Rachel Fenlon talks about her self-accompanied Winterreise

Posted on October 8, 2024 by barczablog

It sounds so simple: a self-accompanied Winterreise.

It’s already a significant achievement to either sing the songs or play the piano part of Franz Schubert’s romantic song-cycle of the lonely winter wanderer.

But doing both at the same time? A tour de force, and without any recent precedents I am aware of, setting aside Schubert’s own performances singing & playing his own songs: in the early 19th century.

Rachel Fenlon (photo: Insonia Production)

If we were only speaking of the virtuosity required, that would already be something remarkable, but there is an additional level of expressiveness. We sometimes speak admiringly of a pianist who seems to follow the singer as if they were of one mind.

As if they were of one mind?

Rachel Fenlon (photo: Insonia Production) 

But in this case it’s actually one mind producing the whole: and it’s extraordinary. What i have heard from Rachel so far is remarkable, superb. She is one of a kind.

On October 11th Orchid Classics will be releasing her new recording of Schubert’s cycle: playing the piano and singing the songs.

I had to find out more about her and her remarkable artistry.

Barczablog: Are you more like your father or mother?

Rachel Fenlon: My mother has been a huge influence for me, and I definitely like to think I’m more like her. She was a Montessori kindergarten teacher and was formerly in air traffic control for the British Air Force (there’s a total parallel between these two jobs, btw), and she just retired last year. I think our similarities are, whilst we both have ambition, and the calling to contribute to community and culture, we both value family and our personal connections so much. My mum has been my greatest teacher on what it is to love, and to connect.

BB: What is the best or worst thing about what you do?

Rachel Fenlon: Haha. Great question. The best thing about what I do is that it isn’t work at all. It is my greatest passion, and the fact that I get to perform full time still blows my mind all the time. The worst thing is probably navigating a life on the road being away from the people I love, despite the fact that the people I love are scattered all over the globe… it’s hard to miss birthdays and important moments for the people you love.

BB: Who do you like to listen to or watch?

Rachel Fenlon: Listening to music is a huge part of my daily life. I love listening to the old classical greats such as Gould, Richter, Annie Fischer, Horowitz, Gieseking, Jessye Norman, Elly Ameling, Wunderlich…I also love those genre-fluid artists, people like Meredith Monk, Chick Corea playing Mozart, Laurie Anderson, Tanya Taqaq, Olivia Chaney. I listen to a ton of pop and indie music as well – I love radiohead, Bjork, Sufjan Stevens, Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez….the list goes on and on. 

BB: I’m not surprised at all.

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

Rachel Fenlon: I wish I could really cook. My sister Sophie is a professional head chef, and she’s that person who can take random end-of-week ingredients from your fridge and turn them into a gourmet meal. I mean, I cook to stay alive, but, you know, there’s not a lot of imagination there. 

BB: When you’re just relaxing and not working, what is your favourite thing to do?

Rachel Fenlon: I love being in nature. It resets me, in a way nothing else does. I love hiking, and being on, in, or next to the ocean shore. My Mum lives on Saltspring Island and when I think of truly relaxing, it’s being there, spending my days in nature, making home cooked dinners with friends with produce from the garden. 

Rachel Fenlon (photo: Clara Evens)

In my daily Berlin life, I would say relaxing looks a little different. This past year, I felt like I learned the importance of rest between the busy times, and I’ve really been leaning into that. So in my Berlin life, relaxing looks like spending an entire day at home, getting cozy and reading, watching a movie, watering my plants. Going for long lazy walks along the Kanal, spontaneously meeting friends for food or wine.

BB: What was your first experience of music ?

Rachel Fenlon: My first experience of music was hearing my Grandad play – he was a jazz pianist, and my earliest memories are sitting at the piano with him, and playing the piano with him from age 3. My Grandad was self-taught and he was the only person in my family who was musical, so it bonded us in a really deep way. What was amazing about him was how he listened to music. He didn’t read music, but his ears did all the reading you’d need… He taught me how to truly listen. We would also spend hours listening to his record collection, which is amazing to think about now –  how he would do that with a 4 year old child! He introduced me to so many of the jazz masters – Armstrong, Corea, Ellington, Peterson. He passed away when I was 18, and the beautiful thing is that he got to see me develop quite a lot over those last years. I dedicated my upcoming album to him and my mother. 

BB: What is your favourite melody / piece of music?

Rachel Fenlon: Schubert D.960 – the B flat piano sonata, the opening theme of the first movement, is my favourite melody. It is everything. 

It would be impossible to answer my favourite piece of music!

BB: Understood. Forgive me if I seem to be a sadist with that question, but it’s always interesting to see how people respond. So, if you could only sing one song what would it be ?

Rachel Fenlon: The Irish folk song “The Sally Gardens.”

BB: You are both a pianist and a singer.  Talk a bit about your background training, and how you got here. 

Rachel Fenlon: My introduction to music was playing piano, from age 3, and from about 7 years old I was so obsessed with the piano that I was always positive I would be a pianist. I don’t come from musical parents, but as I mentioned earlier, my grandfather played jazz piano. With singing, I always sang around the house – I’m reminded by my family that I used to make us all reenact entire musicals and perform them for neighbours. So yeah, I was definitely always a singer! My formal singing lessons didn’t begin until I was 17 years old. I was in children’s choir, and then choirs in high school, which was hugely influential now that I look back, and in choir is where I really developed my love for singing and performing. It wasn’t until a high school choir kept me after rehearsal once when I was 17, had me sing through Olympia’s “doll song” aria, and sent me home with some opera CD’s that I had considered being an opera singer. But like many singers, that first interaction with opera is HUGE. That same year, I was in the children’s choir for “The Cunning Little Vixen” at Pacific Opera Victoria, and it all sort of sealed the deal: I wanted to become an opera singer. The path after that is winding – pursuing singing and piano, and in University at UBC in Vancouver, finding myself going back and forth constantly between the instruments – singing leading roles in the operas, playing piano for singers, learning Beethoven piano sonatas when I wasn’t learning a Mozart soprano role. I was a young artist at Vancouver Opera, and singing roles on their mainstage from age 24, and it wasn’t until I moved to Berlin and truly challenged myself in my identity, in who I am as a person and an artist, that I realized that I would never be quite whole unless I found a way to combine my singing and playing.

Rachel Fenlon (photo: Clara Evens)

When I reflect back now, it was all leading me to 8 years ago, when I gave my first self-accompanied performance of Schubert Lieder, and I had the first feeling on stage of being home. Since 2016, that feeling has been my guide for pursuing this in a really professional sense and I’ve been completely committed to being a self-accompanied singer first and foremost.

Rachel Fenlon (photo: Jeremy Knowles )

BB: You’re releasing your recording of a self-accompanied Schubert’s Winterreise. Could you unwrap that for us, what does that mean?

Rachel Fenlon: Yes! I’m so excited about this record. It’s my debut album, and it’s a long, long, longtime dream to put my interpretation of Schubert out into the world. Winterreise is about 75 minutes long, and this recording was made over 5 days last summer (2023) at Domaine Forget, in their gorgeous concert hall which was designed especially for recording. The record is me singing and playing simultaneously – I’ve been asked a few times if I ever considered recording the parts separately, but that’s so impossible for me to imagine – the way I sing and play are so interconnected. They completely inform one another. For me, singing and playing doesn’t feel like two things, it feels like one complete, new entity.

My producer, Carl Talbot, and I had the concert hall to ourselves for 5 days,staying in little huts with views of the river, and we recorded day and night. We actually opened up the final evening of recording to a public performance – from which, many of the album takes were chosen, coincidentally!

What self-accompanied means, for those not familiar with classical song tradition, is that I am sitting at the piano singing and playing the accompaniment, which is unusual. The common performance practice with art song in the 20th and 21st century has been that there are two musicians on stage – a singer and pianist. However, this wasn’t always the tradition. Schubert himself premiered the first 12 songs of Winterreise, singing and playing himself. Reynaldo Hahn, the famous French composer, was a great singer and sang and played all of his songs. The tenor Richard Tauber also has recordings of self-accompanied Schumann songs. All of this has been an inspiration to me, as well as the contemporary pop music singer-songwriters, such as Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Elton John, Maggie Rogers…

BB: Classical singers with proper support normally prefer to sing standing. What’s it like singing while playing the piano? 

