BACH IS BACK: 2nd Annual Toronto Bach Festival

Posted on February 10, 2017 by barczablog

2nd Annual Toronto Bach Festival: May 26 – 28, 2017
Toronto (Canada) February 9, 2017…

Artistic Director John Abberger is pleased to announce the 2nd Annual Toronto Bach Festival is taking place May 26, 27 and 28, 2017 in Toronto.

The Festival offers single performances of three unique baroque programs, featuring over 30 renowned baroque and classical artists including Brett Polegato, Christopher Bagan, Daniel Taylor, Alison Melville and Ellen McAteer.

CANTATAS & BRANDENBURGS opens the 2017 Festival on May 26 at 8pm, with a pairing of two remarkable early cantatas and two of Bach’s Brandenburg concertos. Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich is thought to be the earliest surviving cantata that Bach wrote, and Komm, du süsse Todesstude was written during the composer’s time in Weimar. These magical works are complemented by two joyous concertos: the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, and the Oboe Concerto in E-flat.

Returning to the Toronto Bach Festival for the second year, soprano Ellen McAteer has been praised for her “sparkling agility” (Toronto Star). Ms. McAteer is joined by alto Rebecca Claborn, renowned for her “mellifluous yet clear” (Music in Victoria) singing, and six period instrumentalists, including Abberger as oboe soloist, and Patrick Jordan and Brandon Chui as viola soloists.

On May 27 at 2:30pm, harpsichordist Christopher Bagan (University of Toronto, Canadian Opera Company and Opera Atelier) presents a dazzling HARPSICHORD RECITAL of early keyboard works. This showcase will explore the programmatic sonata, fashionable in Leipzig in the early 18th century, and pairs Kuhnau’s Jacob’s Wedding with Bach’s Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother. The performance will also feature Bach’s Six Little Preludes from the year 1717, and the magnificent Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue.

Ellen McAteer returns with vocal soloists including Daniel Taylor, Brett Polegato, Agnes Zsigovics and newcomer Asitha Tennekoon, for a rare performance of ST. MARK PASSION on May 28 at 3:30pm. Only two of Bach’s five passions survived, and this year’s Toronto Bach Festival closes with the presentation of a stunning reconstruction by Simon Heighes. Based on the surviving libretto by Picander, the librettist for the St. Matthew Passion, and fashioned from arias and choruses from Bach’s own works, a vocal ensemble of nine singers together with an intimate instrumental ensemble will present this work as it would have been performed by Bach. This year’s final performance also features the talents of twelve period instrumentalists, including Abberger, Bagan, Julia Wedman, Felix Deak and Matthew Girolami, as well as Alison Melville and Anthea Conway-White (flute), and Joëlle Morton and Marilyn Fung (viola da gamba).

Canadian Daniel Taylor is one of the most sought-after countertenors in the world. Recently moving from Montreal to Toronto, Mr. Taylor is the new Head of Historical Performance in the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto.

Toronto Bach Festival 2017 performances take place at St. Barnabas-on-the-Danforth, 361 Danforth Avenue, Toronto.

Festival passes and single tickets are available for advance purchase at TorontoBachFestival.com, and may also be purchased at the door before each performance.

Information: (416) 466-8241

LISTING INFORMATION: Toronto Bach Festival presents

CANTATAS AND BRANDENBURGS Directed by John Abberger with Ellen McAteer and Rebecca Claborn. Friday, May 26, 2017 at 8pm Venue: St. Barnabas-on-the-Danforth, 361 Danforth Avenue, Toronto Program: J.S. Bach Cantata, BWV 161 “Komm du süsse Todesstunde” J.S. Bach Cantata, BWV 150 “Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich” J.S. Bach Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, BWV 1051 J.S. Bach Oboe Concerto in E-flat, BWV 1053a

HARPSICHORD RECITAL Featuring Christopher Bagan Saturday, May 27, 2017 at 2:30pm Venue: St. Barnabas-on-the-Danforth, 361 Danforth Avenue, Toronto Program: J.S. Bach Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother, BWV 992 Johann Kuhnau Jacob’s Wedding J.S. Bach Six Little Preludes, BMV 933-938 J.S. Bach Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV 903

ST. MARK PASSION BWV 247 (reconstruction by Simon Heighes) Directed by John Abberger, with Ellen McAteer, Agnes Zsigovics, Daniel Taylor, Asitha Tennekoon, Brett Polegato, Alison Melville, Anthea Conway-White, John Abberger, Marco Cera, Joëlle Morton, Marilyn Fung, Julia Wedman, Emily Eng, Matt Antal, Felix Deak, Matthew Girolami, and Christopher Bagan. Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 3:30pm Venue: St. Barnabas-on-the-Danforth, 361 Danforth Avenue, Toronto 2017

Individual Ticket Pricing: Regular: $30 Senior (65+): $25 Student: $15 3-concert Festival Passes: Regular: $80 Senior (65+): $70 Student: $40 Box Office: Advance Regular and Senior tickets and passes http://www.TorontoBachFestival.com Ticket and passes, including student tickets and passes may also be purchased at the door Information: (416) 466-8241

ABOUT ARTISTIC DIRECTOR JOHN ABBERGER One of North America’s leading performers on historical oboes, John is principal oboist with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and the American Bach Soloists (San Francisco). He has performed extensively in North America, Europe and Asia with these ensembles, and appears regularly with other prominent period-instrument ensembles, including Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Washington Bach Consort, Portland Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Voltaire, Handel and Haydn Society, and Boston Baroque. His recording of the Concerto for Oboe by Alessandro Marcello with Tafelmusik was glowingly reviewed by Gramophone Magazine as “one of the best there is” and “alone worth the price of the disc, even if you have other versions.” In addition to many recordings with Tafelmusik and other period-instrument ensembles, he has produced and recorded two discs of concertos and suites by J.S. Bach. Released on the Analekta label, the recordings have received much critical acclaim, including CD of the Month by the German magazine Toccata/Alte Musik Actuell for the recording of orchestral suites. John serves on the faculty at the University of Toronto, the Glenn Gould Studio at the Royal Conservatory of Music and has taught at the City College of New York. A native of Orlando, Florida, he received his training at the Juilliard School and Louisiana State University. In addition, he holds a Performers Certificate in Early Music from New York University.

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Posted in Personal ruminations & essays | 1 Comment

Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach: Straub & Huillet @ tiff

Posted on February 9, 2017 by barczablog

Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach is the original title of the 1967 film by Danièle Huillet & Jean-Marie Straub, that I just saw on a new 35 mm print, courtesy of TIFF / Bell Lightbox, in anticipation of an upcoming retrospective of Straub & Huillet.

 

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Gustav Leonhardt conducts players of Concentus Musicus, Wien and (I think) a young Bernd Weikl (photo: Barbara Ulrich)

Here’s the context, as described on TIFF’s website:

“Straub-Huillet made their first masterpiece with this account of the last decades of the great composer’s life, featuring glorious, direct-recorded performances of Bach’s music on period instruments.

