Urban myths

Posted on November 6, 2012 by barczablog

For Halloween and All Saints I blogged some lists.  It may seem that I’m in a rut.  I love lists, don’t you?  No?

But I am only using a list as a kind of rhetorical smokescreen.  This time the list is presented without any preamble.  You’re invited to discern the common element in each example.

Chicago fire

Image from the Chicago fire of 1871

1) One of the great stories of Ancient Rome is the story of the Great Fire of AD 64.  It’s the fire when Nero supposedly fiddled: but of course there were no fiddles at the time.  Nero may indeed have played a musical instrument such as a lyre.  That legend concerns me less than the fact that fire could devastate a city.  London would later have a great fire in the 17th century, as would Chicago in the 19th Century.

2) There are worse things than pure cold or pure heat.  In 1998 parts of Ontario, Quebec and areas further east in the USA & Canada were subjected to an ongoing barrage of freezing rain followed by cold temperatures.  Large amounts of ice accumulated on wires carrying power, causing them to either break or the supporting structures to collapse.  While the events were hugely educational for utility professionals in the area, at the time it was an unprecedented disaster.

3) In 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the destructive storm surge over the protective levees led to enormous destruction & loss of life in the New Orleans area.

4) A tsunami in March 2011 was followed by what has come to be known as the “Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster”.  The flooding and destruction of earthquake & tsunami undermined the safety devices in the reactors, although in the end the disaster was not as extreme as Chernobyl.  The impact on Japan is not inconsiderable.

5) The news this past week on CNN is alternating between two big stories:

  • The American election
  • The aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New York, New Jersey & elsewhere.

And Sandy is really several stories, but I am especially intrigued by

  • The fragility of Manhattan, a place I love to visit.
  • Disruptions to the NYC transit & transportation infrastructure
  • The impact on the American economy, which at least partially understands New York City as an economic engine

Disasters are nothing new.  At different times, people have lived in precarious, unsustainable situations.  Are we making progress?  To anyone in New Orleans that may seem dubious.  Our civilizations are a series of promises.  From time to time we discover that the promises are empty: in a time of natural calamity.   Fire, power failure, flood, melt-down, it doesn’t really matter what circumstances expose the fragility of the underlying infrastructure.  We build to create safety, and then, we may become so self-assured about our progress that we come to take our safety & comfort for granted, assumptions that are shown to be foolish when nature assaults the city and its supporting networks.

If climate change means anything, it probably means an increase in the severity of weather events.  Cities hold out the promise of a kind of safety in the face of Nature’s fury.  But while our safety seems to increase with each generation, perhaps that is just a perception.  Such promises are never absolute.

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5 for All Saints

Posted on November 2, 2012 by barczablog

Halloween (or “all hallows even”, on October 31st) is the day preceding All Saint’s Day (November 1st).  Depending on your faith background, the two days are understood as inter-connected celebrations.  I am no expert.

But this is the other half of what I posted for Halloween.  After offering five musical samples having to do with the mysterious and dark understandings arising from Oct 31st I would like to offer something as a kind of balance.  In fact these choices are as impulsive as the ones I made last night.  Please feel free to offer your own suggestions in reply, if you think we should be hearing or seeing something else at this time.

The Mission1)  Ennio Morricone is known for several celebrated filmscores.  While his chilling themes for the westerns of Sergio Leone are a big part of their success, an operatic celebration of violence, his karma is clean for what he brought to the big screen in collaboration with Roland Joffé in the late 1980s.  The Mission is a story juxtaposing the ideals of the spirit (as embodied in the Jesuits pushing the frontiers of their faith into South America) & the harsh reality of politics in the church of the time.  This segment is the last portion of a long and painful penance of a man of the sword, bearing his armour & weapons with him into the wilderness, a long painful struggle.  

2) A few years ago I had a kind of religious experience.  I was music-director on this particular Sunday.  The mezzo-soprano was singing the song that serves as the fourth movement of Mahler’s Second Symphony, namely Urlicht (or “primal light”).  The song text tells a story that was very poignant & relevant to the composer, a Jew being kept from the path to success by an anti-semitic culture.  The poem from Des Knaben Wunderhorn tells of an angel blocking the path, but affirms that I will not be denied.

Imagine my shock that I saw this story enacted.  The singer was herself partially disabled, standing at the lectern singing, while I accompanied her from below.  The path in the middle of the church is where the deacons collect the offering from the congregation, during the offertory, a pathway exactly like the one in the song.  Because she couldn’t comfortably occupy the space in the middle, she had no choice but to sing from a place, off to the side: a curious & ironic enactment of the text of the song.  The singer didn’t notice this; but I did.  Here’s the text & translation 

Viktor Ullmann

Composer Viktor Ullmann

3)      On All Saints Martin Luther’s great hymn “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is sung, according to what I read on Wikipedia .  It’s a hymn that i know in several versions, and about which  I wrote awhile ago . We’ve just passed the anniversary of the passing of Viktor Ullmann, who died Oct 18th 1944.  In recognition of his passing AND in recognition of “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” I will play the last ten minutes of the opera The Emperor of Atlantis.  Let me explain why. First, Death –who had petulantly taken a holiday to protest against Emperor Uberall (a satire of Hitler) who was making Death far too busy.  Sure, Death had taken a holiday, but has been persuaded to come back.  For some people –such as those inhabiting a concentration camp—death might actually be a blessing; this clip begins with a wonderful piece of vocalism from Gerald Finley.  Five and a half minutes into this clip is Ullmann’s adaptation of Luther’s Reformation hymn, sung in triple time.  I imagine Ullmann’s thinking: that it was conceived as the ultimate appeal for an audience of Nazi commandants & soldiers, possibly like what we see in that moment in the film To Be or Not to Be: when the Jewish actor gets to play Shylock before the Nazis, to say those magical lines:

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
If you poison us, do we not die?
and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

…but the premiere was pre-empted when they figured out the joke and pulled the plug before that premiere.  Imagine, how you might feel, as a German Lutheran, standing with your machine gun, listening to this in the hypothetical performance that never was. If the singers seem to look haunted it’s because they’re at Terezin, aka Theriesenstadt, the place where Ullmann composed & rehearsed the opera before being deported to Auschwitz.

