Opera Atelier’s beautiful Magic Flute returns to the Elgin Theatre

Posted on October 16, 2025 by barczablog

Opera Atelier are back with the Magic Flute for their fall season at the Elgin Theatre, doing what they do best, in the first of four performances at the Elgin Theatre Wednesday October 15th.

Accompanied by Tafelmusik Orchestra who play on period instruments, their historically informed brand of opera uses movement vocabularies aiming for period authenticity, while playing up the joyful comedy in Mozart’s late opera. They sang a modern English translation so clearly enunciated we didn’t need the surtitles, even though they had the courtesy to offer them.

Tamino (Colin Ainsworth), the Three Ladies (Carla Huhtanen, Laura Pudwell & Danielle MacMillan), plus an unidentified dragon (photo: Bruce Zinger)

Although we sit in a theatre lit by modern lighting, Gerard Gauci’s set design encourages a period dramaturgy, employing an obviously retro stage-craft that is deliberately theatrical, where flowing fabrics simulate water & air, and where the singers never pretend that we are in a realistic space. At one point Tamino points at the dead monster speaking of its dead body lying “in the wings.” The arrival and departure of The Queen of the Night inspires awe even if the moment is completely artificial.

The Queen of the Night (Rainelle Krause), Tamino (Colin Ainsworth) and the Three Ladies (Carla Huhtanen, Laura Pudwell & Danielle MacMillan), Conductor David Fallis leading Tafelmusik Orchestra (photo: Bruce Zinger)

When Tamino observes the animals responding to his playing of the magic flute, they are cute two-dimensional cutouts, rather than modern CGI, even if the effect is every bit as magical.

Tamino (Colin Ainsworth) observing the (fake) animals around him (photo: Bruce Zinger)

That’s part of the fun.

This is a deliberately old-fashioned approach to an opera that often gets revised due to political considerations such as race or gender, as in the recent production from the Canadian Opera Company. The first act flew by flying on the wings of David Fallis’s swift tempi leading Tafelmusik. I found it completely delightful to lose myself in the flawless beauty of the singing, the broad comedy of the acting and the lush colours of Gauci’s set and the costumes from Dora Rust d’Eye & Michael Gianfresco.

Most memorable as usual is that brief cameo appearance, the role that stays in your head because of the unique writing of the role, namely The Queen of the Night, here brilliantly sung by Rainelle Krause, including a stunning encore of part of her second aria featuring extra interpolated high notes, perhaps the most spectacular special effect of the night. No it’s not a long role, only two arias plus a tiny appearance during the finale, but it’s her image on the cover of the program, the one we always remember.

A snapshot of my program.

The cast features performances from Opera Atelier regulars, their voices sounding excellent in the clear acoustic of the Elgin Theatre. Colin Ainsworth continues to sing effortlessly, sounding like a young prince, with Douglas Williams as his comic side-kick, both of them completely human in their characterization, enunciating the text perfectly. Ainsworth’s Tamino is lighter-hearted than in previous incarnations, less of the pompous prince than usual. Meghan Lindsay’s Pamina is his perfect match, playing up the darker trajectories of the story, until the trials at the end.

Pamina (Meghan Lindsay) & Papageno (Douglas Williams, photo: Bruce Zinger)

Papageno finds his Papagena in Karine White, making the most of their lovely moment towards the end of the opera.

Stephen Hegedus was the main counter-balance to the comedy, his voice supplying genuine gravitas in the role of Sarastro. The Nathaniel Dett Chorale sounded splendid especially in the big climactic choruses to conclude each act. As his henchmen, Olivier Laquerre & Alex Cappellazzo supported Sarastro’s attempt to convert the two initiates, Laquerre doubling as the Speaker who first welcomes & questions Tamino, while Alex channelling the comical side of the initiation as he plays off of Papageno.

The final tableau of The Magic Flute (photo: Bruce Zinger)

The Three Ladies, who do so much in the first part of the opera before Mozart & librettist Schikaneder shift the direction of the story away from illusion towards something deeper & truer, were two longtime stalwarts, namely Carla Huhtanen & Laura Pudwell plus Danielle MacMillan, all three impeccably on pitch and hysterically funny. I have been listening to this opera since I was a little boy, a sucker for its farcical moments, which might be why I surrender to the silly stuff more than the allegory, as I loved Blaise Rantoanina’s frenetic take on Monostatos, stealing the show with his agile voice and physicality.

Opera Atelier began 40 years ago, as co-Artistic Director Marshall Pynkoski reminded us in his pre-show talk. At one time their focus was historicity, defending their choices in the face of critical skepticism as they established a recognizable brand. But whatever operatic works Marshall & his co-artistic director & choreographer Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg undertake, there is a second unacknowledged side, namely their original ideas, that I don’t think receive sufficient credit. At times I think they’ve hidden their creativity behind the mask of historicity, given the originality we regularly encounter.

I’m curious to hear more about their spring production of Pelléas et Mélisande, coming to Koerner Hall in April 2026. Their website says “The groundbreaking production of Pelléas et Mélisande takes Opera Atelier and Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra into the latest repertoire either company has ever produced, creating a whole new definition for period production.”

I can’t wait to see and hear that. But this week the Magic Flute continues with performances Thursday & Saturday nights plus a matinee Sunday.

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Superb Orfeo revival

Posted on October 13, 2025 by barczablog

I was delighted by the Canadian Opera Company revival of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice Saturday at the Four Seasons Centre. Although I thought I liked it well enough when I saw it in 2011 I never expected the gushing tears flooding down my face through much of Act II. Perhaps I understood it better this time.

Some of the credit belongs to counter-tenor Iestyn Davies in a superb note-perfect performance, a display of impeccable musicianship in a role requiring him to be onstage singing or reacting for almost the entire 90 minutes. His portrayal of the Thracian singer was remarkably understated, his facial expressions & physical movement as dignified & restrained as his singing.

I must also thank conductor Bernard Labadie, making the COC orchestra sound like a totally new band, their modern strings as dry and clean as a period performance ensemble, tempi fast and urgent, the stage action and the music working together brilliantly. Between Labadie & chorus master Sandra Horst, the COC chorus were the most important contributors both musically & dramatically. On set & costume designer Tobias Hoheisel’s bare stage and in his understated costuming, the chorus repeatedly framed a context for Orfeo as though they were part of the set design.

Perhaps the difference is me, that the passing of my mother in the past year has softened me up, has changed my sensibility at least for awhile, perhaps permanently. Anyone who has lost a loved one in the past few years might feel the same way about Robert Carsen’s minimalist staging, watching a lover going to the underworld to bring back the one they’ve lost. The ambiguities of the way the chorus appear allow you to project, to hang whatever emotions you like upon these images, that might connote something vaguely spiritual. And they sound & look beautiful in each act. The minimalist stagecraft is purposeful, making the chorus a bit of a Rorschach inkblot with music, where you will see whatever your psychology chooses, especially in Act Two when we’re dealing with life after death in the story.

