Ten questions for Eve Egoyan

Posted on April 7, 2013 by barczablog

Eve Egoyan specializes in the performance of new works. Her intense focus, command of the instrument, insightful interpretations and unique programmes welcome audiences into unknown territory, bridging the gap between them and contemporary composers.

“I am passionate about all the pieces I have selected for this recital”, she explains. “Each is written in a unique compositional language that explores the piano in extraordinary ways. I am strengthening ties to composers whose work I have performed in the past and open myself to works by those who are new to me and to my community.“

Eve Egoyan returns to Glenn Gould Studio Friday April 19th to share the sound worlds of five unique composers. This distinctive recital program features Shiraz by the late Claude Vivier, SKRYABIN in itself by Michael Finnissy (Canadian première), and the world première of Ann Southam’s RETURNINGS II.  Egoyan also introduces two European composers to Canadian audiences, as she performs Piani, Latebre by Piers Hellawell (Ireland) and selections from Nocturnes by Taylan Susam (Netherlands).

The event also serves as the launch of “5”, an album comprised of première recordings by the beloved late Canadian composer Ann Southam.

I ask Egoyan ten questions: five about herself and five about her performances & recordings of new repertoire for the piano.

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

I think I am more like my father. Both my parents are painters. My father’s work has gone through many phases in his life and he has worked in a variety of mediums. He also is inherently musical. Though he never studied an instrument, he has no hesitation picking one up and figuring out a tune.

2) What is the best thing / worst thing about being a pianist?

I love exploring sound through the piano – it is right there, an extremely accessible instrument. The best thing about being a pianist is listening to the piano’s range of colour and feeling enveloped by it.

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

I like to listen to a variety of music. I tend to listen to contemporary music mostly live, at concerts. At home, I listen to recordings of jazz and world music as well as sharing standard classical repertoire with my daughter.

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

I wish I could speak many languages fluently. I wish I had an impeccable memory of everything I have read. I wish my work could have some clear political impact, had a voice. I feel that my art form, without words, cannot help change the world.

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

Going for long walks.

*******

Five more about Eve Egoyan’s performances & recordings of new repertoire.

1) What are the challenges you face with unfamiliar repertoire (aka “new music”) on the piano? (and please speak of the pieces)

  • Ann Southam (Canada) RETURNINGS II (2010)
    RETURNINGS II is a piece from my new disc “5”, works by Ann Southam discovered after her death, posthumous works. What fills our ears and draws us in towards the music is in the weave: the magnetic pull of the constant drone of a fifth in the lower voices; the unfolding of a dissonant row in the middle voices; and the colouring of warm harmonic chords on top.
  • Piers Hellawell (Ireland) Piani, Latebre (2010)
    This piece explores layered textures and hiding-places buried within larger phrases of the music.
  • Michael Finnissy (England) SKRYABIN in itself (2000-2008)
    This piece is a personal statement by the composer whose love of Skryabin’s music goes back many years. He says that “on some levels it permeates my ‘harmonic vocabulary’, which is to say that it has deeply coloured the overall sound of all my music”.
  • Taylan Susam (Netherlands) selections from Nocturnes (2009-)
    am interspersing these shorter works amongst the works on the first half of my programme. They are slowly descending linear works from the top to the bottom of the piano, each note heard for itself, focusing the listener to experience the details of register at the piano.
  • Claude Vivier (Canada) Shiraz (1977)
    Shiraz is a piece that explores range at the piano in extraordinarily dense ways within a particularly tightly woven music language.

The obvious challenge is an exciting one for me: hearing a work for the first time and eventually sharing it. I unravel a new work through practice then unveil it in performance. In these performances, a first hearing is an open space, a place without preconception, shared with my audience. I also really enjoy programming in a curatorial manner, mixing up the idea of programming, placing works in contexts where they are revealed in interesting ways. On this particular concert I will be playing the Nocturnes between pieces on the first half which will echo the form of the longest piece on the programme by Michael Finnissy which is in itself  the second half of the concert.

2) What do you love about  the repertoire you’re playing ?

I have met four of the composers on the programme. There is something in this, knowing the voice, eyes, presence of the creator of the music. I spend hours entering their world. Each piece on my programme addresses the piano in a unique way.

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

I look forward to feeling the progress of the programme during the concert. I experience my concerts not only piece by piece but by overall effect. I have a sense of how it will be shared but never know what will be communicated most strongly until the concert happens.

4) How do you feel about the relevancy of music, particularly the music you play, as a modern citizen?

I perform contemporary music because I want to remain close to the creative source, my peers. I also play music by women, as a woman. There were very, very few women composers until recently. It is important for me to be part the possible equality that we have now. I also want to be part of keeping the art of composition alive, as a sophisticated creative medium, as well as keep my instrument, the piano, relevant, modern. I want to keep hearing what my peers find in it, keep exploring its vast sound world.

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

Many of my teachers were wonderful influences however I never studied interpretation of new music with any of them. As a student, I studied the interpretation of standard concert repertoire. I admire and am inspired by the composers whose work I play.

