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Questions for Dean Burry: Shanawdithit

Posted on April 20, 2019 by barczablog

I hope you’ll forgive me if I pause to take a breath before I attempt to tell you who Dean Burry is, a man who wears so many hats one doesn’t always know how to address him.

Professor? Composer? Librettist? Maestro?

Across all those different disciplines (and even others I didn’t mention) Dean is always busy. He is arguably the most successful Canadian opera composer given that The Brothers Grimm is the most performed opera ever composed by a Canadian, over 600 performances & counting.

With someone so multi-faceted, you might enjoy reading his biographies, such as

here (Queen’s University)
or here (Tapestry Opera )
or here (Dean’s website)

Students wanting to build a career, impresarios or creators seeking the secret of success should look no further than Dean. In a nutshell: this is how it’s done.

Dean reminds me of an axiom in management. If you want something done quickly and have the choice between asking someone who’s sitting there available to work, and someone who’s busy the answer is counter-intuitive. Because if you want it done quickly you ask the busy person: as they know how to get things done quickly. Dean is a perfect illustration. Although I asked him more questions than usual yet his was one of the fastest responses I’ve ever had.

Dean’s so busy that there are several projects I could (should?) have asked about, except I *blush* didn’t know about all the others. I approached him on this occasion, fascinated by one project in particular, namely Shanawdithit, a co-production of Tapestry Opera & Opera on the Avalon, under development for months with librettist Yvette Nolan, workshopped last fall: and to be world-premiered May 16 here in Toronto, before being taken to Newfoundland in June. I had so many questions.

Composer Dean Burry

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

That’s usually not a clear cut question given the way genetics work. I certainly look a lot like my father…the spitting image in some photos. But I’d say temperament-wise I’m more like my mother. I’m honestly not a huge believer in astrology but we are both Pisces and from what I understand, our sentimentality, sensitivity and creativity (she enjoys writing poetry) all come from being a couple of fish.

2. What is the best or worst thing about what you do?

I’m going to cheat and comment on TWO of the best things about what I do (and I do a lot of different things so let’s focus on writing opera). I want to do two because when you asked this question I immediately thought of two things that are polar opposites.

In no particular order…I LOVE the community of people that it takes to make an operatic production. I love hanging with stage managers, and set designers and singers and instrumentalists, conductors, directors, PR, marketing, education. You get the idea. It is a tremendous amount of collaboration and all of that interaction is nourishing.

On the other end of the spectrum, it is AMAZING to create an imaginary world that you get to live in for a period of time. So many of my projects involve stories and world-building. You really get to know these characters and these places in a very deep way. I get to the same moment in Shanawdithit – first while working on the vocal score and later while orchestrating – and I find myself crying. Honestly it’s a little escapist. I suppose one serves the extrovert in me, the other the introvert.

The WORST thing about what I do? It is damn hard to make a living as a composer. Hard to even find a way to claw through enough to make your art, let alone thrive. There have been lean years where I questioned if I had gone into the right field and those moments can be very low. I know many composers go through this but you are forced into putting on a brave face and pretending like everything is fine. It can be a real struggle. Composers and writers can have a massive impact on our world…it would just be nice if we could, as a society, find a way to acknowledge that.

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

This is one of those questions where I think “should I make something up to sound more sophisticated”? Honestly, I’m a big nerd. Bring on the Star Wars, Superheroes, Game of Thrones and Walking Dead. My wife Julia and I enjoy cooking shows as well. When it comes to concerts I’d say I’m pretty eclectic. Last night I saw a wonderful production called Seven Deadly Sins given here in Kingston (my new home) by Soundstreams. Very contemporary yet totally relatable. Julia is the principal second violinist with the fantastic Kingston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Evan Mitchell, and this is the first time I have ever had a symphony subscription. It’s been years since I sat down for dedicated concerts including Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart alongside more contemporary work…so happy to be experiencing this repertoire again. As a composer in the new music scene I tend to always find myself, logically, at new music concerts. And going to the symphony every two weeks is all the more special because my daughters Blythe and Maeve are sitting with me. The older patrons sitting around us always say “Oh they are so good in the concert” and I give a smug little smile and say “thank you, they have seen a few concerts”. I held Blythe as a one-month old for the world-premiere of my opera Isis and the Seven Scorpions. They haven’t really had a choice.

Dean Burry

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

You know, I wish I could play the violin. I can play a lot of instruments and I find one of the great joys of life is to pick up (or make) some (preferably weird) instrument and try to figure out how to make music with it. I don’t know if it’s my stubby fingers or what, but I just can’t get my paws around that thing. Julia, the girls and her family all play string instruments, so I guess I’ll just leave that to them.

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

I love nature and that only intensifies as I get older. As I mentioned we just moved to the country (a little town just outside Kingston called Elginburg) and I can’t tell you how much I love seeing the wide array of birds at the feeder in the morning. The wild turkeys that our dogs Felix and Annie love to bark at and the rabbits hopping around everywhere are wonderful. We even have a “House Toad” that shows up every night in the dog yard. So just being close to nature is a big thing for me.

In the last five years I’ve also found a new passion with a Renaissance ensemble I play with called The Gemsmen. We play recorder-like instruments made out of horn called gemshorns. They were made by a good friend, Hall Train (who also created the projections for my symphonic work Carnival of the Dinosaurs) and when I put two-and-two together and realized some of my best friends, Trevor Rines and Ken Hall were flute players, a quartet was born. We play a lot of period consort repertoire including a set of music from the court of King Henry VIII that we are currently working on, but it’s also a great chance to arrange a wide variety of music including pop music like the Beatles and sci-fi movie themes (we joke that we are the “Big Bang Theory” of the 16th century.)

I’ve also played in a Celtic band called Merasheen with a group of fellow Newfoundlanders for almost twenty years, so I guess the real answer is that when I’m not making music…I make music.

*******

More questions about Shanawdithit, being presented at Imperial Oil Theatre in Toronto from May 16-25, and then going to Newfoundland in June.

1. With a dozen operas listed on your website you’re an extraordinarily prolific artist including The Brothers Grimm, arguably the most performed opera ever composed by a Canadian, at over 600 performances & counting. As I write this question I’m anticipating seeing La boheme tomorrow. Can we talk about that dirty word “popularity”, dirty because critics & scholars haven’t fully reconciled the great music of a Berg or a Ligeti with the harsh reality of box office. Tuneful composers such as Puccini or Richard Strauss were the most successful opera composers of the first part of the 20th century. If you don’t mind me asking, how do you feel about popularity? What’s your secret?

I couldn’t be happier that my music is getting heard. The whole reason I do this is to connect with people…to communicate. Over a hundred-and-fifty thousand kids have seen The Brothers Grimm, usually as their first opera, and if I accomplish nothing else, that at least feels like I have had some impact. The other children’s opera I wrote for the COC, The Scorpions’ Sting (originally known as Isis and the Seven Scorpions) is also travelling pretty well at over 300 performances. I keep encouraging composers to consider writing children’s opera – and the 45-minute small cast with piano model is still really in demand. A main stage opera may get 5 or 6 performances, but companies that tour this type of opera tend to do between 20 and 40 (like the recent run of Scorpions’ with Lyric Opera of Chicago). It’s hard to imagine an artist that doesn’t want their art to be wanted, appreciated…and popular (the definition of that word could be debated). I think what you are getting at is the idea of “accessibility” in modern music. I think there is room for so many different styles of music in the world. And I love so much new and experimental music. But honestly, it really bugs me when people talk about accessibility in contemporary music as a bad thing. “Relevance” is another one some people seem to have a problem with. My question is what’s the alternative, “Inaccessible, irrelevant music”? I think it is vital to realize that you can be accessible without pandering and you can be relevant without being trendy.

My secret? Striving for clarity I suppose (my credo). And yes, trying to consider the effect a piece will have on an audience.

Dean Burry

2. Let’s talk about being prolific again. Wagner & Verdi each wrote a few turkeys before they really hit their stride. Could you talk about the first pieces you wrote, what you learned that served you later and the process of getting comfortable as (dare I say it) an opera composer?

I really became serious about composing when I was 12. A piano teacher named Don Boland (in my hometown of Gander NL) saw that I was getting tired just playing the standard repertoire and that my dictation book was starting to fill up with little things I would write to keep interested. He fostered that as he was a songwriter and we worked on chords, bass-lines and “comping”. Billy Joel became a big influence at that time and I started writing pop music. That very process of music creation led me back to the world of classical music as I started to see the magic behind what Beethoven and Bach were doing. My first opera was a piece called Unto the Earth: Vignettes of a War. It was about the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in WWI and premiered during the third year of my Bachelor of Music degree at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. I had just come off premieres (an oratorio and a musical) in the previous two years that really taught me the skills of not only composing but producing. I remember enlisting a friend to go around to the businesses in Sackville and sell advertising in a program so we could buy costumes from the second-hand store Frenchy’s (Maritimers will know what I’m talking about). My time at Mount A taught me what I needed to know about making opera happen. At times you need to be the composer, at times you need to be the janitor who sweeps up after rehearsal so you don’t get yelled at by administration. As far as what I learned…that comes back to the idea of collaboration. Yes it is “Wagner’s” Tannhauser or “Verdi’s” Rigoletto but the number of people required to make something like that happen is staggering. It is such a team effort.