Rachel Fenlon: I honestly find I’m able to access a deep sense of support for my singing when I’m sitting. The ribs expand easier, and I can connect to certain core muscles which are harder standing up – so once I started practising from that knowledge, things got a lot easier. The challenges for me lie in things like when the piano part is enormous and bombastic, and I have to sustain a free, floating vocal line over that.

It can also be tricky to be aware of balance because I’m so submerged in what I’m doing. I often record my practice sessions to figure out things like balance – especially when I’m singing loud, I can’t always tell if I’m playing too loud. I really need external ears or a recording to figure those things out. Another funny challenge which I’m constantly giving myself notes on is not to slow down when I’m having a soprano moment…. I often write to myself “be your best accompanist!!!”, as in: help myself out more!!

BB: And there’s that other tiny issue, the gender: as the cycle was originally written for a male singer. Please talk a bit about that. 

Rachel Fenlon: I sing the entire Winterriese in the original key, which is the high key (although there is a version for an even higher voice, but I don’t like that as much). The original key fits gloriously for my voice. The first time I sang and played through it for fun, in 2020, I was shocked how much I loved singing it.

To be honest, I love it in the female voice, and I have two beloved recordings of women singing it: Christa Ludwig and Brigitte Fassbaender. Chistine Schaefer also recorded it…it’s definitely not unheard of in Germany, although it’s still very rare to have a woman singing it. I mean, of the 300 plus records of Winterreise, there are probably 5-6 women singing it (you’ll have to double check those stats).

And there is no recording of a singer accompanying themselves, which is wild to me!

BB I’m not surprised!

Rachel Fenlon: Something I would love to comment on with regards to your question on gender is that, whilst I am female-identifying, I have never in my life felt as close to a character as I do when I’m singing Winterreise. I feel I embody it with my entire being. I don’t change the pronouns of myself to be a woman, nor my love interest to be a man, nor do I imagine my sexuality differently. It transcends that for me. It truly does. We live in an interesting time in history where there are many beautiful, open conversations happening around gender. For me with Winterreise, it’s not about me being a man, woman… it’s about being a human and what it is to grieve, to feel, to lose, to have hope, to love, to suffer, to be alive.

Rachel Fenlon (photo: Clara Evens)

Rachel Fenlon: I also want to share that I get a lot of comments after a Winterreise performance that people are surprised how much they loved it in a soprano voice. That always makes me happy!

BB: I think song cycles are usually improved when a woman sings them, because the voice isn’t competing with the lower notes for piano or orchestra the same way. A composer has to get out of the way of a male voice (and sometimes they totally fail to do so…), while a soprano is usually soaring freely: or at least that’s what it sounds like. I’m sure you sound great on lots of other song cycles.

And you mentioned in an email that you’ve been singing and accompanying yourself on the piano in art songs.  What cycles / songs have you done or are working on for the future? 

Rachel Fenlon: Yes! Singing and playing is about 95 percent of my career, which takes me on the road internationally, year round. When I first began, 8 years ago, part of my goal was to learn as much repertoire as I could to figure out what really worked – and didn’t work.

I’ve performed everything from Schumann’s “Frauenliebe und Leben”, Brahms songs, Debussy’s “Ariettes Oubliees”, Britten’s folk songs and “On This Island”, tons of Schubert, Mozart, Hugo Wolf, both Mahlers, Alban Berg’s “Sieben Fruhe Lieder” to very contemporary music such as George Crumb’s “Apparition”, a staple of my repertoire, and several song cycles which have been written especially for me as a self-accompanied singer.

One of the beloved song cycles in my repertoire is a new song cycle written for me by Canadian composer Matthias McIntire, called “Sing Nature Alive From My Insides”, set to my poetry, for me to sing, play and perform live electronics.

I premiered that at Ottawa Chamberfest in 2022, and I’ve been taking it on the road so much the past two years, as it is one of the most incredible works I’ve encountered. The piece will be having its Berlin debut in February and at the Konzerthaus Berlin, which is a huge moment for us. 

I think the repertoire is vast, and I’m curious if other singer/pianists will pop up, and what they gravitate to.

BB: You mention “soprano solos and synthesizer“. Does that mean you sing while someone else synths, or do you play a synth, and if so what are you playing? 

Rachel Fenlon: What I mean by that is that I perform with live electronics, which sometimes means a synthesizer, or a different midi medium, like laptop or midi keyboard for live electronic and vocal processing. The cycle I mentioned above, sing nature alive, is written for electronics and live vocal processing as well as acoustic voice and piano. I run all of that myself – triggering cues on midi mediums, and sometimes playing synth, which I absolutely love. The work which has me doing this the most so far is Matthias McIntire’s sing nature alive. His electronics are as exquisite as his acoustic writing – Matthias is one of the great gifted composers in Canada. I’m going to share a couple of recordings – one from “sing nature alive” , and one from his work “cathedral grove” for solo violin and electronics. 

What I love about performing with electronics is that as a solo performer, you feel like you suddenly have an entire orchestra on stage. The sonic scope is huge and infinite, and it’s so all-encompassing. It’s also a TON of fun.

The clip you’ll hear is “Sing nature alive” from a recent performance at Sweetwater Festival, where I just performed it a few weeks ago. I’m playing the sounds of my own voice, as well as overlapping waves and singing. 

This is “tide”, the last movement of the song cycle. 

BB: Classical music is often understood as a separate discipline from other musical genres & forms. Some artists such as Gershwin or Bernstein encountered huge obstacles and disrespect from the musical establishment because of the way they crossed over into popular forms. Please talk a bit about the boundaries that singers and pianists encounter, and how that looks to you as of 2024. 

Rachel Fenlon: I think Classical Music can be its own worst enemy. I don’t believe in high art – it’s a term I’ve come across a lot, and one which has even been thrown in my face a few times. It’s not a real thing. Music is music. Art is art. I think the very notion of genre itself wants to limit us, and it comes out of a place of fear, not out of abundance. If classical music wasn’t afraid of its own relevance, it would be much cooler. Which is why I think it’s on us – my contemporaries, peers, generations ahead and behind – to make the music we feel called to make. That’s always what it’s about for me. The music which calls us is the music we answer. For me, that’s Schubert, that’s Crumb, that’s crazy-amazing contemporary music. I LOVE pop music, and I feel like Schubert songs are the original pop songs. Simple harmonies, and simple thoughts about love and life. You know that Sting recording when he sings Dowland songs? Or Barbra Streisand singing Schubert and Faure? Or Bjork performing Pierrot Lunaire? That’s where my heart is at. I think our society pushes us in a direction of labelling things too soon and too often – and so much of the magic of humanity lies between those things. A great day is a great day not just because of the beautiful event which happened at x o clock but because of the morning interaction I had with a stranger, and then the way the sun hit the leaves in the backyard, which triggered a memory of this special moment… I think we put way too much emphasis on the extremes and it misses so much nuance. It’s also why I struggle when I go to orchestra concerts and it all sounds so shiny and rehearsed, and I leave feeling like I’m missing something. The great orchestras for me are the ones who find the spirit of spontaneity, who are daring, commissioning amazing composers and taking risks. 

Thinking about singers in 2024, it’s an interesting question. From my perspective, singers have little power in the industry so it’s all about finding ways to empower ourselves and gain our autonomy. For me, that autonomy is singing and playing and just doing my own thing, without waiting for approval. But this is much harder when you’re an opera singer, and you need an orchestra or a full opera set. Empowering oneself feels like it’s about finding what you do uniquely that calls you, and listening and committing to that calling, I think. It’s not always easy. Singers get so much different feedback. One day your voice is too small for this role, the next it’s too big… It’s extremely precarious and yet, it’s the most precious thing of all, having that kind of incredible voice. I admire my opera colleagues so much. I guess what I would say also about being a singer in this time is that it is also about building a community, not a network  – I hate the term networking – so that you have the support of people who love and support you no matter what. I also think community can be collaboration as well – I’m part of three artist collectives which serve exactly this vision.

