronto’s greatest artists, even if he has been completely misunderstood.  Since its inception in 1985, Opera Atelier has been a kind of lightning rod in Toronto for the conversation about historically informed performance.  With co-artistic director Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg and in collaboration with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra & Choir, their growing body of work has articulated a recognizable style.

The conversation hasn’t always been friendly nor appreciative.  I recall critics who were very negative about OA’s productions.  The question of authenticity was sometimes such a focus for the conversation that Pynkoski’s skills as a director were lost in the shuffle.  I regret that we’ve so often been worrying about history that we miss the excellence in the here and now, so busy with history that the direction, the drama, the originality are somehow forgotten. Pynkoski is a very good director, yet because of this focus on history –which was central to the company’s history–his talents are overshadowed.  And because of their unique movement vocabulary, which is unlike any other opera company in this country, they’re sometimes misread, appreciated less for what they achieve than for their divergence from what people usually understand as “opera”.

I expressed faith in Marshall’s brilliance after seeing their  most recent Don Giovanni, a production that seems breath-takingly original even as it honours history.  Last season we were tantalized, first by the first historically informed Der Freischutz in North America, and then with Pynkoski’s announcement that this was merely the beginning, as new horizons were being opened by the company:

This evening we are taking what is perhaps an even more thrilling leap into uncharted territory.  Our production of the first Romantic opera—Weber’s Der Freischütz –boldly redefines the very parameters of what constitutes period performance.  We are not merely drawing a line in the sand; we are stepping past the line in saying all periods are fair game to be reinterpreted in historically informed productions.  Our hearts are still firmly grounded in Baroque repertoire, and this will be reflected in our programming in the years to come, but we also look forward to the potential of re-examining masterpieces by composers such as Debussy, Bizet and even Wagner.

The company he’s built is an important creative voice in this country, and now internationally as well.  I’m proud of everything they do, and delighted that their latest production opens soon, namely Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio on October 26th.   In anticipation I ask Pynkoski ten questions: five about himself, and five more about the opera opening October 26th.

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

It is difficult to say which of my parents I take after – if either! I seem to be something of a throwback and from my earliest years had interests and obsessions which left my family utterly flabbergasted, sometimes concerned, and frequently annoyed. There are no artists in my family, nor are there any people I know of with a particular interest in the arts in general or the performing arts in particular.

Marshall Pynkoski, Opera Atelier’s Co-Artistic Director

I was, by the way, raised in an intensely religious, fundamentalist atmosphere, which is not without a theatrical side. I have no doubt this played a major – albeit somewhat subversive! – role in my development.

2-What is the best thing or worst thing about being a director, particularly in the realm of historically-informed period performance?

Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg

Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg

I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Because I am co-artistic director of a company which was founded by my partner Jeannette and me, I have the luxury of only producing work which I adore. We have made a conscious decision to produce only twice a year, which means we are never choosing a show to fill out a season or to act as a cash cow. Our obsession with Mozart is real, as is our fascination with French Baroque opera and ballet. Because we gravitate toward many of the same artists from season to season, we enjoy the added bonus of having made close and lasting friendships within the arts community.

It’s also particularly delightful to have such close interaction with artists from a variety of disciplines such as my very dear friend Gerard Gauci who has been Opera Atelier’s set designer since the company’s inception. And of course my partner in work and in life Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg.

Gerard Gauci

Set designer Gerard Gauci

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

I listen to classical music exclusively, simply because it is what gives me the greatest pleasure. That being said, classical music is a rather generic term. Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic, and early 20th century music all play an important part in my non-professional life. Jeannette and I are both particularly interested in the aesthetic links between French composers such as Debussy and Ravel, and their predecessors, the great giants of 17th and 18th century French music, including Charpentier, Lully and Rameau. Jeannette and I do not own a television and both of us are – thank God! – too busy to indulge in cell phones or personal computers.

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

I wish I were multilingual. I also wish I were twenty pounds heavier and bristling with muscle!

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

I am a voracious reader, but also draw enormous inspiration from watching DVDs of great ballet performances particularly the repertoire created by George Balanchine when danced by New York City Ballet – to my mind, the greatest ballet company in the world.

When travelling for business or pleasure, we spend our time in museums and art galleries – another serious obsession.

~~~~~~~

Five more concerning  the production of Abduction from the Seraglio that opens the Opera Atelier season.

1-What are the challenges you face with Opera Atelier, a company with a history of period performance?

Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg, Marc Minkowski, and Marshall Pynkoski, backstage after a Lucio Silla performance

Our biggest challenge is one of audience perception of what a period production is. We are eager for people to understand that Opera Atelier is not a museum and our productions are not artefacts. A period production is simply an opportunity for us to challenge ourselves in a new way as artists in the 21st century. We explore the aesthetics of other eras and cultures in order to help us look to the future. Our recent production of Lucio Silla for the Salzburg Festival was greeted as one of the most radical productions to take place in Salzburg for decades.

A period production is the new avant-garde of the 21st century.

2-What do you love about Opera Atelier?

I love the fact that our productions are built from the ground up and that every aspect of production is considered of equal importance. Like a great Broadway musical, an Opera Atelier production must be firing on all levels as a superb singing event, an orchestral event, a costume, set and machinery event, and a great literary event. This is the style of theatre that we are committed to and even when producing outrageous comedies like Abduction from the Seraglio we take our work and our commitment very seriously.

3-Do you have a favourite moment in Abduction from the Seraglio?

I adore the quartet for Belmonte, Konstanze, Pedrillo and Blonde, which begins with the men trying to ascertain if the women have slept with their captors, continues with the women’s outrage at the impertinence of the question and the final reconciliation between the four of them. I just don’t think opera or theatre gets better than this!

I also adore the entrance for Pasha Selim – a wonderful excuse to show off the Artists of Atelier Ballet dancing to Mozart’s “Turkish-inspired” music.

I think it’s important to remember that Abduction from the Seraglio has a classical commedia dell’arte plot. I do not take the grief and despair of Konstanze seriously, any more than I do that of the Countess in Figaro. These women are meant to be young, and they are indulging and enjoying the intensity of their emotions as only the young can. I find their “serious moments” by turns amusing, poignant and hilarious.

4-How do you feel about the relevance of period performance as a modern-day citizen?

Happily, we are generously supported at all levels of government, and it seems to have kicked in for our corporate supporters and individuals that period production does not preclude innovation, or social and political relevance. Fashions change, but people and their personal dilemmas remain remarkably consistent from one period to another. Period productions place history in a human context and enable us to focus on the story at hand rather than gratuitous special effects and theatrical distractions.

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

I would not be doing what I am doing or enjoying the wonderful life I have without the input of my ballet teachers John Marshall, David Moroni from the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, Flora Lojekova, and Glady Forrester, as well as George Balanchine – the greatest choreographer of the 20th century, arguably the greatest choreographer in history. His company New York City ballet acts as a constant inspiration for Jeannette and me.

