Volume 23 Issue 9 - June / July / August 2018

Beat by Beat | On Opera
Ontario Summer
Broadens Opera’s
Range
CHRISTOPHER HOILE
Opera performances in Southern Ontario in the summer are
becoming more numerous every year. This year, a few young
companies are taking opera to some municipalities that once
had opera companies and to others that never had them. This is all to
the good in broadening the audience for opera as well as broadening
notions of what opera is, as the offerings mix standards and rarities
with brand-new works.
June
Nota Bene:
June 2018 begins
with a rarity. The
Nota Bene Baroque
Players of Waterloo
team up with Capella
Intima of Toronto
and the Gallery
Players of Niagara
to present Folly in
Love (Gli equivoci
nel sembiante) from
1679, the first opera
written by Alessandro
Scarlatti (1660-1725).
The first performance
takes place
in Kitchener on
June 1, the second
in Hamilton on
June 2 and the third
in St. Catharines
on June 3.
The opera concerns Rachel Krehm
two nymphs, Lisetta
and Clori, who are
both in love with the same shepherd Eurillo. When a new shepherd
Armindo arrives, the nymphs change their affections to him. After
much confusion, the four sort themselves into two happy couples.
Sheila Dietrich and Jennifer Enns sing the two nymphs, Bud Roach
is Eurillo and David Roth is Armindo. Roach also conducts the sixmember
ensemble of period instruments. The opera is presented in
concert in Italian with English surtitles.
Vera Causa: Also outside Toronto, the young opera company Vera
Causa Opera is presenting an unusual double bill of new Canadian
operas by women composers. The first is an opera in Croatian and
English, Padajuća Zvijezda (The Fallen Star) by Julijana Hajdinjak,
and the second is The Covenant by Dylann Miller. The first opera is
inspired by a short story by the composer’s sister Danijela about two
lovers in a celestial kingdom where love has been outlawed and is
punished by banishment to Earth. It features Allison Walmsley as
Luna, Melina Garcia Zambrano as Aurelia, Gabriel Sanchez Ortega
as Solaris, Katerina Utochkina as Astra and Philip Klaassen as Stello.
Rachel Kalap is the stage director and Dylan Langan conducts a fivemember
ensemble plus chorus.
The second opera concerns witches, lesbians and priests and is
about “empowering women to embrace their true selves from the
perspective of a teenage girl in a small town.” In it Allison Walmsley
sings Cate, Chad Quigley is Father Andrew, Kimberley Rose-Pefhany
is Keira, Autumn Wascher is Delaney, Stephanie O’Leary is Lilith and
Sam Rowlandson-O’Hara is Cate’s Mother. Rebecca Gray is the stage
director and Isaac Page conducts a small instrumental ensemble and
chorus. The operas will be performed on June 22 in Waterloo and on
June 23 in Cambridge. As both the Nota Bene and the Vera Causa opera
productions show, opera companies whose goal is to serve their local
communities are springing up outside of Toronto.
By Request: In Toronto, Opera by Request has two presentations
in June. The first on June 2 is Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The second on
June 9 is Donizetti’s daunting Anna Bolena. In the Mozart, Lawrence
Cotton sings the title role, Evan Korbut is Leporello, Laura Schatz is
Donna Elvira, Carrie Gray is Donna Anna and Risa de Rege is Zerlina.
Kate Carver is the pianist and music director. In the Donizetti,
Antonina Ermolenko sings the title role, John Holland is Enrico VIII,
Monica Zerbe is Giovanna Seymour and Paul Williamson is Lord Percy.
William Shookhoff is the pianist and music director.
Opera 5: On June 13, 15 and 17, Toronto’s Opera 5, which up to
now has focused on presenting rarities such as its Dame Ethel Smyth
double bill last
year, makes its first
foray into a fulllength
opera from
the standard repertory,
Rossini’s The
Barber of Seville.
Johnathon Kirby
sings the title role,
Kevin Myers is the
Count Almaviva,
Stephanie Tritchew
is his beloved
Rosina, Jeremy
Ludwig is her
jealous guardian
Don Bartolo and
Giles Tomkins is
her music teacher
Don Basilio.
As
Opera 5 general
director Rachel
Krehm says, “The
show will be set in
the spring of 1914
in Spain just before
the Last Great
Summer (in which Spain declared its neutrality in World War I, a decision
that would later seriously divide the country). A big feature of
the set will be golden gates which symbolize Rosina’s entrapment –
the outside world just out of reach. The comedy will come at you from
every angle: the colours onstage, the physicality – but always inspired
by the comedic genius from the score.” The opera will be fully staged
and directed by Jessica Derventzis, with Evan Mitchell conducting an
11-piece ensemble.
Two from Luminato: The Luminato Festival has two opera-related
offerings. From June 16 to 19 it presents Tables Turned, a remount
of one of Tapestry Opera’s experimental Tap:Ex series from 2015.
Soprano Carla Huhtanen and percussionist Ben Reimer join forces
with Montreal composer, turntable artist and electronics specialist
Nicole Lizée for a performance blending live and pre-recorded music
with projections from classic films. Luminato’s other opera-like work
is the production-in-progress Hell’s Fury, The Hollywood Songbook.
The story follows the life of composer Hanns Eisler (1898-1962), who
escaped Nazi Germany for the US in only to be rejected for his adherence
to Communism in 1948 and forced to return to Europe, finally
30 | June | July | August 2018 thewholenote.com