Opera Eats

Posted on December 5, 2012 by barczablog
Opera Five Artistic Director Aria Umezawa

Opera Five Artistic Director Aria Umezawa

There are more talented artists graduating from the programs training them than there are possible jobs.  It’s one reason we have Fringe Festivals: because we’ve trained so many good young actors, directors & playwrights, that they can create their own companies, their own opportunities to showcase themselves.

And something similar seems to be happening in the operatic world.  How else to explain the plethora of companies in the area?  Against the Grain, Essential Opera, Toronto Opera Collaborative, Volcano Productions…(?) That’s a quick list of companies started recently who are providing outlets for the growing talent pool in the region.

And there’s also Opera Five, a company dedicated to challenging our assumptions about opera.  Their new program that premiered tonight certainly does that.

It’s called “Opera Eats”.  We alternate between yummy hors d’oeuvres and three delectable little one-act operas.  Preceding Rachmaninoff’s Aleko we get blini, pierogies, dumplings (or so it appeared), before Hindemith’s Hin und Zurück we were presented with food arranged symmetrically on skewers, matching the back and forth of that work.  There was then an intermission –with food (including something resembling a rum-ball on a stick…mmmm don’t miss those!) and drink—before we returned to our seats for the last opera.

Composer Milton Granger came forward to explain some of the subtext for his work Talk Opera, the third work of the night.  Granger explained that in the 1990s “talk radio” was really big (a two word epithet that explains the title).  Imagine a talk show where opera characters are interviewed in the manner of Jerry Springer.  Rigoletto, Gilda & the Duke are all brought out before the studio audience, explaining themselves at least partly with the help of Verdi’s music.  Granger’s opera is delightfully deconstructive.

Directed by Aria Umezawa, the cast manage to stay in character –and somehow manage not to burst into laughter—while exploring their motivations for us.  Pop psychology meets Verdi’s middle period, and while I’m not sure who wins, the audience lapped it up.   Johnathon Kirby gave us a Rigoletto who persuaded me that he deserves a shot at playing the Verdi character in the original opera (instead of this modern purgatory), being by turns funny & sad, including some wonderful bel canto singing.  Erin Stone as Cookie (the TV show host) had a very different sort of task, singing a much more dissonant part full of new-ish music –and the opera is mostly tonal—while effectively hosting proceedings.  Stone took the stage fearlessly throughout.

Before intermission we heard two earlier works.  First off was Hindemith’s palindromic work, a curious piece whose action unfolds very much as the title would suggest.  This work was also directed by Umezawa, as an absurdist romp with an over-the-top mise-en-scène.  Based on what I saw in those two works, Umezawa’s an excellent director with clear ideas.  While there was no let-down in the Granger opera that closes the evening, in the Hindemith I’d say there is no let-up, in a short work of wild intensity.  I know it wouldn’t be to everyone’s taste –speaking of food—but I found its offbeat style captivating. Wow.

The other work on the programme is the oldest of the three, namely Rachmaninoff’s Aleko.  When I saw that the plot concerned infidelity I was put in mind of two works roughly contemporary to the opera, namely Cav and Pag: or in other words, I wondered if Rachmaninoff was thinking of verismo, which was all the rage in European opera in the 1890s.  But no.  While there are realistic elements in the story –including lurid killing—the dramaturgy is very different.  The story must stop for characters to comment as if it were still under Verdi’s influence.

Rachmaninoff’s score is full of striking moments & sonorities, especially in a piano part played with great boldness by music director Maika’i Nash.  While Aleko was the weakest of the three dramatically, it had many musical highlights.  Natalya Matyusheva as Zemfira, and Joshua Whelan as Aleko were wonderfully intense, and Justin Stolz as the Young Gypsy had spectacular moments as Aleko’s romantic rival.

“Opera Eats” will be presented again Wednesday & Thursday of this week at Gallery 345.

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Pina Bausch: Orpheus und Eurydike

Posted on December 3, 2012 by barczablog

I saw Pina Bausch’s Orpheus und Eurydike on TFO tonight, a dance piece based on the Gluck opera, in a respectful production of a work originally created in the mid-1970s, conducted by Thomas Hengelbrock.  This live production dates from 2008, the year before the choreographer died.