******

Eve Egoyan Recital/CD Launch
“5” is available online and in stores as of April 30th.

www.eveegoyan.com

www.centrediscs.ca

Posted in Interviews | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Fatal infidelity

Posted on April 7, 2013 by barczablog

When people meet and become interested in one another, they decide they want to be near one another.  Their growing rapport leads to growing closeness. And they make promises, some in words, others of a more legal sort.

Later people often break the promises.  The usual consequence is heart-break or upset, possibly reconciled in some way, or leading to the end of the formal ties, legal action, and splitting up.

There’s another kind of relationship, however, where the consequences of love are more intense.  When a human enters into a relationship with an animal, the disparities of financial power, of rights, of intelligence mean that for a human, there are none of the legal ramifications when a human changes their mind, compared to what happens with other sorts of marriages that go sour.

You get a kitten or a puppy.  The bonding is like nothing you’ve experienced.

It’s also like nothing the animal has ever experienced.  Their love is genuine because they have no agenda.

When a person brings an animal into their life they may do so ambivalently.  The parents obtaining a pet for a child see the excitement, but the child doesn’t really understand the context, the chores involved.  Hopefully the connection is permanent, with no misgivings, but sometimes people change their minds.

I don’t claim to understand this dynamic.  I only know what i experience de facto.  I live in a part of town where a lot of animals are released by their owners.  I think they believe it’s more humane to set an animal free, as though it were some sort of captive in chains who will happily run into the wild, not struggle (bewildered and confused), starve, freeze, and become prey for bigger nastier creatures, or end up as road-kill.   I can’t assess this one easily, when the dilemma is between alternatives that both bother me, that seem like two sorts of evil. Can I say it’s ‘better’ to take an animal and have it put down cleanly? but that still seems better than condemning them to suffer the way domesticated creatures suffer when released in this kind of misguided compassion.

There is a positive side to this conversation. One sometimes gets the chance to welcome such animals into one’s home. I’m fortunate to have welcomed cats into my house that were born in the wild, cats that were immediately fixed.   Their mother? Unfortunately we couldn’t catch up with her, and don’t believe she’s alive anymore.  But if you do the math, when a single fertile cat is released or born, the population multiplies quickly.

I recently had the pleasure & privilege of seeing an animal rescuer, showing some of his creatures to a group of children.  The occasion was educational for the kids, and a way to turn this heroic undertaking (which in his case isn’t puppies and kittens, but snakes, turtles, and a host of other creatures) into something far more positive. (click for further information on animal rescue especially if you have a pet that needs to find a place!)

I only wish people would recognize that when they bring an animal into their home, the animal doesn’t understand anything as temporary. Their love is unconditional, a lesson we could take to heart.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged | Leave a comment

Adès Conversations

Posted on April 7, 2013 by barczablog

I am thinking a lot about the nature of criticism.  On a recent trip I sat on the airplane reading a fascinating book that’s called Conversations with Tom Service.  How fascinating could such a book be?

Ah but it’s a book BY Thomas Adès, the composer of The Tempest and Powder her Face  as well as lots of other compositions .  As with so much about this book, it feels totally backwards.

Adès is now famous, but didn’t do the obvious –referencing himself in the title—so we have a kind of ass-backwards suggestion,  as if the composer is saying  ‘oh I am not important’.

Yeah right.

This is a remarkably clever exercise in some respects, a wonderfully suggestive book that makes me feel alive and alert, even as I want to rail against much of what I read .  There’s a great deal in the book to stimulate you, even if it’s sometimes a stimulus comparable to a buzzing mosquito in your tent.  Sure, I hear the little bugger, buzz buzz buzz and it means I can’t sleep even if I want to smack it so hard that it’s off to meet its maker.  I am simultaneously irritated by this book and fascinated by the questions raised.  Often I want to say ‘yes good question to raise’ even as I completely reject the direction taken in the conversation by Adès, and while we’re at it, profoundly irritated by the aptly named Tom Service, whose questions never seem very challenging, but always sycophantic, supportive and at his, yes, service.   S-s-s…

The book is full of brilliant quotes even as I disagree with much of what I read.  As a rhetorical exercise this is a very good book.

I already had heard that Adès dissed Wagner, so I tried to come in with an open mind.  Several  of the things said about Wagner sound right.  But I am pretty sure that while Adès says he plays Liszt’s transcription of the Liebestod –and there are lots of us who do so—that Adès does not know Wagner from having listened to him, or not knowing him as a devoted fan.  The comments he makes suggest someone who has skimmed rather than really experienced Wagner.  So I can’t really be bothered with the arguments because they are superficial.  Sorry Mr A.

Adès is wonderfully ambitious at times in what he’s addressing.  And then when he speaks, it’s as though he’s understood that we need to climb to the top of the tower, and he’s blind, totally blind.  But thank you TA for asking us to climb to the top even if you forgot to put on your glasses.

It’s curious that the biggest target in Adès’s sights –Richard Wagner—arguably pursued the very same pathway.  As a young composer Wagner wrote pamphlets attacking the status quo, proposing reform even before there was any evidence he knew how to achieve such reforms.  So Wagner became an issue, a cause celebre, even though in some respects he was at odds with the status quo, and a total pain in the butt.   So I am simultaneously impressed with Adès’ approach even if I disagree with what he actually says.   At this point, is Adès perhaps at the same point as Wagner in the 1830s, having made a splash but with operas that haven’t stood the test of time…?