~~~~~~~

Opera Atelier open their 2013-2014 season with Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio on October 26th at the Elgin Theatre, running until November 2nd.

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

Cloudy with a chance of symbolism

Posted on October 10, 2013 by barczablog

click for info on obtaining the Blu-ray & DVD

It’s such a silly title that i couldn’t resist having some fun with it.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is the best children’s film I’ve seen in a very long time, one of those films full of lines & overtones that a child won’t get, at least not until they’re much older.  In other words it’s a full-length animated feature that’s probably more entertaining for adults than children.

I suppose I shouldn’t expect any adults who aren’t parents or grand-parents to bother with the film, but what I’m saying here is for adults, not children.  If you have a chance to watch this film on TV see it. You won’t regret it.

Note, I am speaking of the first film, not the sequel (Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs II) that appeared in theatres last week.  I knew that certain people in my life would be seeing that sequel, and so I went about getting my hands on the first film.

We bought it.  And we watched it: twice (so far) and counting.

Who would expect a mainstream animated film to promote sustainability, in effect mocking our patterns of consumption and our aspirations as a society..?   I understand there’s a book that came long before any film.  I’d have to see it to decide whether the allegorical implications I’ve seen in the film are also present in the book.

Flint Lockwood is the protagonist, an inventor whose inventions keep misfiring.

As a child we see him come to school, announcing his solution to the greatest problem children face: untied shoelaces.

Instead? Spray on shoes.  Brilliant except: you can’t take them off!  He’s immediately ridiculed in class, as he discovers his spray-on-shoes are permanently attached to his feet (…even when he’s all grown up!).

He creates something called ratbirds.  Are they supposed to be good for something? They are certainly scary.

His latest?  a machine that makes food out of water goes haywire on national TV, destroying the town square before it flies off into the clouds.  In the conversation between disgraced weather reporter Sam Sparks (she’s female by the way) and Flint (our despairing inventor) food begins to fall from the sky.  The machine –which was fed on land by water—is much more effective when fed by the moisture of clouds.

Suddenly they are both heroes, as the town becomes a tourist mecca for its meteorological version of manna from heaven. And a romance might blossom between the two.

The mayor wants to exploit this of course. But isn’t that what mayors always do? I saw Jaws..!

Pardon me if I want to hold up a mirror.  This is your life, Western World. We’re spoiled rotten, as though our riches were falling on us from the clouds, and we don’t appreciate it.  Appreciate it? we are greedy for the next widget or flavour.  The citizens of this animated cartoon world have so much that they simply heave the extra food that they can’t eat into a reservoir.

Nobody seems to notice any problem with this.

When things spiral out of control, when the food weather becomes dangerous, I love the catastrophe that follows. Masses of surplus food piling up in that reservoir reach the breaking point.  As the dam bursts, the food simply floods the town in an avalanche of excess food, burying them in giant hamburgers and hot dogs. It’s a cute version of our society.

Talk about karma.

Sustainability isn’t merely a matter of waste management.  Isn’t it curious that the story is all about weather & climate?  I suspect I am reading an additional layer into the story, something never intended by Judi & Ron Barrett, the authors of that original book.  But what could be more apt in our era of global warming than a story where a silly weather disaster is brought on by human hands, an inventor whose inventions keep having unforeseen consequences.  That’s global warming in a parable for children: that our technologies have backfired upon us.

The ratbirds deserve a film of their own (perhaps Meatballs III, if there is one), a scary hybrid of parrot and rat.  No we don’t hear about DNA or scientists who play God, or Frankenstein’s monster; but if you wanted a watered down cartoon version of such things?  The ratbird covers it perfectly.

Even so, the film is full of positive images, and not just a study in sustainability:

  • Flint is a nerd.  The film is very nerd-friendly, suggesting that it’s okay to be a scientist, that knowledge is powerful and that stupidity is dangerous.
  • Sam –a weather-person and the eventual cartoon version of a love-interest—is presented when we first meet her as aspiring to a kind of plastic fame on network TV, dumbing herself down in the process.  Gradually she becomes herself, divesting herself of the artificial layer, wearing glasses instead of contacts, and allowing her true nerdy self to emerge.

I am now eager (hungry?) to see Meatballs II.  But I’m planning to see the first Meatballs again, even though i already saw it twice.  That’s not recycling, it’s simply fun.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Reviews | 1 Comment

10 Questions for Beatriz Boizan

Posted on October 8, 2013 by barczablog

Considered “One of the brightest new lights in the classical world” (The Vancouver Sun), pianist Beatriz Boizán is admired for her vibrant personality, charismatic stage presence, unique musicianship and innate talent to deliver breathtakingly authentic innovative performances of Spanish and Latin American music, for which she has been encouraged by her teacher and mentor, Mme. Alicia de Larrocha.  Her debut CD, “Pasión”, Galano Records GLO-2813, features Boizán playing 17 solo piano pieces written by some of her favorite Spanish and Latin American composers – Lecuona, Soler, Cervantes, Albéniz and Ginastera.