In some respects the work seems very respectful and not terribly new, in its use of the Gluck opera.  Each of the three principals (Orpheus, Eurydike and the Goddess Love) is divided in two, putting a singer and a dancer onstage for each dramatic figure.  The scenes that are beautiful in the opera are also beautiful in Bausch’s work.  Her choreography seems quaint looking back across decades of Regietheater & deconstruction, an approach largely respecting the story & its sentiments.

Until the end, that is.  I won’t spoil it, except to say that it’s not what Gluck wrote.

The singing is quite good (Maria Riccarda Wesseling, mezzo soprano Julia Kleiter, soprano, and Sunhae Im, soprano), sung in German.

There’s a great deal of tension accumulated in the unspoken rules governing the relationship between singer and dancer.  The singer and dancer of Orpheus never touch, but seem to experience the story on two separate levels, as though one were the body of the personage, and the other, the soul. Here’s an example in one of my favourite passages of the opera.

When, towards the end of the work, we watch Orpheus try to persuade Eurydike to accompany him back to Earth, while she demands that he look upon her, we see this drama enacted by two of each.  When Orpheus is finally unable to resist looking, and turns to see his wife, the effect is upon both the singer and the dancer.

So here I am again facing gender ambiguity in an opera.  Orpheus is danced by a man but sung by a woman, reflecting the version they’ve chosen to sing, where Orpheus was presumably a castrato.

And between lives do we have a gender?  I put that question out there because it makes a great deal of sense that Orpheus has these two opposite sides –one masculine, one feminine—that seem to balance.  The functional reason is more to do with what’s in Gluck’s score than anything about souls and gender, yet even so, I make sense of it based on how it looks and feels, and can’t help the way the work moves me.

https://i0.wp.com/c3.cduniverse.ws/resized/250x500/movie/025/8072025.jpgThe movement language is not as strong or virtuosic as ballet, but movement as if remembered from ballet in another life, movement of great tranquility, with occasional eruptions into something social (for groups) or individual.

I am mindful of Robert Carsen’s minimal production two years ago, not sure anything is added here, and certain much is missing, given the purity of those images.  The moments of greatest beauty in the score are also stunning here, but didn’t move me so much as what I saw from Carsen.  I think my prejudices are showing, as I like the directness of opera when it’s able to be direct.

The performance is available on DVD and Blue-ray.

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Music Lovers

Posted on December 2, 2012 by barczablog
Film-maker Ken Russell (Photograph: David Montgomery/Getty Images)

Film-maker Ken Russell (Photograph: David Montgomery/Getty Images)

Ken Russell died almost exactly a year ago this weekend.  It’s reported online November 28th and 29th 2011 (although I don’t know exactly which day he passed away).

I’m watching The Music Lovers, wondering if the film’s critical reception at the time of its release – essentially dismissive of its fantasy elements –has been revised more recently.  The critiques I see cited online are uniformly negative.  The film was released at a time when there were still limits to what you could show on screen.

Does it matter that this is not what really happened to Tschaikowsky?  It’s not a documentary.  Why does it have to be factual, especially in telling a life story that’s still largely a matter of speculation….?

The outlandish, sometimes surreal & nightmarish, larger than life actions shown in the film usually match the overwrought compositions that are quoted

  • 1st piano concerto
  • 4th, 5th and 6th Symphonies
  • Manfred Symphony
  • Eugene Onegin
  • Romeo and Juliet Overture
  • The 1812 Overture
  • Swan Lake
  • The Nutcracker

In its way The Music Lovers is the precise opposite of what I’ve been thinking about the past couple of weeks.  There’s Lydia Perović’s novel Incidental Music which I’ve written about recently.  The music at her book launch—duets and solos by soprano & mezzo—are a natural lead-in to the novel, in their reminder of the impossible relationships in opera, between women and men played by women.  In today’s High Definition Met broadcast we saw a perfect example of this, in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito.  In The Music Lovers we have the opposite sort of impossible relationship. While it’s superficially right –man with woman—Peter Tchaikowsky was a homosexual man (at least in this version of his life story), and we see his wife Antonina go mad in response.

