The Inheritance – part 1
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
18h ago
Matthew López’ The Inheritance is an epic adaptation of EM Forster’s Howard’s End.  It’s epic in scale and scope.  It runs for two evenings; each over three hours long and it features a rich, and sometimes bewildering, cast of characters.  I was going to wait until after part 2 before writing about it but I actually think it will work better to review it in two parts.  So here is part 1 as seen on opening night (Wednesday) at the Bluma Appel Theatre. López has shifted the story to New York late in the Obama administration.  It’s initially largely concerned with a grou ..read more
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Ema Nikolovska comes home
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
3d ago
Mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska made her Koerner Hall recital debut on Sunday afternoon just twenty-six years after first enrolling at the Royal Conservatory of Music.  It was clearly an emotional occasion for her and justified the barely choked back tears in her introduction.  The emotion though did not negatively affect her singing which was notable for, among other things, great control; emotionally and technically. She was partnered at the piano by Charles Richard-Hamelin. It’s always interesting to have a concert pianist at a song recital (rather than a specialist collaborative pi ..read more
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Angel’s Bone
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
4d ago
Angel’s Bone; music by Du Yun, libretto by Royce Vavrek, is an interesting concept.  It deals with human trafficking through the medium of two angels who fall to earth and find themselves in the hands of a couple; one of them a formerly trafficked person, who exploit them for sexual/commercial purposes.  It’s dramatically quite effective, well constructed and the libretto has a certain poetry to it.  It played at Harbourfront Theatre this last weekend in a co-pro by Sound the Alarm Music Theatre, Loose Tea Music Theatre and Array Music. The problem is the score.  The vocal ..read more
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Singer songwriter sorta
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
5d ago
Thursday night’s Conflunce Concerts show at Heliconian Hall was titled Songs from Toronto and consisted of songs by Toronto singer-songwriters arranged for a larger ensemble by Andrew Downing.  And by larger ensemble I mean various combinations of string trio, double bass, guitars of sundry varieties, vibraphone and piano.  To further spice things up some of the songs were sung by Teiya Kasahara who is a rather different Fach than the average singer in this genre. I have very limited exposure to Toronto’s singer-songer writer community (I didn’t even know it was a “thing”) and so it ..read more
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Staircases
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
6d ago
Staircases is an unusual and interesting show currently being presented at Trinity St. Paul’s by Tafelmusik.  The show is the brainchild of Alison Mackay collaborating with baritone Jonathan Woody.  Who knew a “simple” set of stairs could carry so many meanings?  We are taken from ceremonial staircases at Versailles and the Vatican to the banks of the frozen Thames to the hidden meanings of the Monument to the Great Fire and more to a most surprising conclusion.  All of this rooted in the idea of the rock staircase on Mount Parnassus that leads to the home of Apollo and the ..read more
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Norcop and Koldofsky Prize recital 2024
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
1w ago
Thursday lunchtime in Walter Hall saw the 2024 edition of the annual recital by the winners of the Norcop Prize in Song and the Koldofsky Prize in Accompanying.  This year’s winners are mezzo-soprano Nicole Percifield and pianist Minira Najafzade. Things started off well.  “Furie son dell’alma mia” from Handel’s Partenope got the full opera seria treatment with plenty of drama and Percifield showing plenty of power and well controlled coloratura. Next came five German Lieder by Brahms, Mozart and Wolf.  It was nicely controlled, expressive but not excessive Lieder singing and p ..read more
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April preview
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
1w ago
Here are some upcoming shows for April: Music First, a late March Show.  Yu Dun and Royce Vavrek’s Pulitzer winning opera Angel’s Bone, about human trafficking, comes to Harbourfront Centre Theatre March 22nd to 24th.  More information here. On the 6th the Happenstancers have a concert; Being Pascal Dusapin, at Redeemer Lutheran.  We are promised a “a portrait concert in palindromic form” featuring music by Dusapin, Kaija Saariaho and Samy Moussa. Opera Atelier’s All is Love runs from the 11th to the 14th at Koerner Hall. Soundstreams have their Keyed Up festival of piano mus ..read more
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No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
1w ago
Charlie Petch’s No One’s Special at the Hot Dog Cart is a one man show about his experiences as a hot dog vendor in Toronto and his subsequent life working as a 911 dispatcher, on the front desk of an ER and as a hospital bed allocator.  It’s currently being presented by Theatre Passe Muraille and Erroneous Productions. Collage and poster design by Emily Jung | Pictured: Charlie Petch The hot dog vending phase happened before Petch’s gender transition so for that bit he’s describing his experiences as a woman.  There’s also an explicit subtext; de-escalation is always better than t ..read more
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Winterreise with the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
1w ago
I’ve seen Schubert’s Winterreise done many ways.  There’s the classic one with baritone and piano and more rarely soprano (including a memorable performance by Adrienne Pieczonka as a passing cold front battered the hall!).  I’ve seen it done with projections and three singers and I’ve seen made into a film.  So there’s nothing particularly outré about arranging it to add a choir to baritone and piano.  The choir can function as Greek chorus or alter ego or whatever.  Any way that’s what Gregor Meyer did and what the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers conducted by Jean-Sébast ..read more
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Dana H
Operaramblings
by operaramblings
1w ago
Dana H, by Lucas Hnath, is a rather unusual piece of theatre.  The sole actor, Jordan Baker, lip synchs to tapes of Dana Higginbotham (Lucas’ mother) being interviewed by Steve Cosson.  In these interviews she relates the events of five months of her life where she was kidnapped and held prisoner by a psychotic member of a racist criminal gang. It’s fundamentally the story of a very damaged woman caught up in a set of circumstances that are badly exacerbated by a deeply dysfunctional state and society (Florida in the recent past).  Dana was abused as a child, dabbled with Satan ..read more
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