Her stunning, scintillating, passionate, moving interpretations, delivered with deep maturity, understanding and respect are certain to make a tremendous, lasting impact on Classical and Latin music fans worldwide. You can find out more about her at beatrizboizan.com

In anticipation of Beatriz’s recital at Toronto’s Gallery 345 on October 18 at 8:00 pm, I ask her ten questions: five about herself and five about her concert.

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

I believe I posses qualities from both. The strength of character (that ability to stand up for myself and fight for what I believe in) I inherited from my mother. She passed away at a fairly young age. She was forty-eighty and I was thirteen. The perseverance, the intense work ethic, the stern discipline and the ability to completely focus and dedicate myself to a profession I learned from my father. My special love for Martin Scorsese films I inherited from both. My parents were huge fans of his flicks since I was little. I remember hearing them praise “Taxi Driver” and “Raging bull” when I was growing up.

Pianist Beatriz Boizan

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

The best thing about being a pianist is the ability to create a rainbow of colours and an orchestral sound that ranges from percussive vibrations to the most beautiful singing tone which makes it one of the most multi dimensional instruments around. This brings me to the worst thing about being a pianist. Because of all the above, the art of playing the piano requires countless hours to master it and therefore my job is accompanied by a pretty lonely and sedentary life. I don’t mind being alone completely lost in my own world for the most part but sitting in a chair for large number of hours since I was a child is not very much fun.

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

Sprinting, Tennis, Soccer and Football are my favourite sports to watch. I’m a huge fan of MUSIC of all kinds (Opera, country music, Jazz, Broadway, Pop) and I have a special love for singers which I inherited from my aunt (my mother‘s sister) who is an opera singer. I accompanied her in public before I played my first solo piano recital. In a way, my relationship with singers started long before I thought of becoming a soloist. I admire Renee Fleming‘s work very much, especially her Strauss and her Rachmaninoff.  I cried when I first heard her sing live at the Chan Centre in Vancouver back in 2002. Keith Urban‘s “Til summer comes around“ is one of the most beautiful tunes ever written. Diana Krall is a great inspiration in my life because I consider her a rare talent as this girl from Nanaimo who plays/sings bossa nova quite beautifully. I adore Barbra Streisand. I think she gives an unusual substance to Broadway music.

I can’t live without MOVIES. Leonardo diCaprio is my favourite actor. He broke my heart when he played “Arnie” in “What‘s Eating Gilbert Grape” and later, I wanted to marry him when he played “Jack Dawson” in “Titanic”! Among other movies I admire are: “The King‘s speech”, “The Blind side”, “Gran Torino”, “Shine”, “Something‘s gotta give”, “The proposal”, “The bridges of Madison County”, “Blood Diamond“, “Edward Scissorhands”, “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”, “The Great Gatsby”.  “Mission Impossible 4” and “Casino Royale” were so thrilling I sweat watching them!

I love following politics, especially US politics. I love strong personalities like Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill & Hillary Clinton, Ann Coulter, as well as comedians like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher. I don’t necessarily agree with everything they say but I believe in democracy and diversity of thought. “Sex & The City” and “The Big Bang Theory” are my two favourite sitcoms.

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

World class athletic abilities! Roger Federer is my favourite athlete. My hubby took me to watch him play live @ the Toronto’s Rexall centre when I turned 30 back in 2006: the best birthday present I’ve ever received. I’m also a huge fan of Serena Williams, Usain Bolt, Shelly-Anne Fraser Price, Cristiano Ronaldo. I envy their movement and athletic performance.

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

Fitness is my favourite hobby. I love to run and lift weights. I also love learning about Fashion which is why I find the collaboration with designer Rosemarie Umetsu so delightful and fun. Spending time with my husband is a very special part of my life. We love going out on dates: dinner and a movie. We go for romantic dinners often and love fine dining restaurants. High quality food is heaven!

*******

Five more about the upcoming concert at Gallery 345

1-Please talk about the challenges in preparing your concert program.

I’m presenting a program that includes Haydn’s last keyboard sonata, Liszt’s Sonetto #104 and his etude “La Campanella” and also works from the Spanish and Latin American music repertoire. One of the challenges of preparing this program is mastering the stylistic differences between the composers: the period in which each lived, their distinctive personality traits, as for example Haydn’s brilliant sense of humor, Cervantes’ rare Cuban nostalgia, Liszt’s Romantic nature, and the flamenco inspired flavours of Lecuona’s Malagueña, to mention a few.

I purposely chose a program that would show a wide range of emotions and contrasts. I love the adventure of travelling from one country to another through sound. I find performing each composition with the appropriate style my biggest challenge as a Classical musician.

2-What do you love about this kind of music  (and how do you feel, being able to play such wonderful music)?

Yes, I agree. I feel privileged to have a gift for the Spanish and Latin American music, which is my heritage because it makes the performing experience even more personal and authentic. When I perform Liszt’s “La Campanella”, I’ve practiced countless hours to acquire the finger strength and the speed required to deliver an elegant performance with poise and ease. However, when I play any of the Spanish and Latin American pieces, I feel a complete transformation that goes beyond note accuracy, speed and any other aspect of technique that could be taught and/or learned. It is almost as if reasoning and intellect go out the window and then all I’m left with are my guts, my heart, and those deep childhood memories.  In a way the experience becomes very visceral and that I believe is the strength and appeal of my recitals.

3) Do you have a favourite moment in your program?