Hot tip – give everyone love but save a little extra for your stage managers and percussionists.

3. One of the most exciting things about Shanawdithit is how the story has been with you for so many years in different ways. Could you explain your history with the project?

People often ask me how I became interested in opera coming from Newfoundland. It’s not the first thing that comes to mind when people think of The Rock. NL is music…drama and stories. I’ve written a number of operas based on NL history but one story, rooted in central NL where I grew up, kept calling to me. The story of Shanawdithit – the so-called “Last of the Beothuk”. So about 20 years ago as I had always done, I dug into my research and started writing an opera about this indigenous woman. That’s what traditional European opera composers and librettists do after all, take stories and cast them in a new light. An opera called Shanawdithit was actually my Master’s thesis at the University of Toronto – a school that I have been very connected to having just finished my doctorate there in June. Back in 1996 Michael Albano, Head of the Opera Division offered his students to stage a concert version of the opera. I imagined that piece being the seed of a full grand opera.

But not all stories are free for the taking. I think that is a concept that is slowly dawning on many Canadians and something that I myself came to acknowledge over the ensuing decades while this opera refused to take flight, yet refused to stop calling to me. I was attempting to follow in the same colonial mentality of artists before me. And while my aspirations were in the right place, they were still from a perspective that stories belonged to everyone.

4. Please talk about your changing understanding of the story especially in your work with librettist Yvette Nolan.

Over the years, I began to realize that if this opera was going to happen, it needed to be driven by indigenous voices, with a core indigenous leader to shape and determine the story.

I immediately thought of Yvette Nolan, someone whose work I had long admired and approaching Michael and Tapestry (who then contacted Opera on the Avalon in St. John’s – a logical co-commissioner), a company who has worked with advancing equity in opera for many years. The process has been completely unlike anything I’ve done before. I have never written an opera inspired and enlightened by so many collaborators. The composer is usually the leading force in an opera, but in this case I feel like I have been guided by so much sharing and community it is unlike any other project with which I have been involved.

Yvette Nolan

The tragedy of Shanawdithit’s story is the fact that the Beothuk as a cultural nation cease to exist. Normally in creating an opera like this, you would talk to elders of the nation, but in this case it isn’t possible. However, during the last six months of her life, the time period of our opera, Shanawdithit created a number of sketches to describe historical events and cultural elements of Beothuk life. These sketches are HER voice and an incredible insight into a vanished society. Yvette had the brilliant idea to ask various Canadian Indigenous artists to interpret these sketches and this collaboration has become a core of the opera and a vast inspiration for the score.

Aria Evans

Visual artists Jordan Bennett, Meagan Musseau, Lori Blondeau, Jerry Evans, choreographer Michelle Olson, dancer Aria Evans and our Shanawdithit herself, Marion Newman have all been so open to this project. And I’m so grateful for what they have shared.

Soprano Marion Newman

6. A big part of this project concerns the contact between cultures. I couldn’t help noticing that your understanding of the story has deepened over the years, in some ways like the learning of a settler culture in the conversation that might lead to reconciliation. Do you see yourself, in your conversation with librettist Yvette Nolan & the process of creating this opera to tell this story, as enacting a kind of cultural reconciliation?

I sincerely hope so. There are times when you want to tell a story. There are times when you want to entertain. But there are times when you know that the project that you are working on has the potential for a greater meaning….a greater impact. If nothing else, as a result of this project, many more people will know the story of Shanawdithit and the Beothuk, and because of an opera (considered by many to be the most colonial of art forms!) no less! Here we can again insert that word “relevant”. I haven’t met one person who has an easy time saying the name of this opera (there are variations, but the safe one is shaw-na-DITH-it) I grew up with this story all around me, yet told in such a sad and misinformed way. We did a workshop in Toronto in October and all I could think was “we have an amazing collection of professional artists from across the country in downtown Toronto discussing the life of this incredible yet ignored indigenous woman.” I think I counted it as a win right there and then. If reconciliation is truly going to happen, it is going to require a thoughtful coming together to reveal the right way to move forward…together.

7. In the opera Louis Riel a key feature of the story-telling is the ugly racism we sometimes see presented, for instance when the crowd cries out for Riel’s blood. How do you reconcile history with the sensitivities of audiences?

I really stand by the idea that “Art is a reflection of life”. If it isn’t then it loses all its power and magic. Again, if you are considering your audience, you realize that not “anything goes”. You want people to stay engaged to the end. There are aspects of this story which are brutal and trying to sanitize that story would be perpetuating exactly the same travesty which has happened in colonial re-tellings of indigenous history. But in opera we have many resources ( he smiles and winks). Music has an incredible ability to make you FEEL. Hopefully, with the score of Shanawdithit I have been able to portray both the horror and yes, beauty and life of her story. You have to be able to show everything because that’s life…but in opera “showing everything” can be accomplished in a number of ways.

Aubrey Dan

8. I read in one of your bios that you have written musicals, including at least one when you were still in school. As a composer of both opera & musicals, how do you understand the difference between the two? And while this interview concerns Shanawdithit, knowing you’re at the Dan School (meaning in the vicinity of Aubrey Dan, producer & impresario): are you feeling any desire to write another musical?

Oh absolutely. Back when I was in university and starting a career I imagined I was going to be a Musical Theatre composer – this was the age of Les Miz and Phantom of the Opera. When I graduated from high school, I was just as likely to go to theatre school as music school. Musical theatre and later opera was the way for me to live in both worlds. I feel like I’m living in a dream right now as I have been appointed the Artistic Director of the Music Theatre Creation Program at the Dan School of Drama and Music at Queen’s University. It’s a program which really embraces the entire spectrum of music theatre including opera, broadway musicals, cabaret and everything in between. We’ve got too many labels and divisions in our community and I love what they have started here. When I was younger, I really approached musicals and operas differently. My hockey musical with Charlie Rhindress, Home and Away really riffs on the jock rock of bands like Queen and Meatloaf, while my one-woman musical Sweetheart: The Mary Pickford Story really digs into the music of Tin Pan Alley. But the older I get, the more I realize that stories told through music, drama, design and dance are all part of that spectrum I spoke of. As I write this, I think the bottom line is that I love so many different styles of music and if I have the opportunity to explore them all, I’m happy. I would say that in recent years, I’ve been more active in the opera world. But there’s no question I will be back to the musical world – it’s just a question of when.

9. You’ve served an apprenticeship or two along the way. Your time in the Education and Outreach Department of the Canadian Opera Company and as Artistic Director of the Canadian Children’s Opera Company remind us that you’re not just a composer but also an accomplished practitioner. Do you think composers should be practitioners, and could you give an example or two of what you’ve learned as a practitioner?

To each their own, I suppose. There are brilliant composers out there who are destined to just be composers. Thankfully there are all sort of people in the arts community to cover the other jobs- there are people who love doing public relations, there are people who love designing costumes, there are people who love finding donors and people who love BEING donors (like the incomparable Roger Moore who we just lost – incredible supporters who always say “well I’m no singer or composer” but are so vital to the process, not just financially but for their thoughtful and committed support. I’m sad that I won’t be able to share a conversation with Roger in the lobby after a performance of Shanawdithit). But there is no denying that composers need to find creative ways to get their music out there. Unfortunately, a lot of the new music scene is still curated by a select group of people and if those few people don’t “get” your music, you have a choice to make – accept their judgment and find a new career/passion or fight to MAKE an audience for your music. There are so many examples of this even in Toronto, from older established groups like Arraymusic and Continuum to new organizations like the Toy Piano Composers, Caution Tape Sound Collective, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Fawn Opera and so many others – all started by hungry artists determined to make a place for their art.

10. What advice might you have for a young composer, considering writing their first opera or musical…?

That’s a big question, but I will go back to something that I mentioned early. Opera is theatre. Opera is collaboration. The more a composer understands about every element involved in creating an opera the stronger and more integrated the score will be. Opera is not just a concert and is so much more than the stereotypes we are shown in pop-culture. It isn’t a genre to be approached lightly but it can be a wild ride.

11. First:
what’s your favorite opera (meaning the one that makes you smile & feel good inside) what’s your ideal opera (the one you admire for its structure / dramaturgy etc)?
So:
having said that when you compose which, if either, do you think you aim for?