But to repeat: yes! It worked for me and may or may not work for other people. I was overwhelmed by what felt like a glimpse of spirits in the next world. I have been listening to this music for a very long time, and it has never moved me so much.

There are only three soloists, with the biggest share falling to Orfeo (Iestyn Davies) who’s onstage, singing or reacting for most of the opera, and engaging a great deal with the chorus throughout.

Iestyn Davies and the COC Chorus (photo: Michael Cooper)

While Euridice (Anna-Sophie Neher) and Amore (Catherine St-Arnaud) are important figures in Orfeo’s conflicts, they are somewhat two dimensional in Calzabigi’s libretto, existing in the opera primarily for what they offer to illuminate in Orfeo’s story without much more than that. Given those limitations they both were remarkable singing actors. Indeed Orfeo too is very narrow in his focus, even given the length of the role, and that comes back to Calzabigi & Gluck in their reforms.

Amore engages with Orfeo’s grief both in the first and last acts, but otherwise we know nothing about his / her own feelings (phrased that way because Amore’s gender is ambiguous in Carsen’s reading). St-Arnaud brought positive energy to her portrayal, bringing each act to life when she appeared: very much as her role requires.

Amore (Catherine St-Arnaud) and Orfeo (Iestyn Davies, photo: Michael Cooper)

While we hear Euridice’s distress when Orfeo won’t look upon her, we only know her in her relationship to him, and in the drama as far as his choice to resist or finally to look back at her. The staging and Neher’s portrayal are poised on the edge between romantic comedy and something much darker. I’m grateful for the happy ending even if some purists might prefer the version of the story ending in Orfeo’s heartbreak without any rescue. Not me, especially alongside Romeo et Juliette, the other fall opera from the COC.

Orfeo (Iestyn Davies) resisting Euridice (Anna-Sophie Neher, photo: Michael Cooper)

Act One is full of emotional reflection about love and loss, the exposition of the challenges Orfeo faces. He is despondent at having lost Euridice, whose body is covered in a shroud, and then is being buried by the chorus. Amore appears, telling Orfeo that Jupiter has pity for his grief, offering him an opportunity to find Euridice, provided he can calm the Furies with his music, and bring her back to the Earth. But of course Amore stipulates that he must not look upon her or he will lose her forever.

Act Two is a fascinating mix of action and lyricism, as Orfeo enters the underworld, singing his beautiful music in response to the Furies, who relent. He then encounters the Blessed Spirits, before being reunited with Euridice and beginning their return.

In the Third Act, when Orfeo tries to lead Euridice back to the surface while obeying the command not to look back, the tone is at times almost comical, even drawing laughter from the audience. Eventually he relents, looks back, and she dies. After the celebrated aria “che faro senza Euridice” and his further expressions of despair, Amore returns, declaring that Orfeo has proven his love and so he is reunited with Euridice, who is revived amid rejoicing & celebration to end the opera.

It was in Act Two that I had the strongest response, the act that I liked best when I only knew Gluck from sheet music or recordings, especially Orfeo’s encounters with Furies & the Blessed Spirits.

This isn’t the first time that it took me a couple of views to really understand what Carsen was doing, to properly appreciate the depths of his work, recalling his Dialogues des Carmelites & Eugene Onegin. Carsen’s minimalism is much more than a parallel to the reform dramaturgy of Gluck that stripped away baroque excesses of previous decades, simplifying the way his opera works. The chorus is foregrounded, performing key functions especially in the Second Act, in both the musical & dramatic realms. I want to affirm the value of multiple hearings & viewings, that there’s no shame in not getting something the first time.

Iestyn Davies and the COC Chorus (photo: Michael Cooper)

As I ponder my tearful response to a show I saw & admired back in 2011, I question whether the revival as directed by Christophe Gayra is substantially different from the original by Robert Carsen, or if the show is largely the same and it’s just me, that I am a different person, fourteen years later. Whatever the reasons, I have my ticket to see the show again, and recommend it. I feel the seasonal impulse of Thanksgiving, a rush of gratitude for a brilliant experience.

The COC revival is a co-production with Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Fondazione Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Opéra Royal Château de Versailles Spectacles, and Lyric Opera of Chicago last performed by the COC in 2011. Remaining performances of Orfeo ed Euridice are on October 15, 17, 19, 21, 25.

Iestyn Davies and the COC Chorus (photo: Michael Cooper)
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William Shookhoff discusses political operas: Menotti’s The Consul from Opera By Request

Posted on October 10, 2025 by barczablog

Opera by Request will be presenting Giancarlo Menotti’s The Consul, an opera premiered in 1950 during the Red Scare, a time with significant parallels to our own.

I asked William (Bill) Shookhoff, the Artistic Director of OBR, about the project.

William (Bill) Shookhoff and Ken Baker, in a recent image from Facebook

Here’s the caption Bill put on a picture he posted on Facebook of himself with Ken Baker:
“Reviewing the role of Mr. Kofner with Ken Baker, who last sang it a mere 47 years ago. Preparation for OBR’s performance of The Consul on Saturday, October 25th, College St United Church. Without changing a note of the score (only the language of the Foreign Woman), our concert performance will be clearly set in the present, in a country just to the south of ours. Proceeds will go to human rights organizations.”

*******

Barczablog:  How would you summarize the basic conflict of The Consul?

Bill Shookhoff: The hounding, by the authorities, of John, the revolutionary, and the pressure brought on his family.  The constant attempts by his wife, Magda, to find safe haven in another country, and the constant bureaucratic obstacles encountered at the Consulate.  Magda is definitely the central focus.

Brigitte Bogar, Soprano as Magda Sorel

BB: Why is that of interest to you ? 

Bill Shookhoff: Menotti wrote this during the Cold War and the parallel Red Scare in the US.  By keeping the references to specific locales ambiguous, he allows his audience to fill in whatever gaps seem appropriate.  The piece has always struck me as extremely powerful, and in today’s world, it resonates even more powerfully.

BB: Remind me, what’s your background .

Bill Shookhoff: I was born in the US and my family and most of my childhood friends still live there.  Fortunately, today’s technology allows us to stay connected, but the reluctance to cross the border (from both sides) is a definite heartache.

BB: Who will be singing in OBR’s production .

Sebastien Belcourt, Baritone as John Sorel

Bill Shookhoff: It’s a large cast: 
Brigitte Bogar,
Sebastien Belcourt,
Karina Bray,
Zoe Clarke,
Brittany Stewart,
Lucas Kuipers,
Julia MacVicar,
Monica Zerbe,
Kenneth Baker,
Taylor Gibbs,
Joshua Read.