There are a few contemporaries of mine I admire who are really following their unique voice – one is the Toronto based Danika Loren – who is a singer/composer and sings her own compositions – she’s incredible. Another is Olivia Chaney, who trained classical but sings and plays more indie/folk and records on nonesuch label. I also really admire Gabriel Kahane. I love his records, and he also sings and plays lieder sometimes apparently! Hania Rani is fantastic – a Polish composer/pianist/singer, who studied classical piano and composition and is now having a huge international touring career, and I listen to her records all the time.

BB Please talk about how you approach performance vs recording.

Rachel Fenlon: It’s funny, because until Winterreise, I always thought the surrender happened on stage in live performance. Now that I’ve recorded my first album, I realize how much surrender happens in the studio, too. It’s just a different form – it’s a long form. We took almost a year to master the album, choosing takes and things, and it’s wild how creative that process is, too. The beautiful thing about an album is that you get to say something else about the work in a really “complete” way, and it’s so personal, because it’s just between you, the producer and the composer. Even though, it too, is ephemeral – it is just one moment in time.

Live performance is about rehearsing with a ton of intention and clarity, and then being completely present on stage, and actively listening with your audience. In my heart, I love nothing more than being on stage and sharing music – I love the communion of it.

BB: If you could tell the institutions how to train future artists, what would you change?

Rachel Fenlon: I’ve been teaching masterclasses more over the past couple years and I absolutely LOVE working with the next generation. I think for me it is about elevating their joy and passion, and giving students as many tools so they can figure out which ones work for them. I think where institutions can go wrong is by not seeing the multitude of what a musician can be – we get pretty niche and limited pretty early on. How amazing would it be if singers could take composition classes, and electro-acoustics, and instrumentalists could sing and they could all collaborate together? I learned the term from an interview last week, called informal learning. I wish that was more encouraged in institutions.

Also from a practical business point of view, being a successful musician seems to have a lot to do with organization and business skills. It would be amazing to offer that to young musicians – basic key skills for having your own enterprise. It’s not that I think artist are entrepreneurs or anything, I just think it’s a tough life to choice being that it’s so against the grain of society and information about how to pitch yourself, how to interview (haha), how to do admin every day (because when you’re a full time musician, you get tons of emails a day), how to manage your finances, etc., is empowering. 

BB: What influences / teachers were most influential on your development?

Rachel Fenlon: The most influential teachers were my university voice teacher, Nancy Hermiston, who taught me tenacity and confidence.

Nancy Hermiston

Judith Forst has been a big influence as well, she was also my voice teacher for a while and I learned a lot about technique as well as musical preparation from her.

I’ve never really had one mentor, rather, I’ve had many coaches and people I look up to who have taken me under their wing – conductors, composers, people in the industry who have a great deal of experience and believed in me from very early on. Alongside this, I would say my biggest influences are my friends – certain friends who I can discuss music with, others who I can share my work with and get feedback, friends with whom we share career advice, friends who are huge emotional supports, friends with whom I collaborate regularly. I think this kind of peer-learning has been huge in my life, and I would not be half the musician I am without the friends in my life.

*******

BB: October 11th Orchid Classics release Rachel Fenlon’s new recording of Schubert’s Winterreise.

I wanted to share a video of a recital Rachel did last year. My mind boggles watching this, given that
BOGGLE #1– long ago I accompanied my brother in An die ferne geliebte by Beethoven, a song cycle that Rachel plays and sings from memory,…Perfectly.
BOGGLE #2– and more recently after I watched Emily d’Angelo singing the Berg cycle last November with the TSO, I got the songs from the EJB library to play through: but wow here she’s singing and playing these challenging pieces from memory. Awesome.

OMG this is impressive.

And as far as what’s in this recital, we begin with
Berg– Sieben Frühe Lieder,
at 18:15 you get Beethoven – An die ferne Geliebte,
at 34:00 Crumb – Apparition 1 The night in silence under many a star and
at 38:00 Messiaen – Trois Mélodies.

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COC’s timely Nabucco

Posted on October 6, 2024 by barczablog

I’ve just seen the Canadian Opera Company’s new Nabucco, a production of Giuseppe Verdi’s 1842 work from Lyric Opera of Chicago greeted by a rapturous audience at Four Seasons Centre this afternoon.

I never thought that Nabucco could feel so timely. We were watching a Biblical story that resonates strongly for me with what I see on the news reports about the war in the Middle East every day:

War at the intersection of faith groups.
People being held hostage
Questions of loyalty within familial relationships.
Accusations of betrayal
Threats of violence and death
Fear of genocide,
People living in exile searching for freedom.

Did I miss anything?

Directed by Katherine M. Carter with sets designed by Michael Yeargan and costumes designed by Jane Greenwood, we’re happily looking at a presentation that’s recognizable rather than displaced into another era, such as we sometimes get in director’s theatre. The Israelites look exactly like what you’d expect them to look like.

Maybe the Babylonian costumes seemed a bit like sci-fi but nobody’s weaponry or body language wrecked the illusion.

The COC chorus carry a huge load in this opera, both musically and dramatically. Given that the other fall opera is Gounod’s Faust, another work full of great choruses, I think that the COC planners remembered their chief assets: a superb chorus and orchestra. Conductor Paolo Carignani led a vibrant and energetic reading, often encouraging his chorus and soloists to sing more softly so that they build to powerful climaxes at the end of their numbers. As expected, the Third Act chorus “Va! pensiero” was one of the highlights.

Earlier in that Third Act the set design by Michael Yeargan helps us see the power struggle play out between Abigaille (Mary Elizabeth Williams) and Nabucco (Roland Wood), as they each climb upwards towards the throne.

Roland Wood (Nabucco) and Mary Elizabeth Williams (Abigaille)
(photo: Michael Cooper)
The throne is at the top of the stairs Mary Elizabeth Williams ascends behind the COC Chorus (photo: Michael Cooper)

Those two singers were my two favourites, even if their rivalry is only in the story, and not a battle for our attention or applause. Roland Wood in the title role is a COC regular, employing a lovely bel canto timbre and superb dramatically. Mary Elizabeth Williams is a brilliant newcomer as Abigaille, whose voice was more than up to the challenges of this daunting role, sometimes dark at the bottom of her range, sometimes agile in her coloratura and possessed of some powerful high notes when she chose to use them. Her last scene was very effective, poignant and yes, brought me to tears.

Mary Elizabeth Williams (Abigaille, centre) surrounded by COC chorus, Matthew Cairns(Ismaele) & Rihab Chaieb (Fenena)
(photo: Michael Cooper)

I thought at times she was being prudent, holding back likely because she sang less than two days ago and needs to conserve her voice for a run that will have her back for five more performances. I’m looking forward to hearing and seeing her again, the most exciting voice I’ve heard in a long time.

Two former COC Ensemble Studio singers gave us standout performances. Rihab Chaieb as Fenena and Matthew Cairns as Ismaele sounded and looked terrific. Simon Lim as Zaccaria was superb vocally, with a big powerful voice.

Rihab Chaieb (Fenena) and Matthew Cairns (Ismaele)
(photo: Michael Cooper)

Nabucco continues at the Four Seasons Centre with five more shows October 12, 17, 19, 23 & 25.

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A seriously playful TSO program

Posted on October 5, 2024 by barczablog

The search for fun can be a serious pursuit.

The Toronto Symphony, Conductor Gustavo Gimeno (photo: Allan Cabral)

Play is the operative word for a Toronto Symphony program titled “Spirited Overtures:”

Gioachino Rossini–Overture to The Barber of Seville
Igor Stravinsky–Jeu de cartes (Card Game)
–intermission–
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart–Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major
Johann Strauss II–Overture to Die Fledermaus

It was a theatrical event, overtures to opera or operetta to begin and end with a ballet score and a concerto in between.

TSO Music Director Gustavo Gimeno explained the rationale for the program. The core idea of this concert is Stravinsky’s 1936 ballet score Jeu de cartes, that quotes from Rossini and Ravel among others. It was remarkable to hear the Barber of Seville Overture and a few minutes later to be hearing a passage in the last section of the ballet that quotes at least one, maybe two themes from Rossini.

The orchestra offer a nerd’s exploration of comedy, drilling down on music-making that reminds us of humans as cartoons.

Yes of course that famous overture leads us to the famous Bugs Bunny cartoon.

“How do! Welcome to my shop, Let me cut your mop
Let me shave your crop. ….Daintily, ….daintily…”

What Rossini (especially in his Barber of Seville overture) and Stravinsky (in Jeu de cartes) have in common is an approach to composition that brings out the comical.