Ha. When you usually ask that question people coyly say “well I couldn’t possibly pick just one” (there’s something to be said for that – there are so many wonderful and varied examples). But I think I can pinpoint two, and I think both satisfy your two questions above. The first is a warhorse of the traditional canon – La boheme. I know many consider it overdone but it so accurately reflects the experience of those starving young artists ( maybe I can relate). It’s playful, deep and devastating and Puccini achieves that most elusive of aspirations – perfect pacing. The second opera I’d mention here is Britten’s Peter Grimes. I have always identified with Britten…I’m sure our mutual connection to the ocean has something to do with it, but I also really admire his efforts to write fresh new music while still providing that all important clarity. I find his music strikingly original and evocative yet amazingly accessible (oops, there’s that word) all at the same time. Perfectly paced, evocative, accessible, fresh, clear…yes I aim for these at all times.

*******

The new opera Shanawdithit with music by Dean Burry and words by Yvette Nolan premieres May 16th at The Imperial Oil Theatre. Tickets | Performances:

Thursday, May 16, 8:00 pm
Saturday, May 18 4:00 pm
Tuesday, May 21, 8:00 pm
Wednesday, May 22, 8:00 pm
Thursday, May 23, 8:00 pm
Saturday, May 25, 8:00 pm

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Interviews, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, University life | Tagged Aria Evans, Beothuk, Dean Burry, Marion Newman, Michelle Olson, musical theatre, Newfoundland, opera, Opera on the Avalon, reconciliation, Shanawdithit, Tapestry Opera, Yvette Nolan | Leave a comment

Tick talk

Posted on April 19, 2019 by barczablog

From time to time I venture away from the path of opera, symphony & theatre.

Tuesday night as Erika & I were getting ready for bed, having brushed & flossed and made ourselves ready for slumber, any thoughts of sleep were disrupted decisively by an intruder.

“What is THAT?” Erika was looking at my leg.

What did she mean? I followed her gaze. “Oh… I guess I must have scratched myself”. Yes I had a mark on my calf. I was still intent on sleep so I was brushing off the query, wanting to sleep.

“Let me see that,” she said. I was expecting to sleep. It went back and forth a few times. I’ll abbreviate the conversation,…

But she insisted, so I put my leg up on the bathroom counter. A mole? A bump? I was half-asleep, but aware that yes, this is where partners can be so helpful, an extra pair of eyes to spot things that might be growing on parts we can’t see, to prevent cancer, right?

Erika and I were not on the same page. I was out of it, meanwhile she? She looked closely, wanted to disinfect the wound. And as she approached with the alcohol soaked cotton pad, she thought she saw something move.

It all happened so fast. And so this changes from a sleepy bedtime story into a bit of an adventure.

Erika used her cotton pad to pull something out of my leg. She grabbed it. It wouldn’t come out. Erika advised me that she thought there was something in my leg, grabbed at it… Her body language was amazing, while I burst out laughing. As she explained: this strong little thing was pulling against her, and strong.

Me? I always laugh when I’m in pain (…ouch!). Luckily Erika was careful not to let this little beast break apart, so it came out all in one piece. And for the moment still alive.

My leg was still up on the counter where Erika swabbed hydrogen peroxide onto the open wound. I was thinking about Alien, or more accurately the reprise in Spaceballs¸ where John Hurt is hurt indeed, especially when he said “oh no not again”.

I resisted the impulse to sing “hello my baby…” But yes I did say “CHECK PLEASE!”

I took a picture of the little bugger –whatever it was—before putting it first into a plastic bag between the cotton pads and then into a glass jar.

tick

Erika was shaken but did manage to get to sleep within half an hour, whereas I would be up for ages, googling about ticks. Did I catch something or would I catch something? Lyme disease? Of course the internet stories don’t tell you the whole story.

All kidding aside,

Erika is my hero…. I didn’t even realize I had a problem (I was ready to sleep, remember?)
Apparently no one expects this, which is how infections can happen. Sometimes the tick is as small as a poppy seed! When in doubt check it out.

I figured out after the fact what had happened. I had been carrying yard waste from the back with the intention of bundling the bigger pieces for collection. While carrying an armful, surely something slipped into the gap between my rubber boot and my jeans; I know this because the wound is exactly where my boots reach, an uncanny coincidence. While I had the long pants, long-sleeve shirt, and even the gloves (although I wasn’t wearing them), if you don’t tuck your pants carefully into your boots, you’re practically issuing an invitation to the little fellers.

Yes it’s yard waste. It’s also potentially the opportunity for a tick to get to know you better.

After reading up on ticks and calling Telehealth Ontario (a very helpful nurse), I booked the next morning off work to go see my doctor. Whether or not the tick was dangerous, I wanted her to look at my wound and if necessary give me antibiotics. After looking at the photo (which did not resemble the ticks known to carry the bacteria) and the wound (where there was no sign of any rash or the tell-tale signs of infection) we concluded that it was still a good idea to take a precautionary dose of antibiotic.

I was reassured that the med we gave the dog really make her safe, because if any tick tries to bite her: it dies almost instantly. If you’re wondering why we don’t have comparable meds at our size and longevity we’d be poisoned; dogs are smaller & live shorter lives.

I took the little specimen in to the public health office. A few days later and I feel great.

Please be careful. If you have any suspicious bumps or wounds, don’t be a stoic, there’s no shame in being certain.

It’s tick season! There are maps showing what parts of the province have the dangerous ticks. Please be careful.

Posted in Animals, domestic & wild, Food, Health and Nutrition | Tagged tick | 1 Comment

Resurrection Symphony: that’s how to do it

Posted on April 19, 2019 by barczablog

Tonight was the second of three performances of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony by the Toronto Symphony at Roy Thomson Hall. It’s known as the Resurrection symphony. I’d recommend it to three different groups of people:

If you’re religious and conscious of the time of year (Passover / Easter)
If you’re seeking an alternative spirituality
If you simply want to enjoy a big powerful piece of music executed by a lot of people working together

The last time I reviewed a TSO performance of Mahler’s 2nd I was struggling to be positive, frustrated by the interpretation. While the notes on that occasion may have been played more precisely than this time, what does it matter when the interpretation leaves you cold? I know I can’t be the only one who feels this way, given the rhapsodic response this time, both on social media and especially in the hall.

As with my last TSO concert, there’s been a late replacement at the podium as Matthew Halls was brought in because of an indisposition. And once again the orchestra put in an extra effort.

Matthew Halls_Mahler Resurrection Symphony (@Jag Gundu)

Conductor Matthew Halls (photo: Jag Gundu)

I have a special relationship with this piece. (maybe everyone does?) I feel it was the piece that led me back to spirituality & religion, in a family who had been regular church-goers in my early childhood but who stopped for various reasons.

No wonder. This work turns the season upside down. While it’s Maundy Thursday as I write this, on the eve of Good Friday, (the day celebrating Christ’s Crucifixion), in the lead-up to Easter (a festival of Jesus’s resurrection), this symphony is the opposite, and no I don’t mean because Mahler was Jewish. No. Instead of celebrating one person’s rising from the dead, this text proclaims that we shall all rise again.

There is no hell in this theology. We are all forgiven, accepted, included.

But it’s not at all naïve. The text of the song “Urlicht” is an especially poignant reminder of the real world. While the singer tells of an angel who refuses entry, it’s chilling in its reminder of separations in places such as Auschwitz or border crossings. I played this song in church once, watching a singer who was partially disabled, unable to walk easily, to get close to the piano. As the traffic for the offertory collection rolled along with the singer doing her best, a flood of recognition filled my eyes, that we might all be rejected: just as Mahler himself had been in his time. The inclusiveness of the final resurrection chorale might seem sacred or spiritual, but it resonates powerfully in 2019.

While I may not have agreed with every interpretive choice made by Halls, who cares? He was wonderfully decisive, 100 times better than what we had last time. It was an interpretation, an approach that gave the performance a real edge, true passion.

To open Halls took a pace reminiscent of Klemperer, giving the opening a genuine gravitas. Every note seemed thought out and intentional at this pace, even if the movement unfolded a bit slowly. When I was in my teens this is how I understood the piece, at this stately tempo, fitting for a sacred rite. In due course Halls picked up the pace. Sometimes he accelerated, but slowed down for the restatement of the main theme, or for the dreamy second subject. But one saw such a commitment from this orchestra, a readiness to answer cues. While there may have been a fluffed note or two, it doesn’t matter. This was high drama, the way Mahler would have liked it.

I do wish the TSO would follow Mahler’s suggestion, to put a pause between the first movement and the rest of the symphony. It was on my mind as I listened to a few people applauding after the first movement tonight. If there’s an intermission: let them clap. And there was a great deal of restlessness, coughing, rustling of papers, before the second movement began. I think Mahler meant the fifth movement to be like a continuation of the first, with the three middle movements like interludes or intermezzi. If we are to think of that last movement in some sense being at the end of time, an apocalypse when the dead rise, it makes sense to have something in there, including an interval. I think we should be hearing those themes from a distance, recalling them as though time has passed.