Adès disses Mahler and while dissing Wagner throws Parsifal onto the same scrap-heap where he already threw Tristan und Isolde.   Some really important issues come up, even as I loathe the conclusions he draws.  The word ‘enactment’ comes up, one I think that’s fundamental in the realm of opera.  How—having mentioned enactment—could he miss the point with Parsifal?  I don’t want to be inconsistent, because of course TA loves Les Troyens, an opera I adore, even as he disses Wagner & Verdi.

I am reminded of that old adage ‘there’s no such thing as bad publicity’.  Attacking Wagner as though you are his peer is a no-lose proposition, and as a self-promotional strategy pretty good actually.  If you hate what he said about Wagner, suddenly one becomes energized about Adès in opposition.  And of course, if you hate Wagner, you’re going to eat it up.

I’m a weirdo of course.  I had encountered Hoiby’s music for The Tempest and so i innocently wondered ‘who is this Adès dude and why isn’t it Hoiby’s Tempest being presented at the Met?’  I would have liked to see a discussion of the relative merits of the two adaptations, although from what i have seen, Adès’ version is remarkable, and the better of the two.  If Hoiby’s adaptation is shown to be poorer of the two, surely he benefits from being part of a conversation that is otherwise a monologue, Adès up in the stratosphere with Wagner & Mahler, rather than down in the trenches with Hoiby.

And so I speak out of two sides of my mouth.  I am consuming the book, reading it at a fast pace even as I rail, at much of what they discuss.   What IS criticism anyway?  Is this a conversation at all?

I will keep wondering.  And so i won’t deny that i like Adès book, even as i find myself arguing with it, railing against it.

Posted in Books & Literature, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

10 Questions for Nina Lee Aquino

Posted on April 6, 2013 by barczablog

Nina Lee Aquino is in demand, as director, dramaturge and playwright.  She was a founding member of fu-Gen Asian Canadian Theatre, where she just finished directing their production of Lauren Yee’s Ching Chong Chinaman (review).  Aquino has recently been the Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre Company and is currently co-Artistic Director of Factory Theatre.

Tarragon Theatre is her next stop, for a play called carried away on the crest of a wave, a new play from David Yee that begins previews April 16th, a play described this way on Tarragon’s site:

A singular, cataclysmic event–the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami–illustrates the interconnectedness of all things. From an escort in Thailand to a Catholic priest in India to a housewife in Utah, this play asks, “what happens when the events that tie us together are the same that tear us apart?”

I ask Nina Lee Aquino ten questions: five about her, and five about her next project, carried away on the crest of a wave.

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

Nina and DadMy father.  I think I’m more like my father.

He seems to have a never ending patience with people.  Especially with difficult people.

He is quick to trust.

He has an uncanny ability to creatively troubleshoot problems.

He has one of the strongest senses of loyalty I know.

He has a swagger with the things that he’s so confident with.

He has the gift of being able to navigate through things…and people.

When he gets hurt, it’s a deep-cut kind of pain…one you don’t feel right way until you recognize it and it’s too late. And once you hurt him, he’s not going to allow himself to go through that again.

He is incredibly stubborn yet easily adaptable to whatever environment you throw him in.

He is quite generous.  To a fault even.

He doesn’t get angry much but when he does, it’s almost bottomless.  Same as when he is grieving.  So it takes a while for him to get out of these things.

Calculated ambition.  His drive and determination is always rooted in something.  He doesn’t go about things blindly.

He is quiet  but when you get him at the right moment, at the right time, he has a lot to say.  And so you know he’s been listening intently.

He has an impeccable memory but he can also be blurry on the details.  I don’t know if he does this on purpose.

He can be selfless and selfish at the same time.

He is one of those people that you can get to know in one day…and not know at all even though you’ve known him all his life.

Looking at this list…yeah…I think I am my father’s daughter.

2) What is the best thing / worst thing about being a theatre artist?

Best thing:
I get to change the world in my own way, on my own terms.

Theatre, I think, represents the best of who I am…so being a theatre artist feels like I get to be most myself.

I am part of a unique creative process that encourages discovery, exploration, risk, openness, generosity, failure and action.

Worst thing:
It can be very lonely at times.

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

I don’t have any particular favourite bands or singers but can be obsessed with specific songs that I’ll listen to over and over and over again.

And the songs that I like span from cheesy, mind-numbing pop music to ooga booga new age stuff.  Really, my ears are not ashamed.  I’ll like whatever evokes an emotion or memory in me.  I think that’s what makes my ears perk up to begin with.

But certain movie soundtracks are a “must have” for me when I am in a thinking mode of sorts. As I try (my best) to finish this questionnaire, the following music has already played over and over again on my Iphone:  the soundtracks to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Searching for Bobby Fisher, The Art of Getting By, Lars and the Real Girl and The Mission.

And right now, I am determined to finish watching the entire Star Trek: The Next Generation series on Netflix.  Don’t ask me why I need to do this right now but that’s all I want to watch on TV before I go to bed.  Like a ritual almost.  I am currently in season 4.  Captain Picard is my current hero.  So weird.

