Pictures from Figaro’s Wedding

Here are a few of the photographs that Chris Hutcheson took at the preview of excerpts from Figaro’s Wedding last week.

The whole gang

More under the cut…

Smart and sexy Don Giovanni

Last night saw the first of two performances of Don Giovanni by the students of the Glenn Gould School at Koerner Hall.  Koerner Hall isn’t the easiest venue to do fully staged opera since it is basically a concert hall with very limited lighting and stage facilities.  Ashlie Corcoran and Camellia Coo pulled off perhaps the most inventive staging I have seen there by using a giant staircase to link the part of the gallery that wraps around the stage to the stage itself.  Within this basic configuration they deployed a few bits and pieces of furniture, mostly couches. It made a very serviceable unit set for the various scenes.  The production was set in the 1960s and seemed to revolve around the basic idea of Don Giovanni as a “chick magnet”.  All the usual suspects are clearly attracted to him.  There’s no hint of coercion in the opening scene with Donna Anna and Zerlina is a very willing seductee.  The idea is reinforced in “Deh vieni” when, as Don Giovanni is serenading Donna Elvira’s maid, five or six women make their way to the staircase and down to the man himself.

Don Giovanni at Koerner Hall

Last night I saw the Glenn Gould School’s production of Don Giovanni at Koerner Hall.  I’ll do a proper review later but for now let’s just say that the staging is the best use of the Koerner Hall space I’ve seen and that the production is witty, sexy and well sung.  There’s only one more performance, on Friday night.  Well worth seeing if you are in the Toronto area.

Catholic kitsch

Don Giovanni is one of the most fascinating operas in part because it can be reinterpreted in so many different ways.  There’s also the tension between a story with elements of murder, rape, revenge and damnation and broad humour.  It’s tricky to find a balance.  There’s also a decision to be made between a concept based production and a more laissez faire approach.  Francesca Zambello’s production for the Royal Opera House, recorded in 2008 doesn’t really have a concept and sort of goes with the flow mixing very broad humour with lots of Catholic kitsch and some flamboyant stage effects.  As a production I find it distinctly underwhelming.

Campy Clemenza

Besides the production of La Clemenza di Tito still in repertory at the Met, Jean-Pierre Ponelle also made a film of the piece.  It was shot among the ruins of ancient Rome in 1980 and is one of those lip synched opera films popular in that era.  The forces involved are eclectic.  James Levine conducts the Wiener Philharmoniker and the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor with mainly American soloists. 

The Giacomo Variations

Michael Sturminger and John Malkovich are bringing their latest collaboration The Giacomo Variations to Toronto.  I really liked their earlier piece, The Infernal Comedy and this new one seems to be similar in concept; blending Malkovich monologues with Mozart’s music.

The Giacomo Variations plays at the Elgin Theatre June 7th to 9th.  Montrealers can catch it at the Place des Arts on the 4th and 5th.

Ex Alden semper aliquot novis

Last night saw the final performance of the COC’s run of La clemenza di Tito.  I had seen the Ensemble Studio performance a couple of weeks ago and really enjoyed it but had some questions and reservations about the production.  Last night many of those issues were resolved. It seemed more closely directed and the characterizations were more fully rehearsed.  A good example of this would be Michael Schade’s intensely neurotic Tito which was central to the concept.  Many things make sense if one sees Tito as being in love with an idea of himself.  In this context his betrayal by Sesto is particularly hurtful because it implies that his closest confidante isn’t buying it and his “clemency” is necessary to restore his faith in his own self-projection.  This Tito gives Robert Gleadow’s Publio space and reason to be more than the dutiful, rather thick plod.  He’s the one who has seen through Tito but must “play the game”.  His final, rather sharp, exchanges with Vitellia suggest a genuine capacity for malevolence.  This is, after all, an Imperial Court, where by definition life is dangerous and nothing what it seems.

Sic Semper Tyrannis

Last night saw the COC Ensemble Studio’s annual main stage performance.  This year it was Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito in a Christopher Alden production.  It’s a somewhat quirky production that I haven’t fully digested yet and may need to wait until after seeing the main cast on the 22nd to come to a more considered view.  My initial reaction is that it has a lot of interesting ideas, maybe one or two misguided ones and that the whole thing, while interesting, isn’t completely coherent.  That said, Alden productions often seem more coherent second time around.  And whatever I might think of the production, it didn’t distract from some very fine performances.

Fifty shades of Braun

This afternoon’s Off Centre concert at the Glenn Gould Studio was structured around three pairs of composer friends; Mozart/Haydn, Schumann/Brahms and Wolf/Mahler.  It was a mix of lieder, opera excerpts and piano pieces and was pleasantly varied.

Things kicked off with Russell Braun singing a number of songs from Schumann’s Liederkreis accompanied by his partner, Carolyn Maule on the piano.  This was maybe the third time that I’ve heard Russell in recital and he really is impressive.  He has a really good command of a wide range of dynamics and tone colour and lovely floaty high notes.  If I was being hyper critical I’d say I think there’s a point in the middle voice though that can’t quite sustain the volume he sometimes tries to get.  He has quite an operatic approach to lieder (compared to, say, DFD) but that’s quite fun in its own way.

Wonky androids

I’m a pretty Regie friendly guy but I confess to being quite bemused by the 2006 Salzburg production of Mozart’s Ascanio in Alba.  Some of the production concept I totally get.  Removing the unaccompanied recits and replacing them with two actors speaking a summary (in German) makes all kinds of sense.  It reduces a sprawling pastorale with minimal plot to something half the length while keeping all the good music.  The wonky android chorus, the hero apparently with severe motor neuron disease and Aceste shunting Silvia about in a wheelbarrow I had more problems with.  The Gumbie chorus seemed particularly odd and the costumes, well see for yourself.