Elza van den Heever and the MET Orchestra: A stunning all-Strauss program
Talking with singers: Blythe Gaissert
Interview"I feel like my voice has grown a lot in the last five years or so. Wagner is becoming more comfortable and I’m looking at some Verdi roles. I try to always learn and grow to just see what happens. Even if it's not something that becomes my wheelhouse, it's something that informs my other repertoire."
Talking with singers: Marnie Breckenridge
Interview"Not only do I hope more people will know a bit more about Jacqueline and honor her memory, I hope they will take away a sense of immediacy. A reminder that we each have a finite amount of time on this planet, so why not burn our creative flames of talent, love, and kindness as brightly as possible while we inhabit the bodies we've been given!"
Technologies may change, people may not: DMMO's The Human Voice
ReviewStage Director Kristine McIntyre brought Poulenc’s one woman drama into the modern era with her own updated translation of the libretto. Performing the opera in English removed the need for supertitles which let the audience focus on the drama. In addition to the telephone, McIntyre added in some new technologies such as a smartphone and tablet.
A Love Letter to Jennifer Holloway
ReviewRichard Strauss's Salome has always been a controversial opera, to say the least. The premiere performance in 1905 was not particularly well received, though famously the premiere was attended by Giacomo Puccini, Gustav Mahler, and Adolf Hitler. Based off of Oscar Wilde's play of the same name, Salome comes from a Biblical tale, though highly erotic and controversially murderous.
A vague ensemble opera: Flight
ReviewIt seemed to be a two-and-a-half-hour opera about people being their worst in a confined space. It was, basically, a series of vignettes that could be amusing and meaningful in a shorter format.
Expecting magic from Opera Atelier's 2020-21 season
EditorialFrankly, we should all be so lucky to get real-time commentary by Pynkoski. He's endlessly interested and interesting; he even had me craning my neck to see what he was on about with this business about downbeats being up in a choreographed fencing duel. For nearly 35 years, Opera Atelier has been putting up shows that, take it or leave it, have an aesthetic that is 100% fleshed out.
A "vital and contemporary" evening in BERLIN: The Last Cabaret
ReviewWith the world premiere nature of this show and the resurrection of some of this music, it should come as no surprise that the songs disappeared from our cultural lexicon because they’re not musically memorable. I kept waiting for a showstopper, but none were forthcoming
Leading ladies steal Barber of Seville at COC
ReviewDirected by Joan Font with choreography by Xevi Dorca, this revival of the 2015 production with set and costumes by Joan Guillén, is described in the program notes by the director as "action that could happen" in the 19th century, or even today in Toronto. I do beg to differ.
"Disturbingly relevant": BERLIN: The Last Cabaret
Interview"We chose July 13, 1934 for our piece, the day Hitler made a speech claiming responsibility for the "Night of the Long Knives," where two weeks prior, he ordered the S.A. division of the Nazi Party, including Röhm who uneasily protected Queer artists, massacred due to a purported threat of mutiny."
A lusty Carmina Burana from Minnesota Dance Theatre
ReviewI am by no means an Orff scholar, so my analysis may be subjective. The collection of twenty four poems from a larger collection written by medieval monks with varying themes, yet this production seemed to hone in on just one: lust.