Taylor Gibbs, Baritone as Chief of Police

BB: Does this feel like an elbows up moment?

Bill Shookhoff: Definitely.  It was actually a Facebook post suggesting how appropriate this opera is today that prompted me to remount it.  Without detracting from the original piece, we will be adding some contemporary references via supernumeraries and projections.

Karina Bray, Mezzo-Soprano as Mother

BB: Do you have any favourite political operas/ works?

Bill Shookhoff: There are a few:  Fidelio, The Crucible, Death of Klinghoffer, Andrea Chenier. 

Several others, while still operatic masterpieces, unfortunately lose the political power of the historical events and/or dramas upon which they’re based (Tosca, Maria Stuarda, Un Ballo in Maschera, William Tell).  Don Carlo, Luisa Miller, undoubtedly others, manage a bit of both:  operatic romantic drama with historical/political overtones.

BB: If you get the right signal in response, do you think you might do other operas with political overtones?

Bill Shookhoff: Definitely.  Perhaps will explore the contemporary layering of this production, depending on the reaction.

BB: What’s next for Opera by Request after this? 

Bill Shookhoff: Salome and Cendrillon are definitely on the books for this season.  A couple of bigger projects, still dependent on funding, are in the works.  A new commissioned work, for OBR’s 20th Anniversary in 2027, is currently in development.

*******

OPERA BY REQUEST presents Giancarlo Menotti’s THE CONSUL  
College Street United Church, 452 Bathurst St (College), Saturday, October 25th, 7:30pm. 
Admission is by donation at the door.  All proceeds will go to Human Rights organizations.

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COC’s highly original Roméo et Juliette

Posted on October 6, 2025 by barczablog

It might be the best-known of all Shakespeare stories, the star-crossed lovers, dying young for love. Romeo and Juliet becomes Roméo et Juliette when a French composer such as Charles Gounod (1867) is telling the story in music.

The rental production of Gounod’s opera from Malmo Opera being presented by the Canadian Opera Company, is directed by Amy Lane, who created the complex and edgy style seen in the production of Gounod’s Faust from the COC almost exactly a year ago.

Gertrude (Megan Latham), Juliette (Kseniia Proshina), Frère Laurent (Robert Pomakov) & Roméo (Stephen Costello) (photo: Michael Cooper)

The musical side of this production comes from conductor Yves Abel and the COC’s Chorus Master Sandra Horst, between them creating a beautiful reading of Gounod’s opera.

The singing is a strength of the show, led by Stephen Costello throughout, and Kseniia Proshina, who seemed to get stronger as the opera went on. It occurs to me (as i add this the morning after) that this maybe reflects the shape of the original play. Romeo is foregrounded at first with his Rosaline obsession, with his entourage (especially Mercutio), while the story shifts to focus more on Juliet with her “gallop apace you firey footed steeds” and her machinations to be married or escape marriage with Friar Laurence’s help. And with that shift, she is less the girl and more the woman, her feelings so much deeper at the end than what we see at the start, especially if we look at her through Gounod’s lens, aka her cheery aria, that the director seems to deconstruct (see photo below). I must have another look at this show as there may be something seriously feministic at work in her trajectory. I will see the opera again from up close.

Tybalt & Mercutio, antagonists who both end up dead on the stage, were especially well sung by Canadians Owen McCausland and Gordon Bintner, and who were in my opinion the dramatic standouts in the show, and vocally gorgeous to hear. Megan Latham was a pleasure to watch and to hear as Juliette’s nurse. Alex Hetherington made a superb appearance in her big scene singing a stunning rendition of her aria. Robert Pomakov portrayed a trusty Frère Laurent.

Lane has chosen to underline many moments of the opera with dance, even more so than what we saw in Faust.

Juliette (Kseniia Proshina) singing her first big aria (photo: Michael Cooper)

The dancers added something especially meaningful when it came time for Juliette to take her potion to simulate death, a fascinating bit of theatricality suggesting how difficult that experience must have been for Juliette. It’s completely simple, a highly original staging.

Juliette (Kseniia Proshina) and dancers (photo: Michael Cooper)

Lane has updated the story to New York City, on New Year’s Eve, 1889. Her program note explains some of her thinking. Before anyone objects to the updating, I want to repeat what I said about Robert Lepage’s MacBeth that I saw last month in Stratford, that it’s no more strange to hear Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter delivered by people in togas or kilts, than to watch men on motorbikes & wearing leather jackets speaking the poetry of the Scottish Play. The opening chorus number is a big waltz tune that sounds kind of Slavic actually, and doesn’t suggest Verona to me.

When we’re taking Shakespeare and having people sing opera it’s somewhat absurd to get all fundamentalist about what can or cannot be done in a director’s interpretation. So in other words taking the feuding families to a new place (NY City), when they’re also singing arias & choruses in French, surely is no big deal. We still see the lovers, the duels, the deaths. What matters is a chance to get a new perspective, to see the story in a new way. I enjoyed that. Mercutio, Tybalt & Roméo fight with knives rather than swords, but (spoiler alert) they all still die. The lovers still do what lovers do.

I was very moved.

I also came close to giggling aloud seeing the last line of the opera in the titles, as the lovers sing “Seigneur, Seigneur, pardonnez-nous !” (Lord Lord forgive us), recalling that suicide is a sin. Shakespeare didn’t have a problem with it but oh well that’s something the librettists (Jules Barbier and Michel Carré) likely felt they had to include for their bourgeois Catholic audience. I wonder, when they asked Gounod to set that as the last line of the opera, whether either of them thought to say a little parenthetical prayer to the spirit of Shakespeare, asking him to forgive them for what they did to his text. Oh well.

Speaking of text & libretto I wanted to call attention to the greater effort made by the COC in putting up surtitles in both French & English. It’s terrific until you come to the da capo repeat of an aria or a chorus, when for some reason the titles aren’t there. I would ask the people who created the titles: if you don’t need to translate the last lines of (say) “ah leve toi soleil” why translate the first part, indeed why have titles at all?

Yes the COC surtitles are a terrific step forward, invented in the 1980s and changing the world of opera. That doesn’t mean the innovation is already perfect anymore than Monteverdi’s dramaturgy represented an operatic ideal in 1600 that could not be improved. Perhaps things can be done better? But I don’t know that I have ever seen anyone discuss the titles. It was possible to look up at the text in French as sung and to see something beside it in English that was sometimes different from what the French text said. Should the translation represent a precise translation? Or should they aim for something poetic, Shakespearean? I am not proposing to answer the question, but to my knowledge this question has never been posed, at least not here in Toronto. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

The production of Roméo et Juliette continues at the Four Seasons Centre with performances October 8, 10, 14, 16 and 18.