It may not be what really happened, but it’s a fascinating tale, told boldly with excellent performances.  I think it’s an amazing film if for no other reason than the powerful images in the last five minutes, and lots more besides.   So many years later it doesn’t seem outlandish at all.  Perhaps history has caught up with Russell.   

I miss Ken Russell, his courage, his imagination, his balls.  What an amazing artist.  Wild flamboyance lives on in the Tim Burtons & Terry Gilliams of this world (plus a few others).  Speaking of music lovers, Russell always showed a wonderful sensitivity to the music he used in his films.

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The prettiest love duet

Posted on November 30, 2012 by barczablog

During the COC Ensemble Studio competition, I discovered that someone else –John Gilks of operaramblings and I share similar views about a particular piece of music.

Saturday the Met High Definition broadcast will be Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, and the COC are presenting this opera in 2013.  Among the many numbers in this work, there’s one in particular.  The love duet of Annio & Servilia shows such an exquisite balance of two extraordinary people: “Ah, perdona al primo affetto.”

As we stood there chatting I tossed out a slightly loopy thought: that it’s the most beautiful love duet ever written, and to my surprise John not only agreed, but also went on to admit he does something I do: listens to the many wonderful versions one can find on youtube.

There are quite a few.

When Opera Atelier presented the opera recently I took advantage in a review to post a couple of versions of this wonderful composition.  Hey I only posted two.

  • A video version, Ivanova with Garanca
  • An audio-only version: Lucia Popp & Frederica von Stade

This seems especially timely given that I’ve been reading and blogging about Lydia Perović’s novel Incidental Music, which includes multiple lesbian love stories.  While the connection may not seem obvious, operas rarely show lesbian relationships (although I was watching Berg’s Lulu just a couple of days ago, which is one of the very few), but they do often show two women, so long as one is dressed as a man.  Crazy? Not if you remember the stage as a place for vicarious display & an invitation to a voyeuristic audience, in an otherwise prudish & repressed society. And so this duet is between two women, where one is understood to be a man.

The beauty of this duet is in the way the lines repeat.  The mezzo-soprano begins, singing in the thicker voice of the two.  Shortly thereafter, the soprano sings the same basic line right back, but in a higher clearer voice.  In some ways it resembles the jazzy improvisational  aspect of older operas, where the da capo portion of an aria is elaborated: or embellished & expanded in the repetition.  By singing two almost identical lines one after the other, we get something similar, from the contrast of the voices, but much quicker than in a da capo aria.  I wonder if Mozart expected additional elaboration?  Even sung exactly as written, the contrast between the two voices and the concluding section where both sing together is pure heaven.

Isabel Leonard

You can go hunt down more versions on youtube.

You can also go hear this wonderful, and still relatively unappreciated opera in the Met’s high definition broadcast Saturday Dec 1st.

And yes, the Canadian Opera Company are also producing La Clemenza di Tito Feb 3-22nd, 2013, starring Isabel Leonard.

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COC Ensemble Studio Competition

Posted on November 30, 2012 by barczablog

As I drove downtown this morning, one track seemed very apt for an evening featuring the Canadian Opera Company’s second annual studio competition.

Michael Slattery’s CD of Dowland songs –reimagined to explore his alleged Irish connection—concludes with a melancholy song known as “His Golden Locks”.  Of course those golden locks have turned silver.  See which way my thoughts are headed?

The last haunting lines of Slattery’s version could just as easily be a cautionary reminder to singers exulting in their triumph in a singing competition:

Beauty, strength, youth are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love are roots and ever green.

Ah yes,  our time is brief.

So too for the period with the COC Ensemble Studio.  While the years spent with the Ensemble are not to be mistaken for a complete career – though for some singers that’s sadly not far off— I am still mindful of the brevity of youth, of voice and of fame.  Already –in seeing the singers who are the current Ensemble stars—one wonders where they’ll go, what they’ll undertake, and how much of a career will ensue.