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

Math skills.  I would trade anything in the universe to be able to understand numbers.  And work with them.  And play with them.

I love numbers.  I love the magic and power they hold.  And all the secrets of the universe.  Sadly,  numbers don’t love me.  I suck at math.  So much.  Except trigonometry.

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

Nowadays, I don’t really have any time to myself.  But when I do, I often find myself clothes and shoe shopping online.  Mind you, I don’t necessarily buy everything I put on my virtual shopping cart but I get immense joy in choosing whatever the hell I want to buy…even if it’s just pretend-buy!

And you can never ever have enough shoes.

*******

Five more about directing carried away on the crest of a wave

1) What are the challenges you face directing carried away on the crest of a wave?

The challenges so far:

The play is epic in scope and it’s set in many different places all over the world.

We have a cast of 7 playing over 15 characters.

The production uses real water.

It’s a world premiere, written by a living, breathing playwright who also happens to be one of my dearest friends in the whole universe.

2) What do you love about  the play ?

Everything about it.  It’s a David Yee play so it’s everything.  He’s my most favourite playwright of all time and will always be my number one collaborator.

Some time ago, someone asked me how I know if I am the right director for a piece.

If I can hear the music in the words…if the notes are so clear in the text — then I know that the script and I belong together.

When I read a David Yee play, I can almost immediately hear the music…even before anything is read out loud.

3) Do you have a favourite moment in the play?

The transitions. Those will always be the most favourite parts of any play that I am working on.

And transitions are always something I look out for when I go see a play.

I don’t know why or what is it about the idea of transitions that fascinate me.  But it does and it’s important to me.

It’s like…how a piano player turns the pages of the music sheet without having to stop playing the piano.

I want my scenes to never stop moving.  And I revel in figuring those moments out.

4) How do you feel about activist drama as a modern artist of the theatre?

I see theatre as a transformative thing.  It’s the kind of theatre I like.  It’s the kind theatre I am attracted to.  It’s the kind of theatre that I do and say yes to.

My kind of theatre has the ability to

change;

move;

shift;

fuck up expectations, turn preconceived notions on its side; quash assumptions

destroy and build;

heal or open wounds (in order to heal);

engage and alienate at the same time;

illuminate, enlighten;

confront;

and strengthen.

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

Ric Knowles

Ric Knowles.  Everything about directing, I’ve learned from him…in his tiny little class that lasted for half a semester at the University of Guelph.

I feel like I’ve winged everything after that and learned through trial and error.  But the foundation of my directorial process was definitely built in his class.

And mind you, I almost barely passed it…because I didn’t do too well with the essay assignments he gave us and I barely said a word during class but it was the final assignment – which was to direct a scene from a play of our choice – that I realized what I was capable of doing as a director.  I didn’t know how much of what he was sharing with us in his class  — from his methods on working with actors, his philosophy on collaborating with designers and his unrelenting, incessant encouragement to fearlessly use our imagination –  really stuck with me until I started directing my first scene.

So I guess I was really listening to him after all.   Like really listening.

********

carried away on the crest of a wave begins previews April 16th at Tarragon Theatre.  CLICK for more information.

Posted in Interviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Coming of Age Stories

Posted on April 5, 2013 by barczablog

With the passage of time, people get older.  The battles that consumed them in their youth are set aside, as they seek stability and begin to contemplate their legacy.  In that gradual coming into focus, frivolity falls by the wayside in favour of meaningful action.

This could be said of Tamino in Mozart’s The Magic Flute,  tenor Colin Ainsworth, who plays Tamino in Opera Atelier’s revival of Mozart’s opera, and also Marshall Pynkoski, artistic director of Opera Atelier & the creative force behind that production.  It’s lovely how uniformly this pattern is being enacted.  And at a time when Toronto seems very conservative to my eye maybe they’re all in the right place at the right time.

At one time Opera Atelier and Pynkoski were the edgy young turks, bringing a brash spirit to historically informed productions of opera.  Often outrageous, never dull, Opera Atelier displayed a sophomoric delight in everything they staged.  They added Mozart operas to their repertoire (that had been mostly baroque masterpieces), always supported by Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra’s warm & gentle sound.

And so, as the years continue to go by, I wonder whether it’s them (changing) or it’s me (aging).  All of us have changed.   I could be wrong, but I suspect Opera Atelier will inherit the disaffected deserters (of whom I have met a few), disillusioned by the high percentage of Regietheater (or “director’s theatre”, productions that overlay so much interpretation that the original work may be hard to discern) from the COC.  While I hope those I spoke of are the exception, it all works to Opera Atelier’s advantage, as they’re no longer radicals, having found the mainstream (or it has found them by default). 

Ainsworth’s Tamino has a wonderful vocal heft to it even though Ainsworth still looks the callow youth onstage.   (and no signs that he or anyone else was holding their voice in reserve for opening night on Saturday).  I saw the same remarkable combination of skills –great voice, physique and acting ability—on display in Against the Grain’s production of The Diary of One Who Disappeared by Leoš Janáček roughly a month ago.  The voice seems effortless, direct, powerful, and seems bigger than ever.