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Scarborough Philharmonic Voyages

Posted on October 4, 2025 by barczablog

For a little while I was able to go far away from the world, as Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra helped me & the enthusiastic audience escape at their Friday October 3rd season opener, a concert titled “Voyages”.

Escapism works for me, voyages into the imagination via the exotic and flamboyant orchestral sounds from Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, the Tall Ships from Halifax Harbour by Elizabeth Raum and then the pure emotional schmaltz of Max Bruch’s 1st violin concerto, particularly the virtuosity of violinist Conrad Chow.

Conductor Ronald Royer was a music teacher at University of Toronto Schools before his retirement, the school where young Conrad was a student under Ron’s direction. Now Conrad has gone on to an exciting career as soloist and as a teacher himself. I also went to UTS in another century, very proud whenever I feel the connection. It helps that both Ron & Conrad are such friendly approachable people. Conrad allowed me to corner him for a selfie before he got into his formal concert attire.

Conrad smiles while I juggle my camera

Ron continues to be a passionate educator, both in the programs he curates as the SPO Artistic Director, and as a music director helping his orchestra play better. And his sparkling little talks that he gives before the performances aren’t just witty, they help us to understand the music we’re hearing, taking us deeper into each piece. I am thankful for a good teacher who can show me something and help me experience the music in new ways.

We began with Scheherazade. I’ve been listening to this piece since I was a little kid, always intrigued by the exotic colours suggesting the 1001 Nights. Ron reminded us that the story was about a king who is heart-broken by a faithless wife, who vows to kill a new wife each night: but Scheherazade’s storytelling night after night seduces and finally wins him over. Ron explained that the violin soloist is portraying that storyteller, Scheherazade. Alex Toskov, the SPO Concertmaster, is featured throughout the piece.

Alex Toskov, SPO Concertmaster

Alex’s thoughtful solos were often accompanied by harpist Liliana Dimitrijevic, a stunning pair setting up the story-telling scenarios. The big theme from the lower brass in the orchestra represents the domineering husband. Rimsky-Korsakov gives colourful solos to almost every section of the orchestra, from top to bottom, including several gorgeous cello solos, the piccolo, flute, oboe, English horn, bassoon, trumpet, trombone, french horns & tuba, as well as percussion. I mention instruments rather than people because I’m not sure which player in the section had the solo, but the level of playing was gorgeous, everyone stepping up for their big moment in the spotlight.

I was struck by the bonus we enjoy sitting in the relatively small Scarborough Salvation Army Citadel, seating perhaps 400 people in a lively acoustic without excessive reverberation, basking in the richness of the sound from the soloists, and thrilled by the gorgeous intensity of the sound in the climactic passages. It’s such a simple thing, really, that instead of sharing the sound with over 2000 people as we do at Roy Thomson Hall, or 1100 people at Koerner Hall, there is so much sound, so much detail when it’s so intimate, hearing the timbre of each instrument so clearly. I am not exaggerating when I invoke that overused phrase, to call it an immersive experience. We hear and feel the music so much better. And it helps that Ron led a really dynamic reading of the piece, playing up the big climaxes, holding nothing back, reminding me again of Ron’s background in film music. The SPO were positively cinematic, sounding better than ever.

After the interval we heard from composer Elizabeth Raum describing her suite Halifax Harbour, and Tall Ships, the piece we heard that’s an excerpt from the longer piece.

Composer Elizabeth Raum

In contrast to the exotic glimpses of Sinbad & the 1001 Nights, we were in a Canadian sensibility, the energetic sound of the orchestra painting pictures that feel much closer to home, and apt for this year of “elbows up”, even if we were again encouraged to think of travel, this time voyaging out into the Atlantic Ocean. But it wasn’t nationalism on our part that we embraced the SPO’s enjoyable performance.

Next came the Bruch violin concerto and Conrad’s turn. I spoke of schmaltz because I find that Bruch invokes a certain kind of sensitive soulfulness, even if he wasn’t Jewish (and has been mistaken for Jewish because of the way he composes), just sympathetic to cultural associations, especially in his pieces for violin. I find that the first movement suggests an intense internal meditation, underscored by orchestral writing that features a rhythmic pulse that reminds me of a beating heart. The violin part flies high above the lower instruments, Conrad’s luscious tone filling the Citadel space.

We segue to Bruch’s slower second movement, a melody that soars in the simplest most direct expression, breath-taking beauty. And then the last movement allegro energico hits us with the extroverted melody from the violin soloist, a tune with suggestions of celebration and dance that I always find stays in my head for days afterwards. It was so beautiful, so uplifting. Speaking of lifting up, we were jumping up on our feet afterwards, thanking Conrad and the SPO for the excitement of this concerto and their performances.

At the beginning of the concert we had the opportunity to meet Michael Jones, the new Executive Director of the SPO, who gave one of the most interesting & heart-felt Land Acknowledgements I have ever heard.

Michael Jones, the new Executive Director of the SPO

I’m looking forward to seeing & hearing where Michael and Ron lead the SPO in the years to come.

The Scarborough Philharmonic will be back November 1st in a varied program titled “Crossroads”. To find out more about the program or to get tickets click here.

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The lustful lessons of Slave Play

Posted on October 2, 2025 by barczablog

Wednesday October 1st was the opening night of Canadian Stage’s production of Slave Play, by Jeremy O. Harris, a very original work getting its Canadian premiere at the Berkeley St Theatre, directed by Jordan Laffrenier.

The premise is only part of what makes Slave Play so good, a series of inter-racial couples undergoing a kind of therapy via psychodrama role-play, what they call Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy. You’ll recall that “antebellum” is another way of speaking of the period before the American Civil War and emancipation. We find that out in the 2nd Act, when the therapists take charge of a series of analytical conversations, explaining to us what we’ve seen in the 1st Act.

But OMG to begin? it’s not at all clear what we are seeing. I love the ambiguity and perplexing mystery of what we see to begin. It’s not at all clear what we are seeing. First we meet Kaneisha (Sophia Walker) sweeping the floor, but inspired by modern music to twerk as she works.

Kaneisha (Sophia Walker) , photo: Dahlia Katz

Jim (Gord Rand) comes in, speaking in a southern drawl as Kaneisha’s white overseer, a scenario that becomes progressively more sexual. Hm we’re not watching something from the true antebellum South, not when a woman who is working as a slave is twerking to modern music.

Next we encounter Alana (Amy Rutherford), a well-dressed white woman who might be the wife of the plantation owner, who calls out to Phillip (Sébastien Heine), a well-dressed mulatto who is instructed to serenade her on his violin, that is before things again heat up between them. The sex-toy she has in her hands again functions as a bit of an anachronism, making it crystal clear that no we’re not in antebellum Kansas anymore.

