Reviews
Figaro’s silver screen dazzle at Champs Elysées
Hollywood film director James Gray, winner of the Golden Lion for his film “Little Odessa” (1994) and nominated several times for the Palme d’Or in Cannes, claims that directing Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro was one of the “artistic highlights of his career.” It also...
AtG Figaro’s Wedding: fun with philandering fiancés
Against the Grain's (AtG) Figaro’s Wedding takes the Mozart opera off the stage and to an events hall at Enoch Turner Schoolhouse, going all in on the wedding of the century! Like a dork’s day at a Renaissance fair, the roll-out for this production and the subsequent...
Opera Niagara’s La bohème nails it
Opera Niagara’s fourth season opened with La bohème, given four performances at Southminster United Church in Niagara Falls. Bohème is consistently one of the most performed operas in the world—this season alone saw the bohemians' return to AtG and Calgary Opera—and...
Sidewalk Labs and Tapestry Opera’s Augmented Opera is an enjoyable oddity
Tapestry Opera’s experimental opera series, TAP:EX is back. Conceived as an annual opportunity for operatic experimentation, this year’s installment, Augmented Opera, showcases Tapestry’s love of Black Mirror. Hosted by Alphabet Inc.'s Sidewalk Labs and with some...
Gianni Schicchi hits its hilarious high-notes at Opera Mariposa
Opera Mariposa is one of the landmarks of the indie opera scene in Vancouver, and their 2019 mainstage production is Puccini's slapstick one-acter, Gianni Schicchi. Due to the short 50 minute run time, the company paired the comedy with a number of different opera...
Another Brick in the Wall is all bark, and no bite
The music came to a sudden stop and the curtain fell onto the stage with mechanical precision. As the choir hummed, a heart-rate monitor blared out a sinister flat-line and for a moment I thought I’d died. Sadly though I was still very much alive. When the lights...
Lucia di Lammermoor loses itself to literalism at Opéra de Montréal
The soprano may be the star of Lucia di Lammermoor, but it was the gentlemen who took the night at the Nov. 9th premiere of Opéra de Montréal’s latest take on Donizetti's classic. I’ve never been in favour of casting light lyric coloratura sopranos in meaty bel canto...
Don Giovanni goes buffa at Opera Atelier
Productions of Don Giovanni and its troublesome topic of seduction seem to elicit a variety of mixed feelings from both directors and their audiences. Mozart's famous dramma giocoso, not that long ago, would have been presented typically as a mythic tale about a...
AtG’s La bohème — Homecoming for Toronto’s bohemians
Against the Grain Theatre’s La bohème feels like a cult movie that everyone’s heard of but no one has actually really seen. Like Game of Thrones or Hamilton, a shared cultural osmosis sparks déjà vu as Rodolfo mourns Mimì’s lifeless form, or as Schaunard boasts of...
Rusalka at the COC — Darkness in Still Waters
Canadian Opera Company premiered a sensuous and sumptuous, new-to-Toronto production of Rusalka on Oct. 12th. Sir David McVicar’s wildly entertaining staging of Dvořák’s story of a doomed water sprite ranges from the delightfully silly to the profoundly human. The...
Manon at the Met—a marvelous revival keeps Massenet fresh
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Laurent Pelly’s drab production of Massenet’s Manon will never be a favorite of mine (he’s got a far, far defter hand for comedy), but the performance I saw on Oct. 2nd—its third of the new Met season—managed to easily outshine its...
COC Turandot — Making people out of porcelain
Canadian Opera Company’s (COC) season-opening presentation of Puccini’s Turandot (seen Sept. 28th) showcased the full force of legendary avant-garde director Robert Wilson’s genre-shattering impact on opera. As much as Wilson’s sparse, hard-edged aesthetic felt deeply...