Volume 27 Issue 5 | March 4 - April 15, 2022

MUSIC THEATRE
A new
“new start”
… again
Hope springs
eternal
BRUCE ZINGER
JENNIFER PARR
AS
I started to write this column in early February,
we were under full lockdown … again. No
theatres or concert halls were allowed to
present performances for live audiences …again, and we
were forced to turn to our computers (again), for virtual
versions of our favourite performance genres.
The unforeseeable Omicron lockdown was doubly heartbreaking
after the gradual resurgence of the fall, for creators and audiences
alike; nowhere more poignantly, for me, than in the official closing of
Come From Away only a week after its glorious reopening, its staging
refreshed and the company thrilling – perhaps even more alive, if
that’s possible, to the potential of the show than they had been at
their original opening just under two years before.
Pick your own heartbreak, though. Come From Away was just one
of many shows that closed, never opened, or were postponed again.
Some were able to pivot, including the Next Stage Festival which did
a wonderful job of presenting a fully digital slate of a wide variety of
shows. Most of the new live season that should have begun in January,
however, was either cancelled or postponed until a time in the future
that felt even more indefinite than before, because having the rug
pulled out from under us after having hope dangled, was harder to
bear than just hunkering down stoically, the way we had before.
Yes, there were some new digital performances to immerse
ourselves in, in the interim, but not as many as earlier in the
pandemic as when it was the only option. Tossed back and forth
between changing protocols, companies have understandably played it
safe, hesitating to announce new dates, for fear of having to postpone
or cancel, yet again. The result: a gulf.
Hope springs
Late in February, hope springs again, like snowdrops lifting their
heads. For once, fortune favoured the brave. Opera Atelier, for
example, gambled that the promise of lifting restrictions would allow
their All is Love program to go ahead at Koerner Hall on February 19
and 20, and their gamble paid off with a live audience of stalwart
supporters returning to fill the hall to the allowed 50% of capacity.
Being back watching friends and colleagues perform live felt surreal.
What made it even better was the semi-experimental nature of the
production. Amidst the expected Baroque beauty of beautifully staged
arias, duets and dance sequences was one of my favourite OA experiments,
the Canada 150-commissioned Inception created by violinist/
composer Edwin Huizinga and dancer/choreographer Tyler Gledhill,
and two new experiments: an interweaving of an English with a
French aria for soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee off the top, and
a new Baroque version of an extended excerpt of Debussy’s Pelléas
and Mélisande, both arranged by Christopher Bagan.
Harbourfront Centre who have kept dance performances
happening virtually across the country as one of the producers of
the Digidance series, is another producer who has taken the chance
of restarting as early as possible with their 2022 international (live)
dance series Torque that began with the Israel-based L-E-V’s visceral
new work, Chapter 3: The Brutal Journey of the Heart, in early March,
and will continue with other visiting companies through until late
spring, to be followed, I hope, by Harbourfront’s usual live performance
festivals in the summer.
Staying in the dance realm, the National Ballet of Canada, after
having to cancel half the run of The Nutcracker over the holiday
season, is now officially back in business with a nicely varied combination
of Nureyev’s beloved version of The Sleeping Beauty, a return of
John Neumeier’s 1983 impressionist take on A Streetcar Named Desire
which will feature retiring star, and wonderfully dramatic dancer,
Sonia Rodriguez in the lead at some performances, and a fun mixed
program combining Kenneth MacMillan’s joyous Scott Joplin-inspired
Elite Syncopations with On Solid Ground, the main stage choreographic
debut of rising star Siphesihle November.
So, as the beginning of March approaches with the promise of
capacity limits being lifted, it now feels as if, perhaps, that new season
we have been waiting for can actually take place after all.
At the Grand Theatre in London it must feel like the old song
“Finnegan Begin Again,” with the Canadian premiere of Emma
Donoghue’s musical, Room. Let’s hope that “third time lucky” will
be true for them as the twice-postponed opening is now set for
March 11 in London (with previews starting March 8) with a short
run to March 19, followed by a run in Toronto at the Princess of
20 | February 2022 thewholenote.com