I’m old enough to remember an education system built around competition, so busy identifying excellence that egos got crushed in the process.  I wish we could all take the time to discover and recognize everyone’s unique gifts.  The occasion tonight pitted ten voices against one another, each quite wonderful in some respect or other.

I was thinking of something I heard on American Idol, where a singer was warned that her risk, in undertaking a famous tune, was that she invited a comparison.  And so I second-guessed the repertoire choices.  Some singers were way out there in their repertoire, while others hewed closer to the tried and true.  Some singers showed –or offered to show—extraordinary virtuosity, some chose a much safer programme.

The competition was both for prizes and part of the selection process for the Ensemble Studio.  I wasn’t sure whether the current cohort was a factor or not: that is, in the availability or shortage of particular voice-types.  Whether or not the winners were at least partially chosen to fill a need in the ensemble, it’s difficult comparing apples and oranges.  We heard ten singers.  I was quite thrilled with the choice of winner –bass-baritone Gordon Bintner—but would have accepted quite a few other voices as winners.  In fact I was delighted by the quality of the musicianship & drama on display.

Second place went to tenor Andrew Haji, while third place went to mezzo-soprano Charlotte Burrage.

I will be very interested to see how these singers might fit into the Ensemble and the upcoming seasons of operas from the COC.

Bass-baritone Gordon Bintner

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Keszei’s religious art

Posted on November 29, 2012 by barczablog

I know Attila Keszei as an artist working in several media, on a few recurring subjects.

Attila Keszei

Sustainability has been a key preoccupation for him, both in his professional life at the University of Toronto, and in his art.  Images exploring his understanding of science & technology, particularly when it comes to energy, seem like a natural consequence of such interests.

Images of nature figure prominently as well, sometimes in traditional landscapes, sometimes in more unorthodox imagery, such as Keszei’s raku representations of geological phenomena, and studies in physics.  He visualizes the unimaginable –the heat of an atomic blast– reframing the violent cataclysm as  something organic, an egg or an eye, re-imagining it for us as if to suggest birth rather than death.

“In Memory of JR Oppenheimer” (1997), raku fired ceramic. 36″H x 72″W x 8″D See also the companion mural: “In Memory of Leo Szilard”.

Political commentary also figures in the work of this Hungarian expat, and no wonder, given that he came into the world when Josef Stalin was still ruthlessly controlling the USSR and the Eastern Bloc satellite states.

There is a fourth major category in Keszei’s work, and that’s religious art.  It might be more accurate to say “Biblical” rather than “religious”, given the absence of sermonizing or lectures telling us how to read his images.

The Astronomers: the Three Kings

Keszei will be part of a group show that opens this Sunday at 1:00 pm at 137 Melville St, Dundas Ontario.  There’s no stifling his usual tendencies, as these recent Biblical works still show us the other preoccupations: sustainability, nature, politics, all figure in these images from the Bible.  He understands John the Baptist as a figure of protest as well as prophecy.  The three kings following a star are astronomers. Keszei gives us the stations of the cross, in dramatic and compassionate imagery.

The First Cell

Keszei’s recent work also includes several natural images and one delightful piece –titled “The First Cell” that again seems to bestride the frontal lobe that’s home to both art and research.  Happily none of his work can be easily stereotyped or categorized: like the artist himself.

Why Me: the biblical Job

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Canadian Stage 2013-2014 season

Posted on November 29, 2012 by barczablog

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

Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Canadian Stage announces  groundbreaking 2013.2014 season Featuring work by Robert Lepage, new productions of a 5-star hit from London and award-winning plays from Broadway, and productions helmed by four of Canada’s leading female artists Kim Collier, Jackie Maxwell, Jennifer Tarver and Crystal Pite.

Toronto, ON – Canadian Stage today announced the details of the people and productions featured in the 2013.2014 season, programmed by Artistic & General Director Matthew Jocelyn. Showcasing artists from Canada and around the world, the season celebrates groundbreaking and new work from the leading directors, playwrights, choreographers and theatre collectives.