4)  Whew… I need something for a contrast, don’t you?  How about Louis Armstrong playing “When the Saints Go Marching In”

5)  For all the saints who from their labours rest
While I love to sing it or to hear it sung, instead I’m playing an organ version of this hymn, composed by Ralph Vaughn Williams, in mute recognition that this hymn celebrates those who aren’t here.    The saints who from their labours rest?  those who have died.  

We too will find our rest eventually.  For now, Happy All Saints Day.

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5 for Halloween

Posted on October 31, 2012 by barczablog

It’s October 31st, a date that, depending on your context, could mean

  • an occasion to dress up
  • an occasion to pig out
  • an occasion to be outrageous

Some people do that every day of the year, and I won’t deny that I am envious.

In the meantime (as I await the arrival of this year’s wild horde at the door), and in the spirit of the day, I present you with five samples that each in their way have something to say about the day and its attractions.

1)From Marschner’s Der Vampyr 

2) From Weber’s Der Freischütz, excitementbuilding gradually to the end 

3) From Bernard Herrmann’s music from Psycho

4) From Bernard Herrmann’s music at the beginning of The Day The Earth Stood Still 

5) Mysterious masquerade during Eyes Wide Shut

Marschner

Composer Heinrich Marschner

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WTF?

Posted on October 30, 2012 by barczablog

WTF: What’s the Fach?

Okay, okay, I admit I’m having fun with headlines.  I’m still convalescing, while the continent convulses (or as my friend Trevor said “earthquakes to the west of me, hurricanes to the east, here I am, stuck in the middle with you”), hoping the electricity doesn’t go off.   I also considered calling this “anti-gravitas”, and a few others even less funny than that. I am expanding upon a review i wrote Thursday night

While I did not see opening night of Freischütz (who needs the machinations of an evil huntsman such as Samiel, when there are flu viruses to possess you?), I have been thinking through my experience.  Critics are often the easiest people to freak out, disoriented because we have expectations and assumptions built upon academic classifications.

Alastair Fowler, writing in Kinds of Literature, said “in reality genre is much less of a pigeonhole than a pigeon.”  This is a very fertile image when we’re talking about revisiting Der Freischütz, an opera hinging upon the moment a marksman shoots a dove.  Dove or pigeon? Aha, there’s another question of class.

Even more important to me –and fundamental—than the question of genre—is the question of “Fach”.  Don’t be afraid of this word (one that young opera singers usually embrace with special glee, enjoying the way it freaks their parents out), a Fach is simply a vocal classification, and the equivalent of a pigeonhole.

With genre and Fach, we’re faced with a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem (sorry I can’t seem to get my mind off of birds & poultry…I suppose that after being sick my brain is still scrambled… oh no a bad yoke… oh no, I cracked another one.  OM-letting you down again and again, sigh…).

But as I was saying, we wonder which comes first, and how do we know one without the other…?  Do I know music-drama, such as Strauss & Wagner wrote, from the requirements he places upon the voices –the heldentenors, dramatische sopranos, and so forth—OR is it the other way around: that we define the voices by saying they are the kind of voices used in music-drama?

The problem is, however, that’s exactly what does happen.  It’s circular to say the least, and pays no heed to history.

Or maybe we have to look at the question another way, using a four-dimensional model, that sees the fach as evolving over time.  Any or all of these factors play into the changing ways singers approach their careers & their roles:

  • Changes in repertoire
  • shared learning / pedagogy
  • changes in the business such as
    • specialization, more standard sound, less local/regional voice, more international uniformity
    • the many enormous opera houses in parts of the world that required big massive voices; has this trend changed? (ie Four Seasons Centre in Toronto, instead of Sony Centre)
    • TV,  DVDs & high definition broadcasts changing the rules (does physical beauty trump vocal prowess?)
  • conventional wisdom (for better or worse) about how to sing, how to run an opera company

There are reasons to question the fach system of voices.  If Leonore in Fidelio is now understood to be a dramatic soprano –which is to say, a role sung by the same sort of singer as would undertake Elektra, Turandot or Brunnhilde—how did the role fare in those years when it was effectively the only role of its kind?  The question can probably be answered by looking closely at the lives of key singers and the roles they undertook.

Anne Milder

Anne Milder, the first Leonore

Wikipedia tells me that a soprano named Anna Milder was the first Leonore in Fidelio, both in its early version (1805) and in its later revision as Fidelio (1814), a year after Wagner was born, but long before either Puccini or Strauss arrived on the scene.

With no Turandots or Elektras or Isoldes or Brunnhildes, Milder was not at a loss.  She was famous for singing the title role in Gluck’s Iphigénie en Tauride, a role Susan Graham sang last year here in Toronto. Graham is a mezzo-soprano, known for roles such as Marguérite in La Damnation de Faust or Didon in Les Troyens.

I put that out there to suggest that we approach this subject with caution.  Our assumptions are influenced by what we’ve heard, by what we understand as the “right” way to create a particular style of music.  An operatic genre is intimately connected to such assumptions which include performance conventions.

One of the things I love –and when I say love, think of pink cherubs grinning when I say this —is the way period performance scrambles our usual understanding.  I don’t care if the music doesn’t sound “right”.  I love the sense of the new & the unknown, and am profoundly sceptical of any orthodoxy.  I was enthralled listening to a new approach to Bizet’s Carmen in its 2005 film adaptation U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, incorporating South African music, and a happy disregard of operatic convention.