Pynkoski made a pre-show cautionary announcement about the language of the libretto, which indeed drew some astonished responses from the high-school students sitting near me at the dress rehearsal, unprepared for the politically incorrect lingo.

The production is solid from top to bottom, well sung by soloists & chorus, and gorgeously played by Tafelmusik Orchestra, in a tight reading from conductor David Fallis that is above all intelligible, and very musical.

Baritone Olivier LaQuerre (Photo by Helen Tansey)

Olivier LaQuerre’s charming & sensitive Papageno received the lion’s share of the adoration from the wooting masses of teenagers in attendance, although Ambur Braid’s larger than life Queen of the Night, and Carla Huhtanen as Papagena / First Lady were also favourites.  Aaron Ferguson was one of the most dynamic Monostatos’ imaginable, with LaQuerre exploiting the vaudevillian element of the text.  And Pynkoski turned as he so often does to Curtis Sullivan, as the role of the Speaker is expanded to become the straight man dogging Papageno on his initiation in the second act.

The sense that the company and its artistic director have come of age begins with Pynkoski’s marvelous program note, where he addresses the whole question of revivals, and how we are thereby transformed.

Together.

~~~~~~~

Opera Atelier’s revival of The Magic Flute opens Saturday night at the Elgin Theatre, running until the following weekend.   For details and ticket information, please click.

POSTSCRIPT….

I realize — the morning after– that i allude to something without explaining myself, namely the program note. Last night during intermission i had just read this when a friend accosted me, and i had to literally compose myself, as i’d been very moved by what i had read. Follow this link and go to “Message from the Co-Artistic Directors”

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Late Mozart 2: caveats

Posted on April 4, 2013 by barczablog

Mozart censored? Operas did sometimes have to clear hurdles in the century of their creation, but actually I was thinking about the censure of a modern audience.

Opera Atelier’s production ot The Magic Flute opens this weekend at the Elgin Theatre. Click picture for more info.

And so I continue to ramble about late Mozart, inspired by a happy convergence in Toronto musical scheduling of the three great works of his last year, namely his Requiem, La Clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute (opening this weekend at the Elgin Theatre).  Going back to last summer, when I was consumed with Beethoven’s piano sonatas due to my fascination with Stewart Goodyear’s epic marathon (suddenly on my mind again because i’ve heard that he’s going to do it again in June, in New Jersey), I’ve sought to connect the musical dots, to seek ways whereby a series of events could be like a journey, however tenuous the metaphor.  This is easier with the big guys –Beethoven, Mozart, Wagner—than with the more obscure voices, the ‘itinerary’ a matter of serendipitous choice by the powers that be.  With the influential composers one doesn’t have to look hard to see connections, because minor composers’ work is like footnotes to the great ones.  Poulenc and Parsifal (playing on my PC right now) have a few things in common beside their first initial, even if the segue isn’t an obvious one.

The first part concerned “the Good”.  At times in Magic Flute the whole story seems to slam on the brakes, stopping to illustrate something about the nature of good, the nature of life.  And Clemenza di Tito is one big moral lesson, seeking to reassure us that we can trust the absolute monarch (at least a good one like Titus).  Questions of morality and its signification seemed to be central to both of the operas.

I want to add some caveats: the fine print, if you will, in the legal document.  Not all is sweetness and light, but you knew that.  A moral lesson would be dull indeed without some transgression.  Clemenza di Tito? Never mind those splendid examples of good behaviour.  The pair of colourful characters who make the story happen colour outside the lines, namely Vitellia and Sesto.

The most interesting characters in Magic Flute?  Not Prince Tamino nor Princess Pamina.  Not Sarastro, the wise priest overseeing the temple of wisdom.  Speaking of wisdom, Mozart & Schikaneder realized that such solemnity needs the fun of someone breaking the rules, which is why the librettist created such a fun role for himself: Papageno.

And so we come to the first caveat.  If you’re one of the chosen you will likely find happiness.  Tamino and Pamina are of a special class.  Papageno? He’s not up to the challenge, so he can’t make it to the very pinnacle of enlightenment; but a simpler and earthier happiness (less about silence and denial, and more about indulging in the pleasures of life) is available to him.

And then there are two other characters, on the outside looking in.  Indeed, that’s precisely how we see them in their last entrance near the end of the opera, as outsiders trying to gain access to a place reserved only for the initiated.  These two are the sticking point, the deal-breakers you can’t introduce to your in-laws (as much as you love the Prince & Princess) who would embarrass you.  Or maybe they’d lure you away from seminary and get you to run away to join the circus.  

For both of these operas, the good can’t be understood without the transgressors.  Tito needs Vitellia and Sesto, just as Sarastro only comes into focus with the help of the Queen of the Night and Monostatos.  If these characters are bad (and i am not about to say that they are), it’s a fun & flamboyant badness that makes for the most exquisite moments in each opera.

There’s an additional caveat or two, particularly when we imagine Magic Flute for a modern audience.  I spoke of a kind of modern censorship, thinking of how Diane Paulus’s version at the COC a few years ago dodged the political objections in the text as written.  Sarastro & his brethren valorize a kind of wisdom that they associate with manhood, while being so outspoken against women as to seem decidedly misogynistic.  And then there’s Monostatos, whose race is presented as though his colour were somehow a moral issue.

It’s curious that an opera so concerned with being virtuous should be so transgressive according to our modern understanding of good.  In the fourth dimension (time) morality is so relative as to be called into question. Do we know what good is? Perhaps we get some idea, in staring at all these options.

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10 Questions for Stuart Hamilton

Posted on April 3, 2013 by barczablog

In the review I posted in March of Stuart Hamilton’s memoir Open Windows, I said that no one has been involved in more aspects of Canadian operatic performance than Stuart Hamilton.

Stuart Hamilton

Born in Regina, Hamilton, the young pianist chose to focus on accompanying singers. The list of the artists he accompanied is more or less the list of the best & brightest in this country. Sometimes Hamilton recognized the talent before anyone else, so that he was also a conduit whereby singers came to be discovered.

Hamilton is associated with two artistic enterprises:

  • Opera in Concert, begun in 1974
  • The Opera Quiz on Saturday Afternoon at the Opera

In one role he was self-effacing and humble, while in the other his personality propelled him to fame.  Yet there’s no contradiction, both aspects are true to who Stuart Hamilton really is, a kind & generous artist who is not just full of fun, but a gifted raconteur who has seen a lot in his time, and generously shares his experiences.

Hamilton is a Member of the Order of Canada, recipient of the Governor General’s Award and a Toronto Arts Award.  Although he no longer hosts the Opera Quiz or plays for Opera in Concert, Hamilton is still a teacher & coach, a man of vast experience & expertise in the vocal realm.

I ask Hamilton ten questions: five about himself, and five about coaching and teaching.

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

I don’t think I resemble either of my parents. They were good people , but they didn’t have an artistic bone between them. I was never close emotionally with them. 

2) What is the best thing or worst thing about being a coach & accompanist?

The best thing about being a vocal coach is the repertoire one deals with. Who could complain about having Bach, Mozart, Verdi, Wagner and Debussy to work for? These people were the very best people in their field and to work with them is a superb privilege.

I can’t think of anything bad about my work. I adore it.

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

Stuart Hamilton (shown among several Honorary Degree recipients)

I don’t have a record player and the only thing I listen to on the radio are the broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera. I don’t have a TV set. I don’t listen to records or watch films, as I’m only interested in the performing aspect of music and I don’t like to listen to the same performance more than once.

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

It would have been useful in my career if I had been able to transpose at sight which I’ve never been able to do. I also wish that I had had hands which were more suited for playing the piano.

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

I enjoy reading. Right now I’m re-reading Stendhal-La Chartreuse de Parme and Le Rouge et le Noir en français—superb ! and I’m about to retackle Flaubert with Madame Bovary and L’Education Sentimental.