While I love every composition chosen for this programme, performing the “Danzas Cubanas” by Ignacio Cervantes (1847-1905) is my favourite moment as I have the warmest memories from growing up in Baracoa (Cuba) with my late grand-mother and first piano teacher Esclarecida Guilarte (1910-2007), who introduced me to his music. I also consider Cervantes my desert island composer. I love the simplicity and symmetry of his writing: so transparent, melancholic, nostalgic and candid. Very often, we think of Cuban music as loud and vibrant and then we have Ignacio Cervantes who lived and studied in 19th century Paris. He brought a unique dimension to our music and re-defined what being a Cuban is about. Very inspiring!  

4) How do you relate to this kind of piano repertoire as a modern Canadian woman of Cuban origin…?  

Moving to Canada has been the most liberating experience for me. Oddly enough, when I was back in Cuba I was in no mood to play Cuban music. It is possible that being overexposed to it didn’t help. It wasn’t until I moved to Canada that I gained a true appreciation for my culture. For some years, I completely forgot about it and it wasn’t until recently when I recorded my cd PASIÓN that I revisited some of these compositions and finally embraced the idea of making a lifelong commitment to it. Being a modern Canadian woman has given me the strength, the belief and the confidence to bring this repertoire to life.

Cecilia Bartoli

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

I specifically admire Cecilia Bartoli because of her unique love for Baroque music, her determination to bring it to concert audiences and to create awareness towards obscure compositions from this period. I have a similar desire with the Spanish and Latin American repertoire as my niche and passion.

~~~~~~~~~

Beatriz Boizan will be at Gallery 345 (345 Sorauren Avenue, Toronto, ON M6R 2G5)
October 18 at 8pm.  Tickets are $20/$15/$10, available online at beatrizboizan.com, at the door or by phone at 416.822.9781 www.gallery345.com]

BeatrizBoizan-lowRes-poster

Posted in Interviews, Music and musicology | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Light in the Piazza

Posted on October 6, 2013 by barczablog

Out of town post #2

Kaffe Fassett & Brandon Mably were the reason I went to Niagara-on-the-Lake, but  once there I jumped at the chance to see the show I was most curious about at this year’s Shaw Festival, namely The Light in the Piazza, a recent musical (2005) with music & lyrics by Adam Guettel & book by Craig Lucas.  If I’d seen it before (that is, another staging) I’d be better able to separate the achievements of this cast from those of the original creators of the work.

The entry in IDBD for the play suggests that this has been re-orchestrated, to give us a chamber-music feel reducing the scale & feel of the original to match the intimacy of the Court House Theatre.  While I see no extra credits for re-orchestration, when I listen to this youtube clip of Guettel’s overture I hear something comparable to what IDBD lists, not a quintet as we saw at Shaw (piano, violin, cello, bass, harp plus asking players to play other instruments occasionally), but a bigger ensemble.

I find myself asking questions throughout, trying to figure out what’s original (such as that reduced orchestration) and what to make of it all.

The first thing I’m wondering about is just how difficult this musical is for the cast.  The music is very tonal, very tuneful, but sometimes complicated.  I am wishing I could see the score; I’ll have to go get one to satisfy myself.  The cast do amazing work, supported by the quintet behind them on the stage, allowing scope for subtleties one couldn’t have with a big orchestra (although in the end, that’s an opening they’ve created that isn’t used…or so it seems).  I’m particular impressed by Jacqueline Thair as Clara Johnson, who is at the centre of the show.

There are questions of tone I am asking myself, perhaps playing devil’s advocate and recalling the film Light in the Piazza.  IMDB confirms what I thought I remembered: the absence of the definite article in the film’s name.  That opens a tiny window of additional ambiguity on the title, additional possible meanings.  I find I am a bit uncomfortable when I hear a song with the phrase (that is “Light in the Piazza”), and even more surprised when wham, another song at the end also uses it.  The film was so delicate & understated.

And on top of everything else, there’s the challenge posed by the adaptation from film to musical theatre, in the usual reduction in words.  It usually takes longer to get through a sung page of text than its spoken equivalent.  This means that when you try to tell the same story in a musical, something has to give. Either you leave something out of the adaptation, or you make it longer.

By now you can probably tell I don’t sound as enraptured as I should sound.  People spoke of this show with such respect I could have been visiting a shrine rather than a production of a musical.  I wanted to love it, I really did.  I liked it rather than loved it, impressed by it and by most of the performances.

I wasn’t sure at first whether my quibble was with the original or with the Shaw Festival production.  But I do notice that in the samples I’ve heard online from the cast album that there seems to be a subtlety to the original that isn’t being honoured in what I saw at Shaw.  There’s a degree of schtick, of edge to some of the numbers.  I’d heard from friends that this was a musical of great delicacy, that there’s so little to it that it’s a bit like a soap bubble.  I found myself delighted at the idea, particularly considering the work’s title and subject matter.  But there are a number of places where the cast seem to be doing the conventional thing, making more of the number than is really there.  They lost me on my favourite number: “Aiutami”.  Listen to the way it’s done on this original performance.   In Shaw’s production it becomes an overdone burlesque, with facial contortions that take away any of the multiple meanings.   Nope, this is “funny” they tell us. I wish they could have toned it down in the staging so that we could have preserved the multiple meanings (horror and silliness, pain and comedy).  It seems especially overdone considering how small this performing space is, a tiny theatre where you’d expect something more nuanced and intimate, which maybe was the reason for the smaller orchestration, the opening I alluded to above that’s not used. I saw facial expressions bigger than what i saw a few days ago at the Four Seasons Centre for La Boheme, playing not to 500 but 1,900 people.  Oh well.