What I especially admire about the Opera Atelier Freischütz is the way it problematizes so many of our assumptions.  David Fallis’s conducting & music-direction boldly refused to do the usual things with this opera, and instead boldly linked it back towards its implicit forebears.  As a result it suggests new pathways for exploration:

  • is Max perhaps not quite as helden as we’ve assumed? Can we be so sure, then about Florestan, Leonore’s counterpart & consort in precedence?  A transitional role such as Erik in Fliegende Holländer –with its echoes of Max—may also be lighter if the orchestra is handled as gently as Fallis handled Tafelmusik on this occasion.  Kresimir Spicer’s Max also takes me back to Mozart; his Tito is at times very dramatic, a role that I believe is heavier than other Mozart roles.
  • Is Agathe, then maybe also lighter? It makes me want to question our understanding of such roles as Donna Anna (which Meghan Lindsay sang wonderfully in Opera Atelier’s Don Giovanni last year), and of course Leonore: a role that one would approach differently if the orchestra were played lighter as well.
  • The genre question?  I wish it were a question but to my knowledge no one seems concerned –yet—that our assumptions may be off the mark.  I was struck by a phrase John Terauds used in his positive review of Freischütz;  which he called “a riotous mishmash.”  I think the same could be said of Mozart’s Magic Flute and Beethoven’s Fidelio.  All three mix high and low, incorporate dialogue & melodrama, and I think we’ve especially lost our way in surrendering to Wagner’s influence.  Wagner never told us how to watch these operas, but his own essays & later works argue for something called Gesamtkunstwerk, or the “total art work”.  Wagner came along at a time when it was still a new concept to unify all elements towards a single goal.  Theatrical works with variety that call attention to their mechanisms are anti-wagnerian by definition.  I share Terauds’ taste for a good mishmash, but doubt there will ever be a pigeonhole with that charming word above it.

I am reminded of the instructions women receive during labour, to resist the urge to push, until the very end.  Pushing at the wrong time is not good for the baby, nor the mother.  Is something similar at work with the Wolf’s Glen Scene?  Opera is orchestra plus singers in a theatre.  One can seek to make the orchestra as loud & scary as possible, and then challenge the singers to somehow be heard; or one scales it back, and engages the imagination of the audience.  I believe that once one has heard such a scene done without restraint –possibly in a style remote from the composer’s time—it’s hard to turn back the clock to a more authentic & restrained approach.  Once we surrender to the physical impulse to push—which may be unhealthy both for the voices & our appreciation of the work—it’s hard to stop.  Commercial pressures, competition between performers, and experimentation all have in various ways goaded performers, as if a coach were shouting in the singers’ collective ears: “Push! Push!  PUSH!”

And we know that’s not healthy.

In the message from the Opera Atelier co-artistic directors, we read the following bold statement (after speaking of their first period performance of Magic Flute 20 years ago: the first period performance of Magic Flute in North America).

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

How apt that the chosen metaphor is of a step being taken.  Whatever it looks like or sounds like, however well it coheres or fragments, I welcome their provocative and courageous experiments.  I look forward to the ensuing chapters of this story, even if one could also say ”the subsequent acts of this ballet”.

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R Murray Schafer: My Life on Earth and Elsewhere

Posted on October 28, 2012 by barczablog

a handicap, if not too severe, gives one an advantage in life because it forces the handicapped to work harder.

I understand autobiography as a medium associated with fame.  Books about stars sell well, whether they’re readable or not.

RMS's book

The cover of R Murray Schafer’s My Life on Earth & Elsewhere

I feel i need to apologize for such cynical thinking, but those are among my first thoughts coming to My Life on Earth and Elsewhere, the memoir of R Murray Schafer, Canadian composer & artist, a book that deserves to be read by more than the narrow Canadian new music fraternity. This beautiful book is bound in lovely paper, decorated on the cover and inside with copious examples of RMS’s art.  I am reminded of why books matter, the sort of cultural issue that likely wasn’t far from Schafer’s awareness while crafting his memoir.

RMS has had a very interesting & colourful life, one he shares generously throughout.  If one only wanted to get lost in excellent prose & ruminations about the meaning of life, the memoir is rewarding enough.  Autobiography is a kind of portraiture, a glimpse if not an objective view of the person.  I recognize this is naïve and perhaps wishful thinking, but even so I rather like the R Murray Schafer of the memoir.  The person portrayed in the book –real or otherwise—is fascinating: not a wild extrovert, but always keeping his eye on the future, never letting anything get him down, a fellow with a special gift for meeting strangers, particularly women.  I realized somewhere past page 50 that I am loving this book even though I don’t think I’ve seen nearly as much as I expected to see pertaining to music, so far.

But it does come up.

The story of Son of Heldenleben with the Montreal Symphony brings context to a piece I remember from a later performance by Toronto Symphony.  Too bad the piece was presented in the usual pompous seriousness by the TSO when I sensed (but repressed my awareness of) its parodic-deconstructive nature.  RMS tells several colourful tales of the background politics with the MSO.  I must surrender to the impulse to quote RMS. I want to share.

Then one day I got the summons to come to Montreal to meet Maestro Franz Paul Decker, one of those majestic foreigners to whom we have entrusted all our major orchestras.  …Everywhere Decker went he was followed by two stooges who punctuated all his statements with ‘C’est juste’ or ‘c’est ça’.  ‘You know, Mr Schafer, only last veek ve are performing  ze rrrreal Heldenleben! Now zis…foolish joke vill not reflect vell on us, not at all.’   ‘C’est juste.’ etc. ‘First I vould ask you to consider changing ze title.’  ‘No.’  ‘But zis is impossible title!’  ‘Impossible, impossible” echo the two stooges.   

For a time at least, Canadian music was a second class citizen in our country.