Rossini famously makes humans like automatons or puppets or robots. The music resembles a cartoon because it’s often so quick it flashes by like an express train.

Stravinsky in Jeu de cartes, as in Petrouchka, gives us a ballet score that plays up angular little phrases, jagged chunks of music that don’t offer a lot of pathos but instead suggest, again, cartoons or puppets, somewhat similar to the images on playing cards. Remember too that cards in a deck challenge us with a kind of arbitrary randomness, and Stravinsky does that for us in the music, so we don’t get an orderly progression from say small to big or dark to light, but sudden abrupt shifts when the cards take us suddenly to a new face or idea. The phrases too are short little ideas, something like what we see on each card.

Stravinsky’s Jeu reminds me of Debussy’s Jeux (1913), another ballet score that Stravinsky surely encountered given that he was not just a young friend of Debussy, but busily premiering his own Sacre du printemps at the same time as Debussy’s score was premiered, and decisively emerging out of the older composer’s shadow. Both scores are often very laid back, taking us into a genuinely recreational sort of music, playful and relaxed. The question of the influence of the composers upon one another is a deep and complex one that I’m only hinting at, but Stravinsky offers us lots to think about in the way he plays with many sorts of musical influences, chopped up into tiny chunks in this score as if they’ve been run through a food processor. The chief structural element is a thematic figure that I understand to represent each of the three deals, like three hands of a game, to signify the one organizational principle around which everything else is built. We hear that music –suddenly making calm order out of the chaos– at the beginning, after five (to introduce the second deal) and fifteen minutes (to introduce the third deal) and again near the end of the 21 minutes piece.

After intermission we were presented with a stunning rendition of Mozart’s third violin concerto played by soloist Renaud Capuçon, the violinist on a Deutsche Grammophon recording with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.

His performance with the TSO who play on modern instruments makes a brilliant complement to the Tafelmusik Mozart 2nd violin concerto I heard last week (when they played on original rather than modern instruments, with Rachel Podger as soloist). It’s an endless conversation at this point as to how far one goes in pursuit of authenticity, whether through original instruments or historically informed performance practices. I don’t think it makes sense to argue or insist on one over the other but rather to register gratitude and wonderment that we have the chance to hear both sorts of performance.

Capuçon offers a stunning sound, a wonderfully subtle delicacy to his tone in the middle movement and perfect intonation. The tasteful cadenzas especially in that theatrical last movement offer us another side to the playfulness in this program.

TSO Conductor Gustavo Gimeno (photo: Allan Cabral)

We concluded with more fun in a breath-taking reading of Johann Strauss Jr’s Die Fledermaus overture. I’m glad we had a chance to see a playful aspect of Gustavo tonight, the TSO responding eagerly to his lead.

And the TSO will be playing again Saturday night at Roy Thomson Hall (8:00 pm)and Sunday afternoon at George Weston Recital Hall (3:00 pm).

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Picture this: challenging showcase as TSO season-opening concert

Posted on September 29, 2024 by barczablog

The concert was titled “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Roy Thomson Hall was full Saturday night for a fun evening at the Toronto Symphony.

Music Director Gustavo Gimeno leading the TSO (photo: Allan Cabral)

It was a showcase for the TSO. Music Director Gustavo Gimeno’s program notes suggest that he was engaging in an exercise to build his ensemble by challenging them somewhat.

The first half featured Beethoven’s triple concerto employed TSO concertmaster Jonathan Crow violin, principal cellist Joseph Johnson and Jan Lisiecki, 2024/25 TSO Spotlight Artist on piano.

Jonathan Crow violin Joseph Johnson cello Jan Lisiecki piano Gustavo Gimeno conducting the TSO (photo: Allan Cabral)

After a splendid and sensitive account of this uplifting Beethoven piece, we were treated to a substantial encore, announced as “a bit of Mendelssohn”. I think it was the slow movement in A from the D minor trio #2, a delicious bonus to reward the delighted crowd, exquisitely played. It has been exciting to watch these three young artists develop and grow with every new challenge, and a bit of a coup to see them working together as such a cohesive trio.

The concert opened with Carlos Simon’s Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra, receiving its Canadian Premiere this week. The title puts me in mind of the subtext a composer might have, wanting to entertain and delight the listener but maybe not wanting their serenade to put us to sleep. Although the piece opens with a series of jagged and raucous utterances of a two-note motif that sounds a lot like an orchestra saying “wake up” (given the title of the piece) there were also several lyrical passages, lovely solos for flute, violin and cello, exciting passages for the percussionists and complex rhythmic pages to give conductor Gimeno a bit of a workout as well.

Composer Carlos Simon accepting applause earlier this week after the TSO played Wake Up! (photo: Allan Cabral)

And after intermission, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition but not get the usual Ravel transcription as conductor Gustavo Gimeno explained in his program notes.

Modeste Mussorgsky

“For the second half of the program I wanted to approach a familiar piece from an unfamiliar angle, and this brought me to Pictures at an Exhibition orchestrated by Sergei Gorchakov…I greatly admire Gorchakov’s rarely performed version. To me it feels more direct and raw, and less sweet and refined, with a soundscape that captures the original mood of the music. This is not to say that the differences are conspicuous. Unless you are intimately familiar with Ravel’s instrumentation, you may not even notice them. But for the musicians, it’s the equivalent of playing the part of Hamlet for years and then all of a sudden being asked to instead play Claudius. It is a way to challenge ourselves, to refresh the whole formula and it’s going to be wonderfully invigorating.”

The effect was to make a familiar piece seem new. In a few places Gorchakov uses similar instruments, for example in the opening Promenade featuring trumpet for the melody as in Ravel. But in many places we heard something bigger, louder. The brass had a bit of a workout, especially given that they were already employed prominently in Simon’s opening piece.

Gorchakov (1905 – 1976) seems to be a bit of a one-hit wonder, although perhaps in time we will learn more and hear more about him. I saw references to him in Google as a conductor but could not find anything reliable, given that I can’t read Russian.

Roy Thomson Hall was full, the crowd enthused and vocal in response to a terrific Saturday night concert to conclude the opening program of Toronto Symphony’s 2024-2025 season.

Somebody must be doing something right, considering how much younger this group is than the audiences I am seeing at other Toronto cultural events. The TSO have been gradually changing over the past decade. Music Director Gustavo Gimeno begins his fifth season on an impressively high note.

Mark Williams is their new CEO since April 2022.

TSO’s new CEO Mark Williams (Photo by Philip Maglieri)

Mark came out to make an announcement before the concert.

“The Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is thrilled to announce a landmark $15 million gift from the Barrett Family Foundation, marking the largest pledge in the orchestra’s history and the most significant commitment ever made to support programming at a Canadian performing arts organization. This extraordinary gift will support the TSO’s community engagement and education programs, ensuring that the power of music continues to reach and inspire audiences of all ages across the city.”

It has been a great start to the season.

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Tafelmusik get Podger who gets Mozart

Posted on September 28, 2024 by barczablog

As I look at this stylish picture of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart I wonder.

Through the decades I have been listening to his music there are a variety of approaches, sometimes so respectful as to put Mozart on an impossible pedestal. The historically informed performance movement has gradually changed the way we understand his music and how to play it. He is one of the most frequently played composers, tremendously popular: yet maybe misunderstood, in how he is played.

I say that after the breath-taking performances heard Friday night in an all-Mozart program from Tafelmusik Orchestra under the leadership of Rachel Podger at Koerner Hall to begin the season.

Tafelmusik led by violinist & Principal Guest Director Rachel Podger (photo: Dahlia Katz)

If you love Mozart please please find a way to go hear this concert. What I heard was so strong and confident as to be paradigm shifting. I’ve been listening to Mozart’s C major Symphony (known as the “Jupiter”) and the violin concerti all my life. Last night’s was astonishingly different. It felt brand new, refreshingly direct, simple. Please note Tafelmusik have inspired such feelings in me before. Their Mozart, Haydn or their Beethoven contrast with the usual ways we heard well-known pieces, given that their historically informed performance style meant going faster, without the same sorts of vibrato, and with the delightfully rich timbres of original instruments.

Yet this was a quantum leap, more impressive than ever before.