~~~~~~~

Five more about Stuart Hamilton’s ongoing commitment to coaching & accompanying singers

1)Having formerly given yourself to a busy career including Opera in Concert, the CBC, and other coaching & teaching activities, how does your “new” life challenge you? 

Mary Morrison, a colleague & friend

I’m enjoying having time to practise the piano and I’ve fallen in love with Bach which I never had time to work on before. I’m studying the piano with Boris Zarankin and enjoying it immensely. When I told Mary Morrison at the Faculty of Music that I was taking piano lessons , she said “It’s about time ! “

2) what do you love about coaching / accompanying? 

This seems to me to be a repeat of question 2 in the first part.

(true enough…)

3) Do you have a favourite work or composer ?

Pelléas is still for me, one of the supreme musical achievements. I still love Montemezzi’s “L’amore dei Tre Re and Chabrier’s Le Roi Malgré Lui. I adore Wagner and Verdi but also Mozart and Schubert. Actually, I don’t know of any so-called Classical music that I don’t like.

My favorite scene in the Debussy opera is in act four where Mélisande gets dragged around by the hair after which Arkel says “If I were God, I’d have pity on the hearts of men.”

4) How do you relate to the operatic world as a modern man?

I’m something of a Philistine when it comes to regie. When the curtain goes up, I look and then forget about the décor and concentrate on the music and the performance.

