I watched TFO’s broadcast of a live performance of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, from a 2008 Salzburg production.
There was a bit of drama backstage, with Anna Netrebko’s cancellation, replaced by the unknown Georgian soprano Nino Machaidze. Machaidze was only 25 at the time, with a hectic month to prepare.
Georgian Soprano Nino Machaidze
She’s not as dark of voice as Netrebko, which is likely a good thing in this role, making her a very convincing Juliette (considering that the role is supposed to be a teenager). She was much more than a pretty face, though, giving me the best Juliette i’ve ever seen.
She appeared opposite a surprisingly lyrical Rollando Villazon, sounding mostly excellent. Yes, he did go off a bit in his big aria (flat on two of its three B-flats), but he got better as he went on. There seemed to be a gentle romantic chemistry, a sexual tension between the two. Even in close-up, their energies never dropped, the genuine passion kept me involved to the end.
Russell Braun? I’ve posted his Queen Mab aria before on this blog, a performance of wonderful intensity.
I admire Braun’s approach. His voice matches this rep very well.
At the controls, Yannick Nezet-Seguin gave us a reading of dignity and weight where required, the festival orchestra sounding wonderful throughout.
As soon as the question was posed, and no one else started to speak, I seized the opportunity, to launch into a bit of a rant, knowing that if I didn’t get it in right away, chances are nobody in the room would really want to listen to my theoretical lecturing (notwithstanding the excellent manners displayed by Gianmarco Segato, John Gilks & Lydia Perović). I was dimly aware that what I might be saying could be read as politically incorrect, even though I was really addressing something procedural about opera. And I knew it might seem to be against the current of the historical progress of women in society, even though I was describing (and even a bit unhappy with what I saw), rather than prescribing.
Mary Todd Lincoln
I didn’t finish what I was saying before I had to yield the floor, because of course I was blathering on way too long. Speaking of me going on too long, please bear with me, as I will eventually justify the title, which may seem like a non sequitur.
Opera for much of its history, particularly in the baroque, has been a form that combines structural features segregating action and passion. Arias in the old model were static and passionate, while all the action was confined to recitative.
I only got so far as explaining societal expectations:
men were expected to be silent and to take action
women were endowed with special insight about our feelings, and so were sanctioned as the voice of passion
I argued that women are not just permitted, but even expected to sing about their feelings, and as a result we endow the diva with a special importance.
But there’s more. I didn’t get to the functional part. For a composer it’s usually easier to write a vocal line up above the ensemble, whereas a male voice is more of a challenge, because it competes against many of the instruments that would accompany. I alluded to this briefly in my review of Julie Boulianne’s 2011 CD Mahler Lieder. For example, while Richard Strauss wrote his Four Last Songs for high voice –without prescribing gender—the songs are usually sung by women because the voice harmonizes better with the orchestra, and is more easily heard over the big ensemble. Women can undertake just about any song usually done by a man, whereas the reverse doesn’t work.
I was thinking of this as I watched Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln today. While much will probably be written about the film, Tony Kushner’s screenplay, Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of the American President and Sally Field’s approach to playing Mary Todd Lincoln, my thoughts were again on opera and our discussion of women.
I will strive to avoid giving too much of the film away. Yes I admit that Lincoln is shot, but i suspect you knew that. Everybody knows he was shot while attending a theatre, knowledge Spielberg & Kushner play off of in teasing the audience.
For me, the remarkable thing about the relationship Kushner & Spielberg elaborate between husband and wife –which may or may not be based on historical fact—is the classical delineation of their roles along the lines I spoke of above with respect to baroque opera. Mary Lincoln is privileged, the irrational voice articulating the wild emotions of a nation at war, mourning, raging, suffering, alongside the man who—to use the modern phrase—“keeps it all together”. While the Abe Lincoln we see is at times emotional, he is mostly larger than life in his ability to master himself, and almost too perfect: which is not surprising in a film about a national icon.