A cinephile’s dream: a new 35mm print of a classic of modernist cinema, unscreened in Toronto for a decade. Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach stars the late virtuoso harpsichordist Gustav Leonhardt as Johann Sebastian Bach and Christiane Lang as his second wife Anna Magdalena, whose journal serves as the film’s narration. An account of the difficult last 27 years of the composer’s life, Chronicle places as much emphasis on economic and social factors as on character and incident, but cedes all to Bach’s music — lots of it, gloriously performed on original instruments and recorded with direct sound to ensure purity and authenticity of reproduction. (Paradoxically, Straub and Huillet insisted on period-specific performance not only for the sake of authenticity, but because at the time it was rare enough to be “new” and radical.) Chronicle achieves grandeur through the interplay of visual design and camera placement, the counterpoint of music and editing, of music and narration, the use of silence and interpolated images of nature, and the many performances of Bach’s music. “One of the most beautiful achievements in film history” (Martin Walsh).”

Straub & Huillet are the film-makers, but perhaps I could just as easily say “chroniclers.” Their 93 minute film reminds me of several paradigms, none of which is quite perfect to describe this unique bit of cinema:

  • The words are de facto history, something like Harper’s Index, the indirect testimony of actual events: except that this is coming from the 18th century, the letters and notes of A.M. Bach.
  • I’m reminded of epistolary novels such as Richardson’s Pamela, a form using a series of letters as the occasion to tell a story: except that this is non-fiction
  • The discourse of this film is an extreme (discursive) marriage perhaps a bit like the actual marriage between JS and AM, a film almost entirely comprised of her words and his music: so much so that several times her words are like the recitative setting up the emotional release of his music that follows.

Perhaps I should add: we are traveling in time. The film purports to take us back to the last quarter century of JS’s life, up to his death in 1750. In the black and white of this gorgeous new print, though what are we really seeing and hearing? The performances may be on the leading edge of performance practice for their time, but are antique compared to what we’re accustomed to hearing in 2017. Yes we do have Gustav Leonhardt and Christiane Lang as JS & AM Bach, complete with performances at the keyboard. Nikolaus Harnoncourt (the great conductor & scholar who passed away less than a year ago) also puts in an appearance –playing a prince—alongside his Concentus Musicus Wien, the band seen and heard playing throughout the film. Baritone Bernd Weikl, who may be familiar for singing Wagner (for instance in the Ring cycle from the era of James Levine in the 1990s), is one of the singers, everyone decked out in baroque-era wigs.

Perhaps the best evidence that Straub & Huillet were on to something is found in a 1969 NY Times review curtly dismissing the film.

“While this “Chronicle,” which had a single showing at last year’s New York Film Festival, is a testament to his ever-living music, it is, unfortunately, lifeless as biography.”
So says A. H. WEILER in April 7, 1969

Watching it today I’m inclined to think of it as a masterpiece, a work of art pregnant with meanings that don’t reveal themselves in a first viewing.

One of the problems a 1967 viewer might face is the departure from the recognizable genre. This is not how Hollywood would approach a great composer, and thank goodness. We meet someone who is struggling, who isn’t appreciated, who has children that die. AM reports –in passing—on the deaths of at least five of them, while telling us of other challenges faced by JS. And the whole time he keeps creating. This is a very different JS Bach, and dare I say it: the real JS Bach

Alongside the de facto text we have perhaps the most important testimony of all, namely
the de facto creations of JS Bach himself, including

  • The piano concerto
  • His Anna Magdalena notebook, seen from a new angle: as we watch AM herself play it at home while supervising one of their many children
  • The St Matthew Passion
  • Goldberg Variations
  • The Italian Concerto
  • The Well-tempered Klavier
  • And other assorted compositions for keyboard, both organ & harpsichord (nowadays often played on the piano)

A positivist might complain “but we don’t find out enough about the life of JS Bach”, which is more or less what that dismissive reviewer says. But of course he mistakes this film for a mere biography, missing the point completely.  Tonight I was pondering how JS Bach lives on. I had him on my piano yesterday, and again today, and the film inspired a very different sensation after this film than before. When I hear his music from Tafelmusik this Friday (including at least one of the pieces named above), the images of the film will haunt me.  We have the platonic ideal of the composer whom we know in our heads and fingers and throats, the one who we sing & play (as we have a “Shakespeare” as well),  brought to life as never before in this film.

There are several intriguing layers to the film that I look forward to probing further next time I see it.

*******

Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach screens on Friday, March 3 at 6:30 p.m. as part of TIFF Cinematheque’s Not Reconciled: The Films of Jean Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet, running from March 3 to April 2. Curated by James Quandt, Senior Programmer, TIFF Cinematheque, this first ever Toronto retrospective assembles dozens of their features and short films, many of them to be seen in the city for the first time.

Posted in Cinema, video & DVDs, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Press Releases and Announcements | 5 Comments

Ambitious Kindred Spirits Orchestra

Posted on February 7, 2017 by barczablog

I’m going to my first Kindred Spirits Orchestra concert February 11th , intrigued by their ambitious programs but also because I’ve had a bit of a preview from one of the participants.

In previous months they’ve done difficult works such as Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto, Brahms’ epic violin concerto, or Berlioz’s Harold in Italy (possibly my single favourite piece of music: except I missed it..!).  While I don’t know how well they play these pieces, the fact they’re trying them at all is a big deal. These are colossal works that can’t be done in a self-effacing way, but only with big bold sounds.

And this coming week it won’t get any easier:

  • Wagner, Tristan and Isolde: Prelude and Liebestod
  • Schumann, Concerto for cello and orchestra, Op. 129
  • Shostakovich, Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93

My preview was of the Liebestod, in a practice room with soprano Margarete von Vaight. I played through the piano part a few times the week before, totally stoked for what would be my first chance to play this with a real live soprano.  And it was startling, the sound so full and gorgeous it was hard to keep playing, when i wanted to just bask in the sound.

While it will be a different experience with orchestra, I am convinced that hers is a genuine Wagnerian voice, able to handle the challenges of this difficult repertoire.  We heard her sing most of the role of Ariadne –the two big opening arias for example—at Hart House about fourteen months ago, and it seemed effortless.

The  concert also includes Rachel Mercer playing the Schumann cello concerto and the 10th Symphony of Shostakovich, all conducted by Kristian Alexander.  It’s likely to be an epic evening at Markham Theatre.

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Chester Brown’s Louis Riel

Posted on February 4, 2017 by barczablog

Last week a fun outing with a child to a bookstore led to a windfall.  I hadn’t expected to find a book for myself but as I browsed through graphic novels I saw a title that grabbed me. “Louis Riel” it said.

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Louis Riel is Chester Brown’s graphic novel that first appeared in 2003 in hard-cover, released in paperback in 2006, and reprinted many times since.  I’m no graphic novel junkie, even if I do remember Maus both in its initial incarnation and via the AGO as fine art in an Art Spiegelman retrospective just over two years ago.

I find that Louis Riel reminds me of Maus in several ways.

We’re in the presence of an important story and vital issues.  With Maus it’s multi-generational anti-semitism and the Holocaust.  For Riel we’re looking at the history of Canada, sifting for truth amid so many lies, especially surrounding aboriginals and Metis, while telling the story of an important and iconic figure.