RMS

R Murray Schafer

A commission from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra followed that from the MSO a year or so later.  The contract read: ‘It is agreed that the work shall have a minimum duration of approximately seven(7) minutes and no longer than ten (10) minutes.’  That is, the work was to be what Canadian composers call a ‘piece de garage’, intended for performance while the patrons were parking their cars. 

The gradual change in the book’s tone parallels RMS’s changing sense of self.  Just as I’d like to think that we’ve shaken off the colonial chains holding us back, the nervous apologies and perpetual measuring against European standards, so too for the composer.  In due course, Schafer tells the story of many of his most celebrated compositions (even as their more detailed discussion is to be found elsewhere), both as logistical challenges and as creative opportunities, without holding back on the ironic wit.

I haven’t finished reading the memoir yet.  But I’m grateful to be under the weather today, cocooned with Schafer and his remarkable book.

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U-Carmen eKhayelitsha

Posted on October 28, 2012 by barczablog

Last weekend I was fortunate to see U-Carmen eKhayelitsha, a 2005 adaptation of Bizet’s opera Carmen.

The score is a mix of Bizet & South African music, which is only natural considering that the adaptation is set in a South African township (Khayelitsha) in modern day.

DVD

Link to soundtrack CD.   Amazon also has the DVD

At one time in the 1980s it seemed that Carmen was being adapted by everyone, from Carlos Saura’s flamenco version, to rival skating versions from American Debi Thomas and East German Katarina Witt, so I shouldn’t be surprised to happily encounter this version on one of our wonderful French language TV channels in the Toronto area.

The main story is still there, the love of policeman Jongikhaya (rather han Don José) for Carmen the cigarette girl.  Instead of being involved with smugglers, Carmen involves Jongikhaya in drug trafficking.  Instead of a love triangle with Escamillo the bullfighter, the other man is Lulamile Nkomo, a singer. The language is African (one of them… no idea which) rather than French, although the broadcast on the French channel had subtitles in French.

Mark Dornford-May directed it. One of the ways in which this adaptation is modernized is the level of violence, and not just at the end.  Be prepared, because while this makes the film seem real, it can be shocking to see.

The performances are not operatic in the slightest.  By that, I mean they’re good, cinematic and gripping in all the right ways.  None of the performers had ever done this kind of thing before, which is why they’re all so convincing.  I am reminded of Debussy’s admonition to his cast for the opening of the first Pelléas et Mélisande, when he asked them to forget they were singers. And so this film is not operatic in the usual ways: which is good!. Instead of forgetting, they simply don’t know the usual procedures  The singing is often out of tune, but has wonderful commitment from the performers.  On the basis of seeing U-Carmen eKhayelitsha I believe this is a much better way to proceed, considering how often opera singers can’t sing in tune either.  At least this time they create something genuinely dramatic.

I like it!

Here’s a look at the end  (be advised that the last note is missing from this clip)

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First look at Freischütz

Posted on October 26, 2012 by barczablog

Tonight I attended the dress rehearsal of the Opera Atelier production of Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz at the Elgin Theatre, a moment I’d been eagerly anticipating for weeks.

David Fallis

Conductor David Fallis

Coming into the evening I was certain we’d have at least a memorable evening on the musical side, under the sparkling musicianship of conductor  David Fallis, Tafelmusik Orchestra & chorus, and several remarkable soloists.  But all aspects of the mise-en-scène and direction, in combination with that musical performance make this my operatic highlight of the fall season so far.   Freischütz hits the target without any supernatural assistance.

I listened, hoping Fallis can be considered in the search for a successor to Jeanne Lamon.  While Tafelmusik has been a baroque orchestra, I am most interested in their incursions into the 19th century, thrilled when they played the Eroica along with the Italian Symphony a few months ago.  Back in the late 1980s I eagerly devoured period performances not only of Mozart & Beethoven, but especially Berlioz, Schumann, Schubert, even (more recently) Norrington’s Smetana & Wagner.  I can’t help hearing this very courageous performance as a step in that direction.

Fallis does several very original things, as far as I could hear, having heard more conventional recordings of this opera: that is, with modern orchestra & modern performance conventions.  I’m eager to hear it again Saturday night.  Once more (as last season) Fallis showed his astonishing sensitivity, getting the orchestra to play quietly in a dress rehearsal, while most of the cast marked, yet were never covered.  It’s a brand-new way of hearing Weber, with drama coming out of silences and quiet phrases, as in the vivace C-minor second subject of the overture.  The orchestra is smallish, which I understand from the interview Fallis gave is accurate.  Instead of the 20th century tendency of wagnerizing (that is, using an overlarge orchestra, as for example, in Beecham’s Handel, or just about everyone’s Mozart & Beethoven), this is a retu

Fuseli

Fuseli’s The Nightmare

rn to first principles.

On the stage –in Gerard Gauci’s set design & Martha Mann’s costumes—there’s a parallel to Fallis’s sound.  For me this is a very thoughtful reading of the story.  Gauci speaks of Fuseli as an influence, the painter of dreams & nightmares.  This version of the romantic sublime is neo-classical, poised on the transition from the earlier century, and very much in control of itself.  This is not a headlong rush, but more the thoughtful sensibility of “Oh Freunde, nicht diese tone,” as Beethoven changes the emotional channel consciously and mindfully.

Carla

Avatar of sanity, Carla Huhtanen

Bellwether of this sanity is the Ännchen of Carla Huhtanen.  Where Max & Agathe face the perils of the romantic imagination, the terrors in dreams & in the wolf’s glen, Marshall Pynkoski encourages Huhtanen to play up the comedy of Agathe’s comic foil, in a portrayal of exquisite energy & musicianship.  As with the Don Giovanni last year, Pynkoski pushes Der Freischütz in the direction of a pastoral comedy, an approach that’s fully supported by the text.  Pynkoski doesn’t negate the supernatural elements, so much as balance them.  Kaspar, who is often-times played as a melodramatic villain, the tempter figure who lures Max astray with the magic bullets, also has some comic edge, in a wonderfully flexible interpretation by Vasil Garvanliev, at times reminding me of a Shakespearean clown, often over the top.