The film reminds us how far both black people and women have come in the last century. Abe Lincoln was privileged to enter the arena of world events, while Mary Lincoln’s life was circumscribed, limited to the bedroom, the kitchen and the ballroom; and as such she was still among the most privileged of her gender. Sally Field was given a series of moments not unlike arias, where her passion counter-pointed the prevailing maleness of the film. While there are at least two other prominent female roles in the movie, Field’s place is especially foregrounded. And in the process Kushner & Spielberg flesh out this world for us, going far beyond historical details.
Seeing Field’s portrayal is an excellent reminder of the distance we’ve all come. It’s not just that women can and do enter the same arenas as men. We watch Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal of young Robert Lincoln, ashamed that he had not been able to enlist as a soldier. And so men too are now liberated because we are now free to sit on the sidelines.
Some artists have an abundant recorded legacy, while others are curiously under-represented. At times I find this irritating, because I suspect it’s more a reflection of market forces than an indication of real quality.
Baritone Louis Quilico
I believe if Louis Quilico had been American, he would be recognized as one of the best if not the best baritone of the 20th century. Growing up in Toronto, I have a very odd perspective on singers. Because I tuned in regularly to the Metropolitan Opera broadcasts, not only did I hear great American baritones such as Robert Merrill, Cornell McNeil, Sherrill Milnes, and more recently Thomas Hampson, but the regular assertion that their singers were the best. Yet in Toronto we had the privilege of hearing Louis Quilico.
Quilico only arrived at the Met when he was a bit past his prime, yet even then he was a formidable talent. The only other voice I would consider comparing it to –that is, for such key attributes as stamina, beauty, and range—is American Robert Merrill. I think Merrill’s voice may have been a bit better, considering his longevity. But from what I’ve seen Merrill was somewhat one-dimensional as an artist, without the same grasp of the text or the theatre as Quilico. But it’s absurd to compare these superb artists, each wonderful in his own way. On the day after American Thanksgiving i am inclined to ask: isn’t it wonderful that we had both?
Still, the truly unfortunate part is that, whereas Merrill (and Warren and McNeil and Milnes and Hampson) was recorded frequently, Quilico’s talent has not been properly documented.
That’s one reason why I was thrilled to hear about a complete live performance by Quilico in his signature role, namely Rigoletto. See and hear it while you can.
Quilico manages to balance his portrayal of the jester on the edge between creepy and sympathetic, the grotesque element infused with something very vulnerable and even lovable. The voice has an angry edge to it in some scenes, and a marvellous bel canto line when called for. He is a perfect match in his over-the-top histrionics for the melodrama of the role, for instance at the moment he discovers the trickery of the courtiers kidnapping his daughter.
I saw Quilico play this role many times over the years. As far as I have read, there’s no studio recording of him in the role.
Thank goodness for this video, also starring Luciano Pavarotti as the Duke of Mantua. The rumour I heard was that this video was shelved (although I think excerpts from it were released), rather than being broadcast in its entirety, because Pavarotti flubbed a high note. Yet I am thrilled by his singing, a voice I miss every bit as much as Quilico. While Pavarotti’s voice was recorded abundantly –even in roles he never undertook onstage—it’s one of the great voices of all time. If he’s not at his best on this occasion (massacring the D-flat at the end of the “addio, addio” so badly that he hides his head in shame behind Gilda; oh but my heart goes out to him) even so I’d still take him over anyone singing the role nowadays. And so while i am willing to cut Pavarotti some slack –because he sounds so good even with that bad note- it upsets me to think that the bad note came between us and this immortal performance by Quilico. Thank Goodness that the Met have seen fit to make it available.
Christiane Eda-Pierre is the Gilda, in an attractive and solidly sung portrayal.
James Levine conducts the Met Orchestra & Chorus in a traditional production. For Torontonians it’s like a trip down memory lane, even if this recording captures Quilico when he was past his vocal prime.
There’s a line in Lydia Perović’s new novel Incidental Music that has so far stayed with me like a motif.