I respect the fact that actors like to get a laugh.  But in several places that impulse to milk  the obvious laugh erases the delicacy that is at the heart of this piece.  The gossamer spun sugar of the writing is not well-served by performances that are arch and overdone.

I’m glad  I saw it though.

I am reminded of “9”, that through-composed musical that dazzled yet was in some ways a self-infatuated tour de force.  I saw it on Broadway, loved the film.  I think the film is better than was acknowledged, just as the original play was not as good as was claimed.  In a room full of admirers –especially actors & performers come to see it a second or third time—perhaps subtlety is always the first casualty.

There was so much brilliance, though, in this production.  I’m sorry if I sound ungrateful.  I am especially in awe of Guettel & Lucas. And Thair was amazing.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 4 Comments

Rockstar of fabric & yarn

Posted on October 6, 2013 by barczablog

Out of town post #1

I spent two days in Niagara-on-the-Lake.  One can see Toronto from a marathon swimmer’s perspective (as we did after dark).  I took Brandon Mably & Kaffe Fassett down to show them the view.  It’s so odd to see Toronto across all that water, teeny tiny, and then as an after-thought a mere 150 feet away? Oh, just the United States of America.   It’s ass-backwards.  You’d think we’d look at the big country far away.

It’s reversed partly because this is recreational territory.  A short swim away on the other side of this little river is their historic Fort Niagara.  The water has pleasure boats, because the serious commerce is over by the Welland Canal far from this perilous river of rapids & waterfalls.  The lyrical skyline across the bay may be our home but we have roots here too, in this town we visit regularly.

The odd reversal of focus parallels my experience the past few days.  I’m on vacation, a passenger (and sometimes a roadie) on their trip, as Kaffe & Brandon are driven to events thronged by admiring fans. I get to be a fly on the wall.

It’s not just a metaphor to speak of Kaffe as a rockstar (and perhaps Brandon as well).  When Justin Timberlake or Lady Gaga have a new album, not only will they turn up on television to sing their newest hit, but they’ll also go on the road, singing live to adoring fans.

So too with Kaffe.  Every year or so he’s got a new book that jolts the creative juices of his fans.  He’s 6’3” and looks like a matinee idol, but dressed with the flair of a designer of course, even when he’s just grabbing a coffee at the Starbucks in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

His lecture is in some respects like the recorded talks one carries in a gallery, explaining the meaning of paintings, except these are funny & profane.

We’ll see a slide, showing a natural phenomenon that inspired the artist,… rock

…..followed by his design inspired by that phenomenon.

design

Kaffe is very humble about it all, although his brazen disregard of procedure has been a breath-taking paradigm shift for the formerly conservative world of knitting, needlepoint & quilting.  As he shows ushis influences, he drops aphorisms into the mix.  For example like a good jazz artist, he wants to remind us that there are no mistakes.  We’re to work with whatever we have, whatever we find: as opposed to being stopped because we can’t find a particular colour of yarn or fabric.

As we watched you could hear deep oohs and ahhs as though the crowd of 200 were receiving some kind of jolt to their pleasure centre: as indeed they did.  Apparently this was a good audience, in their ability to understand what Kaffe was all about, and thereby inspiring him to be funnier & more involved than he might otherwise be.  His involvement is no trivial matter because Fassett is coming up on his 76th birthday in December.  No he doesn’t look his age, partly because he takes good care of himself.

Brandon told me that Kaffe is a bit of a reaction junkie, which is something I totally understand.  When you’re in a classroom and people “get you” and respond  to you, it’s an incredible high, and an inspiration.  Nothing freaks me out like incomprehension, silence, stone-faced impassivity.  Maybe it makes me work harder than I need to, but I totally get this, because in the presence of real excitement, one is in turn further inspired & excited.  It’s a delicious spiral when it works, and as far as I can tell that’s what Kaffe sees wherever he goes.

I am reminded of something I read about long ago, namely “Winston Churchill  Syndrome”.  Is there such a thing? It was something I read of, that was associated with high performance older men who derived great satisfaction from their work.  Churchill for instance lived into his 90s.  The examples I recall were people like Picasso or von Karajan, artists rejuvenated by the profound satisfaction of their art.

Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe may be an artist on tour with his designs, but in a real sense he’s a teacher.  We’re learning not just where he came from –the influences & inspirations—but in a more fundamental sense, he shows us how to see.  The juxtaposition of images is empowering because it shows you how to riff from an image you’ve seen, in the same way that a sound can be sampled or a tune can become the basis for a set of variations.  His books are deeper explorations of his process, taking one along for the creative journey.

It’s been incredible fun getting close to Kaffe and Brandon, to whom we said our goodbyes at Pearson Sunday.  They’re off to Alberta next.

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Caird & Farley’s Conceptual Bohème

Posted on October 4, 2013 by barczablog

A great director: John Caird

The Canadian Opera Company opened their 2013-2014 season tonight with Puccini’s La Bohème at the Four Seasons Centre.  It’s a new COC co-production with Houston Grand Opera & San Francisco Opera directed by John Caird & designed by David Farley.

Like anyone who has seen a lot of Bohèmes, I enter the theatre wanting the familiar score to somehow seem fresh and new.  While I am open to directorial intervention, I hope it won’t come between me and the many favourite moments the opera promises.

Given that almost impossible challenge – of making the familiar new while still preserving the favourite moments—I am pleased to report that Caird & Farley have accomplished something so remarkable as to verge on the miraculous.  I would say to the cynics who are Boheme-phobic that you should try this production, as it delivers many of the delights you had when your first experienced the opera.  This one defamiliarizes you just enough in places to make it feel new.

Because their concept comes from within the text, it is so reasonable as to be almost invisible.  I am sure many viewers didn’t even notice.

Caird explains it in his program note this way:

For this production, designer David Farley and I have chosen to imagine that the characters of he opera may act as our inerpreters.  If Schaunard, the composer, is represented in the pit by Puccini himself, the scenic world that the bohemians inhabit is as if painted by Marcello. Every surface of he set is a canvas drawn from the same rich and chaotic pictorial world as that of Toulouse-Lautrec—a contemporary of Puccini and an artist who was himself obsessed by the bohemian underworld of Paris.

The resulting effect has a surprising depth.  Rodolfo isn’t just writing, but also in effect telling the story of the opera, as when Mimi sings her reminiscence of their first meeting off the pages she finds in his hand.  When Schaunard has his one genuinely musical moment in the life of the opera –listening to a merchant play an instrument he was considering for purchase at the beginning of Act II (and dismissing with the line “Falso questo Re”—Caird makes sure that there’s actually someone blasting an out-of-tune note.

Marcello does the lion’s share of underpinning the concept.  In each scene we see a set made up largely of paintings as if to suggest glimpses of the bohemian world through the eyes of an artist.  Marcello often paints as he observes this world, right down to the last magical moments of the opera.  This perspective alienates us just a tiny bit, distancing us oh so slightly, giving us a brand new perspective.  But if you were a real painter watching Mimi die, you’d be moved, but you’d also be capturing it with your brush or pencil.

It works.

It helps that the cast are youthful and beautiful to look at.  Dimitri Pittas offers a method-style Rodolfo, feeling his way from the inside of each lyrical moment, including a very convincing last scene.  Grazia Doronzio is a sympathetic Mimi, very musical but powerful when necessary.  Joshua Hopkins –as Marcello our conceptual painter, and the one whose part seems most different from the usual—was every bit as lyrical as Pittas.  Joyce El-Khoury’s Musetta was one of the classiest Musetta’s I’ve ever seen, side-stepping many of the usual mannerisms, and avoiding the mugging & over-acting that often mars Act II of Boheme.  We didn’t get the usual laugh upon her appearance, but instead a red-hot moment of eye contact between her and Hopkins.

There are several moments that dodge the clichés.  Speaking of the directorial concept, I believe the one time we are reminded overtly of Colline’s calling as a philosopher –when Schaunard alludes to Socrates, leading most Collines to loudly bray “qui”—Caird chose to do something subtler.  Christian Van Horn, possessed of a lovely rich bass voice opted to almost whisper in the place where others shout.

Van Horn and Phillip Addis as Schaunard inhabit the comical centre of gravity for most of the opera, allowing Pittas & Hopkins to be more serious.  The cast shows a wonderful sense of depth, strong top to bottom, partly because Addis and El-Khoury change roles later in the run, as Addis becomes the painter Marcello, while El-Khoury becomes Mimi.  In other words there are no weak voices anywhere in this cast.

Carlo Rizzi conducts the COC orchestra.  The tempi for the first two acts were on the fast side –how I prefer it usually—although this made the task of the children’s chorus in Act II especially challenging; they came through wonderfully.  In Act III, though, Rizzi slowed things down, making the series of emotional duets very clear & emotionally powerful.

Yes yes I cried, both in Act III and IV.  It felt very fresh and new, so I suppose I was particularly vulnerable.  El-Khoury is very take-charge in the last act, which is how I believe Musetta’s written.  The sequence of discoveries through the cast at the end, from Addis through Hopkins, and then with the exchange among the other three was very simple and direct, Rizzi bringing things to a gorgeous conclusion.

It’s a wonderful way to start the COC’s new season.   The Canadian Opera Company’s production of La Bohème continues until October 30th including some cast changes. Click photo below for additional information.

From left (at the Cafe Momus) standing foreground Grazia Doronzio touching Dimitri Pittas, Phillip Addis & Christian Van Horn upstage, Joshua Hopkins being brushed by Joyce El-Khoury, and downstage on the right, Thomas Hammons, from Act II of COC’s La Boheme, directed by John Caird, set and costume designed by David Farley, lighting designed by Michael James Clark. Photo: Michael Cooper,

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Headache

Posted on October 3, 2013 by barczablog

The New York City Opera is bankrupt. The GOP has put their foot down, so it’s not clear whether the USA is even open for business.  But that’s nothing.  Let’s talk about something really important.

Hockey is showing signs that it may be ready to grow up.  Every sport has a history of fisticuffs, ragged uniforms, shady relationships with gamblers and controversies over rules. At some point the crowd of ruffians get organized, and in the process legitimize their “game” into something more business-like. It can be quite beautiful.

I love many sports, but must single out two in particular.

  • I’ve watched hockey since I was a child, even if the game has changed in many ways.  I don’t watch it with the same passion because I feel the game needs to grow up…
  • I started watching football. While I used to be a stalwart CFL fan (and subscriber until i became exasperated with the tendency to let all the good players go), I’ve gradually been won over by the National Football League in the USA (who also play a couple of games here in Toronto & in London England by the way)

There are at least two inter-connect things I have long admired about the NFL.

They have been tinkering with the rules for as long as I can remember.  They do this in baseball too (once every now and then changing the strike-zone for example), but not with the ferocity of the NFL.  They are constantly changing their rule-book in the interest of a good game.

But where this gets really interesting is at the end of the season, when the playoffs begin.  What I most love about the NFL is that the rules are the same in January as they are in September.  A referee is expected to interfere in a game to stop a rule infraction even when the game is important.  Does that sound odd or strange?

But in the National Hockey League the rules that are called one way in the fall are forgotten at Stanley Cup playoff time.  As a result the Cup is a travesty.  Can you imagine a Superbowl where a rule is called differently than the way it’s called early in the year?   Of course not.  The game would be patently unfair.