For starters there’s the benefit we enjoy of the usual Tafelmusik thorough scholarship, playing in a historically informed style, and the sweet-sounding winds and the deeper throb of the strings that an orchestra employing original instruments offers. and they usually play pieces in a far quicker tempo than we heard in the generations before. I recall a time when Mozart was played with a big orchestral sound, much slower. The meaning of the discourse changes in much the same way the delivery of lines is altered by someone doing the William Shatner approach (sorry Captain Kirk…).

Do you say “to be or not to be, that is the question”? or do you ham it up, to squeeze meaning through pauses, saying “to be….. or…. not to be… that…. is the question”. In the quest for more meaning the listener is no longer pondering meaning because it’s ponderous. Weighed down by its own quest for ultimate heaviosity, when we treat something with too much respect.

Similarly, the opening to the first movement of the Jupiter Symphony. You don’t have to know the piece for me to explain (as I aim to be inclusive).

The first phrase is a series of notes on the beat, with a quick flourish of notes sliding up to that note, with an answering softer phrase from a different complement of instruments.

Earlier generations of conductor (whom we admired of course) would conduct the piece to give you every note played (C, g-a-b-C, g-a-b-C) as though it were important to be played as part of the meaning. Last night I think I saw and heard what Mozart really wanted, as Podger and Tafelmusik gave us something more like C – C – C, the notes in between so light & quick as to resemble ornamentation rather than a meaningful utterance. That older generation of interpretation resembled the William Shatner delivery, giving the notes emphasis that wasn’t likely given back in the 18th century, but rather to be thrown away.

I feel certain that Mozart never meant us to really notice these notes, because of what follows. The soft phrase that answers when done this way takes us almost into the realm of call and response. No Mozart wasn’t writing blues, but suddenly there’s a playful conversational element that’s missing when we think of this as (perhaps while genuflecting to the great Mozart) the Jupiter symphony. The name wasn’t from the composer of course but added years later. If we lose the pompous fear and instead acquire a modicum of playfulness? that’s likely closer to the right spirit.

And Tafelmusik were playing together with Rachel Podger violinist, herself making eye contact around the ensemble as though (to quote Paul, the friendly gentleman seated beside me) Tafelmusik were a chamber ensemble not a big band requiring a conductor with a baton. That’s especially exciting when we come to the last movement, an extraordinary display of musicianship accomplished by players listening to one another.

There is a rhetorical elegance to what we were hearing and yes, seeing. I must compliment Rachel and Tafelmusik for their dramaturgy. It may be that in fact the ensuing tutti, when everyone comes in forte, was a moment later than it might have been from a modern orchestra with conductor, slaves to the metre and the baton. But this felt like genuine dialogue, discourse of the highest sort. We saw the orchestra speaking and answering. To speak of call and response is perhaps a modern idea, but there are many places where Mozart has sections going back and forth, as though in conversation. The third movement is especially dramatic that way, a drama that’s clearer when instead of a conductor enforcing an interpretation, we actually have Mozart speak to us, through the back and forth of sections who listen and respond to one another with the fluidity of a string quartet.

I feel that Rachel Podger gets Mozart, understanding his music as no one I’ve ever encountered. Her leadership of Tafelmusik is truly inspiring.

And it doesn’t hurt that we were in Koerner Hall, where the sound is particularly transparent.

Rachel plays the phrases, her body language a tiny bit larger than necessary because her head and arm and shoulder movements serve to indicate where the downbeat is, where the others should also place their downbeat. I saw eye contact across the stage between players.

I also saw some amazing smiles and expressions from Rachel, and it’s a mutual thing. When the players in the orchestra are smiling in every section you know something good is happening.

She was sometimes looking out at us, particularly during the violin concerto.

Violinist Rachel Podger and members of Tafelmusik (photo: Dahlia Katz)

Rachel seemed to be playing with us at times, teasing us, testing us. Audience members on all sides were giggling with me, as I wasn’t the only one to observe something that felt like a kind of gamesmanship, pushing the rules of the concerto procedure to its limit. We see that there’s a moment when the soloist has the option to pause or continue. She looks out at us with a whimsical expression as if to say “what do you think audience? will I continue? what will I do?” And of course she went on, pushing the pause to its limit without in any way broaching the rules of period performance. I think at that moment a few hundred people were in love, the violin a subtle instrument of witty comedy. We were reminded that a virtuoso such as Mozart (who played his own concerti) had all sorts of freedom to elaborate or pause especially during cadenzas.

I’ve previously made a mental division, associating the Toronto Symphony with newness and modernity while aligning Tafelmusik with the baroque, early music and their older period instruments. While that’s more or less true, yet we heard something edgy and new in Koerner Hall tonight, as though an old portrait had been cleaned and we saw it as though for the first time.

Rachel and Tafelmusik seem to have a special chemistry. Rachel said in an earlier interview that she’s “always been struck by the spirit of Tafelmusik, the lovely sense of collaboration”. That is what we saw and heard. And I look forward to hearing Rachel Podger’s ongoing contribution to Tafelmusik in the concerts to come.

But first “Mozart Jupiter” as the concert is titled is repeated this weekend, September 29 and 30 at Koerner Hall. See and hear it if you can.

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Pickle Theatre staged reading of Venus in Fur

Posted on September 22, 2024 by barczablog

As M John Kennedy explained it to me before the show, they had to fill in a space on the application form they completed for their production of David Ives’ Venus in Fur, identifying the name of their company.

“Pickle Theatre” was the result, and maybe that helps explains the image on the poster.

It made sense to me. As in the production of 1939 that I saw on Friday night, live theatre is made of different influences, styles and training, a mix of tools like lights and music and dance and voice, modern and classical mixed: pickled together. Yes it’s fair to say that the result really is a pickle.

We were even offered pickles before and after the show.

Lucas Romanelli sampling a pickle.

But never mind pickles. Let me talk about the reading. I saw the 2:00 matinee in a jam-packed Annex Theatre. It’s not a huge space but we were somewhere between 50 and 100 attendees hooting hollering and laughing.

I may be risking my life posting this picture of M John, considering that Dahlia is the best professional photographer in Toronto. No she didn’t take this picture (obviously). But notice that the place is full and the audience is applauding enthusiastically .

Venus in Fur is a 2010 play by David Ives, adapting the 1870 novella by Leopold Sacher-Masoch (a writer immortalized in the word “masochism”), and filmed in 2013 by Roman Polanski mostly using Ives text although filmed in French. Although Ives’ play was presented in Toronto by Canadian Stage, I didn’t see it, passing it up due to what I’ll call an anxiety of influence given that I did an operatic adaptation of the novella in 1999, that I was revising for a planned revival that still hasn’t happened.

Like 1939 the play I saw Friday, Ives’ work is meta-theatrical, a fancy way of saying that sometimes we’re watching a play-within-a-play. Unlike Hamlet or Midsummernight’s Dream, the distinctions between the play and the show they put on during the play can get blurry, not quite so clear in either of the modern works.

We bounce back and forth between the diegetic world of the two characters in the play –the playwright and an actress auditioning for the lead role in his show– and the story he wants her to portray. We are sometimes hearing them address the text as a project, sometimes delivering the lines of that project, as they go deeper & deeper into the dynamics of his eventual submission to her, very much as in the original novella. The interplay between the two worlds is irresistible.

Erynn Brook played Vanda, M. John was Thomas, and the reading was directed by Dahlia Katz, who read out the stage directions. As I type this the second reading at 7:00 is just starting tonight. They began by using accents self-consciously to suggest the Sacher-masoch story of Wanda and Severin although things get blurred even further when Vanda starts using the name “Tom” instead of Severin.

In case I wasn’t crystal clear, the reading was extraordinary, a breath-taking exercise that the audience devoured rapturously. We were often laughing at the implications of the story, although at times things got very serious, but this is a story that’s tremendously ambiguous, full of multiple meanings, double entendres at every turn. We loved it.

And I’m sorry there’s no upcoming run of the play to recommend, although perhaps we shall see more from Pickle Theatre, M John and Dahlia.

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Unexpected light in 1939

Posted on September 21, 2024 by barczablog

Last night I watched 1939, a recent play by Jani Lauzon and Kaitlyn Riordan at Berkeley St Theatre, a brilliant snapshot of the madness of residential schools and resilience in response. It’s a Canadian Stage and Belfry theatre joint production in association with the Stratford Festival, where 1939 had its 2022 premiere.