Roughly a quarter of the way into the book, Petra & Martha, two of the main characters start chatting, having made incidental acquaintance at a party. While their ethnicities might be different, there’s no reason for that to be an impediment.
Martha makes the classic self-deprecatory remark, so typical of a representative of the white anglo middle class, negativity that is contagious.
Petra sees it differently however, bringing a faith in something more transcendent –or illusory—to the moment, when she replies.
Well then maybe you’ve created an island here in your home. A refuge for the sect called the Lovers of the Art of Conversation.
It’s a wonderful moment, one of several that capture Toronto bourgeois life. But it stayed with me because it reminded me so much of Lydia Perović herself.
Our chemistry (between myself, John Gilks, Gianmarco Segato, plus Lydia Perović) on this occasion was different, fluid, laughing, ebullient, and I have to think the catalyst was the High Priestess of the sect called Lovers of the Art of Conversation.
And if there isn’t such a sect, there ought to be.
I have just devoured the first chunk of Incidental Music like a good meal, sad to go to bed and leave that world behind, but glad to know I’ll resume reading tonight. I’m very happy with what I’ve read so far.
Milton Granger is composer/librettist/lyricist of six chamber operas, all of which have been produced multiple times throughout the U.S. by college opera workshops and regional companies. Two (Uncharted Waters and Talk Opera) are first-place National Opera Association prizewinners.
Granger’s musical play Bronze Mirror was selected for the Manhattan Theatre Mission’s 2012 Festival, and Peter Rabbit and the Garden of Doom won the 2012 Actors Playhouse annual competition for children’s theater. Several of his musicals have been produced by Seaside Music Theater and Mill Mountain Theater, among others.
Currently assistant conductor of Mary Poppins on Broadway, Granger has worked as keyboardist/conductor on three previous Broadway shows, four national tours, three off-Broadway shows, and over ninety productions at regional houses. Married to stage director Mary Meikleham, he is the father of two children and an alumnus of Northwestern University. www.miltongranger.com
Opera Five will be giving Talk Opera its Canadian premiere as part of a programme of three modern one-act operas December 4-6.
I ask Granger 10 questions: five about himself and five about Talk Opera.
1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?
Composer & musician Milton Granger
I’m a totally white bread Midwestern boy, born and raised just outside Kansas City. I like to think I inherited my mother’s rationality and my father’s sense of humor. (My unattractive qualities are mine alone.) I know very little about my ethnic heritage.
My mother once tried to trace our family tree, but only got as far as the middle of Indiana sometime in the 19th century.
2) What is the BEST thing / worst thing about being a composer?
Many people my age have a foggy notion of how they felt and thought at age 15, but I have a clearer idea, because I still have the music I wrote then.
In normal conversation, I don’t always make the best joke, or say the smartest thing. But if I write a song or an opera scene in just the right way, I can make people laugh and/or understand exactly what I mean.
There’s always a better way to bring a character to life, make a statement, shape a phrase, or capture a musical concept. I’ll do that in the next piece….
3) Who do you like to watch or read?
I read history and science (for general readers only, no professional journals). Brian Greene, James Gleick, Dava Sobel, Barbara Tuchman, Dexter Filkins, and David Remnick, are among many favorites. I subscribe to “Scientific American”, “The Atlantic”, “The Sun”, and “Funny Times”.
I see maybe half a dozen movies a year, and my reaction usually ranges from mild disappointment to mild enthusiasm. I find books and magazines much more interesting.
I listen to music infrequently, but I practice every day, as though I were still a piano major at college. I review familiar literature and keep learning new pieces, usually standard repertory that I never got around to when I was younger. I no longer give recitals; maybe that’s why I enjoy practicing so much.
4) What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?
Fluency in one or more foreign languages.
5) When you’re just relaxing (and not working) what is your favourite thing to do?