As the first foray of this company into a new century & an entirely new style & sensibility, it’s only reasonable that there would be hits and misses, and that some moments seemed better than others.  But I prefer not to dwell on anything negative when this was merely the dress rehearsal after all.

I am again looking forward to hearing a full-voiced performance from Kresimir Spicer, after having admired his work in a dress rehearsal.  As exquisite as he was in La Clemenza di Tito last season, he’s taken a big step undertaking a role usually understood as being on the verge of a helden role: at least when the orchestra is conventionally fat & wagnerian.  Again, Fallis deserves enormous credit, holding the orchestra back when necessary, giving them a supple energy that was occasionally turned loose in a few key places.  Meghan Lindsay’s Agathe is also lighter than what one gets in a big house with a big loud orchestra; but this combination is so much better, and I daresay, so much truer to Weber.  It feels transitional, with voices that could have stepped out of Magic Flute or Fidelio as done in a small house (speaking of operas that I’d love to hear undertaken by Opera Atelier, Spicer & Fallis).

Which brings me to the Wolf’s Glen Scene, the dark romantic core of the work.  I’m a believer in “less is more”: a principle that has usually stood OA in good stead.  Much of this scene is wonderful, a few moments giving me goose-bumps and shivers (although much of that came from the music).  I don’t want to give anything away for those who will see it, as some of the images get their power from the element of surprise.  I am grateful that a work with a strongly religious sentiment at its core was permitted to work in the usual ways.  Some of the dance works very well for me, even though I was resisting it, to be honest.

I think it’s time for Pynkoski to take ownership of his original brilliance, this idiom he’s made combining historicity (that is, a delicious awareness of history), some elements derived from research, and a few other elements that don’t have much to do with an authentic or historically informed performance.  But that’s okay!  I regret that the focus on the HIP seems to shove Pynkoski’s sensibility aside, giving him no real credit for what he does: such as his wonderfully droll takes on Ännchen & Kaspar.  I used to joke that Opera Atelier is a dance company pretending to be an opera company, and the joke came back full force watching the Wolf’s Glen Scene.  But it works.  Let’s admit, then, that what we’re often watching are the interpretive choices of Marshall & Jeannette –often stunning & inspired choices—rather than hiding behind the whole canard of history and authenticity. There’s nothing very authentic about using so much dance in Act II of Der Freischütz; but even so it’s often very powerful and effective.

Opera Atelier’s production of Der Freischütz opens Saturday night October 27th at the Elgin Theatre.   

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COC Press Release: 2011/2012 Season

Posted on October 24, 2012 by barczablog

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

COC 2011/2012 SEASON ACHIEVES 91% ATTENDANCE AND FOURTH HIGHEST SINGLE TICKET SALES in history

Toronto – Today at the Canadian Opera Company’s Annual General Meeting, COC Board President Philip C. Deck announced that in 2011/2012 the company achieved an average attendance of 91%, and its fourth highest single ticket sales in its history.  The COC also overcame an operating deficit by accessing its special cash reserves to post a modest surplus of $10,000.

“In 2011/2012, the Canadian Opera Company continued to raise the bar for opera in Toronto with artistic triumphs such as our new productions of Rigoletto, Love from Afar and the double-bill of A Florentine Tragedy and Gianni Schicchi, and new heights in performance quality on the way to posting an impressive 91% attendance capacity,” said COC Board President Philip C. Deck.

The COC’s operating expenses for the 11/12 season were $35,575,000 with revenues of $35,585,000.  Box Office revenue represented 31% of total operating revenues, with fundraising accounting for 25%, government funding accounting for 19%, and 15% coming from other income sources such as space and production rentals.  The remaining 10% came from other grants generated by the parking fee and third-party rental revenue drawn from the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, as well as a contribution from the Canadian Opera Foundation drawn from the normal distribution of interest earnings on the endowment funds and a special cash reserve created from the COC’s prior operating surpluses that is specifically earmarked to support artistic goals for future seasons.

“I am incredibly grateful to our patrons, subscribers and generous donors for their constant support and dedication because they allow us the means to reach the artistic heights that we do,” added Deck.  “In the face of modest reductions in ticket sales and increasing production costs this year, we were forced to utilize our foundation capital to bring our budget to breakeven.  To continue on the artistic path we have committed to at the COC, we need to constantly renew our subscriber base, look for ways to control the escalation of costs and build up our financial resources in order to ensure that we can continue to earn the loyalty that our long term supporters have always shown us.”

COC General Director Alexander Neef said, “I am very proud of the artistic achievements that we saw in the past season but great art takes time and money, and we are constantly challenged to fund our ambitious artistic mission.  We will continue to raise our artistic standards to deliver the best operatic experiences, and I am gratified to know that our productions increasingly stand with the best in the world.  The world’s opera artists and administrators acknowledge what we’ve known for years: that we have a great company.  The casts, the music, the productions, the magnificent hall, it’s all right here to create a live experience, which is unlike any other.

“In everything we do at the COC, we will continue to stretch our artistic boundaries on stage and reach out to new communities through our programs and initiatives off stage as much as possible,” added Neef.  “There is much work to do, but, if there’s one thing I can say about this company, it’s that we are never complacent.  We are always looking for new and different ways to present art and develop the means to share it with others.”