But this is precisely how the NHL works.  Boston is perhaps the best example of this, a team that is a fair competitor suddenly emerges at playoff time, when truculent passive aggressive behaviour pays off.  Borderline interference that generates penalties in December or January is waived off in April or May.

I haven’t mentioned fighting, a kind of carnival side-show that is supposedly “part of the game”: even though it only happens when the game stops.  I suppose it’s part of hockey culture, which isn’t quite the same thing as being part of the game itself.

If fighting is part of the game, so too, head injuries & concussions.  Sidney Crosby is the most notable player in the NHL who reminds us that the game is dangerous, even if there were no fighting. Some would argue that without fighting there would be more head injuries, a claim that i think is false.  The NFL outlaws fighting, and just about every other kind of flagrant kind of behaviour.  A league’s culture can romanticize violence, or find a way to contain that violence within the rules, as the NFL does.

And now, as players are coming forward with their head injuries, the league can’t really ignore this anymore.  The NFL too has a lot of work to do, to ensure that our heroes don’t all end up with premature dementia or other sorts of disorders caused by their dangerous occupations.  I suppose we always knew that the high salaries are a kind of danger pay, that you wreck your knees and your back to say nothing of what the lifestyle does to you.

There are reports that the NHL is looking at banning fighting.  The reason they’re slow? Manhood issues and the box-office value of fighting in places (US markets in other words) where the game was sold on the basis of the side-show, not the game itself.  In fairness, the NHL has tried many rule-changes, with good intentions. But at playoff time it all gets watered down, when referees are unable to see muggings right in front of them, looking the other way.

Considering it?  Please.  Consider growing up, NHL.  Fights or no fights, the game should be the same at playoff time as in the exhibition season.

Grow a pair: all of you.

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Soprano Miriam Khalil and pianist Julien LeBlanc

Posted on October 2, 2013 by barczablog

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

Soprano Miriam Khalil and pianist Julien LeBlanc present recital at West end art gallery

TORONTO – Soprano Miriam Khalil and Acadian pianist Julien LeBlanc will bring their recital Airs Chantés to Toronto for one performance on Oct. 24, 2013. Featuring music by Ravel, Debussy, Poulenc and the rarely heard Seis Canciones Castellanas by Jesus Guridi, the recital takes place at Gallery 345 in Toronto’s West end.

The program comprises French and Spanish art songs of the Impressionistic and 20th-century period.  The first half of the recital will include excerpts from Ravel’s Shéhérazade, Debussy’s Ariettes Oubliées and will conclude with Poulenc’s well-known song cycle Airs Chantés. The second half is rounded out by three French melodies by Massenet, Ravel and Delibes in a Spanish style, Jesus Guridi’s uncommonly performed Seis Canciones Castellanas and three songs from Obrador’s Canciones Classicás españolas.

The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. with doors opening at 7:00 p.m. Tickets are $25 and are available at www.miriamkhalil.com and at the door.

About Miriam Khalil and Julien LeBlanc

Miriam Khalil and Julien LeBlanc have been collaborating since their first meeting at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music. Since graduating they have both enjoyed successful careers in Canada and abroad.

Khalil grew up in Ottawa and obtained her bachelor’s degree in music at the University of Ottawa. Praised by Opera Canada for her “gorgeous, romantic, arching sound that immediately commands the ear” and a “beautiful and distinctive voice”, she is a graduate of the prestigious Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio. She has sung with companies across Canada and the UK, including Opera Edmonton; Pacific Opera Victoria; Opéra de Montréal; Opera Lyra; Opera in Concert; Opera Hamilton; Aldeburgh Connection; Hamilton Philharmonic Symphony; Windsor Symphony; Nova Scotia Symphony; Victoria Symphony; Against the Grain Theatre; and the prestigious Glyndebourne Opera and Aldeburgh Festivals.

LeBlanc is a highly sought-after soloist, chamber player and accompanist. Currently living in Montreal, LeBlanc has performed for audiences from coast to coast. He is co-artistic director of l’Été Musical de l’Église de Barachois, a summer concert series. He has also recently appeared as a guest pianist and collaborative artist at several Canadian music festivals including the Indian River Festival; the Elora Festival,; Music and Beyond; the New Brunswick Summer Music Festival; Festivoix in Trois-Rivières; Toronto Summer Music Song Academy; Festival de musique de chambre de la Baie-des-Chaleurs; Festival de musique de Lachine; and Festival Acadien de Caraquet.

For more information please visit: www.miriamkhalil.com and www.julienleblanc.com.

Video of Khalil in concert can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EtGglnkaCI

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In Pace Requiescat

Posted on October 1, 2013 by barczablog

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

In Pace Requiescat

Opera 5 Returns
With Edgar Allan Poe-Based Operas
in a Haunted House
October 27th, 30th, 31st 7:30PM
Arts and Letters Club 14 Elm Street

Tickets Online $25.00 Students/$30.00 Adult  http://o5inpace.eventbrite.ca
Tickets at Door $25.00 Students/ $30.00 Adult (Cash and Credit)

Toronto, ON – Toronto opera company Opera 5 launches their production season with an
evening of operas based on the works by Edgar Allan Poe. Timed to coincide with Halloween, the evening will begin in the lobby of the Arts and Letters Club with a Haunted House by local visual artist Nicholas Comeau. Halloween-themed cocktails will be served, and closing night will include a costume contest and dance party. The three works featured will be The Cask of the Amontillado by Daniel Pinkham, La chute de la maison Usher fragment by Debussy, and the world premier of Canadian composer Cecilia Livingston’s The Masque of the Red Death. All three pieces will be directed by Opera 5 Artistic Director Aria Umezawa, with Musical Director Maika’i Nash, and Production Design by Matthew Vaile.

This production marks a return to the stage for Toronto-based soprano Lucia Cesaroni. Joining her is American baritone and recent Tanglewood fellow David Tinervia; and COC Ensemble graduate Adrian Kramer. The adaptation of The Masque of the Red Death will be accompanied by the Toronto Pop-Up-Orchestra, with movement coaching by Natalie Brucker – Co-Artistic Director of GeoMetriX Dance Crew.