Oh well, maybe next time.

One of the highlights of the concert was both musical and acoustical. Our two vocal soloists were situated in the middle of the choir loft upstage of the orchestra. When Marie-Nicole Lemieux stood up to sing “Urlicht” the voice came floating from the back. Yes she does have an amazing voice that you may recall from the Canadian Opera Company’s Falstaff from four and half years ago (apt as we anticipate Gerald Finley’s return for Otello). But the acoustic worked much better than I expected, her tone glorious, joined in the last movement by the soaring soprano voice of Joélle Harvey.

Marie-Nicole Lemieux & Joelle Harvey surrounded by Amadeus Choir & Iseler Singers, (photo: Jag Gundu)

I hope we will encounter Halls again, as he clearly knows what he’s doing, and the TSO responds to him, including string portamento like you might have heard a hundred years ago, the trumpets positively schmaltzy. The entry of the chorus (Amadeus Choir & Iseler Singers, sounding oh so beautiful) in the last movement was accomplished without requiring them to make the noise of standing (even at the very moment they were singing about rising). Perhaps I’m asking too much, dreaming of a performance without the comings & goings of players for the offstage moments; if the chorus standing up is disruptive, why not brass players commuting on and off the stage? Yes I know it would be expensive, perhaps impossible. But I’m just putting it out there, like my request that they honour Mahler’s request for a break after the first movement. I don’t think it even matters if the offstage trumpets or horns are out of synch or less perfect than the ones onstage. It’s theatre, and a magnificent idea. While Mozart & Verdi & Berlioz –to name three—each had a go at giving us their version of the trumpets of judgment (with the words “tuba mirum” in their respective requiem masses), I think Mahler’s is the most convincing, most heart-stoppingly beautiful. When the trumpets are a bit out of synch –as I suspect they would have been back in Mahler’s time, long before cc-TV—the effect is that much more poignant, like a lost corps of ghostly troops marching into the afterworld. Perfection is less important than meaningful playing, music that connects because it’s shaped into something.

Halls gets Mahler.

There is one more of these wonderful concerts to come, on Saturday April 20th . Go if you can.

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews, Spirituality & Religion | Tagged Amadeus Choir, Elmer Iseler Singers, Gustav Mahler, Joelle Harvey, Marie-Nicole Lemieux, Matthew Halls, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Urlicht | Leave a comment

Two schools

Posted on April 18, 2019 by barczablog

My review of the Canadian Opera Company La Boheme that I saw last night alluded to two different approaches. I hope you’ll bear with me. I know many people who would roll their eyes. Why bother at all with Boheme, this warhorse?

Perhaps that’s the problem, like the people who have given up on voting, having decided they can’t trust the process or the promises of the candidates.

We can understand two extremes, with all sorts of combinations between the two poles. Ideally a production would unify styles, rather than offering two or more approaches on display in the same production. For better or worse, I meant these two extremes:
1: “old fashioned” was what I called it in the headline. It wasn’t a euphemism, it was literally true. Many in the audience gobble this up, and some prefer their opera this way. This is how things used to be done: singers standing and gesturing and mugging, while placing almost their entire focus on singing, a histrionic style rather than one that’s recognizably modern.
2: “naturalistic” might be an absurd word to use, when we’re still talking about operatic performance. But one can sing in a way that the feelings being expressed emerge as though the performer just thought of them (operatic method acting??). Singers who are looking out into the audience, staring at the conductor or parking themselves in one place to sing are less believable than those who engage with the diegetic reality of the story and with one another, reacting and seeming fully alive.

There are moments in Boheme that are more conducive to one style than the other. I think the two arias side by side in Act I don’t have to be done the same way. Where “che gelida manina” does have some business (he touches her hand after all), it’s really about a text that builds to a big high note, followed by a gradual diminuendo to the last notes on a question to Mimi. Just as we might say boys will be boys, so too tenors will be tenors. I won’t go so far as to say “egomaniacal narcissists will be egomaniacal narcissists” even if I do watch way too much CNN and read the tweets of a certain politician. If the tenor isn’t totally self-centred, it’s already a win. And so long as the high notes are there, all is forgiven.

Her answering aria is conversational, some of its most beautiful effects are actually in the orchestra –where I hear clearly Puccini telling us that her life is a passive fatal reaction to circumstance, that she has a dark cloud hanging over her–and not in the vocal line, unlike the tenor’s aria. The role of Mimi is different, because it’s really all about what she shows us in her reactions, which tells us how she will live her life.

Maybe I need to admit that this opera is full of moments that I have seen done both ways, both the older style or someone aiming to find something authentic.

When Musetta & Marcello end their exchange in Act III with insults (it’s a bit like a duet but functions as part of a quartet, given that Rodolfo & Mimi are also onstage) , this can seem very real. I was surprised at how natural this exchange seemed last night, as Musetta walked off with another man, while Marcello’s replies had less than the usual anger: because he seemed deflated & jealous. Just when you think you know how a scene should sound, someone surprises you.

(l-r) Lucas Meachem, Angel Blue (background), Atalla Ayan (photo: Michael Cooper)

The ending of the opera is a musical- drama event that can be very powerful. The way it’s written it should work like clockwork, yet frustrates me over and over. We watch a sequence of events, as

Mimi dies
Schaunard is the first to notice and tells Marcello
The music gives us a little bit of melody then silence.
Gradually each of the singers onstage notices & privately responds, until Colline (who has just returned with money) innocently says “how’s it going?” (literally “come va”).

There is silence. What the opera does in this silence can be quite magical, even if done in the old-fashioned way.

Rodolfo speaks into the silence wondering at the others, and the reality begins to dawn on him (and the question for the performance is: how quickly? how much? how soon?).
Marcello is the first to address the reality, saying “Coraggio” (courage) to Rodolfo
And Rodolfo finally understands, going to the bed crying “Mimi!, Mimi! Mimi!

The old fashioned way to do this usually gives us a Rodolfo who is sobbing very early, and alas that’s what we got last night. What I understand in this composition is that Puccini meant for the orchestra’s loud chords to signify recognition, the blast meaning a gut-level knowledge. The ending is much more powerful if Rodolfo somehow resists the impulse to be a ham, resists the impulse to steal this moment from the audience by over-acting.

I’ve seen it done another way that would seem more naturalistic, in the sense of letting the emotions emerge in tune with the music and building in a way that seems more like what Puccini had in mind. At ‘1’ we don’t need to have a shouting voice. Rodolfo should begin this relatively neutral, if not hopeful At the very least he is questioning, confused, rather than too loud too soon. If he’s too loud he upstages Marcello’s line. I recall Against the Grain doing it with this emotional logic, Ryan Harper as Rodolfo & Justin Welsh as Marcello, directed by Joel Ivany back in 2011. If Rodolfo isn’t too loud, then Marcello’s line has the simple dignity that opens the flood gates to what follows. Rodolfo should not really know too much too soon. I can handle histrionics, stand-and-deliver singing, two-dimensional characterization, sentimentality: so long as there is a clear emotional logic. Otherwise you’re wasting Puccini’s melodrama.

I’ll see it again. Perhaps the production will be more fluid when they’re done a few more performances.

Posted in Opera, Personal ruminations & essays | 2 Comments

Old-fashioned Boheme

Posted on April 18, 2019 by barczablog

Tonight was the opening performance of the Canadian Opera Company’s revival of John Caird’s production of La Boheme directed by Katherine M. Carter. As with their earlier return to Atom Egoyan’s Cosi fan tutte a few months ago, the concept wasn’t as tyrannical the second time around, allowing the opera to get back to what it used to be, to work more like usual.

In other words we were watching star performances vying for our attention, Puccini’s wonderful melodies & a sentimental story that can make you cry.

Much of the action is sophomoric, scenes that could be subtitled “boys will be boys:” that is until romance rears its head with the arrival of Mimi. The opera is so well-written that it can’t miss, each performer getting their moments to shine, with a few variations.

I’ve seen a lot of Bohemes in my life, sometimes more realistic in the characterizations, sometimes more operatic, relying on the music to make the biggest statements. This cast is an interesting combination of both approaches.

In the last act everyone is mostly leaning towards that operatic approach –as you might gather from my headline—in readings that are less realistic than operatic, the voices all quite good. Carter reconciles the performances with the concept, so that the images around the stage don’t jar the way they did when Caird first showed us his reading of Boheme.

Atalla Ayan is the impetuous poet Rodolfo, Lucas Meachem is Marcello the painter. Ayan had a lovely Italianate sound & all the high notes you could ask for. Meachem gives us a commanding Marcello, owning the stage every time he wanted our attention with a powerful presence and a bigger voice than one often gets: although I’ve heard it said that Marcello is almost written like a helden baritone. We had the luxury of lots of sound in our Marcello, allowing for a fascinating contrast between the two men, one commanding the other more of a real poet.