At one time the style would have been off-putting. The thought that serious stories could be told through something resembling a children’s comic book was at one time thought of as subversive and revolutionary.  But when history has failed, when culture breaks down, such objections lose any meaning.  High culture can be implicated in these struggles.  I can’t forget that the Wagner who wrote the powerful opera Götterdämmerung that still resonates in my head from Thursday night was Hitler’s favourite.  Opera has often been recruited to legitimize a regime and/or its policies.  The 17th century French court composers were elevated by their King in exchange for proclaiming his divinity in staged allegorical tableaus.  Last night in Toronto Consort’s meticulous First Encounters we were spared any of those pompous sounds, hearing something resembling popular music instead.  The inter-marriage of those cultures –especially the French voyageurs & the native women they impregnated—leads to a place not unlike where we end up at the beginning of the story of Louis Riel, another tale that had utopian possibilities –in the founding of a new province and the quest for responsible government for the inhabitants– that lead to something tragic at least for the protagonist, if not for an entire people.

Last night we only had a hint of what was to follow, namely broken promises and disrespect.  John A Macdonald is very much the same in the book as what we get in Harry Somers’ operatic treatment of the same material.  Brown draws Macdonald with a comically enlarged nose perhaps from his love of drink.  In Mavor Moore’s libretto, Macdonald gets many of the funniest lines of the opera, a witty politician who is not quite as dark as what Brown creates: but perhaps those are two sides of the same cryptic coin.

As we’re in the realm of myth the ideas and the features of this, one of our founding fathers, tend to be larger than life.

I don’t think I was clear in explaining what I meant by “utopian”. The depiction of harmony between the races & cultures last night seized a magical instant that was to be lost.  I’m reminded of Warrack’s Abraham that similarly probes the founding patriarch of three religions in a time before they diverged.  In both cases there’s the hint of the prelapsarian harmony, an Eden that was lost.

But in Brown’s novel you can see it coming, possibly because we know the story so well, that the natives and Métis go in with good faith only to be cheated by the Macdonalds and their henchmen.  I would recommend Brown’s graphic novel to anyone expecting to see the opera Louis Riel this spring either in Toronto or Ottawa. While the treatment of the story isn’t precisely the same, there are lots of similarities.  Yet the media –graphic novel vs   opera –must diverge because one is internal and can be sampled, while the other is performed in three languages.

Soon I’ll be going to see Kent Monkman’s show at the University College Art Centre, steeling myself for some heart-breaking images.  In a time when the media are full of the atrocities & lies of the great & powerful, one can hide in a world of kitties and puppies and cuteness for only so long.

Posted in Politics, Reviews | Leave a comment

Toronto Consort’s Utopian Kanatha/Canada: First Encounters

Posted on February 4, 2017 by barczablog

I totally loved what I saw tonight from Toronto Chamber Choir in collaboration with the Toronto Consort led by their artistic director David Fallis, so much so that I’m taking a moment to double-check. I’m writing about something very complex, likely to omit something, in the small account I offer.

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As I’ve said more than a few times, I especially admire and appreciate ambition in the arts. I was excited by Götterdämmerung last night, a massive work, very difficult to stage because the people who can sing it are rare, and expensive too because of its scale & scope.

I’m even more impressed if I think I see that ambition applied towards something activist or transformational. Lately I am finding politics in unexpected places, seeing activism in simple things like concert programming, possibly because everyone I know including my mom, keep talking about a certain newly elected person whose ubiquity seems to hijack all conversation. I don’t doubt that my taste & preferences are all distorted.

Kanatha/Canada: First Encounters is the title of the program presented tonight and to be repeated tomorrow at the Jeanne Lamon Hall at the Trinity St Paul’s Centre. There are two parts to the program, both of which were quite remarkable. The second half might be understood as the raison d’être for the concert, being a work commissioned a few years ago, namely John Beckwith’s Wendake/Huronia. First performed in Midland, Meaford & Parry Sound in the summer of 2015, here’s the first paragraph from Beckwith’s program note:

“Late in 2013, John French, founder and artistic director of the Brookside Music Association in Midland, conceived the idea of commissioning a special work to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Samuel de Champlain’s voyage to the region of Huronia (known as Wendake to the natives), the first encounter of First Nations people with European explorers in what is now Ontario. The commission was supported by the Ontario Arts Council and I was asked to take it on. I decided to compile a text from various sources, aiming for a sort of chronological summary of the Wendat experience, before and after Champlain. It is mostly in French, with a few insertions in Wendat. The result is a “choral documentary” for choir, alto soloist, narrator, and an early-instrument ensemble including First Nations drums.“

The result is also a surprisingly political piece of art. The de facto texts make it genuinely like a documentary even as the music takes us into something more celebratory and even spiritual.

The evening for the 2017 presentation by Toronto Consort, however, framed the Beckwith work with an opening half curated to offer a proper context, and by that I mean to avoid any sense of exploitation or cultural appropriation, and instead to honour all the peoples represented: a tall order indeed. Can one experience the first encounter without preamble or prejudice? The ongoing drama surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline is a factor. And then there’s the plethora of memes in social media with classic images of aboriginals, spouting ironic lines such as “Immigrants threatening your way of life? That must be tough” or “Let me get this straight, you’re afraid of refugees coming to America, killing you and taking your property?” So for better or worse, the first encounter narratives –real, bogus, or satirical—are close to the surface of our consciousness.

I think there’s a hunger for something redemptive, a utopian dream that might be best understood by going back in time to avoid the unfolding of history. What if we could go back and avoid what happened? And so the concert takes us back to a special time, offering  a vision of a peace conference from back around 1700, when the atrocities hadn’t happened yet, when it was possible to imagine a dignified coexistence between Europeans and Indigenous peoples.  Where the first half of the concert gives us something stunningly beautiful in its vision of peaceful co-existence, Beckwith’s six-movement piece does take us into the lamentation for the European takeover. It’s a tiny hint, not proportionate to the massive tragedy / holocaust that is to come. But at least it was created in collaboration with George Sioui, a scholar of Wendat descent, who grants a legitimacy to the project.
The first half reminded me a bit of a folk music concert from the 1960s, in its idealism, and perhaps also because the music did at times echo that gentle directness.

The Toronto Consort were joined by:

  • Sioui –not just a contributor to the second half, but a performer in the first half, speaking as a narrator and singing
  • Jeremy Dutcher, a young vocal artist on the boundary between aboriginal and European in his creative idiom. He builds on old aboriginal recordings from roughly a hundred years ago, a bit like a 21st century Bela Bartok in his anthropological cataloguing, but taking us instead towards something at times resembling blues or new age pattern music.
  • Marilyn George & Shirley Hay, singing & drumming

I’m going to listen to more of Dutcher’s music, an intriguing mix of styles.

I can’t help thinking that Fallis and the Toronto Consort may have been influenced by the highly original programming of Alison MacKay, in seeking to go beyond authentic instruments & performance practices, to capture the cultural context surrounding the music in concerts with Tafelmusik such as “House of Dreams”.

