After 47 years of award-winning music-making, the Emerson String Quartet disbanded in October 2023; Infinite Voyage featuring Barbara Hannigan is their final release.
John Gilks
Toronto City Opera
SusannahDylan Wright, a “tour de force”
Carlisle Floyd’s 1955 opera Susannah is performed less often than it deserves. It’s dramatically well constructed and has an excellent score full of interesting musical details and with some terrific showpiece arias like Susannah’s “The Trees on the Mountain”. So, it...
Early Music Vancouver / re:Naissance Opera
The Queen of Carthage Register and Watch On-Line Until Jan 5
The Queen of Carthage is a multi-media performance staged as part of the Early Music Vancouver 2023 Summer Festival. It was filmed in performance at Simon Fraser University and is now available on-line until January 5th. It’s a co-production of Early Music Vancouver...
Theater an der Wien Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo “not just a landmark in opera history but also genuinely enjoyable”
Emilio de’ Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo of 1600 is the first opera to come down to us and has some claim to being the earliest work in the genre. In 2021 it was given a fully staged production, directed by Robert Carsen, at the Theater an der...
Tapestry Opera / Obsidian Theatre Of the Sea “a very considerable achievement”
Of the Sea; libretto by Kanika Ambrose, music by Ian Cusson, premiered at the Bluma Appel Theatre on Saturday evening. It’s a co-production of Tapestry Opera and Obsidian Theatre and it has its origins in Tapestry’s 2018 LibLab which led to a co-commission from the...
ALBUM: Candide London Symphony Orchestra “Cunegonde’s “Glitter and Be Gay”…a coloratura extravaganza knocked off with aplomb by Archibald”
The recent hybrid CD/SACD release of Leonard Bernstein’s Candide on the London Symphony Orchestra’s own label is drawn from live semi-staged performances at the Barbican in London in December 2018. That production was, in turn, based on a 2004 production for the New...
Opera Atelier Dido and Aeneas “well sung and satisfying”
Opera Atelier’s production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas which opened last night at the Elgin Theatre is essentially a remount of their 2016 production though shorn of the prologue created for that version. This cuts the piece to the normal 65 minutes or so and allows...
ALBUM: Robert le Diable Palazetto Bru Zane “a milestone in the history of opera that should be heard by anyone with an interest in the development of the genre”
The latest release in the CD/book series from the Palazetto Bru Zane is Meyerbeer’s 1831 grand opera Robert le Diable.
Toronto Summer Music Festival Afarin Mansouri’s Zuleykha: “good ideas and the blend of musical styles is interesting”
Afarin Mansouri’s new Farsi language opera Zuleykha was workshopped last night at Walter Hall as part of the Toronto Summer Music Festival. I knew the piece would be presented concert style but I confess I wasn’t expecting a workshop or for the work to be presented in...
Tapestry Opera’s R.U.R. A Torrent of Light is “musically brilliant”
Nicole Lizée and Nicolas Billon’s new work R.U.R. A Torrent of Light was, overcoming many COVID inflicted delays, finally presented by Tapestry Opera in collaboration with OCAD University in the Great Hall at OCAD. The story concerns a couple; Dom and Helena, who own...
VanessaVoicebox: Opera in Concert scores with Vanessa
Samuel Barber’s Vanessa is a Gothic romance set in winter in some unspecified part of northern Europe. Three generations of aristocratic women act on their differing ideas of love and honour as they encounter the unscrupulous Anatole, son of Vanessa’s former flame of...
Glenn Gould School surprises with a fresh take on Handel’s Rinaldo
The Royal Conservatory of Music Glenn Gould School spring opera was Handel’s Rinaldo or, perhaps more accurately, director Tom Diamond’s Rinaldo. It was a fairly radical and effective reworking of the original that provided on-stage roles for all the students of the...