Mary and I like to visit museums and historical places, both near where we live in New Jersey and when we go on vacation. We keep an audio diary of our reactions to the art, scenery, and other sites.
I also play Ken-Ken online, usually 9X9 puzzles.
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Five more about Talk Opera.
1) How did creating Talk Opera challenge you?
I wanted to make sure the lines landed properly, so the musical language had to be accessible but carefully timed and inflected, and the transitions to Verdi’s music had to be set up for best effect. Having said that, I found the idea fertile enough that the writing came quickly. My theory: if ideas come easily, that means I’m on the right track. If it’s difficult to musically realize a character/moment/scene, then I probably have the wrong idea.
Opera (to me) is well-sung theatre. I’m fond neither of belting nor over-cultivated vocal production which obscures character and text.
2) What do you love about Talk Opera and this type of composition?
It usually gets laughs, and that’s very gratifying. Most audiences understand the context immediately, even if they don’t know much about Rigoletto. The catchphrases of pop psychology and the extremes of romantic melodrama make a fun combination.
3) Do you have a favourite moment in the opera?
—and— 4) how do you relate to Talk Opera as a modern adult?
There’s one line that continues to resonate with me: “A passion isn’t good just because it’s passionate.” Too often I’ve heard statements on the order of, “Well, it doesn’t matter what you feel, as you long as you feel something,” or, “We might not agree with what you say, but at least we know where you stand.” I believe that WHAT you think or feel makes all the difference, and if it’s based on lies, ignorance, or a twisted “gut instinct”, it’s better not to feel so strongly.
That makes it sound as though I sympathize with the talk show host, Cookie, rather than the Rigoletto characters, but the piece in general seems more on Rigoletto’s side. We’re drawn to outsized emotions and tragic storylines, especially when expressed in beautiful music. But would we want to suffer cruelly ironic fates ourselves, even to a score by Verdi?
The Rigoletto characters don’t understand a world where lovers “negotiate a relationship” or enemies learn to “accept their differences”. It makes you wonder what people two hundred years from now will think about how we lived our lives in the 21st century.
5) is there anyone out there whose approach you particularly admire, or who has influenced you?
Virtually all the greats of classic opera and musical theatre have influenced me, from Mozart and Puccini to Cole Porter and Stephen Sondheim, and dozens of others.
Re: current writers, that’s always trickier. I frequently serve as musical director for readings and workshops by new writers, many of them NYU students in the Graduate Writing Program there. So I try to keep current, get in on the ground floor, etc.
I don’t see a lot of new shows (since, luckily, I work most evenings), but I have seen well-known pieces by LaChiusa, Guettel, Yazbek, and others. I don’t listen to these works the way I used to, by playing recordings over and over again until I memorize the scores. (I can still sing a lot of the Ping Pang Pong trio from “Turandot”!) So they haven’t had a chance to influence me as much.
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Talk Opera is part of Opera five’s program of one-act operas opening at Gallery 345 (345 Sorauren Ave), December 4th-6th at 7:30PM. Tickets are $25/$30 and can be purchased online at operafive.brownpapertickets.com or at the door.
Windermere String Quartet: Rona Goldensher, Elizabeth Loewen Andrews, Anthony Rapoport, Laura Jones, (photos: cloud4studios)
Windermere String Quartet (“WSQ”), an ensemble playing classical repertoire on period instruments, offered a remarkable concert this afternoon. WSQ are comprised of Rona Goldensher– violin, Elizabeth Loewen Andrews– violin, Anthony Rapoport– viola, and Laura Jones– cello.
It’s such a simple idea, but one I am fairly certain has never been done before: assembling a trio of string quartets composed by seventeen year olds. You may wonder whether this would even be worth hearing, let alone why this would be interesting. Have no fear, all three were masterworks.
Start with Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga (1806-1826), who composed three string quartets in his short life, including his excellent Quartet #2 in A (1823), written at the age of 17. It turns out Mozart and Schubert also wrote quartets at the age of 17: which bracket Arriaga on the programme. No wonder the concert has the title “Young Blood.”
