What does Hedda seek?  I think that’s the question at the heart of Liisa Ripo-Martelli’s adaptation of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler that opened at Coal Mine Theatre on Thursday evening.  It’s not heavily adapted.  It’s still Kristiania in the late 19th century and the environment is as dull, provincial, stuffy and “respectable” as can be.  The language is a little more direct than Ibsen especially in the way men speak to women but still more is left unsaid than not.  Presented with the audience on three sides of the tiny Coal Mine space it’s intimate to the point of, entirely ..read more

Jacinto Guerrero’s El huésped del Sevillano (The Guest at the Inn) is a zarzuela that premiered in Madrid in 1926.  It’s a light hearted musical romp and the soprano doesn’t die at the end.  I caught the last of three performances given by Toronto Operetta Theatre at the St. Lawrence Centre directed by Guillermo Silva-Marin. It was well done and made for an enjoyable and undemanding Sunday afternoon.  The story line has Miguel de Cervantes staying at an inn just outside Toledo looking for a plot for a new play or novel.  He gets it.  An artist Don Juan Luis is looking ..read more

I caught the second performance of Teiya Kasahara and David Eliakis’ Dichterliebe: Whose Love at Heliconian Hall on Saturday evening.  It was part of the Confluence Concerts series and not untypical of the eclectic nature of that series.  Also it was a logical continuation of these two partnering on shows that question gender norms in the classical music industry. Basically it was a voice and piano performance of most of the songs from Schumann’s Dichterliebe with some added songs by Schumann and others with a prologue and afterword by Kasahara.  Some of the songs had additiona ..read more

Cherubini’s Medea, in the 1909 Italian version being used by the COC, got there by a fairly circuitous route.  Euripides 5th century BCE tragedy and Seneca’s 1st century CE play inspired a French verse version of 1635 by Thomas Corneille which was turned into an opera by Marc-Antoine Charpentier in 1693.  In 1797 a version with music by Cherubini to a libretto by François-Benoît Hoffman; retaining much of Corneille’s version as spoken dialogue, premiered in Paris.  In 1909, for the Italian premiere at La Scala an Italian translation with added recitatives was used and that becam ..read more

My review of Wednesday’s concert at the TSO with Emily D’Angelo is now up at Bachtrack. Photo credit: Allan Cabral @bachtrack ..read more

I caught the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s second performance of Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at Koerner Hall on Tuesday evening. It’s a piece that’s deservedly famous but I think that this was my first time seeing it live.  It’s an interesting piece.  It’s not a conventional requiem but nor would I call it “operatic”.  It’s far more dramatic than any other mass setting I can think of (even Britten’s War Requiem) but in its own way.  Part of it is structural.  Verdi keeps bringing back the “Dies Irae” text and music; even right down to. the final “Libera Me”.  As his se ..read more

Diasporic Bridges, at Trinity St. Paul’s on Sunday afternoon, was the Amici Chamber Ensemble’s final concert of the season.  It celebrated the way that music binds emigrant communities together and provides a link to “home”.  Most, though not all, of the pieces performed were by composers of diverse styles and backgrounds living and working in Canada and the live music was preceded by an excerpt from Amici’s upcoming film on the same topic.  I’ll save writing about that until I’ve seen the whole thing. The first two pieces were for strings.  For Ana Sokolovic’s Zanni (Serb ..read more

“My favourite opera lunatics” have a new parody up on line. On the heels of Toronto Transit Parody, The Ontario Place For(d) All and the Toronto Housing Opus, We now get Les MisérLoblaws set to the tune of “At the End of the Day” from Les Mis (remember Jean Valjean, imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread for his sister’s starving child),. Lyrics by Alexander Hajek, performance by Alexander Hajek, Danie Friesen, Claire Elise Harris and Greg Finney of Opera Pub fame. Audio engineering by Michael McKenzie. It’s available on Opera Revue’s Youtube channel or downloadable here. FYI their ..read more

L’aio nell’imbarazzo (A tutor in a jam) is a Donizetti comedy that was popular in its day; both in its original version and revised as Don Gregorio.  It’s now received a new scholarly edition that attempts to get back as far as possible to the original.  That edition was used for a production directed by Francesco Micheli at the Teatro Donizetti in Bergamo in 2022 and filmed for video release. It’s a not untypical Donizetti comedy.  The plot is pretty silly and the music is formulaic but not without its moments.  To summarize; Don Giulio has hired a tutor, Don Gregorio, to ..read more

I don’t think it’s a big secret that I’m a fan of furry felines so I’m probably predisposed to like Barbe & Doucet’s cat themed production of Donizetti’s Don Pasquale for the COC which opened at the Four Seasons Centre on Friday night.  It starts with a projected comic book type prologue during the overture.  Malatesta discovers that cat lover Pasquale is allergic to them so the old man has to ditch his actual furry friends for a series of statues that then crop up all over the Pensione Pasquale.  Yes B&D have set another opera in a hotel!  It’s clever because it ma ..read more