The third couple we meet is first Gary (Kwaku Okyere) the overseer of Dustin (Justin Eddy), a slightly confusing visual given that the overseer in this case appears to be darker than the slave. But again things become physical, first with a struggle between the two men that then leads to intimacy.

(L-r) Alana (Amy Rutherford) & Phillip (Sébastien Heine); Gary (Kwaku Okyere) & Dustin (Justin Eddy); Kaneisha (Sophia Walker) & Jim (Gord Rand), photo: Dahlia Katz

It becomes much clearer in the Second Act with the arrival of Patricia (Rebecca Applebaum) & Tea (Beck Lloyd), who are two young psychotherapists, trying out their new experimental therapy.

Patricia (Rebecca Applebaum) & Tea (Beck Lloyd), photo: Dahlia Katz

I find the structure remarkable, inverting the usual. In the plays of Shaw you might see exposition in Act I, development & complication in Act II and a kind of discussion or debate for Act III. What’s provocative & profound in Harris’ dramaturgy is how we get something mysterious that is only explained/ debated for us in the Second Act, with discussions from the participants, some unpacking their feelings, some expressing their profound doubts about the new therapy. If this were opera it would be as if we had arias in the first act with the recitative explaining the drama only coming later. Because we’re watching role-play in the first act, artificial use of costumes & accents yet anachronistic (for instance in modern twerking music) we are in a kind of metatheatre, artificial performances. Unless you have read the play it’s a bit perplexing, and in the best way. There’s so much richness, so much depth I am dying to see it again.

The last act is in some respects the punchline, and I’d rather not give it away. except to suggest that Slave Play sits neatly on the knife edge, managing to be both a satire full of laughter and a social commentary with moments of genuine pathos.

When I looked for and found the play online I discovered that each Act has a title. Act 1 is “WORK”, Act 2 is “PROCESS” and Act 3 is “EXORCISE.”

Slave Play reminds me strongly of the group therapy and psychodrama I experienced back in the 1980s, complete with the mixture of committed believers and skeptical agnostics. We balance on the edge between a kind of sex comedy and a serious social satire, and I suspect the key might be right in the set design of Gillian Gallow, as we see the show enacted in front of a mirror. You will likely see yourself in this play, but of course it will reflect what you bring. Skeptics will see reason to be skeptical, believers something to believe. The jargon of the therapists is way over the top at times, but they’re not the only ones generating humour.

At a time when white supremacy seems to be making a comeback, thinking especially of our neighbors to the south of us, this is a timely play affording total escapism. I did not expect to be swept away in the complexities of the interactions of the three couples. I found Sophia Walker’s Kaneisha especially sympathetic, Kwaku Okyere’s Gary full of raw vulnerability. Speaking as someone who read most of the play beforehand, I still found so much complexity that I’m dying to see it again. If you haven’t read it the text is likely to be even more absorbing, the ambiguities likely even more challenging. There are some moments that might be triggering especially for persons of colour. But I believe this is ultimately a safe treatment of explosive issues of race dynamics & sexuality.

Seen live, the music adds a remarkable dimension, as though something unconscious is released, something Patricia & Tea (the therapists) call “musical-obsession disorder”, that they say with a straight face (and the audience didn’t laugh although I did softly). There are a few music credits for the show, plus the subtleties of the sound design from Thomas Ryder Paine, and honestly I don’t know whom to credit except to say that this adds another dimension to the play.

Patricia & Tea also describe Racialized Inhibiting Disorder” or RID for short. That’s more serious in my view, although depending on the way it’s presented, there’s a ton of possible comedy buried in this text. Laffrenier manages to balance the comical & serious, the agnostics doubting the value of the new therapy with those who believe. It’s quite exciting.

Slave Play runs until at least October 26th. I strongly recommend you see it.

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Lazzuli Baroque Presents: Music & Medicine

Posted on September 29, 2025 by barczablog

Lazzuli Baroque Presents: Music & Medicine
October 3rd — 7:30PM
St. Thomas’s Anglican Church,
383 Huron Street, Toronto (ON)

Featuring:
Luce Burrell, lute & theorbo
Keiran Campbell, baroque cello
Rocky Duval, mezzo-soprano
Roseline Lambert, soprano

Lazzuli Baroque is proud to present their latest show, Music & Medicine. Featuring music from early 17th century Italy and Spain, soprano Roseline Lambert and mezzo-soprano Rocky Duval are joined by lute and theorbo player Luce Burrell and five string baroque cello player Keiran Campbell. Music & Medicine will take place on October 3rd at 7:30 pm at St. Thomas’s Anglican Church. Tickets are available on Eventbrite, or at the door.

Music & Medicine is a musical meditation on what it means to heal the body, mind, and spirit. Weaving together 17th century masterpieces, the five elements of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and poetry from great healers throughout the centuries, Lazzuli Baroque presents a program that fills the heart, and soothes the soul. Featuring works by Monteverdi, Strozzi, Merula, Stefani, Galán, Fontei, and more.

About Lazzuli Baroque:
Lazzuli Baroque was born as a love letter to tight soprano harmonies and raucously fun music making. Founded by soprano Roseline Lambert and mezzo-soprano Rocky Duval, the band is a delightful amalgam of sensual baroque technique and virtuosic prowess. Here to make you smile, laugh, cry, and above all, enjoy the delicious beauty of baroque music, they are joined by some of the finest early music musicians: cello player Keiran Campbell, and lute & theorbo player Luce Burrell.

About Luce Burrell:
Luce Burrell (they/them) is a lutenist originally from the Rocky Mountains of Wyoming. They have performed with ensembles such as Clarion Music Society, Lazzuli Baroque, Silentwoods Collective, Theotokos Ensemble, Mannes Opera and they have appeared in concert series for Gotham Early Music Scene, SoHip Boston, and the Bloomington Early Music Festival. They are passionate about making early music accessible and have appeared as a guest artist in lectures at Harvard and Indiana Universities discussing music of the Baroque and middle ages. Luce also works as a historical keyboard technician and has prepared instruments for productions at The Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall, among other venues. Luce holds a bachelor’s degree from the New England Conservatory of Music and a master’s degree from the the Jacobs School of Music where they were a Historical Performance Fellow in the studio of Nigel North.

