Volume 24 Issue 4 - December 2018 / January 2019
When is a trumpet like a motorcycle in a dressage event? How many Brunhilde's does it take to change an Elektra? Just two of the many questions you've been dying to ask, to which you will find answers in a 24th annual combined December/January issue – in which our 11 beat columnists sift through what's on offer in the upcoming holiday month, and what they're already circling in their calendars for 2019. Oh, and features too: a klezmer violinist breathing new life into a very old film; two New Music festivals in January, 200 metres apart; a Music & Health story on the restorative powers of a grassroots exercise in collective music-making; even a good reason to go to Winnipeg in the dead of winter. All this and more in Vol 24 No 4, now available in flipthrough format here.
When is a trumpet like a motorcycle in a dressage event? How many Brunhilde's does it take to change an Elektra? Just two of the many questions you've been dying to ask, to which you will find answers in a 24th annual combined December/January issue – in which our 11 beat columnists sift through what's on offer in the upcoming holiday month, and what they're already circling in their calendars for 2019. Oh, and features too: a klezmer violinist breathing new life into a very old film; two New Music festivals in January, 200 metres apart; a Music & Health story on the restorative powers of a grassroots exercise in collective music-making; even a good reason to go to Winnipeg in the dead of winter. All this and more in Vol 24 No 4, now available in flipthrough format here.
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TOM WOLF<br />
Silva-Marin’s re-imagination of the role of Frosch is one his best<br />
ideas in this Die Fledermaus, last seen in 2010. Typically, the role is<br />
played by a comedian who does a long spoken routine in Act 3 before<br />
the singing recommences. Silva-Marin avoids this general slump in<br />
the action by making Frosch a would-be opera singer who gets into a<br />
competition with the tenor he has locked up in the cells. This not only<br />
keeps the music going but is<br />
far funnier than any spokenword<br />
routine I’ve seen.<br />
Lucia Cervoni<br />
Hamilton and Kitchener:<br />
Since the demise of Opera<br />
Ontario in 2014, symphonies<br />
in the two cities served,<br />
Hamilton and Kitchener,<br />
have begun including opera<br />
in their programming. In<br />
Hamilton the Brott Festival<br />
Orchestra has mounted a<br />
fully staged opera for several<br />
years during the Festival’s<br />
summer run. The Kitchener-<br />
Waterloo Symphony has<br />
also begun adding opera to<br />
its schedule due to popular<br />
demand. On <strong>January</strong> 11 and<br />
12 it will perform Bizet’s<br />
Carmen in concert with mezzo soprano Lucia Cervoni in the title role<br />
and tenor Ernesto Ramirez as Don José. The cast will also feature baritone<br />
Alexander Dobson; sopranos Midori Marsh, Claire de Sévigné and<br />
Autumn Wascher; baritone Chad Louwerse; the Opera Laurier Chorus,<br />
Laurier Singers and Alumni Choir; and the Grand Philharmonic<br />
Children’s Choir. Daniel Isengart is the director and Andrei Feher is<br />
the conductor.<br />
Champagne’s Delicious Bubbles set the<br />
stage for the Waltz King’s greatest hit.<br />
Johann Strauss<br />
DIE FLEDERMAUS<br />
Derek Bate, Conductor<br />
Guillermo Silva-Marin, Stage Director<br />
Elizabeth Beeler<br />
Caitlin Wood<br />
Adam Fisher<br />
Dec. 28, 29, 31, <strong>2018</strong> at 8 pm<br />
Dec. 30 at 3 pm<br />
Jan. 2, <strong>2019</strong> at 8 pm<br />
Canadian Premiere<br />
PERCHANCE TO DREAM<br />
by Ivor Novello<br />
March 3, <strong>2019</strong> at 3 pm<br />
Lara Ciekiewicz<br />
Guillermo Silva-Marin<br />
Founder & General Director<br />
416-366-7723 I 1-800-708-6754<br />
www.stlc.com<br />
THE MERRY WIDOW<br />
by Franz Lehár<br />
April 23, <strong>24</strong>, 26, 27, <strong>2019</strong> at 8 pm<br />
April 28, <strong>2019</strong> at 3 pm<br />
Hosokawa’s Raven and Maiden from the Sea: Those interested in<br />
contemporary opera should know that renowned Japanese composer<br />
Toshio Hosokawa is in residence at the University of Toronto Faculty<br />
of Music this season. The faculty is staging several concerts to celebrate<br />
Hosokawa’s work, one of which is devoted to two of the seven operas<br />
he has written. The program is made up of Hosokawa’s setting of The<br />
Raven as a monodrama from<br />
2012 and Futari Shizuka<br />
(The Maiden from the Sea)<br />
from 2017.<br />
Hosokawa wrote The<br />
Raven, based on Edgar Allen<br />
Poe’s 1845 poem, for Swedish<br />
mezzo-soprano Charlotte<br />
Hellekant after he had<br />
heard her sing in his opera<br />
Matsukaze (2011). Hosokawa<br />
has noted the similarities<br />
in theme between The<br />
Raven and Japanese Noh<br />
drama in which creatures<br />
of nature play an important<br />
part. While all the roles in<br />
Noh are traditionally played<br />
by men, Hosokawa has said<br />
that having a mezzo-soprano<br />
interpret the part of the<br />
Narrator who mourns her lost love purposely reverses the tradition in<br />
order to broaden the theme to feelings of loss in general.<br />
Futari Shizuka (which literally means “The Two Shizukas”) was<br />
conceived as a companion to The Raven. It is based on a Noh drama<br />
attributed to Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1443) about the departed spirit of<br />
Shizuka Gozen, or Lady Shizuka, who possesses the body and soul of<br />
a young beautiful girl. Hosokawa’s librettist Oriza Hirata has updated<br />
the action to the present by making the girl a refugee who has made it<br />
to the Mediterranean Sea, and sings of her sorrow for wars and hateful<br />
disputes. Soprano Xin Wang will sing the role of the young girl. Ryoko<br />
Aoki, a Noh singer and dancer, will be the spirit of Lady Shizuka,<br />
the role she created in 2017. The double bill takes place in Walter<br />
Hall of the Edward Johnson Building at the University of Toronto on<br />
<strong>January</strong> 17 only.<br />
Christopher Hoile is a Toronto-based writer on opera and<br />
theatre. He can be contacted at opera@thewholenote.com.<br />
DAM CONCERT OPERA PRESENTS ROSSINI’S<br />
LE COMTE ORY<br />
Something Funny is Happening at the Castle!<br />
MARCH 2 <strong>2019</strong> | 7:30pm<br />
Trinity St Paul’s<br />
STARRING<br />
Asitha Tennekoon, Caitlin Wood & Marjorie Maltais<br />
with Dion Mazerolle, Clarence Frazer & Maria Soulis<br />
Francois Racine | Host & Narrator<br />
TICKETS $30 Adults | $25 Senior & Student<br />
1-800-838-3006 | www.domoneyartists.com<br />
38 | <strong>December</strong> <strong>2018</strong> / <strong>January</strong> <strong>2019</strong> thewholenote.com
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