Don’t let my failure to unpack its complexities stop you.  This wonderfully rich & rewarding concert, Kanatha/Canada: First Encounters is repeated Saturday February 4th, including a  pre-concert discussion with panelists David Fallis, Georges Sioui, and John Beckwith at 7 pm, an hour before the 8 pm concert.screen-shot-2017-01-31-at-1-41-17-pm-300x109

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews | 3 Comments

Götterdämmerung

Posted on February 3, 2017 by barczablog

When I did my year-end review of the highlights of 2016, I cited the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Wagner’s Siegfried in January. Here we are beginning 2017 and once again I’ve experienced something that will be hard to beat. Once again it’s the COC doing a Wagner opera, again starring Christine Goerke, brilliantly conducted by Johannes Debus leading soloists, COC Orchestra & chorus.

It’s a long evening, this Götterdämmerung, and come to think of it that’s the short form of the name. It should be “Die Götterdämmerung”, or The Twilight of the Gods. I was at the opening night of the Canadian Opera Company production of this epic work, the prototype for so much of our popular culture, from Lord of the Rings to Game of Thrones, many video games & fantasy novels: and so much else. Tim Albery’s production, with set & costume design by Michael Levine, brings us into a very modern world rather than the heroic setting that’s all too familiar.

The Ring Cycle is a trilogy with a prologue evening (although some call it a tetralogy), recapitulated in this, the final opera, three acts with a prologue. The evening is five hours, when you include two hefty intermissions, but they’re necessary. I noticed a couple sitting near me who left between the second and third act, who missed the best part. Act I can be the hardest because much of it is exposition, setting up the fireworks of Acts II and especially III. I’m not sure if I can be objective when I love so much of this opera. But I’d have to say that if you’re an opera lover who has hesitated with Wagner –because it’s long, because it’s so intense and well Wagnerian—this would be a really good place to start.
Some productions have so much overlaid complexity (director’s theatre) that you lose much of the story, a huge problem for a first time viewer. Not this time. Albery has modernized things, but otherwise the story is mostly clear. No there’s no horse ridden into the fire, but we even have a pair of ravens, and they even catch up to that pesky Forest Bird. And if that makes no sense, ask one of your opera nerd friends to explain.

Loudest applause went to the musical side. Debus moved things along at a brisk pace, which seemed to help the singers, but at times he’s very flexible, as in Siegfried’s story-telling scene near the end, where we slow right down. The orchestral set-pieces were for me the highlights of the evening, especially the Rhine Journey, the Funeral March and the last minutes of the opera. In each case Debus urges his ensemble to take the stage, and they made the most of these beautiful moments, the real stars of the night. There’s a sunrise depicted in each act, each stunningly played but especially the final one.

The scene between Siegfried (Andreas Schager) and the Rhine Maidens: Woglinde (Danika Loren), Wellgunde (Lauren Eberwein) and Flosshilde (Lindsay Ammann) is some of the most difficult and chromatic music of the entire cycle, yet I think it was close to perfect.

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Andreas Schager as Siegfried (left) with the Rhinemaidens (l-r: Lauren Eberwein as Wellgunde, Lindsay Ammann as Flosshilde and Danika Lorèn as Woglinde) in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Götterdämmerung, 2017, photo: Michael Cooper

The Rhine Maidens were given two costume choices, reflecting the two sides of their character that we see in this scene:

  • All in black, like the wise norns, who predict the future
  • All in white, as the temptresses who lure men (as in the photo)

When the music for the Rhine Maidens echoes the norns’ music – in preaching about what Siegfried must do, and the consequences for the future—they take on this serious wise-woman aspect.  I’m overwhelmed with gratitude that one of my favourite scenes in all opera was given such a stunning interpretation.  I’ll be hearing their music as i drop off to sleep tonight.

There were plenty of other highlights. In almost every Götterdämmerung I’ve ever seen, the Hagen steals the show, just as Othello/Otello is often stolen by the Jago/Iago. While Ain Anger gave us a powerfully voiced portrayal, the cast was strong top to bottom, particularly on the male side.  The testosterone quotient was high in Act II, climaxing in Anger’s call to the Vassals, a male chorus bristling with spears and a high C.  Wagner had avoided chorus in the Ring cycle until this moment, some of the most challenging –and thrilling– choral writing in any opera, and the men of the COC Chorus answered the call.  And for the few minutes of his role to begin Act II, I couldn’t take my eyes off of Robert Pomakov as Alberich, Hagen’s father. Is this a dream? The scene was indeed spell-binding in its intensity.

I mentioned Schager, who improved as the show went on, tossing off a big loud high C in the last act before his final scene. His was a very sympathetic, fresh-faced reading of the role. Martin Gantner as his blood-brother Gunther was deliciously conflicted, especially as the plot to bring down Siegfried unfolds in the last act.

Christine Goerke is at the centre of this opera, as Brunnhilde, a very long & difficult role. In her climactic immolation scene –done without benefit of fire or horse or logs or anything resembling immolation—her singing was gorgeous, powerful and built to a wonderful climax at the end. The most intense scene of Act I –not usually my favourite but clearly the emotional centre tonight—was the confrontation between Brunnhilde and her sister Waltraute (Karen Cargill). Brunnhilde is usually triumphant as she rejects her sister’s appeals for help, clinging to her ring as proof of Siegfried’s love, but Goerke did something different. She’s wonderfully conflicted, showing us both the sense of joy in her relationship, yet sharing her sister’s anguish, devastated at what she discovers, which is something we don’t usually see. Similarly, in the Act II trio, where Brunnhilde tells Hagen the best way to kill Siegfried (sneak up behind him because he doesn’t usually turn his back on anyone in a fight), we see her horror, rather than just a desire of revenge. It’s a nuanced three dimensional portrait that’s always interesting to watch.

I’ll be seeing this production at least once more, although after seeing tonight’s I wonder if that’s enough.

Posted in Music and musicology, Opera, Reviews | 1 Comment

Questions for Eric Weimer: coaching Götterdämmerung for COC

Posted on January 30, 2017 by barczablog

A veteran of over 30 years at Lyric Opera of Chicago, Eric Weimer has coached over 100 Lyric productions, as well as an additional 100 productions in other international houses, including the Metropolitan Opera and the Bayreuth Festival. Renowned particularly for his expertise in German opera, he has prepared no less than 13 different productions of Wagner’s epic Ring cycle. Active also as recitalist and conductor, he has worked with most of the leading singers and conductors of the past generation.

When I looked on youtube i found the following video from the past summer, a lovely demonstration of his sensitivity.

If you look on his website,  you’ll see that he was just in Toronto until today, January 29th between a pair of engagements with Lyric Opera of Chicago.

  • September–November, Lyric Opera of Chicago Cover conductor, Das Rheingold and Les Troyens
  • December 27–January 29, Canadian Opera Company Head of Music Preparation, Die Goetterdaemmerung
  • February–March, Lyric Opera of Chicago Eugene Onegin

Although Eric leaves town today to return to Chicago to prepare Eugene Onegin for LOC, in the meantime the Canadian Opera Company are about to open Die Götterdämmerung on Thursday February 2nd.  In anticipation of that opening I interviewed Eric.