Imagine the presentation of a Shakespeare play by residential school students for a royal visit by the King & Queen of England in 1939. Their normal lives in school were already a performance, the lies they are forced to tell while suppressing the truths inside them. The bizarre Shakespeare project underlines the absurdity of students separated from families & culture while being imprinted with new unfamiliar Christian ideas by their teachers.

As in any first encounter with a text I’m balancing the creation of words and the performers’ creation, this time directed by Jani Lauzon, who is one of the authors. I missed seeing the piece in 2022 at Stratford, but wonder if in this incarnation it has become something new or different, deeper or perhaps lighter. I don’t know. At times we’re watching a frenetic stage full of fast moving bodies. At other times we observe a person alone in quiet reflection. At times they may struggle with language, although at times words are used playfully even if we don’t understand the words that are in an Indigenous dialect. There is so much going on, layers of meaning and action. Frequently we see words written on a blackboard, that will then be erased by Father Callum, a reminder that truthful expression is not always permitted. There is a persuasive self-assurance to this production and its cast that is irresistible, perhaps also because so many in the show are themselves Indigenous.

It was much funnier than I expected. For some such a topic may trigger overpowering emotions, and in response Canadian Stage included a gentle talk-back session for sensitive reflection afterwards, facilitated by Angel Brant, Shak Gobert and Manuel Chaves. I found that the deeper we penetrated into the story, the less I was able to laugh, although Lauzon/ Riordan did offer cheap laughs via silly costumes and fart jokes, perhaps hoping to dissipate powerful emotions. It’s barely conceivable that this be comedy, when we recall Kent Monkman’s paintings or the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, the cultural genocide to eliminate Indigenous languages & cultural practices through schools forcing children to become something they weren’t. The idea of finding comedy in residential schools is not only unexpected but a beautiful objective, perhaps a step on the pathway of reconciliation. I’m grateful for the encounter, amazed at the generosity of the performers.

It’s fascinating to watch the poignant variety of responses to Shakespeare, who at first is as completely alien as he must be to anyone reading gibberish, words they can’t understand.

Beth (Grace Lamarche), Evelyne (Merewyn Comeau), Susan (Brefny Caribou), Joseph (Richard Comeau), Sian (Catherine Fitch) (photo: Dahlia Katz)

While Shakespeare’s language, especially as understood through their teacher, is at first foreign and rigid, the attempts to perform Alls Well that Ends Well become a redemptive escape into something more authentic than the Christian platitudes they’ve been force-fed.

Father Callum (Nathan Howe) hopes that donors seeing the student play performance will help pay for needed repairs to the roof of their building. When a newspaper reporter (Amanda Lisman) comes to see their preparations for the royal visit, leading to a feature article publicizing their production, the project is pushed in a new direction.

Joseph (Richard Comeau), Evelyne (Merewyn Comeau), Susan (Brefny Caribou), Father Callum (Nathan Howe), Jean (John Wamsley), Beth (Grace Lamarche), Sian (Catherine Fitch) (photo: Dahlia Katz)

Suddenly instead of the usual effort to deny their culture and to assimilate the students as Christians, Sian the teacher and director of the student production (Catherine Fitch) seeks to emphasize Indian culture, getting costumes and sets for the production. Of course these are inauthentic and cliche. At one point in rehearsal, perplexed when she discovers that no they are not all the same culture, as one is partly Cree, another Ojibwe, another Mohawk, Sian asks if there is a generic Indian that they can play. The ineffectual teachers are more sympathetic than expected.

Evelyn (Merewyn Comeau) surprises her teachers by the strength of her acting, because she channels the wisdom of her elders. Susan (Brefny Caribou) follows suit, letting the memory of a quirky uncle inspire her as the clown. In contrast, Beth (Grace Lamarche) has loyally subscribed to the instructions of her teachers, believing in the residential school promise of a better life if she learns her lessons and rejects her native heritage. When Sian encourages them to play as Indian rather than as an assimilated English Canadian, Beth is perplexed, caught in the contradictions of the school and its lies, but also aware that in her acceptance of the school’s implicit bargain, she has cut herself off from a native past to which she no longer connects.

Joseph (Richard Comeau) is Beth’s brother, a fact the teachers didn’t realize until it’s disclosed during rehearsal. Jean (John Wamsley) and Joseph, who also have parts in the play will also tell us about a hockey game with a local private school that figures prominently in the unfolding of the plot. In due course we will see the presentation of their play within a play unfold, and their decisions as to how to enact their Indian portrayals, reconciling themselves.

1939 continues at the Berkeley St Theatre until at least October 12th. I recommend that you attend, and if possible stay for the experience of the reflection space after the play.

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Thorold and Vineland: cats, plants and Figaro

Posted on September 20, 2024 by barczablog

No opera today, although the headline may seem to promise as much.

Before we got to Eryna’s house in Thorold we stopped in Vineland. This was our third or fourth visit to The Watering Can Flower Market, a place to find plants and also to have lunch.

Speaking as a resident of Scarborough who loves outside yard-work and indoor cultivation, it’s thrilling to see such an enormous inventory of plants and gardening products, often at prices far below what we pay at the garden centres in Toronto.

It was worth the drive.

We picked it, or maybe I should say “him” up on the way home Thursday after spending Wednesday night in Thorold with Eryna (picture below).

On the way to her place Wednesday we caught a glimpse of the handsome fellow
(Erika is thinking of the plant as a male, although she hadn’t yet given him a name)
…while enjoying lunch.

I had a savory scone with a bowl of squash soup, Erika had tomato-red pepper soup, then we split a breakfast sandwich (egg over easy, bacon & cheese on toasted sourdough bread), and I finished with the best pumpkin pie I’ve ever tasted with ice cream on top.

It was a hot day yet the fans above us in the spacious cafe area cooled us.

Walking around in this big gorgeous space leaves me feeling I’m in an altered reality as if I’m wandering in a museum or art gallery, overwhelmed by so many varieties of beauty. And it smells amazing.

On our last visit to Eryna, you may recall pictures of Meeshko, the beautiful older cat I wrote about last year. I will spare you the reminder of his beautiful face, as he had been ill, wasting away and finally dying a few months ago.

Heartbreak.

Sambuca aka Sam the feral is still alive, although he’s much smaller. Eryna does her best to get him to eat.

Sam and his breakfast

After a few weeks a friend encouraged Eryna to check out a couple of cats who were in need of a new home. Eryna couldn’t resist. The newcomers are both female, Zeerka (which means “star”) and Zenia (which means “flower”).

Live cats plus cat images on the cushions

Zeerka is much friendlier.

Zeerka is much the friendlier of the two

Zenia is kind of shy, apparently because of a troubled history, bullied by an earlier feline housemate.

Furtive Zenia, not yet sure she could trust us

You see more pictures of Zeerka because she’s such a social butterfly, a bit of a whore for someone willing to stroke her: aka me.

I’ve only included a few of the many kitty pictures I took, several while juggling iPhone and feline in my lap.

We went to dinner just a few blocks aways from Eryna’s house down Clairmont Street in Thorold. It’s amazing to be able to walk anywhere you want in this charming little town. We’re grateful to Eryna for showing us the sights.

The menu of Pho18 reflects the creativity of Andy and Jenny Tang. Erika had pad thai, Eryna and I both enjoyed Tom Yum noodle soup, a delicious combination of coconut, broth & noodles. I finished with a mango cheesecake and a brilliant Vietnamese iced coffee, with the added magic of condensed milk. We were welcomed by our server, a charming & helpful fellow named Will. You can see their website including their menu here, or call them at 905-680-8889.

I understand their cuisine to be Vietnamese fusion, assembling the synthesis of different cultures with a confident panache.

Next morning it was time to visit some Thorold businesses.

First came Angie O’H Antiques, where I tried out several walking sticks, including the shillelagh Angie herself is brandishing in the photo.

I fell down a black hole for awhile, bemused by model boats, figures of dragons and composers.

There’s so much to see. And Angie is endlessly fascinating.

Next came The Post Office, featuring the original creations of Shannon Passero.