Celebrating Canadian Stage’s mandate to present contemporary, multidisciplinary theatre and dance that spans a variety of performance styles, the upcoming season continues to share world-renowned work with audiences through innovative productions and powerful pieces from the best story tellers working today. Thirteen productions will be featured at Canadian Stage’s three venues, the Bluma Appel Theatre, the Berkeley Street Theatre and the High Park Amphitheatre.

“The 2013.2014 season at Canadian Stage already has us dancing with excitement,” said Jocelyn. “I’m proud to bring the work of four of Canada’s most exceptional female artists, Kim Collier, Jackie Maxwell, Jennifer Tarver and Crystal Pite to our largest stage, alongside Robert Lepage, Stan Douglas, Chris Haddock and Akram Khan, four internationally acclaimed creators. This season, Canadian Stage will explore extraordinary texts, breathtaking choreography and an important, unorthodox musical. We continue to revitalize the Berkeley Street Theatre with vibrant programming, and are honoured to continue our collaboration with York University by giving our joint MFA program an important place in the season. Finally, after bringing productions from around the world to Toronto, we will be at the root of a multidisciplinary spectacle that will premiere in Canada before embarking on an international tour.”

Jennifer Tarver will direct a new production of Venus in Fur, the Tony Award nominated play that Vogue Magazine called “smart, sexy, hilarious”. International phenomenon Robert Lepage will return to Canadian Stage with a new version of his iconic 1980s hit, Needles and Opium. The Shaw Festival’s Jackie Maxwell will bring the Canadian premiere of London Road, the 5-star musical documentary, to life alongside musical director Reza Jacobs. Canadian Stage Resident Artist Kim Collier’s latest project, co-created with renowned visual artist Stan Douglas and award-winning screen writer Chris Haddock (best known as the creator of Da Vinci’s Inquest and current writer and co-executive producer of Boardwalk Empire), will have its world premiere at Canadian Stage. Called Helen Lawrence, this new media and performance art piece uses newly patented CGI technology and will tour internationally following its Toronto run. Two dance-based works round out the programming at the Bluma Appel Theatre, including Canadian dance luminary Crystal Pite’s new piece The Tempest Replica and the critically-acclaimed DESH from superstar dance creator Akram Khan, recently celebrated for his choreography in the Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics Games.

As part of the upcoming season, Canadian Stage’s partnership with York University continues with the inaugural participants of the York University MFA Program in Stage Direction in collaboration with Canadian Stage, Ted Witzel and Ker Wells, directing two productions each. The landmark initiative, designed to support the development of directorial talent for the national and international stage, is a two-year program that allows students to integrate studio work at York with involvement in artistic projects at Canadian Stage, offering highly specialized, advanced training in large-scale theatre directing.

Canadian Stage and York University are pleased to announce the incoming participants, selected by jury, who will begin the program in September 2013: Estelle Shook, former artistic director of the Caravan Farm Theatre, and Matjash Mrowzeski, an internationally recognized choreographer based in Montreal who trained at the National Ballet School.

The ongoing revitalization of the Berkeley Street Theatre programming continues with the presentation of two original creations, a new production model and ongoing partnerships. Opening the season at the Berkeley Street Theatre will be two productions by Sarah Berthiaume, a rising star of Quebecois theatre, whose work has been produced in Paris and Berlin. The Flood Thereafter, directed by Ker Wells, and the English-language premiere of Yukonstyle, directed by Ted Witzel will be presented for the first time in English outside of Quebec in partnership with Hopscotch Collective and York University. Crow’s Theatre returns to Canadian Stage, co-producing Winners and Losers created and performed by Marcus Youssef and James Long and directed by Chris Abraham, with two of British Columbia’s most provocative companies, Theatre Replacement and Neworld Theatre. Tribes, a jarringly emotional play that won 2012 Drama Desk and New York Theatre Critics Circle awards, gets its Canadian premiere from Canadian Stage in collaboration with Theatrefront, with a new production directed by Daryl Cloran. The Company Theatre will also return to the Berkeley Street Theatre with a yet to be announced production.

