Vocal - my/maSCENA

The First December 6 Memorial Concert

By Wah Keung Chan on 6 December 2019 Choral

[Originally published on Dec. 6, 2014] How a performance of Mozart’s Requiem marked my musical passage By Wah Keung Chan Last Sunday (November 30, 2014), I attended conductor Iwan Edwards’s Farewell at Concerto Della Donna’s final concert at a standing room sold out St. Georges Church. It was good to see Iwan on the podium again, having sung for him with the St. Lawrence Choir and the MSO Chorus many times in the 1990s. Midway through the first half, I suddenly remembered the first time I sang with him, 25 years earlier in 1989. It was days following the December…

Nicole Paiement. Photo: Opera Parallèle

Nicole Paiement: Conductor of Modern Opera

By Hassan Laghcha on 2 December 2019 Contemporary, Opera

Nicole Paiement is one conductor not lacking for work in the opera circuit. Fresh from a run of Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking, staged by the Lyric Opera of Chicago last month, she moves on to our city to collaborate with the Opéra de Montréal in its January production of Written on Skin by George Benjamin. Next up for her are performances of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella and Poulenc’s La Voix humaine with the Dallas Opera from April 3 to 8. With Opera Parallèle, her own company based in San Francisco, she will be at the podium for three consecutive performances in…

Photo: OSA images

A Truly Operatic “Phantom of the Opera”

By Arthur Kaptainis on 29 November 2019 Musical Theatre, Opera

Baritenor. This is the intriguing if ambiguous word Hugo Laporte uses to describe the fach of the title role of Le Fantôme de l’Opéra, a French-language production which opens on Jan. 8 in the Théâtre St-Denis. “From what I understand, Broadway singers are often in this range and they call themselves baritones or tenors depending on the timbre of the voice,” he said in the Green Room of Meridian Hall in Toronto. The part of the “Phantom” (whose name is Erik, although he is never identified as such) demands two high As. This is the altitude also required by Rossini’s Figaro. Plus…

Photo: Stephanie Sedlbauer

Annamaria Popescu: Never Too Late to Start Early

By Arthur Kaptainis on 27 November 2019 Baroque and Early, Vocal

Annamaria Popescu has both a harpsichord and a piano in her studio at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University. “I require all my students to do early music,” says the mezzo-soprano and assistant professor, who will be one of the soloists in Handel’s Messiah as performed on Dec. 8 by the Orchestre classique de Montréal under Boris Brott. “And they start with Italian. Because if they start with Italian early music, they see the evolution. If they do a piece from the mid-1500s and from the 1600s and the mid-1700s, then when they do their Bellini song, they have a…

Editorial

By Wah Keung Chan on 27 November 2019 Arts Industry, Musical Theatre, Opera

Download PDFLa Scena Musicale’s Dec/Jan issue returns to a bilingual format. The cover features Hugo Laporte and Anne-Marine Suire in the upcoming production of The Phantom of the Opera in French translation in Montreal and Quebec City. Last month I promoted the idea that opera should start to be performed in the language of local audiences. They are already doing that in musical theatre. The issue also includes a special section on the recording industry. The demise of the classical music industry has been predicted for years, yet recordings are still coming out. Just the means of purchasing (CD, downloads…

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…

Christine Rice at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden April 2015

Remarkable Mezzo-Soprano Christine Rice to Give Special Performance of Vocal Works With Les Violons Du Roy

By Newswire on 21 November 2019 Opera

Quebec City, November 21, 2019 – Music director Jonathan Cohen and Les Violons du Roy welcome mezzo‑soprano Christine Rice for a varied program of richly dramatic works. Together they will perform a selection of the most beautiful opera arias ever written by Rameau, Handel, and Purcell as well as Britten’s Phaedra, a dramatic cantata inspired by Jean Racine’s play. The concert Amours tragiques will be performed on Thursday, November 28, at 8 p.m. at Quebec City’s Palais Montcalm – Maison de la musique and Saturday, November 30, at 8 p.m. at Bourgie Hall, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Christine Rice…

Vanda Treiser with the 10 finalists of the national auditions of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal

TALENT 2019 – A benefit event to shine a light on Canada’s emerging opera artists

By Newswire on 15 November 2019 Opera

A big night for Opera! Montreal, November 15, 2019 – Wednesday, the Opéra de Montréal held the third edition of its TALENT gala, showcasing the National Auditions for the Atelier lyrique program, in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier at Place des Arts. The benefit event, co-chaired by Stéphane Achard, Executive Vice-President, Commercial Banking and Insurance and Member of the Office of the President at the National Bank, and Jacques Marchand, Chairman of the Board of Directors of LCI Education, brought together close to five hundred music lovers to celebrate Canada’s emerging opera artists. The event raised a net of $360,000 for the Opéra…

Review: OdM’s Lucia – All Around Good Singing

By Wah Keung Chan on 10 November 2019 Opera

The Opéra de Montréal promised great singers for the 2019-20 season. They delivered in Eugene Onegin (with a cast led by Nicole Car and Etienne Dupuis, read review) and now also in Lucia di Lammermoor, notwithstanding some opening night jitters and cast changes before rehearsals started. What you missed? No opening night jitters for Canadian baritone Gregory Dahl in the role of Enrico, controlling nasty brother to Lucia, replacing the originally cast of American baritone Lucas Meachem, who ditched the OdM to replace Russian bass Ildar Abdrazakhov in six performances of Don Giovanni at Chicago Lyric Opera. Dahl showed off…

La Chapelle de Québec

By Justin Bernard on 7 November 2019 Chamber Music, Choral

La Chapelle de Québec isn’t performing its first Messiah by Handel – far from it. On this side of the Atlantic, tradition has it that this oratorio is sung during the Christmas season. Each performance seems to bring its share of new experiences. This year, the ensemble will be joined on stage by soloists of international renown, including British countertenor Tim Mead. “Collaborating with such talented artists opens up new interpretive possibilities, such as the choice of arias I can do,” said Bernard Labadie. For the founder and music director of La Chapelle de Québec, it’s essential to keep the…

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