In passing, I was thoroughly bemused by the parallels.
As I left the concert I watched twilight, the transition from day to night
I pondered maturation, when a child becomes adult (whatever that means).
The division of rep between modern and period instruments is just as sketchy. While orchestras comprised of modern instruments lay claim to everything, and early music is regularly played on period instruments, we’re seeing incursions of historically informed performance into later periods than ever (e.g. Opera Atelier’s presentation of Der Freischütz using Tafelmusik orchestra last month).
Anthony Rapoport, viola in WSQ, introduced each item. In passing Rapoport mused upon the Toronto Transit Commission’s practice of using classical music to stop teens from loitering in their stations. What he whimsically called “weaponizing Mozart” was a terrific segue into a discussion of three young composers.
But these young men were highly accomplished. While none of the trio would live very long, Arriaga’s passing was especially poignant, considering the excellence of what we heard. While it’s a bit simplistic to compare them to one another, Arriaga is not out of his depth between these two giants.
We began with Mozart’s K173 from 1773. This was the first time I’d heard Windermere in person, although I did review their debut CD earlier this year. At that time I remarked that I was surprised at how simplistic the works seem when ironed out through the use of modern instruments, how much personality original instruments bring to the table, and how much more complex these works sound as a result. Yes it’s true that they need to tune up between movements, that on occasion a note may be off pitch, just as we’d encounter from an opera singer. I think the comparison is apt, because these instruments are larger than life.
Arriaga was for me the highlight, because he’s new to me. The poignant subtext –that he died of TB at the age of 20, leaving only a few works such as this quartet—only magnifies his achievement. All four movements are wonderful, although the second movement theme and variations is like a jewel. Among the variations, one puts the viola (Rapoport) in the spotlight, while another presages the pizzicato third movement of Tchaikowsky’s Fourth Symphony. This doesn’t sound like the work of an apprentice.
We closed with Schubert’s D112 B-flat quarter from 1814. By this time I was so accustomed to the WSQ sound that I no longer noticed anything jarring, but only euphony. I wondered if that was possibly because they were playing this piece a different way, with less evident edginess, and more native sweetness; or possibly because the work sits more comfortably on the violin / viola /cello?
It’s only in retrospect –aka writing a review—that I recall that the three composers were teenagers. No one shows immaturity, all three compositions satisfy.
I am looking forward to seeing what WSQ do next, both in the recording studio and in concert. They return March 3rd 2013 with a program of quintets. Further information
Watching and hearing the Metropolitan Opera high definition broadcast of The Tempest, I wonder “whose” Tempest to call it.
If you listen to Joseph Kerman—who says the composer is the dramatist–you’d say it belongs to Thomas Adès: the composer
A big part of his adaptation is its approach to language, in which case you’d turn to Meredith Oakes: the librettist.
And of course this powerful presentation is another masterwork from Robert Lepage, the director.
Acrobat Jaime Verazin performs as Ariel. Photograph: Ken Howard/AP (note, this is from an earlier production in Britain, not the one in NYC)
Each of them has a great deal to say about this spectacular production of a fascinating work. As you can probably tell I am very impressed, moved, delighted. Having read a few reviews in anticipation of going to the theatre Saturday, I wasn’t expecting much. Reviews were conflicted, and no one seemed terribly impressed either by the music or the text. I heard mutterings about Ariel’s high tessitura, the difficult music, the short couplets. Some noticed a circus element perhaps because they know of Lepage’s history; but nobody really seemed very excited by the work of any of these three. And that’s a shame, considering what I believe: that the opera is quite a spectacular success, and its Met Production that I saw broadcast, a triumph.
If you’re the sort of person who when confronted with something ambiguous that might confuse you or something difficult that challenges you, frown and close your mind, then don’t see this. It’s not precisely Shakespeare. But compared to such operas as Verdi’s Macbeth or Otello, Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette, or Britten’s A Midsummernight’s Dream, I would venture to say that it’s the finest operatic adaptation of Shakespeare yet written.