The company’s 11/12 season was among its most captivating and innovative to date, featuring two Canadian premieres, two COC premieres and three new productions.  The COC opened its fall run with the COC premiere of Gluck’s Iphigenia in Tauris, featuring the world’s leading Iphigenia, mezzo-soprano Susan Graham, in a Dora Award-winning performance and a Dora Award-winning production.  It was paired with a new COC production of Verdi’s Rigoletto set within the rich, ribald surroundings of a 19th-century gentleman’s club.  The winter months offered the return of the COC’s lavish 2008 production of Puccini’s Tosca and the Canadian premiere of acclaimed Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s Love from Afar, one of the most performed and successful operas written in this century.  The COC concluded its 11/12 season with the return of Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann, absent from the COC stage for 24 years; a double bill of witty one-act operas with the Canadian premiere of Zemlinsky’s A Florentine Tragedy and the return of Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi in a new COC production that won the Dora Award for outstanding set design; and, the COC premiere of Handel’s Semele.

In total, 125,238 patrons attended the 67 performances of the seven productions comprising the 11/12 mainstage season at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.  The COC recorded 77,509 subscription tickets and 42,216 single tickets – the fourth highest number of single tickets sold in the COC’s history – generating a net ticket revenue of $10.9 million.

Over 6,000 loyal supporters, subscribers, donors, corporations, and foundations contributed more than $8.24 million (net) to the COC in 11/12.  Approximately 76% of the $8.24 million – $6.3 million – came from individuals in support of the COC’s mainstage productions and artists, as well as transition and endowment funding, training, and education and outreach programs.  In addition, many donors contributed annually through the Golden Circle, President’s Council and Friends of the COC patron programs, including a lead gift from an anonymous donor to the Year-End Matching Appeal.

Individual support is especially crucial to the COC’s commitment to stage new productions each season in order to remain an artistically relevant producer of opera, as well as providing a diversified revenue stream from rental and co-production opportunities. The COC’s new production of Rigoletto was generously underwritten in part by Tim and Frances Price, Judy and Wilmot Matthews and Gail and Bob Farquharson; the new double-bill production of A Florentine Tragedy/Gianni Schicchi was generously underwritten in part by Riki Turofsky and Charles Petersen, and the Ensemble Studio production of Semele was generously underwritten in part by Wendy J. Thompson, the late Samuel A. Rea and ARIAS.  The COC’s production of Tosca was originally made possible through a generous gift from Delia M. Moog.

COC fundraising efforts through special projects and events, including the 18th Annual KPMG Opera Golf Classic, the 13th Annual Fine Wine Auction, and Operanation 8, netted over $418,000 to the company.

The COC continued to receive support from a number of loyal corporate sponsors: Sun Life Financial as the Presenting Sponsor of SURTITLESTM and supporter of Wheelchair Seating, Hearing-Assistive and Vision-Impaired Devices; Jaguar Land Rover Canada as the Official Automotive Sponsor; Xstrata as the Title Sponsor of the Ensemble Studio School Tour; Trius wine from Andrew Peller Limited as the Official Canadian Wine of the COC; Delvinia as the Digital Marketing Sponsor; CTV and The Globe and Mail as the Official Media Sponsors; Hilton Toronto as the Preferred Hospitality Sponsor; Calvin Klein as the Preferred Fragrance Sponsor; Air France as the Official Airline Sponsor; and TD Bank Group as Presenting Sponsor of Opera Under 30 and Operanation 8.  Production Sponsors for the 11/12 season included BMO Financial Group (Love from Afar), RBC (Semele) and CIBC and CIBC Mellon (A Florentine Tragedy/Gianni Schicchi).

Stable government investment in the COC was vital to the company’s operations in the 11/12 season, with all levels of government demonstrating their support through grants from Toronto Culture, Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts.  Additional investment was also received from the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund in support of the COC’s 11/12 spring season.

The COC’s Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre welcomed almost 15,000 people of all ages to its 76 free events in 11/12.  The Free Concert Series’ programming spans classical, jazz, world music and contemporary dance and last season featured four world premieres, highlighted 438 artists – 388 of them Canadian – and presented 14 works by Canadian classical composers, 42 works by living composers and 26 works by female composers.

The Ensemble Studio Competition was launched in 11/12, opening the final round of auditions for the COC’s training program for young opera professionals to public attendance for the first time.  Ten finalists performed before a sold-out audience in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre at the Four Seasons Centre on November 28, 2011, with four singers ultimately selected to join the illustrious Ensemble Studio program in the 12/13 season.  The COC Ensemble Studio Competition was presented in part by RBC Foundation and the Hal Jackman Foundation and with the individual support of Laurie and Fareed Ali, Earlaine Collins, Ninalee Craig, George and Kathy Dembroski, Marjorie and Roy Linden, Sandra L. Simpson, The Stratton Trust, Colleen Sexsmith, Trina and Don McQueen, Jo Lander, Sue Mortimer, Brian Wilks and an anonymous donor.

In total, 47,652 adults, youths and families were introduced to opera and engaged with the COC last season, through the company’s 20 education and outreach programs for children, young adults, school groups and adults, which include the Xstrata Ensemble Studio School Tour, After School Opera Program, March Break Opera, Summer Opera Camp presented by Scotiabank, Summer Youth Intensive, Youth Opera Lab, Living Opera, Opera Creation Program, Opera 101, Opera Exchange, Opera Talks, BMO Financial Group Pre-Performance Opera Chats, BMO Financial Group Student Dress Rehearsals, custom workshops, opera appreciation courses and tours, and building tours.

The COC began its 12/13 season on September 29, 2012, and is currently presenting Verdi’s Il Trovatore and J. Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus – the latter in a new COC production.  The season continues in January 2013 with one of music history’s most influential works, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, and Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito.  The spring run includes Donizetti’s bel canto masterpiece, Lucia di Lammermoor, the return of the COC’s acclaimed production of Strauss’s Salome, and Poulenc’s operatic masterpiece, Dialogues des Carmélites.  The Ensemble Studio performance of La clemenza di Tito takes place on February 6, 2013.