About Keiran Campbell
Described as “a delightful performer… playing with the ease of a pub fiddler,” (The WholeNote), Keiran Campbell (he/him) has performed with ensembles including The English Concert, NYBI, Philharmonia Baroque, The Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Four Nations Ensemble, and Les Violons du Roy. He recently performed with Le Concert Des Nations under Jordi Savall, touring Europe performing Beethoven Symphonies before recording them on Savall’s new Beethoven CD. He is also on faculty at the recently formed, UC Berkeley-based, Chamber Music Collective. Recent performance highlights include concerto appearances with Tafelmusik and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, and performances of Handel’s Saul and Solomon with English Concert at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festival.
https://keirancampbellcellist.com/

About Rocky Duval:
American singer, performance poet, and writer Rocky Duval (she/her) has been performing professionally since the age of 11 and has appeared in opera, television, stage, concert, off-Broadway, and the TEDx stage. Hailed as “deeply moving” (NYPL-LPA), and “extravagant” (NY Times), Ms. Duval specializes in singing baroque and contemporary classical music, and has performed with many companies, including: The Metropolitan Opera Guild, Seattle Opera, The Glimmerglass Festival, Festival Bach Montreal, Frequent Flyers Aerial Dance, The Colorado Music Festival, The Seattle Symphony, Opera Steamboat, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute, among many others. Her first play, Hildegard, Reborn, premiered at Lincoln Center with sponsorship from the NYPL-Library for the Performing Arts in 2024. She has been a resident artist at 2B&2C Gallery NYC, Avaloch Farm Music Institute, The Guggenheim’s Works and Process, and the Art in Odd Places Festival.
https://rockyduval.com/

About Roseline Lambert:
Originally from Quebec City, soprano Roseline Lambert (she/her) quickly made her way into the baroque scene of Toronto. She regularly sings with professional ensembles such as Trinity Bach Project, and is a core member of the Tafelmusik Chamber Choir. In April 2025, she made her solo debut with Opera Atelier in Charpentier’s David et Jonathas. While her repertoire is mainly baroque, she has been invited to sing in contemporary choirs such as Soundstreams Choir 21. Before moving to Toronto, Roseline was in high demand in Montreal. Her repertoire as a soloist includes Haydn’s Creation, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Buxtehude’s Membra Jesu Nostri, Bach’s Wedding Cantata, among others. She also took part of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale tour with Jeunesses Musicales Canada, and was soloist with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and the Choeur Classique de Montréal. Roseline is also a registered acupuncturist practicing in Toronto. When she isn’t singing or poking people, she is out and about salsa dancing, swing dancing, or riding her bike Marcello.
https://www.roselinelambert.com/

Listing information:
Lazzuli Baroque presents: Music & Medicine
Featuring:
Luce Burrell, lute & theorbo
Keiran Campbell, baroque cello
Rocky Duval, mezzo-soprano
Roseline Lambert, soprano
October 3rd, 7:30 pm – St. Thomas’s Anglican Church
General seating $40. Sliding scale tickets available.
Buy at the door or on Eventbrite.
Website: https://www.roselinelambert.com/lazzulibaroque
Social Media: Join the conversation on facebook | instagram
For more information about us: https://linktr.ee/lazzulibaroque

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Rethinking Mozart 40 & Schubert 5 with Rachel Podger and Tafelmusik

Posted on September 27, 2025 by barczablog

Friday night was an exciting beginning to the Tafelmusik concert season led by their charismatic Principal Guest Director Rachel Podger featuring works of Mozart & Schubert, a concert to be repeated Saturday & Sunday at Koerner Hall.

The spectacular performances of a pair of familiar works (Mozart’s Symphony #40 and Schubert’s Symphony #5) showed the music in a new light, while displaying the remarkable chemistry we saw last year between Tafelmusik and Podger. Once again the orchestra played with the kind of tight ensemble we see in chamber music, evident not just in the precision of the music but in the eye contact & smiles of everyone onstage, clearly enjoying themselves. Whenever Podger appears with Tafelmusik the music-making is special.

Rachel Podger & members of Tafelmusik (photo: Dahlia Katz)

Tafelmusik seem to be intent on helping us to learn as we discover new ways of hearing music, often by unlearning the assumptions of the past. Charlotte Nediger’s program note includes a smoking gun from Schubert’s diary, describing the admiration with which Schubert experienced Mozart, and would emulate him at least in his choice of instruments, if not in the actual sound. What a terrific opportunity, to hear these works one after the other, blowing away the cobwebs we inherit of the retrospective thinking we get from musicology, the wisdom of hindsight that may distort the performance. I’m grateful for a new way of understanding them, that is less about musicology and influence than the practical experience of hearing the music.

Their mutual similarities are not as clear when Schubert is seen through the lens of Beethoven & subsequent romantic composers. And the view is further distorted by matters of size, when a chamber orchestra of 40-plus members or more can’t offer the subtleties we heard from the 26 playing for Tafelmusik last night, their careful musicianship reminding me of the way we understand a string quartet: their unanimity like the effect of a single instrument rather than an orchestra, the music emerging as a single thought.

And I returned again to a question I have recently found myself asking over and over, particularly since seeing the Toronto Symphony led by Mandle Cheung. How much of what we hear is via the conductor, and how much is an orchestra managing itself? We saw the kind of instantaneous response between players that one expects in chamber music. Size matters, as this cohesion becomes impossible, the bigger the band gets.

We were treated to high drama in the Mozart G minor symphony. The pace in the outer movements was fast as quicksilver, stormy, stressful, given to abrupt explosions of emotion amid passages of lyrical beauty. We think of Mozart as a paragon of the youthful genius but here we see glimpses of a darker side. He may have died at 35 but had already been a famous musician for decades, perhaps world-weary by the time he came to this his penultimate symphony. The second movement offered depths of feeling worthy of a romantic.

Between the two famous symphonies we watched and heard the theatrical dialogue of Mozart’s Rondo in B-flat for violin & orchestra. Besides aligning us with the key we’d be in for the concluding Schubert, we watched and heard the back & forth game playing of the young Mozart, a work of joyous innocence to contrast the darkness of the symphony we had heard. Not only is this a work where the music seems to play games, but Podger seemed to be toying with us, playing with our expectations in the audience. Podger was spectacular on the violin but perhaps more importantly drew something remarkable and rare from Tafelmusik, who played with passionate commitment.

Violinist Rachel Podger (Photo: Broadway Studios)

The concluding reading of the Schubert #5 reminded me a bit of the old recording I have of London Classical Players led by Roger Norrington who passed away recently. Decades later I still wish Tafelmusik would undertake more of the romantic works Norrington & the LCP recorded back in the 1980s, and believe there would be interest. Considering the wonderful job they did with the Beethoven Symphonies or works such as Weber’s Der Freischütz, I know the orchestra is more than up to it, as they showed us again Friday night. I can’t tell if I am out of step in making such a suggestion, when I see Tafelmusik promoting this concert on Facebook with a video of Rachel Podger under the heading “Baroque Music Excellence.” Yes their Bach & Handel are amazing. But I am sure they could also play Berlioz or Schumann. For now, I am grateful to hear them play Schubert and how wonderful they sound playing this music.

This splendid concert repeats Saturday & Sunday nights, and then Tafelmusik will be right back to Mozart for Opera Atelier’s Magic Flute opening October 15th at the Elgin Theatre.