For the first time in more than 20 years, Canadian Stage will present two Shakespearean productions in repertoire at the High Park Amphitheatre, pairing one of Shakespeare’s earliest comedies, The Taming of the Shrew, and his powerful tragedy, Macbeth. Helmed by Witzel and Wells, respectively, and presented in collaboration with the Theatre Department in the Faculty of Fine Arts at York University, the productions will run on alternating nights under the stars as part of this favourite summer tradition.

2013.2014 Subscriptions are on sale beginning November 28, with 4-show packages starting from $98, 6-show packages starting from $144 and 10-show packages starting from $228. Subscriptions may be purchased by phone at 416-368-3110 or in-person at the Canadian Stage Box Office: Bluma Appel Theatre (27 Front St. E.) or Berkeley Street Theatre (26 Berkeley St.). Single tickets will be on sale in May 2013. Full details on the productions, casting and subscription packages are available online at www.canadianstage.com.

In addition to the work presented on stage, Canadian Stage continues to support the artistic community through a variety of professional development initiatives and investments in artistic creation. The company offers artistic and learning opportunities for children, youth, educators, young professionals and adults in schools and communities year-round.

Full 2013.2014 season playbill and show details continued below

Canadian Stage is supported by: BMO Financial Group, CIBC, TD Bank Group, Scotiabank, RBC Foundation, Sun Life Financial, Manulife Financial and One King West Hotel & Residence, The Hal Jackman Foundation, The Brian Linehan Charitable Foundation, The George Cedric Metcalf Foundation, The Joan and Clifford Hatch Foundation, The Henry White Kinnear Foundation and the John McKellar Charitable Foundation. The company is also supported by The Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Toronto Arts Council and the Government of Canada through the Department of Canadian Heritage.

About Canadian Stage:
Founded in 1987 with the merger of CentreStage and Toronto Free Theatre, Canadian Stage is one of Canada’s leading not-for-profit contemporary theatre companies.  Under the direction of Artistic & General Director, Matthew Jocelyn, the company presents multidisciplinary theatre with a focus on emerging performance styles that integrate theatre with other artistic mediums such as dance, film, visual arts and more. Sharing innovative and vibrant theatre from Canada and around the world, the company stages an annual season of work at three major venues (the Bluma Appel Theatre, the Berkeley Street Theatre and the High Park Amphitheatre) and runs a series of artist development and education initiatives, as well as youth and community outreach programs.

For more information visit www.canadianstage.com

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Tapestry 2012/13 announcement

Posted on November 29, 2012 by barczablog

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

TAPESTRY ANNOUNCES UPCOMING 2012/13 SHOWS INCLUDING TORONTO PREMIERE DATES FOR SHELTER

TORONTO, ON…Tapestry announced details for its upcoming 2012/13 season shows including the much-anticipated Toronto premiere of Shelter, a new opera by composer Juliet Palmer and librettist Julie Salverson.

“This season we are proudly offering Toronto audiences three different opportunities to experience some of the best new opera being created in Canada,” said Tapestry’s Artistic Director Wayne Strongman.  “And we are particularly excited that the Canadian Opera Company is generously supporting the Toronto premiere of Shelter in the Imperial Oil Opera Theatre following on the heels of the partnership with Edmonton Opera for the world premiere in Edmonton.”

In February, emerging young opera singers will perform a selection of favourite contemporary arias from the company’s rich catalogue in The Tapestry Songbook, a concert showcasing pieces written by Canada’s leading composers and librettists.  The singers will be joined by acclaimed contemporary music performer and Tapestry Songbook Clinician, Carla Huhtanen. The Tapestry Songbook takes place February 16, 2013 at the Ernest Balmer Studio in the Distillery Historic District (9 Trinity Street, Studio 316).