Angel Blue and Atalla Ayan (photo: Michael Cooper)

While I used to focus on the music I spoke of as sophomoric –when I was more of a kid myself—with maturity I’ve gradually changed my understanding of the opera, so that Mimi has come to be my favourite character every time she’s on stage. Angel Blue was remarkably original for two acts, accomplishing that miracle in a well-known story like this one, where you dare to dream of a different outcome (which is ridiculous of course). Hers was a youthful & innocent Mimi, giggling and cheerful in ways I haven’t seen in a long while, when so many play her as doomed and tragic. Even in Act III, when the eventual outcome becomes unavoidable, she made a great deal of her encounter with Rodolfo.

Andriana Chuchman’s Musetta was the perfect match for Meachem’s Marcello, every bit as charismatic as he had been and beautifully sung.

(l-r) Lucas Meachem, Angel Blue (background), Atalla Ayan (photo: Michael Cooper)

You might say that Brandon Cedel as Colline & Phillip Addis as Schaunard were a bit out of step with the others, because their acting was so naturalistic & believable. If this was a problem for me, it was only in the last moment of the opera, when Addis’s response to Mimi’s death totally slayed me, and then the more melodramatic work by everyone else onstage, while normal for this opera, left me cold. But I had tears during Blue’s Act I aria and again in the wonderful duet between her and Ayan in Act III. So it works in some places better than others. It’s a Boheme with a little something for everyone, gorgeous to look at and beautifully sung.

One other major player had a big impact on the performance, namely conductor Paolo Carignani. I recall once long ago hearing (third hand, quoted from Ernesto Barbini) the assessment that Boheme is the hardest of all operas to conduct, because tempi have to be so variable, sensitive to solos, ensembles, duets, with rubato and nuance and flow. At times Carignani seemed intent on imposing his ego on the performance, leaving soloists scrambling to catch up a few times, and totally hanging the children’s chorus out to dry as though he were a sadistic school-master. So in other words maybe Barbini was right about how difficult this opera is to conduct. The big climaxes were all there, the solos sounded great. In a few a piacere moments he gave a bit more introspective space for the soloists, although this was inconsistent, as in other places the pace was unforgiving. Carignani kept me conscious of the process, keeping me at arm’s length from the story and often unable to really surrender myself to the story: although maybe that’s just me.

I was thinking of Paris, the site of this story and of course the site of the big story in the news this week. Recalling that Victor Hugo said

The greatest products of architecture are less the works of individuals than of society, rather the offspring of a nation’s effort, than the inspired flash of a man of genius.

So much of Toronto, so much of Canada is new. Our lovely new Four Seasons Centre is our temple to the arts, where the COC presents its operas to us, one of our greatest treasures. I’m so happy to be there, happy we have this wonderful place to gather and celebrate all that is beautiful.

We are so lucky.

Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | Tagged Andrana Chuchman, Angel Blue, Atalla Ayan, Brandon Cedel, Canadian Opera Company, Ernesto Barbini, Four Seasons Centre, John Caird, Katherine M Carter, Lucas Meacham, Paolo Carignani, Phillip Addis, Victor Hugo | 3 Comments

Pondering wandering

Posted on April 14, 2019 by barczablog

I like the sound of that headline. As I do what it says, pondering wandering, I am a bit lost in the ambiguities. If we knew where we were going it wouldn’t be wandering, would it.

The time of year encourages such thinking, the mind drifting onto certain well-worn pathways as several religions have some of their most important holy days. I’ve been mulling over some of the things I saw recently, that have taken me on a kind of metaphysical journey.

Vivier’s Kopernikus in Against the Grain’s recent production at Theatre Passe Muraille (and because it closed I can now blather on a bit more)
Berlioz’s Damnation de Faust in a live performance on youtube that I played while I stumbled through spreadsheets during a long day at work Thursday
Mallick’s The Tree of Life, that I watched until midnight Friday night
The Third Act of Wagner’s Parsifal, that I played through Saturday afternoon

Composer Claude Vivier

I left out certain aspects of my experience of Kopernikus when I wrote my review. Am I concerned I might foist my particular spirituality upon anyone? Or is it simply that I wonder if I am just admitting how totally I felt in synch with Vivier, how deeply I identified with his meditation. But as I went through this little cycle of spiritual and quasi-spiritual works, the parallels and similarities seem so strong I thought I wanted to write about it, both to capture it for myself in this public diary, but also in case this might be illuminating for anyone else in their own journey.

I wish I could see Kopernikus again for at least a couple of reasons. There was a great deal going on in different places in front of us at the theatre. The first time through has a certain magic, but I submit that we really need to be seeing it more than once, given that it’s written (thinking of Vivier) and presented (thinking of Joel Ivany’s direction, Matjash Mrozewski’s choreography as well as the various performances) as ritual. The opera is subtitled “a ritual opera for the dead”, which put Ivany & Mrozewski into a bit of a bind. We don’t get to see it multiple times, so the movement & action needs to somehow signify ritual. Our handouts in the theatre also clued us in to a great deal, although I don’t know that there’s any one way, no right way. It’s wandering, right? That means some are on the path, some aren’t and indeed, those in the bushes may actually be closest to the true way. I think I am having my usual ambivalence, where an invitation sometimes turns me off if it’s too blatant, thinking of this theatre as a kind of temple of the arts but also as a place for Vivier’s ritual celebration.

After the performance I chatted with Joel & Topher Mokrzewski. I wondered about the closing image, which I alluded to indirectly but left out of the review, as I avoid spoilers at all cost. But I realize maybe it would have been useful to talk about this, to in effect give a future audience some idea as to where the storyline goes. Is it a spoiler when they tell you on Good Friday that Jesus rose 3 days later? that we’re saved? That’s the difference between watching a religious epic without any idea of the import or context, as opposed to being a believer who waits for the expected ending to affirm their faith. Kopernikus’s conclusion at Theatre Passe Muraille was so similar to Robert Lepage’s final image in his Met Production of Damnation de Faust I wondered if Joel & Topher had seen it. I thought of it as an influence and a wonderful one at that, not taking issue with the similarity but admiring its universality.

But they knocked my socks off when they showed me that it’s in Vivier’s score, the most explicit thing in the whole piece. Where everything in Vivier is ambiguous, a verbal labyrinth that is 70% a made-up language (in Topher’s estimation), the ending is clear-cut, as they (or is it Agni only? I can’t recall because I only had a moment to glance at the score that Topher showed me) ascend and walk out a door, a door that shuts with a big sound, to conclude the work.

Bigtime shivers I am recalling at that moment, and surely everyone in the theatre had them too.

The moment at the end of Lepage / Berlioz was elegance itself, and I recall being frustrated at the time. Marguérite goes to heaven. After the massive celebration of the devils in their funny made-up language (uh-oh! another parallel), Berlioz has the angels gently beckoning to Marguérite, inviting her up to heaven. And so we see Susan Graham climb up a ladder, no magic or fancy mise-en-scène. It’s so simple, very much like what we see in the Vivier (and once again there’s Lepage asking his singer to take a physical risk). It turned things a bit upside down to think that, no, Joel wasn’t influenced by Lepage, but maybe Lepage was influenced by Vivier at some level..? (did he ever come across the piece? I wonder…. No, I would doubt it)

Berlioz figures again in Tree of Life. I stumbled on this by accident, the day after choosing to listen to Damnation at work, there it was on TV. I hadn’t seen it in awhile but voila, there it was being broadcast and I was irresistibly drawn. I hadn’t noticed that Mallick employs the opening brooding music from Harold in Italy in a sequence of the young Jack, the brooding character we see as an adult played by Sean Penn. How did I miss it the first time through?

And so when in the final ecstatic reconciliation images, the bodies wandering on a beach, reminding me so much of what Joel & Matjash did in Kopernikus, a labyrinth of wandering spirits in a kind of nowhere (whether it’s a beach as in the film, or the brutally blank space Jason Hand made for us in Theatre Passe Muraille), it made sense that Mallick took us from the misery of his Byronic wanderer Harold to the serene affirmation of Berlioz’s Requiem.

I was left alone yesterday (aka Saturday) with the dog. And not just because of the time of year but also because of where my head is at, I pulled out Parsifal. The last act begins with a musical image of wandering that likely resonated with Vivier. I’ve had this conversation in various ways with a few new music practitioners I admire, and whatever their misgivings about opera or romantic music, it’s surprising how often they admit their admiration (that word again) for Parsifal, one of the earliest 20th century compositions, written in the 1880s. That opening is in its way a version of the passage in Harold in Italy, a melancholy wandering lost in a spiritual waste-land.

Redemption in the story and in the typology is to find one’s way: to no longer be lost. The sacred castle of the Grail Knights can’t be found by just anyone but only through grace, through the intervention of higher powers.

