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Photo: Francois Goupil

Orchestre Métropolitain Makes a Brilliant Debut in a Special Place

By Arthur Kaptainis on 23 November 2019 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Opera, Orchestral, Romantic

NEW YORK – It is possible to lose a sense of perspective after a good night of Bruckner. The critic in me urges caution. Best live Fourth Symphony I have heard in months! My heart suggests something a little less guarded. Best in…well, quite a while. Certainly the performance ranks among the signal achievements in the history of the Orchestre Métropolitain, which on Friday made its third stop on a four-city U.S. tour and, not incidentally, its debut at Carnegie Hall. You can imagine a new punch line to the old gag about how you get there: by having Yannick…

Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn at the piano. Photo: Getty

Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn: Cello-piano works (Pentatone)

By Norman Lebrecht on 5 October 2019 Chamber Music, Lebrecht Weekly, Romantic

The near-symbiotic relationship between Mendelssohn and his older sister, examined in my forthcoming book Genius and Anxiety, was so central to both musicians’ lives that Felix was felled by a stroke on hearing of Fanny’s death and died before the year was out. Fanny, the first to evince musical talent, was silenced by their father as she neared puberty in order not to deflect attention from her genius kid brother. In her 30s she found a publisher and began – to Felix’s chagrin – to produce chamber music. His anger abated on finding that the music was of high quality.…

(l-r) Joseph Hu as Bill/Pong, Sergey Skorokhodov as Calaf, Julius Ahn as Bob/Pang, Adrian Timpau as Jim/Ping in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Turandot, 2019, photo: Michael Cooper

Ping, Pang and Pong ousted from Toronto Turandot

By Arthur Kaptainis on 3 October 2019 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

The Canadian Opera Company has opened its season in Toronto with the North American premiere of Robert Wilson’s production of Turandot – and the world premiere appearances in this Puccini opera of Jim, Bob and Bill. Opera fans who do not recognize these roles might be more familiar with Ping, Pang and Pong, the court bureaucrats who add comic relief to the tale of love and death in ancient Beijing. Their names were judged potentially hurtful by the COC’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity Committee, and particularly committee member Richard Lee, who is named in the credits as a production consultant. “This act…

Etienne Dupuis (Onéguine) Nicole Car (Tatiana). Photo: Yves Renaud

OdM Eugene Onegin Offers a Dynamic Duo and More

By Arthur Kaptainis on 15 September 2019 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

This was one of the best-cast and least-tampered-with Opéra de Montréal presentations in recent memory.Opera’s newest power couple – so Etienne Dupuis and Nicole Car have been called, and so they sounded Saturday night in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. But as impressive as they were in the principal roles, the Montreal-born baritone and his Australian soprano better half did not constitute the sum of show. This was one of the best-cast and least-tampered-with Opéra de Montréal presentations in recent memory. What you missed Fans of mezzo-sopranos had an array of firm sonorities to choose from in Christianne Bélanger as Larina, Stefania Toczyska…

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Musica Camerata: the 50th season

By Nuné Melik on 30 August 2019 Chamber Music, Romantic, Strings

Musica Camerata Montreal is an exceptional ensemble. Founded in 1971, it has been performing lesser-known chamber works and pioneering the music of Canadian composers. In anticipation of Camerata’s 50th season, we spoke to violinist and artistic director Luis Grinhauz and his wife, pianist Berta Rosenohl. How did you meet? LG: I was 19 years old, new to Buenos Aires, and a friend of mine wanted to introduce a lovely pianist to me named Berta. But I seemed to be too busy with violin practice (laughs). A little bit later, after one particular concert, we finally met, and I asked her…

Pfitzner/Braunfels: piano concertos (Hyperion)

By Norman Lebrecht on 16 August 2019 Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

The anniversary year of Hans Pfitzner (1869-1949) is marked by the re-emergence of a piano concerto that he wrote at the height of his fame. Pfitzner, acclaimed for his 1917 opera Palestrina, delivered the concerto in 1923, with Walter Gieseking as soloist. If Palestrina echoes Wagner’s Meistersinger, the concerto nods repeatedly in the direction of Brahms’s B-flat – and the nodding is done mostly by the listener. Pfitzner’s fallen reputation is sometimes ascribed to his gruesome flirtation with the Nazis but this concerto suggests something more organically at fault. Each of four movements is introduced by a promising idea, which…

WHITNEY ROBINSON, ALEX SOARE and KEELY FUTTERER as The Marquise, Sulpice and Marie; photo: Gary David Gold

Opera Saratoga 2019 – Tales of Girls Interrupted

By Charles Geyer on 7 July 2019 Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, Contemporary, Musical Theatre, Opera, Orchestral, Romantic, Theatre, Vocal

REVIEW: of Ellen West (the world premiere of a new work by Ricky Ian Gordon and Frank Bidart); and La fille du régiment (a new production of Donizetti’s 1840 comic opera). Opera Saratoga inaugurated its summer 2019 mainstage series on June 29 and 30 – the same weekend as the highly-touted “WorldPride 50” celebration. The latter event, of course, originated as homage to the purported founding moment of the modern gay rights movement; but it has by now pullulated far beyond its initial meaning, becoming a portmanteau affirmation of self-identities of all stripes. It is interesting, then, that – whether…

Photo: Antoine Saito

Michael Tilson Thomas makes a memorable OSM debut

By Arthur Kaptainis on 23 May 2019 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

The OSM has seen its share of notable guest conductors over the decades. Now the list includes Michael Tilson Thomas, music director of the San Francisco Symphony since 1995. His appearance on May 22 in the Maison symphonique marked his Montreal debut. He made it count for something. Not that Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is the likeliest vehicle for the expression of podium personality. As its title implies, this score is made of multiple parts that need to be coordinated. A lean and athletic figure at 75, Tilson Thomas accomplished the technical element of task with an economical baton style…

Photo: Andrew Dobrowolskyj

Impressive Mahler from the OUM — and some friends

By Arthur Kaptainis on 14 April 2019 Choral, Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic, Vocal

Hard to fault the Mahler Third Symphony heard Saturday night (April 13, 2019) in Salle Claude-Champagne. Very hard, if the criteria are performing standards and the grasp of the score shown by Jean-François Rivest, founding artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestre de l’Université de Montréal. It should be noted, however, that the 100-plus players on stage included a high proportion of professors and alumni, including veterans we see often enough in professional situations. Only three of the eight double bassists, to judge by the printed program, were students. The first timpani part was undertaken by none other than…

Photo: François Goupil

De Souza gets to the heart of Schumann with the Orchestre Métropolitain

By Arthur Kaptainis on 13 April 2019 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic, Strings

Local boy makes good. Not that Jordan de Souza is, strictly speaking, a Montrealer. “Né à Toronto” were the first words we read in the program biography Friday (April 12, 2019) at the Maison symphonique. But this conductor learned his craft at McGill and had some good innings at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul before ascending to the position of Erster Kapellmeister at the Komische Oper in Berlin. Thus the special interest of his return to town at the helm of the Orchestre Métropolitain. Spring was the supposed theme of the evening but the real focus was…

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