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Eric Weimer: pianist, conductor, opera coach (photo: Theresa Tam)

1-What is the best thing or worst thing about what you do?

The best thing about my job is easy to convey: I get to work with the very best singers and conductors in the world to prepare some of the greatest music ever written: operas by Mozart, Berlioz, Wagner, Verdi, Strauss, and company. Over the past 27 years, I’ve gotten to prepare some 14 or 15 cycles of Wagner’s epic Der Ring des Nibelungen. How great is that? The worst things pale in comparison and would seem to be mere trivialities or minor annoyances: having to work some evenings and most weekends, an occasional staging rehearsal in which I might not be playing very much or could be playing the same passage over and over again. (But if that’s the worst, then I shouldn’t be complaining!)

2-Who do you like to listen to or watch?

What I listen to: here it comes, I’m a Bach cantata freak, with some 150 cantatas stored on my iPhone (performances all directed by Ton Koopman or Philippe Herreweghe ). I listen to them while cooking at home in Chicago. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m convinced that those series of weekly cantatas that he composed during his first three years in Leipzig (some 50 a year!) constitute one of those titanic artistic outbursts, like the Sistine Chapel ceiling or the Shakespeare canon. What I watch: not much, PBS mostly. Like so many Americans I have been shocked senseless by many aspects of the past presidential election (particularly the results!), so I retain a morbid fascination with the state of the American economy and political world and consider it my duty to stay as informed as possible.

3-What ability or skill do you wish you had, that you don’t have?

To not make so many mistakes while I type this? Seriously, I admire people who have the ability to write floridly, in a manner that doesn’t just convey information accurately, but expresses the individuality and quirks of the writer. Similarly when I speak German (or Italian) I wish that I could just vent some of my joy or anger and not be so caught up in the intricacies of grammar. (Did I use the imperfect subjunctive incorrectly? Even Germans sometimes make mistakes with their word order.)

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

I love to travel, and I love to plan for the trip, i. e., researching museums, attractions, hotels, restaurants, history, and creating a detailed itinerary that permits us to enjoy each day to the fullest. (A 40-page itinerary is not out of the question!) Currently planning a trip to Barcelona, Valencia, and points in northern Spain.

More about preparing Götterdämmerung for the Canadian Opera Company.

1-How did you begin as a coach?

Having spent most of my late teens and 20s in the towers of academe—BA in history from Haverford College and a PhD in music history from the University of Chicago—I barely knew that such a thing as voice coaching even existed. But one does have to put food on the table, and when a job in musicology failed to materialize (thank god!), my mother suggested that with all my skills as a pianist, experience with foreign languages (German in particular), and familiarity with the opera repertoire , I should hang out my shingle as a voice coach. (While in middle school and high school, I spent countless hours listening to operas and playing through opera scores on the piano —doesn’t everybody?) This was obviously a crackpot idea, so to prove her wrong, I took her up on it. One thing lead to another….numerous private voice students as well as a part-time job as rehearsal pianist for the Chicago Symphony Chorus under the indomitable Margaret Hillis. That was a real challenge: learning to follow an unpredictable beat and contending with some extremely difficult rep (Schoenberg’s Moses und Aron, for example).

But the person who gave me my first “break” into the opera world was John Crosby, founding director of the Santa Fe Opera. I was already 35, a bit long in the tooth for starting a career in major opera houses, but John always conducted a major Richard Strauss opera (sometimes from the “forgotten but not gone” category). I was given the assignment of pianist for Die Aegyptische Helena and I must say, after the drudgery of writing a PhD dissertation which tracked style change in some 635 Italian opera seria arias and the first 50 symphonies of Haydn, the discipline required to master at the keyboard a lengthy 350-page reduction of a late Richard Strauss score was a pure delight! Assignments at other houses—Lyric Opera of Chicago (my professional home for the past 30 years), the Canadian Opera, San Francisco Opera, the Met, and the Bayreuth Festival in Germany followed in quick order.

2-Please talk about what you’re doing for the Canadian Opera Company, in helping to prepare their production of Götterdämmerung.

I think the most basic thing I’m doing in our COC rehearsals for Goetterdaemmerung is functioning as a substitute orchestra in all of our staging rehearsals and music rehearsals. This means playing the piano “reduction” (I put this word in quotes since a version for piano of an opera like Goetterdaemmerung is exceedingly complex and difficult to play) in a manner that accustoms the singers to hearing certain solos or themes that they will need to hone in on when they finally get with the orchestra. I also need to be actively listening: to pitches and rhythms, to their German (when a language gives you 16 different possibilities to say the definite article the, the possibilities for going astray are legion!). But language is critical: it’s not only a matter of correct pronunciation, but also of intent. Does the singer deliver the text in such a way that it is clear that they understand the significance of each and every word?

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Eric Weimer (photography: Theresa Tam)

3-Please tell us about the singers in your production

What’s particularly exciting is when you have world-class singers performing their role for the first time, and this we have with Christine Goerke (Bruennhilde), Ain Anger (Hagen), Karen Cargill (Waltraute), and Ilenna Monltalbetti (Gutrune). Even the veterans of this production, Andreas Schager (Siegfried) and Martin Gantner (Gunther) haven’t sung their roles so many times in the past; in a real sense, even they are still exploring these roles. So in all cases, we’re talking about a process of discovery, and an openness to interpretative suggestions. When we finally get to the main stage and have the orchestra in the pit, we’re in the eleventh hour, so to speak, and singers can be in a bit of a panic whether they can be heard over the orchestra in certain places. I may have to encourage them to “take a few steps forward” or “don’t sing into the wings” to help them achieve maximum vocal impact. (It’s not easy to project a single human voice over a eighty-piece orchestra with lots of brass!) Maybe there’s a place where I feel that a slight tempo adjustment might improve the singability of a certain phrase, and perhaps I can bring this to the conductor’s attention? I cherish my relationship with all of these people. They seem to trust me, and I’ll do whatever I can to improve their performance.

All of these people have been a joy to work with. Christine Goerke I rarely have to give a note to: she’s incredibly disciplined and self-aware in all she does. Only one errant pitch needed to be brought to her attention (which she promptly fixed). And it has been particularly gratifying to see Ain Anger grow in his portrayal of the titanic figure of Hagen. 

4- In your years of listening to the Ring Cycle live or on recording, which versions / performances stand out in your memory?

Frankly, it’s been a long time since I’ve listened to a recording of the Ring! But I have been involved in some 14 or 15 complete cycles. They’re all different, but my favorites are the ones in which really accomplished singers are tackling these supremely challenging roles for the first time. That would mean the current COC production as well as the most recent San Francisco production of 2011, in which so many of the main roles (Wotan, Siegfried, Bruennhilde, Siegmund) were role debuts for their respective artists.