It’s very low-key in much of its preaching, letting the beauty of the spring speak to the healing power of spirit in the world, even if the world seems lost. After hours of yard work it’s the most natural thing in the world to sit at the piano and trace that lost pathway, leading to the Good Friday music, and then the angry confrontation between the Knights & Amfortas, before Parsifal appears in the final apotheosis.

Some of us are luckier than others, that the grace finds its way to us, or that we find our way to grace. If you need proof before you open your heart, if you need to see the happy ending, like a movie trailer where they show you clearly how the film ends? That’s what the journey is for, if it has a purpose at all, to get us past the simplistic questioning, to give us the ability to live with ambivalence and doubt.

(afternoon addendum, wandering with the dog in the rain…Wondering if Faust was written by Berlioz at this time of year. He has his Faust in a comparable moment of misery about to kill himself, and he hears an Easter choir (“Christ vient de ressusciter!” they say.) Salvation!? and a moment later, Mephisto appears. So the tidy ending is perhaps dangerous. Do not be too cocky about your faith, on holy week)

In the meantime, enjoy the spring, enjoy your journey.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, Spirituality & Religion | Tagged Byron, Harold in Italy, Hector Berlioz, Joel Ivany, Matjash Mrozewski, Parsifal, Richard Wagner, Robert Lepage, Terence Mallick, Topher Mokrzewski, Tree of Life | Leave a comment

Youthful leader inspires TSO

Posted on April 14, 2019 by barczablog

Maybe I’m exaggerating. Kerem Hasan is 27 after all, and we aren’t supposed to be ageist anymore in the 21st century. The conventional wisdom says that an experienced maestro is the ideal leader of an orchestra.

Conductor Kerem Hasan (photo: Tristan Fewings)

But tonight I saw the best Toronto Symphony concert I’ve seen in a long while, led by a very young conductor. I’m sorry I can’t suggest you go see him because it was the final one in the series. I understand that Hasan stepped in at the last minute, a replacement at the podium for an indisposition.

That seems even more impressive, don’t you think?

Perhaps the program helped. All three items represent compositions that were revolutionary works in their time. Hasan brought an urgency to each one, a kind of excitement as if the music were brand new, no matter what century it was composed.

I wonder if Hasan has conducted them before?

Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Szymanowski’s first violin concerto
Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony

This was one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen from the TSO. Young Maestro Hasan inspired the orchestra, drawing committed playing every moment, and intriguing readings, well-thought out and impressive.

It was a fast but tight reading of the Debussy which is how I like it. The ensemble responded to the conductor’s every gesture after allowing the flute solo to unfold. Every player paid close attention to his every gesture.

The concerto was well played by soloist Christian Tetzlaff. But Hasan kept the orchestra out of the way, never letting the ensemble get too loud when the violin was playing. There was one huge climactic explosion of sound in the leadup to Tetzlaff’s cadenza near the end of the work (a marvelous creation from the soloist), but otherwise this colorful piece was gently expressive.

I wondered as we came to the main work on the program after the interval, namely the Eroica Symphony of Beethoven: what was Hasan’s secret? All three pieces were approached with great energy, care, sensitivity. Inner voices were clear, and the phrasing made everything very coherent. You would think their lives depended on it, the way they followed the conductor.

Hasan led a crisp energetic reading of the Eroica, among the best playing by the TSO that I have ever heard in all my time attending Roy Thomson Hall.

I wonder if the TSO will try to bring him back? I hope so!

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews | Tagged Beethoven, Christian Tetzlaff, Debussy, Eroica, Kerem Hasan, Szymanowski, Toronto Symphony | Leave a comment

Boisterously brilliant Bigre

Posted on April 12, 2019 by barczablog

Watching people tortured can be funny.

Bigre, a Compagnie le fils du Grand Réseau Production, presented by Canadian Stage in collaboration with Théâtre Francaise de Toronto, opened tonight at the Berkeley St Theatre. In our modern gentrified cities, the impossibly tight spaces people are being forced to live in present the opportunity for phenomenal physical comedy.

It’s co-written and co-created by Pierre Guillois, Agathe L’Huillier & Olivier Martin Salvan, directed by Pierre Guillois, and performed by Guillois alternating with Bruno Fleury, Eléonore Auzou-Connes alternating with Agathe L’Huillier, and Jonathan Pinto-Rocha.

Agathe L’Huillier, Jonathan Pinto-Rocha and Pierre Guillois (photo: Fabienne Rappeneau)

By accident I watched the recent film Stan & Ollie earlier this week, a bio-pic about the latter years of Laurel & Hardy that reminds you of some of the simplest tropes in comedy. Ditto tonight, including some gags that are literally centuries old: and still getting laughs. Guillois, Auzou-Connes and Pinto-Rocha each had moments of genuine brilliance.

It’s one of those shows that I watched, envying the performers, wishing I could be up there on that stage. You could see how much fun this was, although the work is hard, not for the faint of heart.

The space –letting us peer into three tiny adjacent apartments—is really a pretense for humour. The seeming impossibility of life inspires the ingenuity of each of them in different ways, like little flowers that insist on bursting out of the dirt. Lighting, sound & music help segment the sequences, some long, some short, as we get deeper and deeper into the world of this fascinating trio. I defy you to see this show and not fall in love with them. While there’s pain there is also pathos & vulnerability. The emotional range is surprising.

The laughter moves around in the theatre. I found myself fascinated that at times people near me were guffawing, at other times they were silent when it was my turn. Sometimes it’s painful, nervous laughs, sometimes pure fun.

Glimpsing three people living in the tiny space, tripping over one another, driving one another nuts? Yet life happens. They eat, they sleep, they have all their bodily functions (yes all of them), desperately human and totally hilarious.

While there’s an enormous amount of sound and noise, we’re not hearing words. Mouths move. Hands & legs gyrate. Hair gets very messed up. The wind blows. But especially bodies, three bodies sometimes discreet and separate, sometimes interacting. All three performers show genuine physical eloquence.

This is one of those inspiring shows that reminds you of the possibilities of live theatre & creative performance. You will likely hear people telling you to go see this, and I’d echo that sentiment.

What is it exactly? There are elements of burlesque, of Commedia dell’Arte, clowns, comedy. Knowing what to call it is not important. It’s funny. It’s not verbal but physical. And it’s truly magical.

Bigre continues at the Berkeley St Theatre until April 28th.

L’Huillier, Pinto-Rocha & Guillois (photo: Fabienne Rappeneau)

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Reviews | Tagged Agathe L-Huillier, Bigre, Bruno Fleury, Canadian Stage, commedia dell'arte, Eleonore Auzou-Connes, Jonathan PInto-Rocha, Laurel & Hardy, Pierre Guillois, Théâtre Francaise de Toronto | Leave a comment

Questions for Sky Gilbert: Shakespeare’s Criminal

Posted on April 8, 2019 by barczablog

I’m a great admirer of Sky Gilbert, the playwright, performer, professor, and activist: and I didn’t nearly cover it all. You can read his Guelph university bio here …where they list him as an expert in Canadian theatre, Creative writing, Drag queens and kings, Gay, lesbian, and transgender politics, Noel Coward, Poetry, Queer theatre, Queer theory.

I discovered that Orpheus Productions will present three performances, in a workshop presentation, of Shakespeare’s Criminal: a new chamber opera with music by Dustin Peters and libretto by Sky Gilbert, starring Marion Newman, Dion Mazerolle and Nathaniel Bacon, April 26-28, 2019 at Factory Theatre.

I was thrilled to ask Sky some questions, especially about Shakespeare’s Criminal.

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

My mother. I wrote a book called The Mommiad, about my mother and her influence on me. She was an amazing person; she ran for political office in Buffalo in the 60s, started her own business and raised two children. But more than that she nourished my creativity — I remember that as a teen I was torn between music and theatre as professions and she had an upright piano installed in our tiny flat in East York just so I could practice. It’s a long story, but let’s just say that her beauty and her wit were what inspired me; her dark sense of humour about the world is probably also mine today.

2. What is the best or worst thing about what you do?

Being alone. Both best and worst. I am oddly misanthropic — I don’t really like people sometimes, but I love being around them, and especially love being anonymous in crowds. I value being alone and need it to write — but that’s also lonely sometimes.

Sky Gilbert

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

I’m a narrative junkie, love stories. I see at least three movies at theatres a week, and a few on Netflix. I’ve just discovered Dorothy B. Hughes and Arnold Bennett, two great novelists. I’m particularly fond of late nineteenth and early twentieth century British novels and novels written by women (a real fan of Barbara Pym, my play A Few Brittle Leaves was inspired by her work — as well as of Barbara Comyn).