About the Canadian Opera Company

Based in Toronto, the Canadian Opera Company is the largest producer of opera in Canada and one of the largest in North America.  The COC enjoys a loyal audience support-base and one of the highest attendance and subscription rates in North America.  Under its leadership team of General Director Alexander Neef and Music Director Johannes Debus, the COC is increasingly capturing the opera world’s attention.  The COC maintains its international reputation for artistic excellence and creative innovation by creating new productions within its diverse repertoire, collaborating with leading opera companies and festivals, and attracting the world’s foremost Canadian and international artists.  The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, hailed internationally as one of the finest in the world.  Designed by Diamond Schmitt Architects, the Four Seasons Centre opened in 2006, and is also the performance venue for The National Ballet of Canada.  For more information on the COC, visit its award-winning website, coc.ca.

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10 Questions for Meghan Lindsay

Posted on October 24, 2012 by barczablog
ML

Soprano Meghan Lindsay

Hailed by critics as a singer with “lovely stage presence,” a “silvery tone,” and “exquisite mezza voce,” Canadian soprano Meghan Lindsay is enjoying a vibrant career. She begins the 2012/13 season with the role of Agathe in Opera Atelier’s Der Freischütz later this week. In 2011/12, Lindsay made her North American debut as Donna Anna in Opera Atelier’s Don Giovanni both in Toronto and in conjunction with Opera Colombus, with what the Toronto Star described as a “stunningly attractive stage presence married to the kind of crisp, clear sound that gives the role its true place in the score.” She continued the 2012/13 season with the role of Sidonie/Nymphe des Eaux in Opera Atelier’s production of Lully’s Armide in Toronto, The Royal Opera of the Palace of Versailles, and the Glimmerglass Festival.

In 2010/11, Lindsay was a young artist with Opera Studio Nederland where she made her international debut as Euredice in Pierre Audi’s production of Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and her Concertgebouw debut performing excerpts from Don Giovanni and Le Nozze di Figaro. That season, she performed the role of Fiordiligi in Opera Studio Nederland’s production of Cosi fan Tutte and Contessa in Opera on the Avalon’s Le Nozze di Figaro. She also performed the title role in Massenet’s Cendrillon, the premiere opera at Toronto’s Koerner Hall with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra. Other highlights include performing Richard Danielpour’s Sonnets to Orpheus under the baton of Paul Nadler at Joan Dornemann’s inaugural music festival, Viva Virginia.

An accomplished concert artist, Lindsay has been featured on CTV television and CBC radio broadcast. She toured China representing the Royal Conservatory of Music in a program that was broadcast nationwide on Chinese television and radio. She has presented concerts in venues across Canada, including Barrie’s Colours of Music and the Creemore Music Festival and was a performer in Holland’s Uitmarkt. In 2008, Lindsay organized and presented Opera for Oprea, a charity gala that raised nearly $14 000 for cancer drug research for the Robert and Maggie Bras Drug Cancer Development Program. Meghan is an alumni of the Glimmerglass Festival Young Artist Program; the International Vocal Arts Institute; the Daniel Ferro Vocal Program; Opera Studio Nederland; and of The Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School, where she completed her Bachelor of Music and participated in the Artist Diploma Program.  Lindsay has a new website: http://www.meghanlindsay.com

I ask Lindsay 10 questions: five about herself and five about her portrayal of the role of Agathe in the Opera Atelier production of Der Freischütz.

1) Which of your parents do you resemble (what’s your nationality / ethnic background)?  

ML

Soprano Meghan Lindsay, Opera Atelier’s Agathe in their new Der Freischutz

I couldn’t say that I resemble one of my parents more than the other, but definitely share traits from each. One thing that my parents have in spades is their generosity, intelligence, and loyalty- I hope that I have inherited some of that from them! My Mom is a creative, witty, and incredibly giving woman. My Dad is a driven and considerate man with a contagious excitement for life. I think the biggest thing I have taken from my parents is the immense respect and love for family that they have instilled in me and my siblings- we are a pack.

2) What is the best thing / worst thing about being an opera singer?

When I first began to sing, I was interested in music as a culmination of the many disciplines I had grown up to love. Music is literature, history, math, language, a creative output, physical and emotional expression- it really is the perfect intellectual balance. The more I have performed and grown as an artist, the more I appreciate music for all of these facets, but more importantly for its ability to give. It’s a universal method of communication that connects performers and listeners alike. I love that as a musician, I am able to forget about self and act as a vehicle to channel a composer’s creation to an audience. I believe strongly in the value of both verbal and non verbal communication and being a musician has brought that to the forefront of my interactions in my day-to-day life. There are so many nuances and colours that we seek to find in music and being a singer allows us to fine tune our senses and to value the responsibility of communication in life as well as on stage.

Travel is probably one of the best things about being a singer, and in some regards, the worst. I absolutely LOVE the fact that we get to travel and see new parts of the world; however, distance can be draining on one’s personal life! It’s always about finding a balance between what I want in life and what I want in career- as long as they run parallel, I’m happy!

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

Well, my guilty pleasure is youtubing pug dog videos (I know, it’s really strange.) I don’t really watch much television, but will unwind after a long rehearsal and watch Law and Order from time to time. As for music, I’m listening to a fair bit of early music these days- Jordi Savall and Paolo Pandolfo are two great viola da gambists that are on my IPOD. I also recently discovered a great singer of baroque Neopolitan songs, Pino de Vittorio, who totally blew my mind. As for my running playlist, it’s a pretty unique mix of Bebo and Cigala, Martin Sexton, Nina Simone, The Tallest Man on Earth, Van Morisson, and The Black Keys.

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

I really wish I were a better piano player. I would also love to play the guitar.