The name is logical given that the building seems to be a repurposed post office / government building. But Canada Post never accomplished anything as brilliant as what Shannon is offering. Inside the unpretentious exterior you find a big showroom to dazzle the eye. Eryna bought four items, Erika five, and OMG prices were reasonable, although yes, Erika has always had an eye for a bargain. She found me right? (only one previous owner).

You can read more about how the store was developed and how it helps build the community. It’s exciting to see creativity & energy building something beautiful and lasting.

Later as we drove back towards Hamilton (where Erika had an appointment) we were again in Vineland returning to The Watering Can.

My few pictures can’t really capture the richness, a space that feels so healthy with oxygen, plants surrounding you not as a jungle but a friendly and well-curated museum.

Our errand was more purposeful this time, going directly to the plant Erika had decided upon the previous day, without stopping to eat this time.

Erika holding a much smaller plant than the one we bought.

Our new plant only cost us $49.00, even though a GTA store (not naming names) would have charged us four times as much or more. It’s about the same height as Erika which is to say 64 inches.

Figaro can grow. Up to 60 feet tall in their native climate? OMG

The Watering Can isn’t just a plant warehouse but much more. Erika showed me the write-up they share on this plant, known as a Fiddle Leaf Fig (ficus lyrata). Helpful staff showed us information on a page in a big book, that’s also available online.

Erika’s expecting her fig to grow. No wonder she called him Figaro.

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Ariadne on Naxos in 1969 at the Opera School

Posted on September 17, 2024 by barczablog

The title of the opera is Ariadne auf Naxos, done as Ariadne on Naxos because it was being sung in English.

That’s how Richard Strauss’s opera was presented back in March 1969 at the Opera School of the University of Toronto.

Through the magic of my library card to the University of Toronto Library I have been able to revisit an experience that dazzled me at 14 years of age, thanks to the kind assistance of Music Archivist Becky Shaw at the Edward Johnson Building. And my brother Peter Barcza helped me identify the people in the pictures. He was just 19 years old, and was the reason I came to see this show.

I am also able to time-travel through a few helpful Facebook friends whose names appear in the program.

I asked Riki Turofsky (Naiad), Steve Henrickson (Music Master & Arlecchino) and Mary Lou Fallis (Zerbinetta) what they remembered.

First Riki Turofsky..

Barczablog: what do you remember? any memories / anecdotes to share of Hermann Geiger-Torel, Ernesto Barbini, and your fellow cast members.?

RT: I loved that production. Torel [meaning Hermann Geiger-Torel] of course was yelling all sorts of orders from the theatre while we rehearsed. Nancy Gottchalk’s voice was too light for the role but she performed it brilliantly. I was a pretty high coloratura but was really impressed with Mary Lou’s facility with the score. I think I learned to love Strauss after being in that opera.

BB: I was curious about the way your name appears in the program, spelled as “Ricki” not “Riki” as it now appears.

RT: My name spelling changed after a concert in Victoria when a numerologist in the audience suggested the simplification to Riki from Ricki.

Next Steven Henrikson who was both Music Master and Arlecchino.

BB: Any memories / anecdotes to share of Hermann Geiger-Torel, cast members?

SH: Leslie, Wow, a long time ago, indeed. We were such a young, aspiring, talented bunch!

The larger parts were double cast. However, as a Bass-Baritone I was given two roles: Music Master and Arlecchino. The problem of having both characters in Act I was solved by having Gerard Boyd ‘act’ Arlecchino in Act I on my behalf. This was possible as Arlecchino does not sing in Act I!

Foreground: Stephanie Gerson (Zerbinetta) embracing Steve Henrikson (Arlecchino), Roelof Oostwoud (Scaramuccio)
(photo: Copyright Ludvik Dittrich)

SH: Further, having to rehearse as two characters and with other parts double cast, I rehearsed most days for 8 hours, sometimes 10, and once for 12 hours!  I was indestructible……

Mary Lou was exceptional as Zerbinetta. Our “duet” was well-received and fun.

During the VERY difficult Act Il quintet, featuring all 4 male Commedia characters, Geiger- Torel had us leap-frogging over each other AS WE SANG! All very disciplined- we could not be anything but 100% accurate in acting and singing.

BB: And you’re still singing today. I reviewed you in The Seagull just this past June and it seems you’re still singing.

SH: Yes, Daland in Wagner’s Flying Dutchman with Bill Shookoff on College St. November 9. I have been singing, full time, for 67 years!

Finally, my interview with Mary Lou Fallis.

Mary Lou Fallis: I was in my third year university, and it was kind of …amazing(!) to me that they were going to do this production because you know it’s a big opera.

Barczablog: It’s ambitious isn’t it. I don’t think they ever did anything like this, right?

MLF: Well they did L’enfant et les Sortileges.

Soprano
Mary Lou Fallis

BB: but that’s a short little thing in comparison.

MLF: it’s short but it still involves a lot of people, cast and a lot of costumes, sets that were absolutely magnificent.

Yes this was ambitious.

BB: You were singing a part that is one of the hardest in all the repertoire: Zerbinetta.

MLF: Yes I had heard it. I was twenty-one when I sang it. I had heard it two years previously. Reri Grist a wonderful coloratura, I heard her do it when she was a guest with the Toronto Symphony. She did a concert performance of it, and I heard it and thought this is so brilliant, this is my dream role.

BB: So you had the high note, right? The high E? I mean not everybody can sing this thing.

MLF: Well that’s just the way my range was. I was just built that way. I had high Fs since I was about 14. My grandmother was my singing teacher, and she never told me how high I was going.

(laughter)

BB: Good plan!

MLF: Anyway I wanted to do it, so I got the score, and I memorized the role. It took me ages and ages to learn it.

BB: You were singing it in English! Does that mean you had to learn it again?

MLF: Yes!

(and i hear a gasp)

Yes I did: but it wasn’t hard to do that. When you’re there at coachings and rehearsals it doesn’t take long. It might have taken longer to do it in German. I had no trouble with that. It was my dream role and I always felt, the roles you usually did in opera school were all the soubrette parts. I was too smart to sing all those sappy roles, or at least that’s what I felt at the time. I was arrogant much more arrogant than I am now.

BB: Isn’t it useful, don’t you have to be arrogant to be a diva? It comes with the territory doesn’t it?

MLF: On some level. I’ve mellowed. I’m very very happy with where I am now. Very happy that I don’t have to cough out a high “C“.

BB: Do you remember Hermann Geiger-Torel?

MLF: Of course! My relationship with Hermann Geiger-Torel goes back to when I was in the precursor of the Canadian Children’s Opera Chorus. I was in two performances, one was Hansel and Gretel, I was one of the gingerbread people, and then I was one of the orphans in Rosenkavalier.

“Papa! Papa!“

And then I was one of the kids in la Boheme. And I remember my very first time onstage, I guess I must have been about twelve, and I was in the chorus, Parpignol and that whole Act II start with you know Cafe Momus?

BB (singing the intro to the act) “Ta-ta-ta-…(etc)”

MLF: (singing the chorus part) “Ah...!”

Anyway that was me and I had a part in the chorus and what I remember, I knew my part. But I’d never been onstage in a big theatre like that. So when it started I was absolutely boondoggled and amazed. So I remember standing in the middle of the stage and not moving. There were things I was supposed to do: but I just stood in the middle of the stage, with my mouth open, because I was just so overwhelmed by the whole thing.

And so Geiger-Torel stopped the rehearsal, and said “Little girl! Do you know what you’re doing“.

And I was soooooo embarrassed.

But he kind of took an interest in me, when I was a little kid. And when I was 18 he had me understudy the doll in Tales of Hoffmann, early on in the COC. So I was very young. He was always very interested in me. I liked him a lot, I respected him. I thought he knew a lot about theatre. I think he felt a little badly, being in what he would consider kind of a backwater, at that point. It really was. He was starting an opera company in Toronto, when the Metropolitan Opera in New York had twenty-five times the budget.

BB: And a different audience.

MLF: Absolutely. I can remember going to operas with my grandmother when I was fifteen at the Royal Alex. But that’s beside the point.

What I remember about this production is that it was double-cast, which I didn’t enjoy very much.

BB I saw your cast by the way.