I love art films, but usually quirky ones with a sense of humour or a dark sort of compassion. I think remaining in the past — old novels and films with narratives — means I don’t feel threatened by modern art and can create my own reality/fantasies of what novels and poems and movies might be. The opposite is true when it comes to theatre. I recently saw Milos Rau’s Five Easy Pieces in New York City, a play that features children acting out scenes from the history of a child serial killer — it inspired me to develop a play called Kink Observed. In theatre I am all about challenge, viewing it and creating it.

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

I would say that my imagination fits in the category of something that I love about myself but is dangerous. I have trouble sometimes separating reality and fantasy (I know critics of my non-fiction essays will say — he certainly does!). This means that I can write a novel — I can’t stop imagining. In real life it can be frightening.

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

Play Emily’s Delicious computer games and watch CNN Trump news. I admit it.

More questions about Shakepeare’s Criminal, workshop performances at Factory Studio April 26, 2019 @ 8pm and April 28 @ 2 pm. And on April 27th the workshop also includes a fund-raiser (more info below…)

1. With over 30 plays, 5 novels, 9 films listed on your Wikipedia page you’re an extraordinarily prolific artist. But I didn’t see any opera librettos listed. Will Shakepeare’s Criminal be your first attempt at an opera libretto?

I have been trying to put together an opera for years. I wrote a couple of finished librettos in the past and started working with composers who dropped out somewhere in the process. I understand why now; working with Dustin I have learned that the composer/librettist process is collaborative.

Composer Dustin Peters

I have written this opera ‘song by song’ with Dustin, and his input has been invaluable; I have learned from it. I’ve been particularly passionate about opera since about 1998 and I’ve always been obsessed with music in general and classical music. I have written many musicals and starting in 1998 when I left Buddies my ‘hobby’ became listening to opera. I went from Donizetti to Massenet to Rossini and Bellini to Verdi and finally to R. Strauss — my interest is in Bel Canto and Romantic. Though how I am listening to Gretry and Wolf-Ferrari — so my tastes are becoming more rarified. I think for me it’s a combination of the two things I have been most passionate about — music and theatre, and also, as I’ve explained above, opera is pretty queer.

2. The press release for Shakespeare’s Criminal includes the following exciting idea:
The structure of Shakespeare’s Criminal is inspired by musicologist Ellen T. Harris’s notion that male composers were able to ground the emotional core of their operas through the wild, uncontrolled female voice (something which eventually led to the tragic romantic heroines of Verdi and Puccini). Should we expect to see that kind of dynamic between male and female enacted in your opera?

The short answer is yes and no. The opera is about males and females interacting, but even though I am a male writing a female role, I’ve done my best to show a new twist and I’ve tried not to ‘objectify’ the female. True my female lead is something of a sorceress, but she is a desiring woman (as opposed to being a sex object) and also an intellectual and I think, wholly sympathetic.

The only thing that will be challenging for some audience members who are misogynist (and many people are, I think) is that they will have prejudices against a woman who is intellectual, sexual and has magic powers. The play is almost like peering into the brain of one of the ‘witches’ on the heath in Macbeth.

3. What’s the difference as you understand it, between a play text and an opera libretto?

Huge. My favourite thing is dialogue; love writing it, thinking it, imagining it. There is no dialogue in a good opera, in my view. There is only singing, showing off, spinning into emotion — I.e. Massenet’s WERTHER —.
Anyway, I have to think poetically rather than in dialogue, and this is something I have learned working with Dustin. I have written some songs as poems, and others I have written as prose. — but tried to make them as little like dialogue as possible. A couple of comic songs involved ‘dialogue’ but that is me indulging myself.

4. One of the promotional texts for Shakespeare’s Criminal says the following
“Shakespeare’s Criminal celebrates the eternal bond between gay men and the women who love them. As long as gay men have been looking for sex and romance, their best female friends have been supporting them. What’s that about? What is the special relationship between gay men and their BFFs?”
Please talk about that “eternal bond”. Do you feel that it goes far beyond any particular decade or century?

In Ellen Harris’s book the phrase is ‘rake, whore, catamite’ and it is intended to refer to a straight young man, a sexual woman and a man who desires other men. She suggests that the triumvirate — this friendly gang of three is transhistorical, going back to the 17th century. In other words there is something archetypical, in western culture at least, about a ‘catamite’ inserting himself into a relationship with a man and a woman — as friend. I have switched that slightly in my opera, and there is a song entitled ‘rake, whore, voyeur, in which Shakespeare is the rake, the young man the whore, and the woman the voyeur. So I am fashioning a new variation on an old trope. But I would say that straight women and gay men have a special bond, which I suspect is transhistorical — even though ‘gay’ is a relatively new phenomenon — there have always been men and women who desire men, and that bond they share both oppresses them in a sexist, homophobic society, and liberates them to share their loves, fantasies and desires, in a creative friendship.

5. I always felt there was a natural affinity between gay men & opera divas, because they appreciated larger than life emotions & gestures. I associate the use of the word “diva” in popular culture with the operatic world, a conservative community that welcomed gay people both in the audience & onstage long before mainstream acceptance. When we speak of the phenomenon of the drag queen I feel a natural affinity with the larger than life features of the opera diva. Does anything in Shakespeare’s Criminal draw upon the drag world?

As Susan Sontag says in ‘On Camp’ Bellini has for a long time been accepted by gay men as a camp figure. It’s important to remember that this does not mean that Norma is a laughing-stock, in fact the most misunderstood aspect of camp is that it is as serious as it is funny. Drag queens adore the women they portray, because they have a little bit of women in them, and there is a lot of ‘their mothers’ in them, that they can’t rid themselves of, no matter how hard they try. At any rate, Wayne Koestenbaum has written extensively about the relationship between camp and opera in a book called The Queen’s Throat. Belllini was being quite serious when he wrote Norma. But the fact that she is a tragic sorceress in a kind of prehistoric culture is a little funny — partially only because we have the distance of years to look at that, and also aesthetic distance because we don’t write bel canto anymore in the same reverent way. Camp gives us the opportunity to enjoy melodrama again, as we can be both serious and funny about it at the same time. Dustin has provided Marion Newman with a ‘curse song’ that I think is camp. On the one hand it is all about a woman’s fury at a closeted gay man (ie a ‘straight’ man), on the other hand it is all about two gay men revelling in that fury. And frankly, I think that’s okay.

6. You have been around long enough to remember when homosexuality was illegal & covert, when it was a threat to at least some in the establishment, when many chose to be in the closet for fear of violence, reprisals or worse. Your gay theatre was an activist theatre, perhaps captured in that name “Buddies in Bad Times”, an organization you founded. The word “gay” is safer, less threatening and perhaps a reflection of our times. I read a wonderful comment on your blog, observing the
“mega-musicals that celebrate tolerance. Funny, but I personally have never been very fond of being tolerated.”
Writing an opera in 2019, does your work still seek out edginess, activism & revolution rather than to aim for being tolerated?

I have to take issue with the first part of your paragraph. All of this is not over, we are still suspected of converting people, people are still in the closet, there is still fear of violence, and not only in Brunei. The problem is that young gay men are in a trap; many have turned to drugs as a way out. They have been told the lie (and I am not accusing you of this, it’s out there) that there is no more homophobia. And yet they are still terrified to tell their parents, and eventually some of their acquaintances out in the world, that they are gay. How does one live with that terrifically discomfiting irregularity between truth and the general discourse —with having to pretend that everything is alright with gay men in our culture, but knowing it’s really not? At any rate, I do the antique thing of writing about gay men because gay men still exist and are still oppressed. Period. Up until recently, HIV positive gay men (and others who were HIV positive too) were jailed simply for being a possibly ever present ‘danger’ to society.

The criminal in my opera is an HIV positive young man who loves to spread the liquids around. We are not ‘over’ AIDS. Does any group ever get over a holocaust? I don’t think so. We will never forget that we were blamed and shamed for this tragic illness, and many died overwhelmed with that shame and blame. THAT will never go away.

7. Two of the works in the current Canadian Opera Company season (Hadrian & Eugene Onegin in the fall) came from homosexual composers, but that’s hardly surprising considering how many great gay composers there have been (in the last century: Britten, Barber, Bernstein, Cage, Copland, Adès, Hoiby, Poulenc, Menotti, and before, Schubert, Tchaikovsky perhaps Handel & Lully, and many more I didn’t mention). Will the music of Shakespeare’s Criminal sound anything like the music of a gay composer (listed or otherwise)?

The first one that comes to mind is Samuel Barber. I am fond of his opera Vanessa believe it or not, and the denseness of the quintette in that is not unlike his famous adagio. Here is an intensity of sound and a beauty, of course in the trio for our opera that reminds me of Barber. I think Dustin’s music lives in that area between Barber, and R Strauss and Wolf-Ferrari — he might not agree but that’s my take.