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

MLI really enjoy running and doing yoga. I also love to cook. I’m happiest when I can spend time with my boyfriend, my family and friends, and my pug dog, Luciano. Between contracts I normally find myself picking up unusual projects. Last year, I taught myself how to make reclaimed wood tables and landscaped my sister’s backyard.

Five more about appearing in the Opera Atelier production of Der Freischütz

1) How does singing the role of Agathe challenge you?

Agathe is one of the bigger roles in the lyric repertoire, so the vocal demands alone are a great challenge. Weber’s writing demands a seamless line, long sustained pianissimo phrases, as well a great deal of agility and thrust. From a character perspective, it’s a challenge to make Agathe relatable to a modern audience. She is typically portrayed as being a very simple, pious heroine, when in fact she is a character of great humanity, resilience, and grace.

2) What do you love about Agathe and Der Freischütz: both the role & your part in this production?

I simply love singing the music. Agathe’s writing is really quite a contrast to the rest of the opera. It harkens more toward Classicism than Romanticism in it’s orchestration- almost Mozartian at times. The lines I get to sing are simply stunning. As for my cast, I couldn’t be happier- it is a group of phenomenal artists, led by a fantastic creative team. We’re having a lot of fun!

3) Do you have a favourite moment in Der Freischütz? 

I definitely do and it’s the finale. The director has included a beautiful theatrical quote from one of the most famous ballets. You’ll have to buy tickets to see!

4) How do you relate to Agathe as a modern woman?

Der Freischütz is really the story of two lovers trying to find themselves in the context of their relationship to one another and to the world around them. Although some of the 19th Century references may seem dated, the themes are very relevant to people’s romantic relationships today. Doubt, sacrifice, excitement, commitment, demonstrations and proclamations of love and worth- they are all issues that couples face on the road to a life together. As a modern woman, I relate to Agathe’s sensuality, her openness, her faith in her partner, and her faith in the world.

5) Is there an influential artist whose recording you’d care to name whose work you especially admire?

One of my favourite recordings is Elizabeth Schwarzkopf’s recording of Strauss’ Four Last Songs with George Szell and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I also love Regine Crespin’s recording of Ravel’s Scheherazade and Berlioz’s Nuits D’Eté under the baton of Ernest Ansermet. I admire the sensitivity and artistry of both of those singers.

~~~~~~~

Opera Atelier’s new period production of Der Freischütz premieres Saturday night, October 27th at the Elgin Theatre, running until November 3rd.  Hm, i wonder what the finale will be like?

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AGO News Release | Communique

Posted on October 23, 2012 by barczablog

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

Two Canadians Vie for $50,000 Grange Prize

Voting ends October 30 at 11:59 pm; Winner announced at AGO 1st Thursdays on November 1

(TORONTO Oct. 22, 2012) On Nov. 1, 2012, the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and Aeroplan, an Aimia company, will announce the winner of The Grange Prize 2012, Canada’s only major art and culture prize whose winner is chosen entirely by public vote.

This year, the prestigious competition features photographers from Canada and the United Kingdom. The works of all four finalists explore the world of images that surround us every day.

The two Canadian finalists, Emmanuelle Léonard and Annie MacDonell, use various media to examine authority, beauty, and the art of looking, respectively.

Montréal native Emmanuelle Léonard is a graduate from the Université du Québec à Montréal. Her photographs are expressions of social, cultural and political forces. Working in photography, video, film, animation and even newspaper format, Léonard engages with the conventions of documentary, press and forensic photography as well as video surveillance. In each new body of work, she questions such tenets as artistic and legal authority, the nature of evidence and perceptions of beauty. Her works tackle the persuasive nature of the photographic image, how it influences young minds, relays power and performs as unbiased evidence in our justice systems – provoking her viewers to ask who creates photographs, for whom and to what end.

Léonard has exhibited widely at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Kunsthaus Dresden and Neuer Berliner Kuntsverein in Germany, and Mercer Union in Toronto. In 2005, she was the recipient of the Pierre-Ayot Award, presented by the city of Montréal for excellence in visual arts.

Employing photography, film, sculpture, installation and other media, Annie MacDonell’s work begins from the position that in the 21st century, images are exhausted and their use must always be accompanied by a critical stance towards representation and presentation, production and reproduction. Her work draws attention to how still and moving images are staged in the spaces of gallery and cinema, thereby creating multi-layered, uncanny and formally elegant meditations on the act of looking.

MacDonell is based in Toronto and works with a variety of media. Moving between appropriation, re-animation and deconstruction, her practice includes photography, film, installation, sculpture and sound. She studied photography at Ryerson’s School of Image Arts, and received her MFA at Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains, in France. Her photos have been shown at the Art Gallery of Windsor, the AGO, The Power Plant and Le Grand Palais in Paris.

Léonard and MacDonell, along with Jason Evans and Jo Longhurst from the U.K. were selected by a nominating jury led by Sophie Hackett, assistant curator of photography at the AGO, and including Sara Knelman, a London, U.K.-based writer and curator; Charlotte Cotton, a prominent writer and curator; and U.K.-based artist duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin.

Online voting continues at http://www.thegrangeprize.com and is open until 11:59 p.m. on Oct. 30, 2012. The winner will be announced on Nov. 1, 2012 at a public party at the AGO, part of AGO 1st Thursdays. Tickets to the event, which will be hosted by Stacey McKenzie includes a performance by DIANA and a DJ set by Austra’s Katie Stelmanis, can be purchased at http://www.ago.net/1st-thursdays-november-1-2012. The artists’ works will be on exhibition at the AGO and at Canada House in London, U.K. until Jan. 6, 2013.

Updates, blog posts and more information about The Grange Prize can be found at www.thegrangeprize.com.

Contemporary programming at the AGO is generously supported by The Canada Council for the Arts.

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