MLF: Did you? I think it was one of the most fun things that I ever did. And I think my voice did develop much more after that. It was a high point for me. And I went on to do the role in Stratford. And I went on to do it in Buffalo. And they did performances at the Shaw Festival believe it or not.

BB You’re the only person in that production–I’m willing to bet– who got to do their role again.

MLF: Do you have the program in front of you?

BB I do, I can share a list of the names.

Margaret Zeidman (Ariadne) and Wilmer Neufeld (Bacchus)
(photo: Copyright Ludvik Dittrich)

BB: Wilmer Neufeld (Bacchus)…

MLF: He went on to have a big career, singing in Glyndebourne, quite a career in Europe.

BB Margaret Zeidman was in your cast, while Nancy Gottschalk was the other Prima Donna / Ariadne.

MLF: Was she really!? I remember Nancy.

I was just thinking of the four guys. My cast was Roelof Oostwoud, who was a professor, he had done a mathematics degree and he had kind of a rough tenor, but he loved singing and went on to have a career in Europe. He was Dutch so I think he went over to The Netherlands, sang for quite a long time in Europe. Was Gerard Boyd in that?

BB Yes, he was the spoken Arlecchino in the prologue, while Steve was the Arlecchino in the opera, because his part had to be split apart.

MLF: Gerrard did a lot of character roles, he went on to have a career with that sort of part.

BB So the four guys (as listed in the program) were Ralph Oostwoud, Igor Saika-Voivod, Frederick Donaldson and Steven Henrikson.

MLF: I was going to say I didn’t know what happened to Fred Donaldson. Did he go to Europe too?

BB I don’t know.

MLF: And Igor did some stuff with the Canadian Opera Company. He had a very deep voice. And then he moved to London Ontario where he taught voice for many many years. When I taught at Western he sent me many students.

BB Did you stay in touch with Margaret Zeidman? She was your Ariadne.

MLF: Yes. I thought Margaret was pretty good. Who was the other Ariadne?

BB Nancy Gottschalk. I never saw her sing it.

MLF: Margaret had that sort of sadness, coolness.

BB The composer was Lorna Hearst or Elizabeth Douglas.

MLF: Elizabeth Douglas was my composer. She was from Kitchener I think. She went on to teach singing in Kitchener locally. I seem to remember that she was older than a lot of us.

BB: I guess there were others who were older. Wasn’t Wilmer Neufeld older? like a mature singer.

MLF: Oh yes quite a lot older. He was like 35 or something.

BB OMG I remember when 35 seemed old. I was 14 at the time, of course.

MLF: So there was Miss Turofsky, one of the three naiads. There was a woman from Australia named Helen (?).

BB: [reading from the program] Helen Grant.

MLF: Yes she had a lovely voice. And Clare Bewley was Echo.

BB: Michele Dowsett was the other Echo. So there was one cast with two performances (March 26th and 29th) and your cast had the single performance on the 28th.

MLF: I only had the one performance because they were worried, as I was so young. And the other woman: have we heard anything of her?

BB: I don’t know.

MLF: She married a dentist and I remember her having a party after her production.

BB Maybe she lived happily ever after.

Do you have any memories of Ernesto Barbini, who conducted..?

MLF: I have wonderful memories of Barbini. I don’t think Strauss was really his thing. He was very Italian. I was there when Teresa Stratas did Mimi, when she was the understudy. What I mean is, I think he did okay but the Germanic style wasn’t his thing. I mean when you’re conducting a student orchestra, it’s difficult. You have to take what you’ve got. But they had some very good people there, including my darling husband. Peter was in the Toronto Symphony for 35 years. He was Principal Bass, for Ariadne.

BB: Small world!

MLF: We were married at the end of fourth year. We had started courting, let’s put it that way.

BB: So Zerbinetta wasn’t really interested in Bacchus or Arlecchino, she had her eyes on somebody in the orchestra pit… (or a dentist)

MLF: Yes I was more interested in the bass player. But I guess Barbini did very well. We all benefited from his professionalism, his professional standards. I think Torel, looking back on it, he was very good. Both of them were what we would now call “old school”. Torel wasn’t into modern acting.

BB: I wanted to ask you about something Steve Henrikson said. He said Torel had the four men leap-frogging over each other, very physical. I wonder if you were tangled up in all those bodies.

MLF: I don’t think I had to do that.

BB Were they all around you while they were doing that

MLF: Yes, i remember one of them had a bit of a crush on me. I had a pink sweater and he said I was just so cute!

BB I guess the show wasn’t supposed to be an invitation to sexual harassment.

MLF: In those days nobody talked about it. You were just supposed to laugh it off, rather than “Don’t touch me!” But I loved doing that part. You have to have the chops and you have to be a musician to be able to do it.

And then I actually sang it on the stage of the Met, because I was in the semifinals of the Met Auditions. I used that as an audition piece. It was so good to be able to sing it at U of T, and Shaw and Buffalo and at Stratford and all those years later at the Met.

*******

1969 Ariadne on Naxos Images: courtesy University of Toronto Music Library. University of Toronto Opera Division fonds, OTUFM 84-B-1, with thanks to Becky Shaw the archivist at the EJB Library.

Mary Lou’s photo: Canadian Encylcopedia article on Mary Lou Fallis

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CICM and OBR present Dvořák’s Jacobin

Posted on September 15, 2024 by barczablog

The Canadian Institute for Czech Music (CICM) and Opera by Request (OBR) collaborated to present Antonín Dvořák’s opera Jacobin in a concert performance with orchestra at Jeanne Lamon Hall Friday September 13th.

Produced by Professor John Holland of CICM, conducted by Bill Shookhoff of OBR, it was a labour of love as part of the Year of Czech Music (an international event celebrated in every year that ends in a “4”). CICM and OBR have offered a festival of three operas culminating with Jacobin.

I know Bill must have been working hard to get the orchestra to play so well in a score that’s new to everyone. Bill walked with a painful limp, worrying me because he’s irreplaceable. I hope he’s okay although he seemed to conduct with energy and verve. I suspect that Bill seemed tired having worked around the clock to ensure that Jacobin was properly prepared for the singers chorus and orchestra.

Opera By Request artistic director William Shookhoff

Let me repeat, the orchestra sounded wonderful. I want to mention them by name.

Natalie Wong ———-Violin I
Amma Protasova——Vioin II
Fanny Tang————-Viola
Hyemee Yang———-Cello
Jamie Zhang————Flute 1
Katie Kirkpatrick——Flute II
Le Lu——————–Clarinet
Hazel Boyle————Oboe
Paolo Rosselli———-French Horn
Todd Holland———-Trumpet
Aaron James———–Organ
Narmina Afandiyeva–Piano

There are several solos for the winds, who played boldly and with an idiomatic sound. Shookhoff also kept the chorus tightly together, as well as a children’s chorus directed by Erin Armstrong.

I don’t know Czech but observed that the singers sounded right to my ear, their accents well coached by whoever was responsible for coaching their delivery of the libretto, perhaps John Holland.

Count Vilem of Harasov — Dylan Wright
Bohul, his son ————– Michael Robert-Broder
Julie, Bohul’s wife ——— Cristina Pisani
Benda schoolmaster ——- Alexander Cappellazzo
Terinka, his daughter——- Grace Quinsey
Jiri, a young gamekeeper– David Walsh
Filip, Burgrave ————- John Holland
Adolf the Count’s nephew- Alasdair Campbell
Lotinka, keeper of keys—- Erin Armstrong

I was reminded of Fidelio, another opera containing a rescue and political themes plus a romantic story. Unlike Beethoven’s opera, this work seems much more firmly in the comic realm, while the political content is minimal even though the title might lead you to expect more. I wonder if that genre question might be one reason why this tuneful piece hasn’t yet caught on around the world. We watched the opera presented in concert, singers in formal attire portraying their part from a music stand. Perhaps next time CICM will give us something staged with costumes and sets.

Dvořák’s score is full of melody but more difficult than one might expect due to his tendency to modulate. I came out of Jeanne Lamon Hall humming the tunes that were humming in my head. The audience gave the cast and participants a strong ovation in appreciation for their hard work and their committed performances.

L to R: Alasdair Campbell, Dylan Wright, John Holland, Cristina Pisani, Bill Shookhoff, Michael Robert-Broder, Alexander Cappellazzo, Grace Quinsey, David Walsh
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