Baritone Dion Mazerolle

8. Please talk about the team presenting the workshop of Shakepeare’s Criminal.

It would be better to ask Dustin this. I am not incredibly familiar with Dion Mazerolle’s work — though I’ve heard him sing and he sings and performs beautifully. I’m eager to start working for him.

The part of ‘The Academic’ was written, to some degree for Marion, that is Dustin and I both had her in mind when we were writing the opera. Of course that means that we have all her technical facility to work with, and the chance to show off her beautiful voice had to be utilized to the fullest.

She also radiates integrity and strength, both qualities which are needed for the role.

Soprano Marion Newman

We decided to cast a musical comedy singer, Nathaniel Bacon — in the role of the Young Man, and I had worked with Nathaniel before. He was in a play I directed My Dinner With Casey Donovan, and a play of mine that was produced at 4th Line Theatre called St. Francis of Millbrook. I only became aware that Nathaniel was a singer when I heard him sing Hedwig so beautifully at LOT (Lower Ossington Theatre). We think the young handsome gay musical comedy singer will be a nice contrast to the more classically trained opera artists and will say something about one of the themes of the play ‘earthy vs arty’.

Nathaniel Bacon

9. What’s your favorite opera (the one you like most) & your ideal opera (the one whose structure / dramaturgy you would put on a pedestal as the best)? In writing Shakespeare’s Criminal would we see anything that resembles or imitates features of either your favorite or ideal opera?

Probably R. Strauss’s Arabella. I think what I love most about that opera is the wistfulness with which he flirts with waltz music. Recently I’ve been trying to appreciate German operetta without much success, and then I realized that it was R. Strauss that led me to this stuff, because the beautiful waltzes that he gives us glimpses of in Arabella and Rosenkavalier that so charmed me. Then I realized that Strauss’s music is nostalgic, and of course camp in this way, it is about wanting to hear beautiful melodies but only getting a taste of them. But Strauss’s flirting with these melodies from operetta is actually more beautiful and compelling and profound than these waltzes in the old operettas themselves. A reviewer of Massenet’s Griselidis once said of one of the melodies in that work that it was not the melody itself that was so beautiful but what how we missed it when it was gone. The last lyric in our opera is ‘gone’ and there is some of this wistful nostalgia, I think , in our opera for the beauty of melody, without always being melodic.

10. Is there a teacher or influence you’d care to name that you especially admire?

I want to mention Robert Spergel in this context. When I played in a quartet workshop at the Royal Conservatory back in — oh this would be probably 1970? — our teacher was Robert Spergel. I was playing the cello, badly, in the quartet, and he was always very annoyed with me. He of course had been a child prodigy (his sister was Mildred Kenton) and he had written a quartet and two symphonies — he played the Kol Nidri on the cello with Ernest MacMillan and the Toronto Symphony when he was 10. Anyway when I worked with Robert Spergel I was scared of him, and I thought he was kind of mean, but now I realize — no, he just loved music more than anything else more than people, and more than anything he wanted to see music done RIGHT. I have to respect this in a teacher, however tyrannical! And now that I have seen photos of a young Robert Spergel, it’s especially charming to see that he was at one time a very beautiful, petulant looking young man! Always a surprise, to learn this about the old!

*****

All Tickets for regular performances $35:
Friday April 26th, 8:00pm
Sunday April 28th, 2:00pm
https://www.factorytheatre.ca/what-s-on/

On April 26, 1977 Studio 54 opened in New York City.
On April 27 2019, Orpheus Productions will have a wild fundraising party to celebrate the venerable sex-positive, party-positive New York City hangout from the disco era and honour our new Chamber Opera ‘Shakespeare’s Criminal’.

All April 27th Tickets $80
Includes the workshop presentation, pre-show talk with the creators, post-show cocktail party with disco deserts, and scandalous performances for your voyeuristic pleasure by Hélène Ducharme and Shane MacKinnon! Dress in your favourite 70s outfit and dance the night away Studio 54 Style!

Buy tickets NOW and take yourself back to Studio 54
Saturday April 27th, 8:00pm https://shakespearescriminal.brownpapertickets.com

This is a Canadian Actors’ Equity Association production under the Artists’ Collective Policy.

Posted in Interviews, Music and musicology, Opera, Politics, Popular music & culture | Tagged drag, Dustin Peters, Ellen Harris, Guelph University, Marion Newman, Nathaniel Bacon, Queer theory, Shakespeare's Criminal, Sky Gilbert, Susan Sontag, Wayne Koestenbaum | 2 Comments

Against the Grain: Vivier’s Kopernikus

Posted on April 6, 2019 by barczablog

Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus has been promoted on social media as “Canada’s most famous unknown opera.” And Joel Ivany is quoted saying “I think this is Canada’s greatest opera ever written.”

After seeing what Against the Grain did with Vivier I’m a believer.

Composer Claude Vivier

I think I drove Joel Ivany & Topher Mokrzewski a bit nuts talking their ears off after the performance tonight, Kopernikus in the intimacy Theatre Passe Muraille. Joel is the stage director, Topher the music director, and they’re keys to Against the Grain Theatre’s continuing excellence. It’s almost a decade isn’t it, that this young group have been dazzling Toronto audiences. While there have been several moments to identify as highlights, here’s another one that might be the greatest yet, possibly their most ambitious project of all.

Any interpretation is a kind of solution to the challenges posed by a text. Any score is a kind of puzzle that can be solved in more than one way. When something becomes part of standard repertoire, when a composer becomes known, those pathways are less mysterious, indeed we may err in forgetting to properly interrogate the page when we may become accustomed to the way others have answered the implicit questions in a piece. But when something is new and/or unknown you are truly face to face with enigmas.

Vivier doesn’t make it easy. On the one hand his music emulates the adventures one might call “modernist”, sometimes tonal, sometimes dissonant or ambiguous. But on the other hand sometimes he asks his performers to deconstruct that modernist surface, giving us self-references bordering on parody, approaches to vocalization by the singers that might seem to mock the whole process. Is he kidding?

Claude Vivier

But having died in his mid-30s back in the 1980s, Vivier couldn’t be reached to answer the questions. The mysteries of his scores will persist. Indeed his short life with its violent ending is a fascinating additional subtext for his works, especially those such as this one with metaphysical overtones.

How serious is the tone of this work, I wondered, addressing the two creators: who were very polite with my questions. There’s a solemnity to the subject, the passage from the material world to the realm of spirit. I was reminded of Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, another opera raising spiritual questions (and another opera that has been presented by Against the Grain) that is serious all the way through without any humour. Perhaps it depends on the audience, Joel suggested, as to whether they laugh. I recall a comment from the theorist Tzvetan Todorov, who noticed that some works are received with great enthusiasm during one cultural epoch, when that culture is willing to make a special effort to meet the work on its own terms; and without the special effort (corresponding to the beliefs etc of that group) the work fails or leaves people mystified. It strikes me now in hindsight that what Ivany & co. achieved was to bring most if not all of us to a place of commitment, without any requirement that we truly buy into this world or share a cultural consensus. Indeed I was persuaded without any idea of what it might mean. While much of it is deliberately nonsensical or unintelligible in an invented language yet we buy into it all the same.

AtG’s achievement tonight, building on a workshop of this work at the Banff Centre in 2017, is to make sense of something extremely challenging, a score that problematizes signification with a text that is full of complex sounds to go with the nonsense syllables (I wasn’t sure until I asked them about it, but they confirmed this), a musical inkblot connoting the blurriness of dreams & the surreal.

I wondered about the concluding image, which reminded me of an interpretative choice from Robert Lepage: but Joel showed me that it’s right in Vivier’s score. Powerful as the piece is, its final minute is especially compelling, and might remind you of something you’ve seen; but I won’t spoil it for you by spilling the beans, except to say that it’s very simple and totally remarkable.

The ensemble includes some wonderful talents, all working as a team. I was amazed by the precision of their response to Topher’s conducting. Bruno Roy created a fascinating characterization that seemed like a cross between Cabaret’s Master of Ceremonies and Dracula. Dion Mazerolle had some beautiful moments when his lovely baritone filled the space. There are many more I could name, both onstage and working as part of the creative team.

The main thing is to recognize that this score is full of stunning moments, indeed gorgeous from beginning to end especially in this reading in this tight little space. The intimacy of the venue magnifies the effect. This gif from their website gives you some idea.

I hope they record it. I need to hear it again and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Kopernikus continues this weekend & next, closing on April 13th.

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Music and musicology, Opera | Tagged Against the Grain Theatre, Bruno Roy, Claude Vivier, Dion Mazerolle, Joel Ivany, Kopernikus, Topher Mokrzewski | 1 Comment

barczablog

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Two schools

Old-fashioned Boheme

Pondering wandering

Youthful leader inspires TSO

Boisterously brilliant Bigre

Questions for Sky Gilbert: Shakespeare’s Criminal

Against the Grain: Vivier’s Kopernikus

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