Volume 19 Issue 4 - December 2013

Beat by Beat | Art of SongAddis and Hamperat Music TorontoHANS DE GROOTAnumber of well-known singers will perform in Toronto inDecember: on December 13 the tenor Marcello Giordani willsing arias and songs by Tosti, Bizet, Cilea and Puccini; onDecember 15 and 16 soprano Natalie Dessay will sing items from theMichel Legrand songbook; Richard Margison will perform “The GreatSongs of Italy” on December 10(all at Koerner Hall; therePhillip Addis.will be another performanceof the Margison recitalon December 7 in the RegentTheatre, Oshawa); on NewYear’s Eve at Roy ThomsonHall “Bravissimo” will presenta number of singers, includingtwo Canadians (Wallis Giunta,mezzo, and James Westman,baritone). But the recital whichI am most looking forwardto is the one to be given byPhillip Addis, baritone, andEmily Hamper, piano, onDecember 19 at the JaneMallett Theatre, St. LawrenceCentre. The main works on theprogram are Britten’s Songsand Proverbs of William Blakeand Poulenc’s La fraîcheur etle feu. The program will alsoinclude Abendbilder by Wolf,two songs by Korngold andthree new songs by Erik Ross.Addis spent his high schoolyears in Toronto. At that timehe played the tuba and theeuphonium. At one pointhe intended to become anengineer but at the last moment he decided that he would studymusic instead, a choice that we can all be grateful for. So he went toQueen’s, still intending to be a tuba player. But singing took over: afterQueen’s, Addis studied for a diploma in operatic performance fromthe University of Toronto, which was followed by an apprenticeshipat the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal. Since then he has sungmany parts in many opera houses: he sang the high baritone role ofPelléas in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande (at the London Proms lastsummer; under John Eliot Gardiner, no less); yet he has the lowersonorities which have allowed him to sing the title role in Mozart’sDon Giovanni. He is no stranger to lieder, having sung Schubert’sWinterreise and Schwanengesang, Schumann’s Dichterliebe andMahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen.Last summer, after his performance as Pelléas, a reviewer wrote thathe sounded “like a young Thomas Allen.” I asked Addis about that andhis reply was both diplomatic and sensible. It was not, he said, a claimhe would himself wish to make but, if others thought of him that way,then it was a compliment that he would try to live up to. I heard Allena number of times when I was young (and Allen was even younger);the performance that I especially cherish is one that I saw and heardon a video, that of the title role in Britten’s Billy Budd. That is a rolethat Addis has not yet sung. It is a part that, for both dramatic andmusical reasons, needs a young singer. I certainly hope that sometimein the near future Addis will be given the chance to sing it.We saw Addis most recently in the COC production of Puccini’sLa bohème, where he sang in all performances, some of the time asMarcello, in other performances as Schaunard. After that it was off tosouthern California, where he sang in Britten’s War Requiem and asthe Sprecher in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and where on December 6he will perform in Britten’s The Prodigal Son. After the Torontorecital he will travel to Paris, where he and Hamper will repeat theToronto program and go on to sing Pelléas at the Opéra Comique. Butwhat Addis is especially excited about is the production next Julyof Kevin Puts’ opera Silent Night, a work that dramatizes the briefChristmas truce during the first year of the First World War. The opera(first performed in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 2011) is based on the filmJoyeux Nöel and Addis will be singing the role of the French lieutenantAudebert.In the Toronto recital, Addis will be accompanied by Emily Hamper(we have in recent years trained ourselves to use theterm “collaborative pianist,” but Hamper assures methat “accompanist” is good enough for her). She isalso Addis’ wife and the mother of their young sonSebastian. As a vocal coach she is much in demand;she has worked with distinguished Canadiansingers such as Gregory Dahl, Thomas Goerz, RogerHoneywell, Michael Schade, John Tessier — and, ofcourse, Phillip Addis.The return of Jennie Such: In an earlier column Iwrote about singers who have retired and who havegone on to do other things. Among them was thesoprano Jennie Such. Well, she is back. She is singingthe first soprano part in a performance of Bach’sMagnificat along with the VOCA chorus of Toronto,conducted by Jenny Crober. The other soloists areClaire de Sévigné, soprano, Marion Newman, mezzo,Andrew Haji, tenor, and Alexander Dobson, baritone,at the Eastminster United Church, December 7.Other events: John Pizzarelli and Daniela Nardiwill sing songs by Paolo Conte and Frank Sinatra atKoerner Hall, December 7.At the Kingston Road United Church, December 8,Eve Rachel McLeod, soprano, and Jason Nedecky,baritone, are the soloists in a concert by the TorontoBeach Chorale, which will include music by Finzi,Holst and Vaughan WilliamsThere will be a chance to hear the winnersof the Jim and Charlotte Norcop Prize in Songand the Gwendolyn Williams Koldofsky Prize inAccompanying on January 7 at Walter Hall.Introducing . . .Flute StreetA dazzling professional ensemble of flutes,alto flutes, bass flutes, piccolo flutes,treble flutes and a contrabass flute!The Wonderful FluteMusic of ChristmasWorks by Tchaikovsky,Manfredini, Delius, Nourse,Via and othersSunday, December 8, 4pmAll Saints’ Kingsway Anglican Church2850 Bloor Street West, Toronto416-485-8262 Free – donation requestedKRISTIN HOEBERMANN16 | December 1, 2013 – February 7, 2014 thewholenote.com