The Enchantress (sometimes translated as The Sorceress) is a rather infrequently performed 1887 opera by Tchaikovsky.  It got a production in Frankfurt in 2022 with an interesting cast.  Asmik Grigorian plays the title character; Kuma or Nastasya, and Iain MacNeil, late of this parish, is Prince Nikita.  It’s the first time I’ve come across him since he moved to Germany. The director is Vasily Berkhatov and he’s chosen to take the original 15th century story; which Tchaikovsky intended as a commentary on the defects of Tsarist Russia, and translate it to the present where it wo ..read more

It’s coming towards the end of the traditional “season” but there’s sill plenty happening.  Here’s how I see may shaping up at present (I expect more theatre listings will come in.  They tend to be somewhat less notice!): May 1st and 2nd:  The TSO are coupling Brahms’ First Symphony with Emily D’Angelo and material from her enargeia CD. Also on May 2nd the Women’s Musical Club are hosting Joyce El-Khoury in recital at Walter Hall. May 3rd: Cherubini’s Medea opens a run at the COC (six performances ending May 17th). May 3rd and 4th: Confluence Concerts are presenting Teiya Kas ..read more

It’s pretty difficult to judge whether or not a high concept production of Wagner’s Ring cycle is going to work or not just from Das Rheingold but I thought Dmitri Tcherniakov’s production for Staatsoper unter den Linden recorded in 2022 was pretty promising.  His world is a large research complex designated ESCHE for reasons that aren’t clear.  The time period seems to be 1970s or thereabouts.  The research is essentially psychological and the characters are variously executives, scientists and experimental subjects. The set appears to have four levels with multiple rooms on e ..read more

Barbara Hannigan’s latest recording project is a CD of Messiaen’s vocal music with pianist Bertrand Chamayou.  It’s very much an equal pasrtnership with spme superb musicianship on display.  It starts off with two cycles written for/inspired by Messiaen’s first wife.  Chants de Terre et de Ciel celebrates the marriage and the birth of their young son.  There’s some very dramatic singing here but what really stood out for me was Hannigan’s ability to float a note with perfect control and apparent ease.  It works beautifully with the more delicate parts of the piano part ..read more

Woking Phoenix is a play developed and performed by Silk Bath Collective.  It opened at Theatre Passe Muraille on Thursday night.  It deals with that perennial Canadian issue; the immigrant experience.  In this case it’s essentially a single Chinese mother with three children running a Chinese restaurant in small town Ontario.  So one has the usual dynamics of kids growing up coupled with being “different” in a very homogenous community.  It’s a co-creation of Aaron Jan and Gloria Mok , who also co-directed, and Besse Cheng who appears in the play as the elder daughter ..read more

A Public Reading of an Unproduced Screenplay About the Death of Walt Disney by Lucas Hnath opened last night at the Young Centre in a production by Outside the March and Soulpepper.  It’s one of those pieces that is perhaps easier to admire than enjoy.  Technically, everything about it is excellent but sitting through ninety minutes of egotistical bullying is not a whole lot of fun. It’s very tightly written in the form of a screenplay about himself that Walt directs on stage.  So we get a lot of $dialogue, “camera closes on Roy”, Cut! which makes for a kind of staccato, unsett ..read more

Project Earth: The Blue Chapter is the first in a projected series of CDs from the Iris Trio (Christine Carter – clarinet, Anna Petrovna – piano, Zoë Martin-Doike – viola) dealing with environmental issues.  This one blends music by Florian Hoefner with poems by Don McKay.  The longest piece on the CD is the multi-movement Bird Island Suite inspired by the bird life of nesting islands around Newfoundland but really dealing with broader issues of how we interact with and influence the natural world for good or ill.  Usually the latter. It starts with a poem and smooth jazz inflec ..read more

Les Génies ou les Caractères de l’Amour is an opera/ballet of 1736 by one Mademoiselle Duval who was 22 at the time.  Almost nothing is known about Duval except that she was at one time a chorus member at the Royal Opera in Paris.  It seems reasonable to deduce that she was from a family of professional musicians and that’s how she got her training.  FWIW Les Génies was only the second opera by a woman to be produced by the Royal Opera.  It’s recently been recorded for CD under the auspices of Château de Versailles Spectacles. The work itself is quite conventional and has s ..read more

How different were sensibilities in seventeenth century England (at least after the Restoration) to contemporary mores?  Perhaps less than one might think.  Unless you are a woman.  And you want to be famous.  And you aren’t a queen.  All of which presents a problem for young Margaret who leaves her dull, impoverished, gentry family to try her luck at court just as Cromwell and co finally get around to giving Charles I a rather drastic haircut. In Rose Napoli’s Mad Madge; currently playing in a Nightwood Theatre production at the The Theatre Centre, we aren’t subjecte ..read more

Saint-Saëns Déjanire, of 1911, was his last opera.  The plot is basically the same as Handel’s Hercules.  Déjanire is infuriated by Hercule’s infatuation with Iole so he gives him a poisoned robe; itself a gift from the Centaur Charon, which kills him.  There are a few plot tweaks.  Iole is in love with Philoctète and agrees to marry Hercule to save his life.  But, basically classic, simple plot. Musically it’s tonal and elegant.  It was well received by the critics who, correctly, pointed out that it looked backwards to Gluck and Spontini and owed little or ..read more