I’ve prepared the Ring with quite a few conductors–(in chronological order) Runnicles, Mehta, Levine, Andrew Davis, Bradshaw, Debus, did I leave anyone out?–but I just realized that Johannes Debus, whom I also assisted last year with Siegfried, is the first German conductor with whom I worked on this monumental German work. It was about time for that, I’d say! It’s been a real pleasure to hear his insights to matters to text and subtext. And he really knows how to bend the tempo to suit the music and text. Our relationship in fact is much like the special relationship I had with the late Richard Bradshaw, when I assisted on the Ring cycle which opened Toronto’s acoustically thrilling opera house in 2006. With both Richard and Johannes I have felt that I can give advice, sometimes on tempo but particularly on balance. The orchestral forces of the Ring are of course colossal and a certain amount of intervention is called for (adjusting dynamics) to improve the stage-orchestra balance. My relationship with the COC goes back in fact to 1990 (Wozzeck and Otello). I very much cherish this relationship and hope to return again in the not-too-distant future.

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The Rhinemaidens – Allyson McHardy as Flosshilde, Laura Whalen as Woglinde and Krisztina Szabó as Wellgunde in Götterdämmerung (COC, 2006, photo: Michael Cooper)

5- What is your favourite opera and who is your favourite opera composer?

I have often maintained that the greatest opera of all time was Pelleas et Melisande (except for the times when I award that distinction to Don Giovanni).

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Eric Weimer has gone to Chicago to prepare Eugene Onegin for the LOC, but in the meantime, the Canadian Opera Company –who he coached over the past two months–open their production of Die Götterdämmerung on Thursday February 2nd.

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TSO Eruption

Posted on January 29, 2017 by barczablog

The Toronto Symphony have taken to giving brief powerful titles to their concerts. Last night it was “Eruption”, taking the name from one of the works being presented.  But for all the primeval force implied by that word, we were dealing instead with something far more human, whether in the personnel before us or the pieces they played. Here’s the program:

  • Eruption by Edward Top, played by the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra plus key mentors in the TSO, a TSO Commission and World Premiere
  • Tchaikovky’s Piano Concerto #1, played by Stewart Goodyear and the TSO
  • United Anthems, (Sesquie for Canad’s 150th , a TSO co-commission and TSO premiere)
  • Dvorak’s Symphony #7

In the moments before the concert began there was a kind of frenetic energy in the hall, curiously apt if we were about to have an eruption. Normally before a concert you see some playing, a bit of conversation, while the players get ready. There was no mistaking the tumult of youth, about to give a world premiere. It was fun watching mentor talking to the corresponding principal player for their section, for instance the smiles and the occasional demonstrations one saw from Joseph Johnson –always easy to see because he’s front and centre—alongside the young principal cello of the TSYO.

I spotted Pat Krueger leaning over towards a fellow percussionist, clearly having a whale of a time in the moments before the concert.

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Patricia Krueger, Principal Keyboard & Percussion for the TSO

Little did I realize that this was to be her final performance in a long career. And she clearly was enjoying every second.  When Peter Oundjian came out to make his pre-concert announcement he pointed out that we were about to hear Krueger’s final performance with the TSO. After the huge applause and a bouquet of flowers (which I thought would have made a really intriguing mallet for percussion, even if it might make a bit of a mess, let alone the imprecise impacts on the drums), they went to work in Top’s flamboyant composition.

Next on the program was another occasion to remark upon youth, namely Stewart Goodyear’s reading of the Tchaikovky piano concerto #1. I wonder if this is his first appearance since the cancellation last year, when we had hoped to hear Rachmaninoff.

As you may be aware, the TSO have just come home after a brief tour to Ottawa & Montreal with these same pieces, more or less offering Goodyear (and the remainder of this program) as their calling card.  Is there a better ambassador for Toronto than the sweet smile of Goodyear, who blew kisses to the adoring crowd last night? I have to think the orchestra is a loose and relaxed group after their little retreat, seemingly very tight and utterly responsive to Oundjian’s every tempo change.

Goodyear’s interpretation is remarkable in a few ways. He may have the largest dynamic range of any pianist I’ve ever heard. Yes he can play softly, but he gets sounds out of that Steinway that , well, make him a perfect spokesman for Steinway, which come to think of it is exactly what he is, as some of his recordings are for Steinway (who established a new recording label just a few years ago). If you want to know what a Steinway can do, pushed to the limit, you need to hear Stewart Goodyear. He plays the octave passages faster than usual, precisely articulated. In other words they sound big and loud but not blurred or unclear. When I think about what I used to take into a stereo shop to test record players, amplifiers, speakers, etc, the sounds coming out of Goodyear’s piano are like that: except they are more of a test of your perception, to hear details and clarity, nuances that you don’t hear from other piano players. I recall a professor years ago suggesting that when some of these 19th century pieces were written they expected a blur, expected a kind of messy chiaroscuro.  (he was thinking of Wagner, but the same applies here) Did Tchaikovsky ever hear all the notes articulated so clearly, with such nuance, I wonder? I doubt it.

After the intermission came a short but charming Sesqui, namely United Anthems. The Sesquis are two minutes works that are co-commissions with other Canadian orchestras to commemorate our sesquicentennial year. Maxime Goulet’s contribution is a celebration of our multi-culture that elicited a few giggles in my vicinity. In the course of a couple of minutes we heard a bit of Oh Canada, a bit of God Save the Queen and in due course, intimations and suggestions of national pride as heard in anthems and patriotic songs.

And then came the Dvorak. As we come to the twilight hours of Oundjian’s time with the TSO, I am noticing the magical moments. Oundjian seems especially happy with these passionate Eastern Europeans such as Tchaikovsky and Dvorak, opportunities for the players to wear their hearts on their sleeves. Yes it does sometimes sound more like Brahms than Dvorak, possibly because the Czech was still finding his way towards his own authentic voice; or maybe Brahms was always a closet Slav, what with his syncopations and Hungarian dances (yes yes I know we’re not actually Slavs… but you get the idea). For this work especially it felt as though the ensemble and their leader were in synch, that the trip had brought them all together into a kind of groove.

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H Thomas Beck

A final thought concerns another nod of respect towards our elders, this time a nod from Oundjian in the direction of H. Thomas Beck, to whom the TSO dedicated the concert.  Oundjian gave a touching remembrance of him recalling his own early days with the TSO, so moving as I feel the gradual passing of torches within the ensemble, its organization and the community. Whatever else they ask of the Music Director –such as the ability to hold a baton and lead an ensemble—Oundjian’s heart and his loving mentorship are enormous factors for the TSO. I hope they’re thinking about this when they select a successor.

Posted in Music and musicology, Reviews | Leave a comment

Liv Stein

Posted on January 27, 2017 by barczablog

I’ve just come home from opening night of Nino Haratischwili’s play Liv Stein presented by Canadian Stage, directed by Matthew Jocelyn.

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Novelist & playwright Nino Haratischwili

The first time I see something, a big part of my energy does into distinguishing between what’s exciting in the presentation as opposed to what’s exciting about the text. And as I start to get a sense of that text I find myself quibbling, wondering what if it had been done this way or that way, instead.

As a new play Liv Stein is quite an interesting story, and an absorbing evening in the theatre in Jocelyn’s hands. There are elements to the story that remind me very strongly of other texts, but if I were to take a playwright to task for being derivative, then I’d have to forgive Shakespeare and Brecht and a host of other playwrights.

I hate giving stories away, aiming for a spoiler-free approach. But this is a mysterious tale, one that invites us to speculate about the relationships, to question the stories we’re told. It’s less of a whodunit than a poetic meditation, getting us to feel the various connections between the characters and to question the validity of the world as portrayed.  At times Jocelyn invites us to interrogate the surfaces, because we may feel that there’s much more going on.

That there are fantastic and poetic elements to this story was clear to Jocelyn, who opted to insert theatrical elements into his presentation, employing a style that at times calls attention to itself, pushing us away a little bit. It’s not excessively Brechtian, but it’s also not trying to be realistic. And so we’re invited to think about how this story works and how it makes us feel.

Liv Stein is a famous pianist who has abandoned her career in the aftermath of her son’s death. A young woman appears who knew her son. The gradual unfolding of her story reminded me of Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, where a con artist pretends to be familiar with children of the family. I think we’re always wondering in Liv Stein: is this really a friend of Henri, Liv’s dead son, or is she a phony?

And so Jocelyn doesn’t make his stage-picture overly realistic, nor his actors terribly precise in their portrayal of musicians (Liv the concert pianist, her ex-husband Emil, who teaches music, and Lore, the young interloper who is also supposedly a pianist). We’re in the midst of an intellectual maze, seeking to discern truth, although it’s clouded by some powerful feelings. The language of Birgit Schreyer Duarte’s new English translation steers clear of musical jargon, staying instead in the realm of emotions and family dynamics.

I think you’ll have to see for yourself as to whether you’re seduced by the aptly named Lore’s stories. There’s a physical eloquence to Sheila Ingabire-Isaro that makes her immediately captivating in this white-bread world that she’s invaded, and might be on the verge of conquering: if plot trajectories were completely predictable. But this is not a banal story, the outcome not at all what I expected.

Liv Stein plays at the Bluma Appel Theatre until Feb 12th.

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Liv Stein: Geraint Wyn Davies & Sheila Ingabire-Isaro

Posted in Dance, theatre & musicals, Reviews | Leave a comment

Tafelmusik names new Music Director: violinist Elisa Citterio

Posted on January 26, 2017 by barczablog

Toronto, January 26, 2017 … Helen Polatajko, Chair of the Board of Directors of Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir, is thrilled to announce the appointment of the “superb” (The Guardian) Italian violinist Elisa Citterio* to the position of Music Director. The unanimous choice of the orchestra and search committee, Citterio is renowned for her stunning virtuoso performances on baroque violin and her innovative approach to period performance. She succeeds Jeanne Lamon, whose remarkable 33-year tenure paved the way for Tafelmusik to become “one of the world’s top baroque orchestras” (Gramophone).

Milan-based Citterio immediately becomes Tafelmusik’s Music Director Designate and will fully assume her new role in July 2017, taking up full-time residence in Toronto along with her family. She divides her artistic life between orchestral work, including her former role as concertmaster and soloist with the orchestra of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, and an intense schedule as a chamber musician.

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Violinist Elisa Citterio, Tafelmusik’s new Music Director (photo: Monica Cardiviola)

Citterio has recorded and toured, often as leader or concertmaster, with such ensembles as Dolce & Tempesta, Europa Galante, Accademia Bizantina, Accordone, Zefiro, la Venexiana, La Risonanza, Ensemble 415, Concerto Italiano, Orquestra del Monsalvat, Il Giardino Armonico, and Orchestra Academia 1750. She has been a member of the Orchestra del Teatro della Scala di Milano since 2004.

Elisa collaborates closely with harpsichordist Stefano Demicheli in duo, and with violinist Stefano Montanari in their quartet, Estravagante, and will perform with both artists in Italy this summer. Upcoming highlights include concerts with Cecilia Bartoli, and a solo recital of Bach violin sonatas and partitas in Merano, Italy.

“After an extensive worldwide search, the musicians of Tafelmusik are delighted to welcome Elisa Citterio as our next Music Director.  We have all found the search process to be an incredibly rewarding experience, enabling us to work with many of the world’s finest musicians in our field,” said Tafelmusik oboist John Abberger. “Elisa is an outstanding violinist who combines great virtuosity with deep musical knowledge and a warm and dynamic personality on stage.  She immediately established an exceptional rapport with the orchestra, and the musicians are thrilled to have found such an inspiring and collaborative leader,” he said.

“It is with immense joy and excitement that I accept the position of Music Director of the extraordinary Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir. First of all, I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to the entire Tafelmusik organization for the faith it has placed in me, and I’d especially like to thank Jeanne Lamon for her tremendous artistic leadership over the past three decades,” said Elisa Citterio.

“I’m incredibly honoured to take on this role, which gives me the privilege of working with such brilliant musicians. I’m fascinated by the possibility of exchange between our two countries, which are geographically distant, but which music unites through a shared language. I love the fact that we will be able to learn from each other and intertwine our distinct cultures and music without the need for words. I look forward to working with Canadian musicians and composers, and am eager to get to know Tafelmusik’s audiences in Toronto and on tour,” she said.

As Music Director, Citterio will be responsible for Tafelmusik’s overall artistic leadership including concert planning, touring, recording, education, and artist training. With a keen interest in contemporary compositions for period instruments, Citterio will continue Tafelmusik’s commitment to working with Canadian musicians and composers.

“The appointment of Elisa Citterio is a truly pivotal moment for Tafelmusik. It heralds the start of an exciting new chapter for us, as only the second Music Director in the orchestra’s 38-year history, and following the incredible legacy left for her by Jeanne Lamon,” said Managing Director William Norris. “The search was an exciting and invigorating process, and confirmed the reputation that Tafelmusik holds not just at home, but internationally. Elisa joins us at a time when we are seeking to further expand our reach, through attracting new audiences at home and also internationally through our busy touring schedule. Her artistic vision, dynamism, charisma, and collaborative approach are the perfect fit for us, and we can’t wait to have her start with us.”

Elisa Citterio made her Tafelmusik debut as guest director and violin soloist in November 2015 with Baroque Masters, a program that explored Italian, French, and German 18th-century musical styles. She was immediately invited to return, and in September 2016 directed the opening concerts of Tafelmusik’s 2016/17 season at Koerner Hall. The program featured Handel’s Water Music and orchestral movements from Rameau’s opera-ballet Les indes galantes. The performance was hailed as “stylish, playful and filled with the spirit of movement, light and pleasure” (The Globe and Mail).

Tafelmusik’s formal selection process began in early 2013 and was undertaken by a committee consisting of Tafelmusik musicians, board members, administrative staff, and community representatives under the guidance of international search consultant Margaret Genovese of the Toronto-based firm Genovese, Vanderhoof & Associates. Together they lay the groundwork for the appointment of a music director who is an international-calibre soloist specializing in period performance and a leader who directs the orchestra while playing. Over a three-year period, the search committee identified potential candidates from Canada and beyond and invited suggestions from the public, as well as from a wide range of baroque music experts.

Andy Kenins, head of the Search Committee and past Chair of Tafelmusik’s Board of Directors said, “Tafelmusik’s artist-focused mandate and commitment to excellence and innovation have been of paramount importance throughout the painstaking process that led to Elisa’s appointment. Succession planning has been in the works for many years, and for the past decade Tafelmusik has been working with a wide range of Canadian and international guest directors in order to build the musicians’ flexibility and offer them the opportunity to explore a variety of different musical and personal styles,” he said. “Elisa brings exceptional leadership skills. She is an original and innovative thinker who has a remarkable ability to convey new ideas through music.”
Under the artistic leadership of Jeanne Lamon from 1981 to 2014, Tafelmusik has become one of Canada’s most successful international performing arts organizations. She recently assumed the role of Music Director Emerita and will continue to maintain an active role with the Orchestra, including appearances in Tafelmusik’s Toronto season and involvement in Artist Training programs such as the Summer and Winter Institutes.

Ms. Lamon hailed the appointment of Elisa Citterio, saying, “I have always maintained that the position of Music Director of Tafelmusik is the best job in the world, and I congratulate Elisa on her appointment. Attracting a music director of her calibre will greatly contribute to the artistic development of our musicians, and with Elisa at the helm, I’m excited and confident about Tafelmusik’s future. I am truly proud of what Tafelmusik has become, honoured to have been a part of such a wonderful group of musicians, and delighted to pass the torch on to Elisa.”

Ms. Polatajko added, “Tafelmusik’s vision is to be an international centre of musical excellence in period performance, and it is one of the top orchestras of its kind that performs, tours, records, and trains, reaching out to audiences throughout Canada and beyond. I would like to thank the Search Committee, whose painstaking work over the past three years has resulted in the appointment of Elisa Citterio — a musician and leader with a wide range of top-tier experience in solo performance, chamber music, orchestral repertoire, and opera, as well as artist training. Her international reputation is a real asset to the orchestra’s future development in these areas. Finally, we are incredibly grateful to Jeanne Lamon for more than three decades of magnificent work as Music Director.”

Toronto audiences will have the opportunity to see Elisa Citterio in concert May 4 to 7, 2017, when she returns to direct Tafelmusik’s debut performances of Haydn’s Symphony no. 98 in B-flat Major at Koerner Hall — part of the Mozart Mass in C Minor concerts that close the 2016/17 season.

*Pronunciation guide: Citterio [chee TEH ree oh]

ABOUT ELISA CITTERIO
“This is a musician who thinks.”  —The Globe and Mail

“Uccellini’s Bergamasca showcased the group’s [Concerto Italiano] superb violinists, Elisa Citterio and Nicholas Robinson, who traded their lines with the loose spontaneity of folk fiddlers.” —The Guardian

“The performance by first violinist Elisa Citterio, lutenist Tiziano Bagnati, and cellist Marco Frezzato was a masterclass in how to play together.” — translated from Classic Voice

“Elisa Citterio … tackled the endlessly unfolding, seemingly unstoppable invention of Uccellini’s Bergamasca with infectious enthusiasm.”  — The Scotsman

“There was no mistaking the electricity of the occasion, generated by Elisa Citterio, violin, and –at least for tonight—the leader of the orchestra. The chemistry I saw and heard and felt is surely something Tafelmusik will want to experience again.” — Barcza Blog

“From the outset, it was apparent that both Citterio and the Tafelmusik Orchestra were simpatico.” —Eatock Daily

“She brought energy and joy to each of the works on the program inspiring brilliant ensemble playing by our world renowned baroque orchestra. Her own playing in solo passages was stunningly beautiful.” —Toronto Concert Reviews
Elisa Citterio was born in Brescia, Italy, in 1975 and grew up in a musical family: her mother and brother are composers and her two sisters are professional musicians. Elisa began playing piano and violin as a pre-schooler, and as a teenager played baroque sonatas with her mother and sister.  At sixteen she began formal studies in violin and viola at the L. Marenzio Conservatory in Brescia under full scholarship for five consecutive years. During her time at the Conservatory, she won many prizes in national competitions and graduated with the highest honours. She continued her post-graduate studies with Franco Gulli, Corrado Romano, Dora Schwarzberg, Matis Vaitsner, Ilya Grubert, and Dejan Bogdanovich.

In 2000, Citterio was selected as concertmaster and soloist with the orchestra of the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, where she received intensive professional training in orchestral and chamber music repertoire, as well as violin technique. She made her debut at La Scala in 2000, playing the solo violin part in Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with La Scala’s principal violist Danilo Rossi, under the direction of Stefano Ranzani.

Soon after graduating from the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, she began studying baroque violin technique, taking part in master classes with Enrico Onofri and studying with Chiara Banchini at the Schola Chantorum Basilensis, and with Luigi Mangiocavallo in Rome.

Between 2000 and 2004, Citterio won numerous prestigious orchestral auditions with such orchestras as I Virtuosi, the orchestra of the Opera of Rome, the orchestra of the Arena of Verona, and the Luigi Cherubini Youth Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Riccardo Muti.  In 2004, she became a member of the Orchestra of La Scala di Milano.

Citterio’s discography of more than 35 recordings includes Vivaldi concertos with Accademia I Filarmonici; Bach and Vivaldi concertos with Europa Galante; Handel Fireworks with Zefiro; Storie di Napoli with Accordone; Vivaldi The Four Seasons with Brixia Musicalis; Marini sonatas for solo violin with Opera Prima; Handel arias featuring soprano Sandrine Piau, and Corelli concerti grossi, both with Accademia Bizantina; the Goldberg Project, a recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations transcribed for string quartet; Handel arias featuring Julia Lezhnieva, and Haydn symphonies, both with Il Giardino Armonico; Monteverdi madrigals with La Venexiana; Schuster quartets with Joachim Quartet; C.P.E. Bach trio sonatas with Helianthus Ensemble; Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony with Orquestra del Monsalvat, and a number of opera recordings with the Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala under such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Chailly, Edward Gardner, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Lorin Maazel, and Riccardo Muti.

For the 2014/15 and 2015/16 seasons, together with Stefano Montanari, Citterio co-chaired the baroque violin studies program at the Civica Scuola di Musica Claudio Abbado in Milan.

 

ABOUT TAFELMUSIK
Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, founded in 1979, is one of the world’s leading period performance ensembles. In January 2017 the orchestra appointed violinist Elisa Citterio as Music Director, succeeding Jeanne Lamon, who stepped down in 2014 following a remarkable 33-year tenure that began in 1981. Lamon continues her association with Tafelmusik as Music Director Emerita. The Tafelmusik Chamber Choir, under the direction of Ivars Taurins, was formed in 1981 to complement the Orchestra. The orchestra performs some 80 concerts each year at home in Toronto, and travels extensively around the world. The choir and orchestra’s multi-platform recording label Tafelmusik Media was launched in January 2012, along with the Watch and Listen site. Tafelmusik’s discography of 80-plus CDs has been recorded on the Sony Classical, CBC Records, Analekta and Tafelmusik Media labels. Since 1991, Tafelmusik has received nine JUNO Awards and a Grammy Award nomination. Tafelmusik is the Baroque Orchestra-in-Residence at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto and operates annual artist training programs, Tafelmusik Baroque Summer Institute and Tafelmusik Winter Institute. Managing Director William Norris joined the Tafelmusik team in 2015.

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

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