Next, audiences are invited to a workshop presentation of Ruth, a new opera by composer Jeffrey Ryan and librettist Michael Lewis MacLennan.  The opera is a contemporary re-telling of a timeless immigrant tale – the struggle to find welcome in a new land: “for your people shall be my people”.  This workshop is presented in collaboration with Wilfrid Laurier University’s Faculty of Music, with celebrated Canadian mezzo, Kimberly Barber, in the title role.  The workshop performance of Ruth will take place on May 7, 2013 at the Ernest Balmer Studio in the Distillery Historic District (9 Trinity Street, Studio 316).

The season concludes with the Toronto premiere of Shelter, a collaboration between Toronto-based composer Juliet Palmer and Kingston librettist Julie Salverson who first met in Tapestry’s intensive Composer-Librettist Laboratory in 2002. Shelter tells the fictional story of a nuclear family adrift in the atomic age. The opera explores “the dangerous beauty of science” and challenges the audience to consider the impact of mankind’s quest for knowledge and scientific breakthroughs.

“And for those whom opera has primarily meant large-scale mainstage productions, here’s a chance to see completely different, and equally valid operatic values.” Mark Morris, Edmonton Journal

The cast includes mezzo-soprano Christine Duncan as the mother, Claire, baritone Peter McGillivray as the father, Thomas and soprano Maghan McPhee as the daughter Hope.  Tenor Keith Klassen sings the role of the Pilot and mezzo-soprano Andrea Ludwig creates the real-life character of nuclear physicist Lise Meitner.  The creative team includes director Keith Turnbull, music director Wayne Strongman, with stage & costume design by Sue LePage, and lighting & video design by Beth Kates and Ben Chaisson. Tapestry recently travelled to Edmonton for the world premiere of Shelter – a co-production with Edmonton Opera – the show was described as “an engaging coming-of-age story” by the Edmonton Journal.  “Ms. Palmer’s excellent score helps us to relate to the action and to draw the real message from this remarkably provocative production,” said the Calgary Herald.  Shelter will run June 6, 7, 8 and 9, 2013 in the Imperial Oil Opera Theatre (227 Front Street East).

Subscription packages to all three events in Tapestry’s 2012/13 season are $95 (including HST) and may be purchased online at tapestryopera.com or by calling 416-537-6066 ext. 243.  Single tickets are on sale now and can also be purchased online; prices range from $29 to $50 (including HST).

ABOUT TAPESTRY

Tapestry is a not-for-profit arts organization whose mandate is to work collaboratively to create, develop and perform new opera nationally and internationally; to promote the advancement of emerging and established artists in the field of new opera; and to offer innovative education opportunities for youth and adults.  Beginning with composers and writers, Tapestry provides dramaturgical guidance and support through the process of new work creation.  Tapestry offers creative teams access to leading directors and performers as part of an intensive dramaturgical program.  Tapestry seeks opportunities to develop and showcase new works to local, national, and international audiences.  These new works are relevant; grown out of contemporary situations by living artists, speaking directly to the experiences of today’s audiences.  Tapestry works to advance the dialogue surrounding opera creation, with each new project helping to redefine the art form. For more information on Tapestry visit www.tapestryopera.com.

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Incidental words

Posted on November 28, 2012 by barczablog

A “CD launch” or a “book launch” is a fascinating phenomenon.  I say that even though, cough cough, I’ve never really been very fascinated by them.

Books and CDs are art objects we usually experience in private rather than as a public performed event.  Launches are usually in some sense public, and performed.  Forgive me, I am about to use a word that I use the way addicts use heroin.  The launch is by definition multi-disciplinary or at least inter-disciplinary, thereby inviting us deeper or stripping away the veils on that realm of privacy.  I suppose I usually rebel against this because I don’t want my experience launched or mediated, I want to find my own way.

Okay, maybe sometimes I am just plain wrong.

I attended a very different sort of launch, one that complements & facilitates the book in question.  Lydia Perović’s novel Incidental Music –a book I haven’t finished, please note—can be understood on several levels.  One of the important relationships in the book unfolds with a big meta-text as well.  Romola is singer who lived through the Hungarian Uprising and has come to Canada; she’s losing her memory.  As she encounters the much younger Petra, who offers her care, the story unfolds both in the present of their inter-actions, and in dazed operatic recollections of the old singer.