“Edgar Allan Poe’s stories are very theatrical, and lend themselves well to the operatic medium.” says Opera 5 Artistic Director, Aria Umezawa. “Even his dialogue reads like a libretto, so the transition from the page to the stage feels very natural. What with his stories being so eerie, and because of his reputation as a horror writer, it seemed like a great fit for a Horror-themed evening at the opera – elegant, but spooky. What better way could there be to spend Halloween?“

Opera 5 is quickly establishing itself as one of the top producers of opera in Toronto. It is
currently run by three operatic GTA musicians: Rachel Krehm, General Director; Aria Umezawa, Artistic Director; and Maika’i Nash, Music Director, with a goal to find new audiences through the engagement of the five senses & other art forms. The company is known for its popular web series titled “Opera Cheats,” which deconstructs opera plots and opera-going rules with a humorous twist. You can check them out at http://www.youtube.com/user/OperaFive.

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 1 Comment

Ready for Prime Time: Savitri & Sam

Posted on September 29, 2013 by barczablog

Okay, maybe the headline tells you what show i am about to watch on TV, coming home from a (hint hint) Saturday night opera.   But i really mean it, they’re ready. Tonight I went to see a public presentation of portions of Savitri & Sam at the end of a week-long workshop, presented by Canadian Rep Theatre & Savitri Project Collective.

I heard 90 minutes of a much longer work: an opera.

It felt like perhaps 20 minutes as it went by.

Perhaps I should explain where I’m coming from, as my credentials may be suspect.  I am usually so positive –avoiding negative commentary—that I may seem to be incapable of anything else.

I’ve been listening to Louis Riel after having read a review by John Gilks on his Operaramblings blog.  I’d seen it twice very long ago, and wanted to recalibrate my sense of it.  I’d sounded off on Facebook to say that the Canadian Opera Company needs to stage this opera again.  In 1967 two operas premiered as a centennial project with the COC:

  • The Luck of Ginger Coffey, which I saw, starring Harry Theyard (who I mention because it’s his birthday according to Charlie Handelman)
  • Louis Riel which I didn’t see at this time (our family subscription didn’t have enough tickets to permit me to see it this time…i was a child!), but I would see it in a remount a couple of years later, AND I’d see the TV version, which is the basis of the DVD I’ve been watching in 2013

Riel is the one that’s remembered.  In places it works very well, although in some places it’s wooden, a relic of a style that had once been in fashion.  It feels dated, it’s most interesting elements in the libretto’s treatment of a national myth, not its music.

Composer, musician, innovator, teacher John Mills-Cockell

Composer, musician, innovator, teacher John Mills-Cockell

I am quite certain that Savitri & Sam is better.  It doesn’t feel derivative, even if it does remind me in places of Pelléas et Mélisande, another opera telling a story of forbidden love.  But while it’s often as beautiful as Debussy it avoids the effete & precious stillness that mars that work, perhaps the least operatic opera ever written.  The score by John Mills-Cockell is often tonal, but with depths & complexities matching the ambiguities of the story.  The best operas undertake big themes, complex subject matter that can unfold within the abstraction of the music, ideally with profound symbolic undertones that aren’t easily pinned down, demanding multiple articulations in different interpretations.  I feel that about S & S.

Librettist & director Ken Gass

The words of Ken Gass’s libretto were almost entirely audible in the workshop, presented without any subtitles.  That’s a tribute to the elegance of Gass’s lyrics, the clarity of Mills-Cockell’s textures (admittedly presented in an electronic orchestration that might sound fatter with an orchestra) and the enunciation of the cast.

One of the most original features of S & S is the use of chorus.  In this tale of honour killing by the father of a Punjabi girl who had been with a Native Canadian boy, we are reminded throughout that everyone –girl, boy, father and mother—are acutely aware of their ancestors as voices in their heads.  This chorus might be the ideas from  the past that influence them, or ghosts of ancestors, or perhaps a kind of articulation of culture itself.  If that—one of the most original and exciting things I’ve encountered in an opera in a very long time—weren’t enough, there’s more.  There is also a very tonal non-verbal choral pattern heard at least a couple of times that might represent acceptance and oneness with one’s culture, that we hear during a very original love duet.  Can you name even one love duet that isn’t unbelievable by reason of all those words at a time when the lovers should be getting physical? this is the first one i’ve ever heard that takes me somewhere believable, a magical non-verbal place: because we’re not listening to silly poetry.  We hear a few words of love, and ohh-ing and ahh-ing, and…even in this semi-staged reading i was hypnotized, enthralled completely.

Semi staged, partly off book, the performance featured wonderful work from Zorana Sadiq and Michael Barrett as the two young lovers, with Giles Tomkins & Marion Newman as her parents.  Gregory Oh did a remarkable job of conducting the live singers, working from a series of recordings of the orchestra parts (synthesized) & chorus.  Considering that they assembled this in a week, it’s a stunning achievement.  The music is very complex in places, although I can’t really tell how difficult it is to sing (for instance, how high the voices were forced to go).  Maybe the score isn’t that daunting and the singers did well, or maybe the score is tough and the singers were heroic; either way they sounded wonderful.

I was at Tapestry Briefs only a few days ago, watching a series of little bits and pieces, none of which was as cogent (that is, with an inseparable relationship between the music & words) as any five minutes of this 90 minute presentation.  Is that an unfair comparison?  But seriously, the ninety minutes went by like a flash.  I got lost in the lusciousness of the sound, and (aside from liking the performers & their performances) I liked every character, including the one who ends up being a killer.

I am now impatient to see this opera staged.  I won’t hold my breath for the COC, who aren’t even jumping on Riel’s bandwagon let alone a new work; yet this opera is as Canadian as apple pie or maple syrup.  The music is really beautiful.

Someone, ANYONE! please stage Savitri & Sam..! I need to see it and hear it.

Soon!

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Opera | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments