Volume 10 Issue 7 - April 2005

Given the opporruniry 10 hear
some familiar film music that they
love, played well, many begin to realize
that it is far more interesting
and exciting than rhey thought. Barnum
and Royer plan to do the same
program every year for rhe next few
years. using rhe materials that Ron
has put together for the teachers to
help them prepare their classes. Because
the show was written specifically
for grade 7, there will always
be a new audience every year.
So, yes, there are financial challenges,
but John Barnum is optimistic
about the future of symphony orchestras.
"If I didn't believe there
was a great future I wouldn't be excited
about doing what I do and by
the potential: there's a whole world
of music out there to be explored
and mastered. The whole process of
taking someone's composition and
working through it is so satisfying
for conductor and musicians, and ultimately
for the audience. , .
MARY Lou FALLIS, PRIMA DoNNA ExTRAORDINAIRE
After a couple of rounds of telephone
tag I caught up with Mary
Lou Fallis in her teaching studio
at the University of Western Ontario.
Her schedule was packed,
so we arranged to talk on Sunday
evening after she got back
from singing in John Tuttle's
Evensong Choir at St. Thomas 's
Church. '"I love singing in that
choir because it keeps my sightsinging
up. We rehearse from
5:00 to 6:30 on Sunday, and
then sing the service. Besides,
singing in choirs is how I started.
and is something I've always
loved to do."
When we:: talked I asked her about
ht:r new show, "Primadonna does
More with Less." a commission
from the Guelph Spring Festival.
''There are:: several reasons for the
name . . , she explained. ''My menior
and friend .
Anna Russell, once said
to me that as I got older I would
have more confidence in what I had
to say and would need less in the
way of costumes, props and sets."
She added that it is much nicer to
travel light and to have minimal set
up to do before the show. '·Another
aspect of it,·· she says, "has to do
with the image of the fat opera singer
and the whole dynamic of voice,
weight, food, love and passion. I
could sum that part of it up as 'the
fat lady goes on a diet."'
Her partner in the project is her
artistic collaborator of the last seven
years, Perer Tiefenbach. "I'm so
glad he's come into my life, we have
good stage chemistry and I have absolute
trust in him." The fact that he
is not only an accomplished pianist
but also a composer and an actor
makes him the perfect partner iq her
creative and performance activities.
"We're now just about finished creating
the show, which will have both
familiar music and original music by
Peter. We will be rehearsing it over
has a message. "My other shows
have been about serious music with
underlying humour; this show is funny
wirh an underlying message."
In the course of the conversation
she revealed how seriously she has
been taking humour. "If you go into
the theory of humour," she says,
"you realize that there is a very fine
line between laughter and tears, humour
and hostility." The "Freudian
slip," she points out, is a lapse into
hostility. Often what the funny person
on the stage is doing or saying
are the things you can't yourself do
or say out of fear of arousing hostility.
Laughter arises as the barrier is
relaxed and the line is crossed."
"To be funny is difficult. If you
press too hard, it goes tlat, and if
you don't go for the jugular it goes
flat. Humour lies somewhere in between,
and that can vary a lot from
city to city and even audience to audience."
She gives me an extreme
example of that from a "Primadonna"
show she gave at the now closed
Kingston penitentiary for women.
The show concluded with the "encore,"
"Home on the Range," which
would have been hilarious to a big
city audience out of its sheer incongruity.
What she didn't know until
after the show was that "range" is
the next three weeks and then perform
jail slang for the cell block. The
it in Guelph. It will definitely
be hot off rhe press!"
While the show is funny it also
number left her audience in tears,
but f6r this unexpected reason.
CONTINUES NEXT PAGE
Men Choir
under Mikhail Turetsky
April 3, 7:00PM
Orchestra Toronto
A Ukrainian Celebration
April l 0, 3:00PM
Tafelmusik
Elizabeth Wallfisch, Violin
April 12, 8:00PM
Ballet Jorgen Canada
"Cinder