Volume 29 Issue 3 | December 2023 & January 2024
Bunch of "Back to Fronts" in this issue: Darkness in the light, rather than the usual other way round; the sober front of the calendar year comes to the fore once the holiday season spins its course; new contenders for "old favourite" status in the holiday musics category; Lara St. John brings she/her/hers into the 21C musical discussion; and more.
Bunch of "Back to Fronts" in this issue: Darkness in the light, rather than the usual other way round; the sober front of the calendar year comes to the fore once the holiday season spins its course; new contenders for "old favourite" status in the holiday musics category; Lara St. John brings she/her/hers into the 21C musical discussion; and more.
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MUSIC THEATRE 1<br />
A “Charming” music video<br />
featuring Hélène<br />
(Divine Brown), Natasha<br />
(Hailey Gillis), and Anatole<br />
(George Krissa).<br />
CROW’S, MSC, AND<br />
THE GREAT COMET OF 1812<br />
JENNIFER PARR<br />
HOFFWORKS<br />
I<br />
walk into the Crow’s Theatre gallery space, on a<br />
mid-November day, excited to be here to sit in on<br />
the afternoon’s rehearsal of Natasha, Pierre & the<br />
Great Comet of 1812. The space is familiar to me from<br />
stage managing Uncle Vanya and The Master Plan<br />
here, but I have never seen it so full of stuff. There are<br />
instruments everywhere – a double bass, two cellos,<br />
a drum set, two keyboards, two accordions, a clarinet,<br />
someone with a guitar ...<br />
I say hello to actors I know, get a big hug from one, check in with<br />
the stage management team, and find where I am to sit to watch. For<br />
months I have been hearing the buzz at Crow’s about this hugely<br />
ambitious and exciting Canadian premiere, and their first full<br />
collaboration with the Musical Stage Company.<br />
Creator Dave Malloy’s brilliant musical adaptation of Tolstoy’s<br />
famous novel War and Peace began as an off-Broadway experiment<br />
in 2012 and grew into a hit production on Broadway, garnering 12<br />
Tony Award nominations in 2017 (winning two along with many<br />
other awards). The score is eclectic, encompassing indie rock, pop,<br />
folk, electronic dance and classic Broadway, and is completely sungthrough,<br />
with many of the performers (soloists as well as ensemble)<br />
playing instruments as part of the immersive staging.<br />
The story is taken from a 70-page slice of Tolstoy’s masterpiece:<br />
the young Countess Natasha Rostova has become engaged to the<br />
27.1.<strong>2024</strong> to 4.2.<strong>2024</strong><br />
Marjan Mozetich<br />
Roger D. Moore Distinguished<br />
Visitor in Composition<br />
Edward Johnson Building<br />
Faculty of Music<br />
80 Queen’s Park, Toronto<br />
utnmf.music.utoronto.ca<br />
thewholenote.com <strong>December</strong> <strong>2023</strong> & <strong>January</strong> <strong>2024</strong> | 13
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