Volume 28 Issue 1 | September 20 - November 8, 2022

The anonymous libretto to Venus
and Adonis is thought to be the
work of English poet Anne Finch,
Countess of Winchilsea (née Kingsmill)
1661 – 1720), widely considered
to be one of the integral female
poets of the Restoration Era.
mattered to him very much that
each woman be honoured in her
own unique way in word and song.
What attracted Marti Maraden
to this piece? She’s worked with
Norman before, and has known
him for many years, she tells me.
And she found this piece “extraordinarily
evocative and emotionally
engaging” on first read-through.
“My own Swedish grandmother was
an early 20th-century immigrant
who came to America all by herself
at the age of 17. Her own story was
deeply poignant. Whenever I
think of immigrants in our own
time, who come from profound
poverty or frighteningly
dangerous environments, I am
reminded that displacement and
exile are a continuing part of the
human journey.” What would she say this ghostly, melancholy play is
ultimately about? “For me it is the uncertainly of life, the hopes and
aspirations – particularly in this case of women in a time when having
a profession is rare. It’s a play about our unknown and often unknowable
fate. It is about strangers becoming family and about love and
loyalty. But it’s also kind of ghost story – and I love ghost stories!”
The music and writing are beautiful, she adds, and the artists
involved are extraordinary. “Although the actors will carry their
scripts, there will be some very discreet staging and, with the
ingenuity of designer Stephen Degenstein, there will be some
wonderful visual elements: projections, draped fabric, simple means
of delineating place: a window, a milliner’s workshop, etc.”
Elsewhere this season in opera:
On November 4, Glenn Gould School of Opera is staging the rarely
seen in Toronto Venus and Adonis, composed in 1683 by John Blow
and written, it appears, by a woman, Anne Kingsmill. (Blow worked
on a different play with Aphra Benn, which is an unusually high incidence
of co-creating things with playwrights of the female sex for
any opera composer before or since.) Venus and Adonis seems a
delightfully comic and playful opera, and we’ll see what the director
Derek Boyes makes of it. Peter Tiefenbach returns as music director.
November 4 and at 7:30pm, Mazzoleni Concert Hall.
On October 21, 22 and 23, Toronto Operetta Theatre is presenting
its take on Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld at the Jane Mallett
Theatre. Is it going to be entirely in English, will the dialogues be
updated? No info yet, so lots remains to be seen, but the young cast
is promising: the always-worth-listening-to soprano Vania Chan, the
young tenor Tonatiuh Abrego, and baritone Gregory Finney who has
rock solid comedic chops. Guillermo Silva-Marin directing, Larry
Beckwith conducting.
Lydia Perović is an arts and culture writer in Toronto.
Sign up to receive her newsletter at longplay.substack.com.
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24 | September 20 - November 8, 2022 thewholenote.com