Rachel Podger (Photo: Broadway Studios)

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Over 800 meals from Boheme On Tap for Daily Bread Food Bank

Posted on September 20, 2025 by barczablog

I have a new perspective on Puccini’s opera since attending La Boheme On Tap last night at the Redwood Theatre, although watching Moonstruck last week while interviewing a couple of the participants highlighted the contrast.

Yes Mimi lives in poverty, dying surrounded by her impoverished friends, a sad ending to be sure.

But I’m not so different from Ronnie (Nicholas Cage). He took Loretta(Cher) to see the opera at the Met, having previously watched this funny romantic story with the tragic conclusion many times, while it was her first time seeing the story. Impoverished as the bohemians may be, it’s a bit of escapism for those of us who actually have enough money to go to the opera. The characters in boheme may be poor but the ones in Moonstruck are mostly wealthy, boheme a lovely romance to entertain & help teach some misguided folk (Loretta & Ronnie are both messed up when the film opens) how to properly open their hearts to love.

However I may have experienced boheme in the past, I watched through a new lens last night, thanks to Ryan Hofman the co-producer of La Boheme On Tap, who brought in Daily Bread Food Bank for a fundraising auction, a natural partnership given the storyline of boheme.

I heard that they raised enough for over 800 meals.

The audience included members of Toronto’s opera community. I was too busy talking and buying raffle tickets (and I even won a prize) to photograph everyone. I ran into Kyle Derek McDonald whose operatic adaptation of Richard the Lionheart’s adventures will be presented in concert in Ottawa in November.

I talked to Opera in Concert / SOLT / Toronto Operetta Theatre artistic director Guillermo Silva-Marin and Henry Ingram. Henry spoke to me about my Toronto Symphony concert review I posted yesterday, mentioning that he had heard another less enthusiastic opinion of Marsalis’s Concerto for Orchestra. I suggested he listen to the piece, using the YouTube performance of the new work that’s in my review.

I first met Henry in 1970 when he was known as Barney rather than Henry, singing Tom Rakewell in a Rake’s Progress production with my brother Peter Barcza singing Nick Shadow, when I hazarded playing some of that score at home.

I was sitting beside Ann Cooper Gay, who was Ann Truelove in that 1970 Rake’s Progress. It was very cool to see Henry aka Barney chat with Ann his Truelove of more than a half century ago.

Ann has a remarkable history, as a music teacher, as an organist (she played at my 1st wedding), as the Artistic Director of the CCOC, mentoring many young singers. Ann seems to know everyone in Toronto and had a great time chatting with members of the audience.

I heard a great story from Ann a few days ago, when we chatted about Holly Chaplin, who played Mimi tonight in la Boheme.

Ann told me the story of hearing a small child singing Non so piu, Cherubino’s Act 1 aria from Marriage of Figaro. I’m including the video because it’s my favourite aria from this opera and to give you some idea of why it might be remarkable to hear a little child singing this.

Now imagine you’re hearing this sung by a little child. Sung correctly. And discovering that the child was only 8 years old.

That child was Holly Chaplin.

She’s all grown up now, singing roles in operas like boheme or an upcoming Lucia di Lammermoor she will be singing in a few months time.

I joked with her that she’s singing two different Lucias, if we recall that as Mimi tells us in her aria:
“Mi chiamano Mimì ma il mio nome è Lucia.” (they call me Mimi but my name is Lucia).

It was great to see Ann & Holly talking & reminiscing after the show, alongside Brahm Goldhamer, the music director & pianist last night.

Brahm Goldhamer, Ann Cooper Gay & Holly Chaplin

La Boheme On Tap gave us what we came for, an escape from a troubled world into romance, comedy & a realm of great beauty. Holly was Mimi. Joel Ricci was our poet Rodolfo, Alex Hajek Marcello the painter, Kathryn Rose Johnston the flirtatious Musetta, Dylan Wright the philosopher Colline, Andrew Tees Benoit the landlord & later Alcindoro the ATM for the feast in Act II. And our producer Ryan Hofman also sang Schaunard the musician. While there was no chorus, the story was told clearly with the help of projected titles. I couldn’t begin to count how many times I’ve seen this indestructible opera, last night with a few unique moments and the unavoidable tears at the end. I understand that they had only a few rehearsals this past week, making their successful performance something of a miracle, perhaps testimony to the skills of Brahm their music director. I understand he’s off to Ottawa today for another gig.

This is the first time an opera has been presented at the Redwood Theatre. The acoustic is very friendly, the voices heard clearly without too much reverberation. I think it’s an ideal space in many ways. Some of us were drinking beer or wine. I suspect the ways to properly exploit the space are still to be discovered. I say that enviously, to be honest, thinking it will be great fun for the Opera Revue team to explore the possibilities of different configurations & set ups.

Congratulations to Ryan & the team for a superb performance that also successfully raised funds for the Daily Bread Food Bank. If you’re interested in making any contributions or as a volunteer, here’s the link.

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O Fortuna bless Toronto Symphony to start the season

Posted on September 19, 2025 by barczablog

Forgive me that my headline sounds like a prayer to the Goddess Fortuna. But so far she seems to be smiling upon our fair city and our Toronto Symphony. I feel lucky to live in this city.

Toronto Symphony started the new season with a strong program that might be their formula for the coming season, a mix of a familiar piece with something new.

Roy Thomson Hall can sometimes seem like a big cavern, but occasionally the planets align (thank you Fortuna), as the combination of the work being presented and the massed forces make that big place seem intimate, even small. Between the full house and the full stage magic can happen.

First we heard the Canadian premiere of Wynton Marsalis’s Concerto for Orchestra, followed by Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana including soloists, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and the Toronto Children’s Chorus.

The two works hit me as a beautiful contrast, even though Music Director Gustavo Gimeno drew some interesting parallels between the two works in his pre-concert talk. At first glance the two pieces couldn’t be more different, so the opportunity to see similarities is exciting.

At one point while speaking of Marsalis’s Concerto Gimeno spoke of jazz. It’s perhaps unavoidable given Marsalis’ history as a great jazz player. He’s a genius with his trumpet.

Composer & trumpeter Wynton Marsalis

Let me add, that I remember the excitement when Marsalis first appeared on the scene back around 1980 or so. He was perhaps unique, unprecedented because he was both a jazz trumpeter and also as a classical trumpeter playing sparkling performances of concerti by Haydn and Hummel. I’m reminded of Leonard Bernstein, a similarly versatile artist, challenging us to figure him out. Is he popular or classical?

Maybe both.

So yes, Marsalis is a jazz musician & a composer. I wonder if the adjective “jazz” really fits, to label this composition in any way as “jazz”.

