Find me on Substack. Here my debut missive: https://longplay.substack.com/p/do-women-exist Society, culture and the arts — so not only opera. And when opera returns, see you in the parterre ..read more

Here is my year in books. I’m recommending those in bold. Sarah Waters: The Paying Guest Dave Carley: Taking Liberties (a Canadian play on free speech circa 1990s) Luke Harding: A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s War with the West Sarah Moss: Ghost Wall Dominique Fabre: The Waitress Was New Alex Pheby: Lucia Deborah Eisenberg: Your Duck is My Duck Diane Keaton: Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty Rosalie Knecht: Vera Kelly is not a Mystery Susan Choi: Trust Exercise Peter Pomerantsev: This is Not Propaganda (bizarrely, his interview for the Spect ..read more

Show One Productions threw a music recital this week for just under 50 people at the Immersive Van Gogh exhibition space. There were video projections by Isaac Rayment, Topher Mokrzewski at the piano, and Ambur Braid singing (and acting!) the final scene from Salome. Braid’s role debut in Frankfurt was cut short this March, though the latest info is that she will take it on again in January 2021, when the house intents to remount this Barrie Kosky production. The three-wall projections to live music was a neat experience. I expect the elaborate visual component was added since the singer coul ..read more

We must shake off this stupor or we’re done for good. Missing In Action: Where is live opera in Canada ..read more

For the Star’s Entertainment@Home section I wrote about history podcasts. Give it a read, or pick up today’s Star. They just got new owners, I am wishing them great good luck. Their opinion section has taken a turn for the weirdest woke recently, but the rest of the paper I’d like to keep thankyouverymuch. Dear readers of this blog: we’ve been together for 10 years. As there is going to be very little live performance in this country till the end of the year, and possibly even later, I’ve been increasingly writing about other topics. I am thinking of gradually transferring the best stuff from ..read more

Ladies and gentlemen, first live music event since March. Tapestry is the first ..read more

I’m in the Saturday Star, with a list of best concerts available online right now. There’s Julie Andrews doing MeToo jokes, Laurie Anderson playing the tape-violin she invented, Diane Dufresne being batshit wacko, Insula Orchestra with Laurence Equilbey (I had to), a lot of Gen-X nostalgia and Pretty Yende in that Instagram-Influencer Traviata. Read here ..read more

Is anybody missing live music in this town? Anybody eager to get back to work? It was quite silent in Toronto and Ontario (and Canada) until a couple of days ago, when the Globe published Robert Pomakov’s pretty solid op-ed asking these same questions. It’s paywalled, but get it through your local library databases (not sure when it appeared in print). A couple of key screen grabs: On the same day, coincidentally, Ludvig Van published an open letter signed by some of Canada’s choir music professionals and a couple of singers (I expected more) asking what’s the plan, authorities? we’d like to ..read more

Katherine Carleton, C.M., is the Executive Director of Orchestras Canada. We talked over Zoom earlier this week. What are you hearing from the orchestras these days? I’m hearing several things. They’re looking back on the season that was and endeavouring to see from a financial perspective where they’re going to be at the end of the fiscal year. Some have fiscal years that end in May, some in June, some in July and all are trying to sort through financial impact of the forced closures in mid-March. At the same time, they’re each working on a range of scenarios around what the coming season wil ..read more

Quebec Minister of Culture tweeted earlier today that the beginning of the province-wide reopening of performing arts venues and movie theatres (protocols tbd and announced) is scheduled for June 22 ..read more