I like the short couplets. No, they’re not Shakespeare. Oakes has changed the text, and that’s a good thing. As written, the longer lines are simply not singable. I am flabbergasted at how singable this libretto is, and unsure whom to credit –between composer Adès and librettist Oakes—for the magnificent arioso. I was often reminded of Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande: not because the music sounds like Debussy, but because the pace and the texture are so spare, fast moving, hewing close to the text. Every other adapter veers into purely musical effects, giving singers their moments, their high notes, and in the process slowing everything down.
I am very fond of Lepage’s work on The Tempest. We’re inside a replica of La Scala. Why? I’ve read commentators connecting it to the characters from Milan, missing the more fundamental subject of this play and its adaptation. Prospero is often seen as an analogue for Shakespeare himself, his references to magic actually encompassing the illusions of the theatre:
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. Sir, I am vex’d;
Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:
Be not disturb’d with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I’ll walk,
To still my beating mind.
“The great globe itself” could be “the great Globe itself:” one of the theatres where Shakespeare’s works were presented. Theatre is always a microcosm, but in this case it’s extra-special, so that Lepage’s choice is profound and particularly stunning in its execution. This play is about illusion and magic, particularly theatrical magic, as Shakespeare retrospectively (this being his last play) contemplates his art and saying farewell to his art. Lepage gave us magic, tender emotion, nostalgia, and sentiment appropriate to such big subjects.
As I said, I don’t know which of those three to put on the highest pedestal, to whom to attribute my joy. And so I shall see it as a collaboration between Oake & Adès, brilliantly fulfilled in the interpretation of Lepage.
I find it hard to believe that I’ve never seen such a skilful operatic setting from a play I knew and loved: so faithfully do Adès and Oakes bring us something resembling and celebrating Shakespeare’s play. Otello is a travesty in comparison, while the other operas I listed above are like clown-shows masquerading as tragedies. You may have noticed that I omitted Falstaff, an opera that I would call the most successful adaptation until this one came along. I don’t think one should have to choose between them, of course, so I’ll stop there.
I think Oakes / Adès fixed one of my chief problems with Shakespeare’s play, namely where he leaves Taliban. We lose Prospero’s big epilogue (which isn’t singable, so I shouldn’t have been surprised), and indeed Prospero surrenders the stage. How curious.
Caliban, upon whose island Prospero had staged his elaborate lesson to the royal court, inherits his rightful reward, namely the empty island. The voice of Ariel, newly freed, echoes in the distance. While I can’t pretend I remember exactly what it sounded like, those last notes of hers (Ariel is played by a coloratura soprano) stayed in my head for quite awhile. I’d heard people perplexed by the ending: people who couldn’t have known the play too well. No it’s not what Shakespeare wrote. But I think I prefer it.
There’s much beauty in the music, yet it’s spare, never taking an extra ten seconds simply for a musical effect. We’re always building the drama. Adès makes Debussy seem self-indulgent in his economical design.
Simon Keenlyside’s Prospero commands the stage for most of the opera. This is a stout presence, larger-than-life, the way a magician should be, as awe-inspiring as a Gandalf or a Merlin.
Simon Keenlyside as Prospero. Photograph: Ken Howard/AP
Two unearthly voices were for me the chief joys of this production. Audrey Luna’s Ariel, she of the unbelievably high tessitura, made for a remarkable kind of music such as I’ve never heard. I need to see the score, to know just how high, and I’d like to know how she approached it, as it wasn’t always full-voiced, but sometimes done in a lighter sound. But Luna was unforgettable.
And then there was Alan Oke’s Caliban, a familiar voice from the COC’s Death in Venice. He looked like a Mohawk Papageno, sympathetic with a great deal of edge. The singing was lovely, not quite as stratospheric as Luna’s; but Oke’s acting was impossible to resist, certainly my favourite.