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

Click to find out about Opening Windows

Most of the people who I admire in the music business are dead. Guerrero, my piano teacher in the fifties was a great influence as were Lois Marshall and Maureen Forrester. Actually, I’ve been most influenced by all the singers with whom I’ve had the privilege of working.

~~~~~~~

Stuart Hamilton continues as teacher & coach.  His memoir Opening Windows can be obtained in bookstores, or by following the link if you click the image to the right.

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Late Mozart 1: The Good

Posted on April 2, 2013 by barczablog

Toronto is a great town for musical connections.  If you go to enough concerts you’ll have a chance to explore inter-connected compositions & composers, to discover relationships and references.

Not so long ago I had the pleasure of hearing Tafelmusik’s scholarly take on Mozart’s Requiem the same month that I was obsessing over the COC production of La Clemenza di Tito.  Both works carry the caveat “some assembly required”, as they were finished with assistance (or perhaps more accurately “assistants”) rather than being 100% music by Mozart.  As such I have to be careful I am actually talking about Mozart and not something written by one of his associates.

And now this week we get the trifecta with Opera Atelier’s The Magic Flute.  While this work has been presented many times locally and abroad, it’s especially valuable to listen to it with the late Mozart in our ears.  Forgive me if I am going against the grain in this essay, given that Opera Atelier seem to be aiming for a popular reaction to this work, judging from the publicity I’ve seen.  And who could blame them?  The Metropolitan Opera, for example, have a short version of the opera designed for children, and I’ve seen other abbreviated versions of the work with family viewing in mind.  If Tchaikowsky’s Nutcracker can help line the cashbox why shouldn’t opera companies consider the same sort of thing, especially when times are tough…?  The two obvious candidates for this sort of family-oriented fund-raising would be Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel and of course, Mozart’s Magic Flute.

But pardon me, that’s not what this is about.  Accessible as Magic Flute may be, I’d like to consider it with the other two works from 1791, Mozart’s last year.

I already observed similarities between Clemenza and the Requiem in the review I wrote a few weeks ago, the echoes of “Parto, parto” in the “tuba mirum”. What else can we observe?  Ask me again when I’ve actually SEEN Magic Flute.  This is just the product of a few moments’ reflection on Easter weekend.

When Ingmar Bergman made his film of Magic Flute his Brechtian reading called attention to something in the writing from Mozart & his librettist Schikaneder (who was also the first Papageno).  At times in the film, the principals stand facing the camera while holding cards with text on them.  This is especially likely when the text ceases to be dramatic and instead begins to preach or moralize.  Whenever Schickaneder wants to teach us an important lesson, the music is sometimes of a pristine clarity, allowing the text to shine through like sunshine.  But what do you know, this isn’t the only opera where this can be seen.

In fact La Clemenza di Tito, an opera that premiered the same month as Magic Flute has a pre-existing libretto by Pietro Metastasio, that was modified by Caterino Tommaso Mazzolà.  I realize now –long after the fact of the COC production—that it would have been fun (and prudent) to compare Mazzolà’s libretto with that of Metastasio.  Oh well… another time.  But I can’t help wondering what motivates the divergences from Metastasio, and if they were driven by requests Mozart made.  These transgressions would likely be pathways that could have been reforms, had opera seria not been a dying form.  I can’t help wondering whether the numbers musing upon morality were already in Metastasio or recent additions.  This is a fascinating common thread between the two operas.

Would you like examples?

In Magic Flute you have the following:

  • In the “hm hm hm” quintet, when the five observes music’s power to change people’s emotions & dispositions.  Whenever Bergman uses signage (roughly one minute into the clip), it’s no longer drama, but a kind of moral instruction
  • The lovely duet between Papageno & Pamina concerning the nature of love
  • Tamino’s second aria –where the animals appear in response to his flute-playing—is like a demonstration of the power of music
  • After Papageno’s bells free him and Pamina from Monostatos & his slaves, the two sing a paean to music’s powers (again with signage).  

…and that’s all in Act I

In Clemenza di Tito—admittedly an operatic meditation on the nature of virtue & the form of the good—there are several instances where the story of the opera seems to stop regularly not just to juxtapose betrayals with loyalty, but for the contemplation of the nature of the good:

  • “Deh, prendi un dolce amplesso” is a duet between friends, who speak of faithfulness
  • “Ah, se fosse intorno al trono”, an aria where Tito muses on the honesty Servilia has shown
  • “Torna di Tiro a lato”, where Annio implores Sesto to do the right thing: to go back to Tito and to turn himself in.  Don’t you wish you had friends like this? Oh my God…
  • “Tardi s’avvde” is Publio’s commentary on Tito, that someone who has always been honest and trusting as Tito has might not be able to recognize treachery
  • “Se all’impero, amici Dei” is Tito’s aria where he compares loyalty commanded by love to that compelled by fear.

IS Mozart all good? oh no. That’s why i need a part two.

(stay two-ned)

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 1 Comment

Metro Youth Opera

Posted on April 1, 2013 by barczablog

Recently I’ve been fortunate to encounter small opera ensembles in the Toronto area   particularly those that showcase young talent.  Just a few days ago I wrote about the Soupcan Theatre’s program, and I interviewed the founder of Summer Opera Lyric Theatre, Guillermo Silva-Marin.

Now I’ve heard of another group.

Kate Applin, Founder & Artistic Director of Metro Youth Opera

Kate Applin is founder of Metro Youth Opera, a Toronto-based opera company that are in their third year, providing opportunities for young, emerging singers to perform and be paid for their work.

Metro Youth Opera presents its third season with an exciting triple bill of rarely-performed comedies: 

  • Mavra by Stravinsky