The behaviour is not pathologized –that is, not objectively labelled as a particular kind of dementia—but permitted to unfold with some ambiguity.  It’s a very poetic device, luring us into the depths of Romola’s memory.

I believe that’s the superficial justification for the performances we saw in this launch, as part of the Gladstone Hotel’s THIS IS NOT A READING SERIES, although that doesn’t nearly sum up the resonances set up by the performances.  In keeping with the eternal operatic question—concerning the relationship of words & music—the event was divided into Act One: La Musica and Act Two: Le Parole.

We began with a series of solos & duets between soprano Erin Bardua & mezzo-soprano Margaret Bardos, accompanied by pianist Christina Faye.  The duets in particular make an excellent –and suggestive—pathway to access Incidental Music, a novel featuring more than one love relationship between women.

The ambiguities of these moments where a pair of women sing loving words, while they portray a male-female couple (one of the women in trousers) are deliciously suggestive.  We heard duets from Contes d’Hoffmann, Béatrice et Bénédict, L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Idomeneo.  In addition we heard solos from each of Chérubin, Alcina, Orfeo ed Euridice, an a capella Hungarian folk song and a song by Kurt Weill.  I’m especially sorry i missed Bardua’s recent participation in The Threepenny Opera after hearing what she did with Weill.

In other words, Bardua, Bardos & Faye gave us a substantial concert experience, complete with wonderfully informal tongue-in-cheek commentary, as a kind of knowing prologue to the book itself.  Under the circumstances, my title –incidental words—now makes some sense, as we were then eased into the discussion of the book, a Q & A between Jim Bartley & Perović.

Incidental MusicI’ve read most of the book, and will post a review one of these days.  I heartily recommend it, as a second generation Hungarian who can identify with its bittersweet exploration of Toronto from an exile’s point of view.  The lesbian themes are new to me, but certainly fascinating, and the descriptions hauntingly beautiful.  While it may be early to use such language, the novel suggests a utopian view, the city, the family, and the bedroom all as places where one seeks meaning if not transcendence.

As Bartley rightly observed, Perović’s achievement, writing in her second language (they invoked Conrad & Nabokov) is something extraordinary & rare.  I expect big things from Perović.

Lydia Perović between autographs

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Celebrate

Posted on November 27, 2012 by barczablog

Do you need a reason?

If so –that you can’t simply CELEBRATE, but do need a rationale– I can toss a few your way:

  • If you’re a Torontonian you may be rejoicing in the victory of the Toronto Argonauts in the 100th Grey Cup Game on the weekend.  Jason is perhaps the least admirable hero in all mythology, even if his actions provoked even more outrageous behaviour from his ex, Medea.
  • If you’re a Torontonian you may be rejoicing in the judgement announced today concerning alleged conflict of interest, that aims to remove our Mayor from office, at least pending appeal.  This would be a victory for law and process, even if opponents are claiming that this is undemocratic, that no one voted for the judge.
  • If you’re a RIM investor you may be thrilled that your stock has gone up so many days recently

And there are likely other reasons you could be grateful.  Even if you’re not, even if you’re merely living a carpe diem sort of life, chances are you’d be open to celebrating, because celebrations are fun.  Life is a celebration, and the things we do in celebrating–eating, drinking, dancing, making love– are among the reasons we enjoy life, possibly the very reasons we’re here (particularly the biological imperatives).

Whatever your subtext, I offer you five ways to celebrate.

#1, one of the oldest, affirming order in the world, admittedly of a Christian variety.  If you’re not Christian, chances are you may still enjoy the music.

#2 is a hymn to the planet and the regenerative powers of Mother Nature.

#3 takes you in a different direction again. I have no idea what this choir is singing, a very affirmative positive song in another language (I don’t even know the language).

#4 is a commercial song called “Celebration” from the 1980s.  Is popularity a bad thing? You be the judge.

#5, finally is counterpart to #1, the other well-known song of celebration, and pardon me if one composer gets to be heard twice.  Never mind getting mad.  Be joyful…!

balloon

Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 5 Comments