I had to read the names when I heard another familiar voice, namely William Burden, who had been Jupiter in Semele in Toronto earlier this year. I found Burden to be extraordinarily moving, with a wonderfully plaintive shape to his phrasing. His grief—for his missing son—is mostly underplayed even in close-up, but he used his voice to great advantage.
While I’m sorry I can’t see this in person, inside the theatre, that miniscule concern is washed away in the joyful discovery of a new work and a new voice, namely Thomas Adès.
There’s an encore showing of the broadcast if you’re interested, different dates depending on what country you’re in.
I was fortunate to attend the Toronto Symphony Orchestra concert tonight, thanks to the kindness of my friend Bill Denning. It was the first time I’ve seen them in a few years, and my first encounter with Peter Oundjian, their Conductor & Music Director.
Artistic Director & Conductor Peter Oundjian
I’ve never liked Roy Thompson Hall, although I confess it sounded better tonight than I remembered from my last visit. We sat in the 2nd balcony, looking across at the acoustical baffling and hardware that resemble the Mother Ship that arrives at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wonder if they were to play Williams music if the hanging baffles would come to life and flip over like the one in Spielberg’s movie…?
No maybe they better not risk it…
I’ve been hanging back for awhile, reading the programmes each year, looking for concerts that appeal to me. Tonight, through the serendipity of a friend I discover that maybe I’m ready to come back to the TSO.
Oundjian is a smooth talker onstage, giving a little speech before the concert, MC-ing a post-concert talk-back session, and ably manoeuvring his soloists around the stage throughout. I heard one of his commercials on 96.3 this morning, and for once thought, aha I am hearing that tonight. The campaign makes sense to me, that Oundjian is part showman, part musician, part teacher, and as far as I can tell, enjoying it all immensely.
“I am a lucky guy.” It’s a mantra I employ that, if you say it often enough, is self-fulfilling. Tonight it was certainly true.
The program is filled with threes. We heard three different works. Two works were in three movements (plus a final one with a more usual four movements). And without question for the first two compositions the number “3” is especially important:
Triptyque by Pierre Mercure
Beethoven’s “triple concerto” op 56
…and Shostakovich’s 12th Symphony
Setting aside our triple fantasy for the moment, let’s talk about the one piece I could only hear from the TSO; which was every bit as marvellous as I’d hoped. Yes I could get Beethoven from Tafelmusik –and would rely upon them if I could (but they don’t program it nearly enough in my opinion)—and could perhaps turn to an ensemble such as Esprit Orchestra for Mercure.
But the big massive works for big massive ensembles (ie the Shostakovich symphony)? That’s supposed to be what we come to the TSO for, to hear important works for large ensemble. I want Mahler, Richard Strauss or Stravinsky, and Berlioz, and the TSO needs to deliver such works.
Now of course they may not agree, as they seek to build an audience. Their idea of what they must do is very different than mine, and I don’t presume to lecture; I merely know what I like. In my annual glance through their brochure I haven’t seen enough of this kind of music, scores that no one else will perform.
Tonight? I am a happy camper.
Oundjian leads the Shostakovich with conviction, the players clearly energized much more than they’d appeared for either of the other pieces. In the talk-back Oundjian had said that he wanted an orchestra that was mindful in every moment they were playing (not his words, but my rough paraphrase): a wonderful ambition, but unfortunately, not one that was met tonight, considering how much more energy I felt in the concluding work. But maybe that’s not fair, when the ensemble seizes the moment and makes the music their own, as they did on this occasion.
In such a big work –where the stage was almost filled and many players had solo work—everyone seemed energized, committed throughout. No wonder it sounded so good, a brisk reading of great clarity and simplicity.
The Mercure work is a classic illustration of something R Murray Schafer spoke of in his book My Life on Earth and Elsewhere:
…the work was to be what Canadian composers call a ‘piece de garage’, intended for performance while the patrons were parking their cars.