In fairness I want to remember that Gimeno’s goal was not musicology or analysis, but simply meant to make the music approachable, to describe the piece in a way to offer an entry point, to bring listeners in even if the work is a daring composition that is at times quite dissonant, with a driving pulsing beat such as you hear in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with just a hint of something jazzy. I think Gimeno sought to make the piece less daunting, less forbidding, more approachable. Given the way the audience ate it up, I would say he succeeded although full marks to the TSO for brilliant playing.

The music is fun, playful, astonishingly creative.

Marsalis gave us six movements in his Concerto, with a series of allusive titles to further bemuse us:
I: Who Struck John?
II: Group Speak
III: Testimonials
IV: It Comes in Waves
V: A Love Feeling
VI: Say What?

I wish I had had the titles available as I was listening to each piece. I’m not sure I understand the intention, but that’s why I need to listen again. As I try to unpack the Concerto the next morning especially for those who might consider attending one of the concerts in this series (Saturday at 7:30 & Sunday at 3:00 pm), I am going to share the YouTube I found of an earlier performance of this piece, that so far has only been performed in Los Angeles & Germany. Is it jazz? you be the judge.

I am reminded of the reception of Gustav Mahler in the 20th century, a composer who didn’t really become popular right away, at least not until people had the opportunity to hear his pieces multiple times, through the magic of recording technology. After experiencing a single performance of Marsalis’s concerto, a bit like a Mahler Symphony, I think it deserves multiple hearings, if we are to properly appreciate the depths of this music. I am in awe and insist that this is a superb piece of music.

I found myself obsessing a bit about that word jazz and its cousins in popular music, the harmonic language of blues, wondering if the idiom & the orchestral colours employed by Marsalis might be analogous to the use of a national folk music by a Dvorak or a Ralph Vaughan Williams. I think too Marsalis is aiming for a kind of sophistication, rather than something hummable, generations removed from the romantic composers I mentioned. Perhaps the dense textures of Marsalis’s writing can be understood as a kind of second or third generation elaboration upon his jazz- blues roots (perhaps with the earlier generations being Bernstein & Gershwin), the way Berg is a twist on Mahler or Stravinsky can be understood as the enlarged & distorted image first seen in earlier composers building on their slavic folk music roots.

I wonder if we should think of this as a sort of modernist or even post-modernist orchestral writing, building on certain tropes and regular figures that in isolation are recognizably “jazzy” but without necessarily being assembled into the usual structures that build to a conclusion, instead compiled as a series of fragments, a series of tiny segments without the simple goal you achieve in a Gershwin concerto. Yes there are lots of jazzy moments, melodic gestures: but rarely much of a melody, the foregrounded solos passed around through the orchestra. Similarly the chords we might have in a jazz piece are only hinted at, without letting the regular predictable structure of a jazz piece ever invade the much looser structures employed by Marsalis. For that it seems even more of an achievement for dodging the usual to build something more irregular, at times resembling a pointillist texture of momentary effects & timbres.

I have to listen again, and suggest you do so as well. I submit the YouTube performance for your consideration, to show what a brilliantly original work we heard tonight at Roy Thomson Hall, every solo by the TSO spectacular in its execution from brass, woodwinds, percussion, and even concertmaster Jonathan Crow & principal cello Joseph Johnson, in the foreground.

After intermission we heard Orff’s most famous composition, Carmina Burana.

I was swept up in reveries of long ago times, listening to this piece while getting stoned during my undergradaute years. I had forgotten that the powerful simplicity of Orff’s chorus & orchestra have a following across cultural boundaries, as beloved as Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd as stoner music, and perhaps under the radar when we consider the composers such as Berlioz usually associated with hallucinations & drugs. Have you ever listened to Carmina Burana while stoned? Marijuana is legal now, so it’s not the forbidden idea that it was back in the 1970s, when I first encountered this music as we passed joints furtively. The TSO performance with the Mendelssohn Choir, Toronto Children’s Choir and soloists was a trip. Our choruses shoulder a huge load, enunciating with stunning clarity, often understated, building gradually to climaxes at least partially thanks to TMC Music Director Jean-Sébastien Vallée.

Jean-Sébastien Vallée, Artistic Director of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir

The interpretation is a team effort, between conductor Gimeno, TMC leader Vallée as well as Zemfira Poloz preparing the Children’s Choir.

Gustavo Gimeno leading the combined forces of the Toronto Symphony, the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir & the Toronto Children’s Choir (photo: Allan Cabral)

Orff gives the lion’s share of the solos to the baritone, tonight sung by the remarkable Sean Michael Plumb.

Baritone Sean Michael Plumb (photo: Bayerische Staatsoper)

The timbre of the voice is immediately noticeable, such a pretty sound! His rich baritone has flexibility and thank goodness is always precisely in tune. Gimeno’s tempi, which were sometimes the fastest I have ever heard, challenged the soloists but nonetheless Plumb sparkled throughout.

Foreground: soprano Julie Roset, conductor Gustavo Gimeno, baritone Sean Michael Plumb, and Andrew Haji, plus the TSO (photo: Allan Cabral)

Soprano Julie Roset and tenor Andrew Haji both sounded great, Haji playing up the comedy of his song.

Tenor Andrew Haji

Gimeno had the choruses & soloists sailing through Orff’s big climaxes, a near perfect performance all round.

TSO Music Director Gustavo Gimeno (photo: Allan Cabral)

As perfect as the performances were, I watched the woman sitting beside me struggling repeatedly to see the text of the Carmina Burana in her program in the darkened hall. The exquisite drama Andrew acted out (the swan being roasted) would have been even better had his words been projected in translation. I feel we honour the performers when we project the text in translation, to fully grasp the meaning of what they are singing. In the old days this nerd prepared for operas & concerts by reading & memorizing the whole thing, to know what they were enacting & dramatizing. Maybe I’m spoiled now that titles are a normal feature of live performance. I think we would all have enjoyed the show that much more if we had been able to see the translation of the text projected. Friday night I will see La boheme at the tiny Redwood Theatre in a performance that will feature projected surtitles for a work I know really well. While it may be the same for the Orff, (that many of us in the audience know the text), I still believe the performance would be enhanced by the projection of the translation on a surface in Roy Thomson Hall, enhancing the experience for everyone. Excuse me that I keep making this observation whenever I see a concert with text at Roy Thomson Hall. But any piece of music with words being sung deserves to be properly understood. We don’t watch foreign films without subtitles, right? I think maybe that’s why I was suddenly having a flashback, remembering times from long ago, when I used to listen to Orff with my friends , the music washing over us as we were stoned on marijuana with little idea of what the Latin words meant: except maybe “O Fortuna”. But the memory is a good one, the music a stunning experience.

Thank you TSO, and thank you Fortuna, we are blessed indeed.

The concert will be repeated Saturday at 7:30 & Sunday at 3:00 pm.

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