  • La serva padrona by Pergolesi
  • Le magicien by Canadian composer, Jean Vallerand

The performances are Friday April 5 at 7:30pm and Sunday April 7 at 2:30pm at Centre for Creative Learning Theatre; The Crescent School – 2365 Bayview Avenue, Toronto

Tickets are available at www.TripleBill.eventbrite.ca.
$30 – General Admission, $25 Seniors; $20 Students

For further information about Metro Youth Opera, follow them on Facebook or on their website.

 

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Philip Glass’s The Perfect American

Posted on March 31, 2013 by barczablog

Philip Glass’s new opera The Perfect American is still available for viewing, free on medici.tv.  The world premiere production was presented by Teatro Real in Madrid.

As always I am willing to go the extra mile as a viewer and advocate of an ambitious project such as this one.  I did not hear a great deal in response (critical opinion one way or another), possibly because it is not easy to decode, and therefore may be misread. Maybe it’s still early, maybe i move in the wrong circles to know.

This is a fictionalized biographical opera about Walt Disney’s last days as he’s dying of lung cancer.  Where Akhnaten, Einstein or Gandhi are titans who lend themselves easily to abstract portrayal in opera, Disney is another matter entirely, at least as seen in this case.  In the style of the portrait operas (the three icons named above) we needn’t worry too much about details of daily life, when employing such an abstracted style that lends itself to symbolic readings.

The Perfect American (click for further information, to be presented by the English National Opera in June)

But The Perfect American is to my ear a completely different direction for the composer, an opera whose libretto shows a closer resemblance to normal human dialogue than any previous Glass opera.  While there may have been incidents of the cartoonist’s life that could lend themselves to the same sort of treatment as what we say in the portrait operas, that’s not at all what Glass attempted this time.  While the composer may just now have reached 75 years old, like other great composers in their maturity such as Verdi or Wagner, Glass is still experimenting with new sounds & dramaturgical structures.  Based on Peter Stephan Jungk’s novel, Libretto by Rudy Wurlitzer, this co-production between Teatro Madrid and the English National Opera (who will stage the opera in June) is directed by Phelim Mc Dermott who directed the co-production of Satyagraha with the Metropolitan, and conducted by Dennis Russell Davies.

It’s an opera with several big moments.

  • We hear of Walt’s famous wish to be cryogenically preserved, setting up the ending
  • We see the animatronic Abraham Lincoln, the ultimate ubermarionette; it (not he) is a big machine played by a man, that keeps breaking down, with lots of wires & tubes coming out of his back.  Walt and the machine debate rather sadly, until Disney (who gets the last word) proclaims “your views no longer tally with mine”.
  • Walt is hounded by Wilhelm Dantine, who debates the ownership of the intellectual property of the Disney brand.
  • Walt complains at least twice that his name is no longer his own, that it belongs to the company, not to him.
  • Disney sometimes confuses illusion with reality, something we’re explicitly told, but see several times, such as the debate with the fake Lincoln that concludes the first Act.

I found myself fighting the work, possibly because I don’t believe nor like the version of Walt Disney in this opera, or at least this story doesn’t square with what I saw unfolding in the media before my eyes as i grew up.  The Walt Disney I remember as a child—a figure I saw many times on Sunday night television—was an unsophisticated product of small-town America –just as the opera would have it—who loved animals and nature.  That’s about all of the Walt I knew who makes it into the opera.

We see both Walt & his brother Roy.  This Roy seems much gentler than capitalistic Walt, who comes across as a booster of Ronald Reagan and his conservative agenda.  Sorry, this is hard for me to believe, as I recall that Roy was the organizational wizard who rescued the company, that hadn’t done so well with Disneyland, but came into its own after Roy came up with Disneyworld & Epcot.  Still, if Wilhelm Dantine were pursuing Roy, if Roy were the actual conservative, then the story would lose its focus.  Christopher Purves, whom I reviewed a few days ago in Written on Skin, is a strong Walt Disney, surely a stronger figure perhaps than I expected or wanted to see, even if it likely squares with Jungk’s novel and is a marvelous creation all the same.

At times we hear a slightly jazzy sound to the orchestral texture, even if we’re still encountering the usual repeated notes and figures we’ve heard in many other Glass compositions.  Where Glass is known for abrupt endings to passages, we hear something more conventional, as the music sometimes fades away, perhaps a reflection of the psychology of the dying Disney’s subjectivity.  Aside from this, however, I don’t see significant form in this work.  Glass seems to have taken the next step, as The Perfect American resembles a film-score, the orchestra self-effacing, the singing almost superfluous to the work.  There is one effect that made me cringe, namely the use of a chorus that was largely unintelligible, reminding me of nothing so much as the sentimental choruses often concluding movies in the 1950s, especially those coming from the Walt Disney Studio.  It’s as though Glass were mocking Disney & the opera itself; if I knew what they were singing (even though sung in English they needed subtitles) I’d be in a better position to decode the ironies of these moments.  We’re no longer in the presence of art that is transcendent or particularly redemptive: not considering the way this Walt is portrayed.

Is Glass mocking the commercialism of art & its commodification, even laughing at himself –one of the richest and most successful composers who ever lived—when Disney is denounced as “nothing more than a moderately successful CEO”?  In the interest of giving Glass credit, and because I think Glass is nobody’s fool, I am inclined to think it’s possible.  By now Glass has no reason to put on airs, and every reason to be edgy, even in deconstructing his own fame.

The opera remains available online for awhile (I saw a webpage claiming the free streaming would continue for “two more months” as of mid-February).

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