So there we were, listening to a ten minute piece to cover the late arrivals. Yet it was quite wonderful, in places darkly mysterious, full of distant drums & rumours of war. As a roughly contemporary piece with a tonal vocabulary that could be understood as a kind of modernism, it’s certainly relevant as context for the Shostakovich.
Sandwiched between as contrast was the Beethoven work with soloists Shauna Rolston, cello, Jonathan Crow, violin, and André Laplante, piano. Laplante was particularly delicate throughout, careful to never cover the other soloists. I was pleased by the all-Canadian contingent, including Crow conscripted from the ranks of the orchestra, where he’s usually concertmaster. It’s a work that isn’t perhaps as well known as it could be, tuneful and upbeat.
“Press releases and announcements” are presented verbatim without comment.
For Immediate Release November 6, 2012
WAKING UP THE SENSES
Young Company Combines Music With Food for a
Refreshing Take on Opera
(Toronto, ON) – Opera Five launches its second season with a triple bill of rarely performed one-act operas, including one Canadian premier. Following on their company mandate of engaging the senses, the first production includes a 3-course tasting menu and stage directed settings of avant garde operas by Hindemith, Rachmaninov and Milton Granger. Performances will take place at Gallery 345 in Roncesvalles on December 4, 5, and 6 at 7:30 PM.
After a sold-out first season, Opera Five presents a 3-show second season with their Winter show at Gallery 345, a Spring show which includes a new commission from Canadian composer, Darren Russo, and a Summer show with the tango-themed opera, Maria de Buenos Aires by Argentinean composer, Piazzolla.
Canadian directors, Aria Umezawa and Erik Thor combine their skills to help create Opera Five’s Winter production at the popular Gallery 345 venue. Alongside the senses of hearing and sight, the company is presenting a 3-course tasting menu thematically tied to each opera with food being prepared by local restaurants. The show features a cast of ten Toronto-based singers and the operas, Hin und Zurück (Hindemith), Aleko (Rachmaninov) and Talk Opera (Granger) a new American opera making its premiere in Canada. Milton Granger, the opera’s composer will be in attendance throughout the run. Musical direction is provided by Maika’i Nash and Kimberly Bartczak.
“We believe that opera is for everyone,” says Rachel Krehm, General Director of Opera Five. “The music and stories have stood the test of time. It’s the packaging that can be viewed as unappealing, and that is what we’re trying to change.”
Opera Five was founded in 2011 by four GTA musicians with a goal to find new audiences through the engagement of the five senses and by presenting operatic stories in both traditional and non-traditional venues. The company is also known for its popular comic web-series titled, Opera Cheats which describe opera plot synopses and opera-going rules with a humorous twist.
Opera Five’s Winter show opens at Gallery 345 (345 Sorauren Ave), December 4th-6th at 7:30PM.
How important is Saturday Night at the Movies? TV Ontario –the Ontario equivalent to PBS—has many sorts of educational programming. SNAM is the furthest thing from a genuine curriculum, and precisely for that reason, likely one of our farthest reaching examples of educational programming.
Think of fluoride in the water supply, working on your dental hygiene whether you care or not. Think of vitamins in the air, nourishment in your recreation. That is what SNAM means, programming that teaches without any awareness of the learning.
Why does it matter?
I submit that Toronto is a special case. Since this 40 year experiment began –at one time curated by Elwy Yost, now by Thom Ernst– Toronto has quietly become one of the most important film cities in the world. Our festival –TIFF—is different from any other. How? Our audience is knowledgeable like no other.
I submit that Elwy & Thom had something to do with it. I wrote about it awhile ago. We have been watching film as though it were art –as opposed to entertainment for decades, something programs such as Inside the Actors Studio only started to do in the past 20 years or less. An entire culture has been created by this show.
SNAM is apparently going to end due to cut-backs. I hope this unfortunate proposal will be stopped. As I was trying to imply, SNAM is important precisely because it’s not like educational TV. That’s why it’s vital.
barczablog 