Vocal - my/maSCENA

La Rentrée Vocal and Opera

By Patricia Weber on 1 September 2017 Art Song, La Scena Spotlight, Opera

Tosca and La Cenerentola The Opéra de Montréal launches its season with the tragic story of the diva Floria Tosca, by Puccini, from September 16 to 23. Melody Moore, the American soprano who played Madame Butterfly in 2015, portrays the soprano who lets herself become manipulated by Baron Scarpia, the chief of police, played by Canadian baritone Gregory Dahl. Chilean tenor Giancarlo Monsalve will debut in his interpretation of the role of the painter Cavaradossi, Tosca’s lover. Canadian baritone Patrick Malette, former member of the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal, will take on the role of the fugitive, Angelotti.…

2017–2018 Opera Diary Dates

By Patricia Weber on 1 September 2017 Art Song, Choral, La Scena Spotlight, Opera

With an impressive roster of seasoned performers and many more in training, opera is a major component of classical music in Canada. Our homegrown talent is gaining recognition abroad, and many of our singers appear regularly in the world’s great opera houses. Here’s a look at some of their diaries for 2017–2018. Soprano Layla Claire, whose Donna Elvira was warmly received by audiences at Opéra de Montréal last November, recently made a debut solo album with ATMA Classique, entitled Songbird. High point of the year for this British Columbian will be her title role in Alcina at the Bolshoi Theatre…

Sir John Falstaff (Craig Colclough), with the company of Opera Saratoga’s production of Falstaff, Photo: Gary David Gold

Opera Saratoga: The Racing City’s OTHER Season…

By Charles Geyer on 31 August 2017 Concert Reviews, Musical Theatre, Opera

RETROSPECTIVE: of Opera Saratoga’s 2017 Summer Mainstage Season (July 1 through 16) – Verdi’s Falstaff; Grétry’s and Marmontel’s Zémire et Azor; Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock. The end-days of summer are high horse-racing season in Saratoga, with turfites and extravagant millinery abounding; but, while much of the city lives for the thrill of beating hooves, Saratoga’s culture caters broadly. For many, summer’s highlight was long before a single bay bolted its stall, and the city swayed to different beats entirely – the two-week July mainstage season at Opera Saratoga. This year’s performances ran from July 1 through 16. Save the…

Berkshire Opera Festival Ariadne auf Naxos, Photo: Ken Howard

Ariadne auf Naxos at the Berkshire Opera Festival: Serious Fun with a Girl, a God, and a Bunch of Gags

By Charles Geyer on 29 August 2017 Concert Reviews, Opera

REVIEW: Richard Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos in a new production at the Berkshire Opera Festival. It’s a backstage story as only Richard Strauss and his invaluable and (more or less) constant collaborator Hugo von Hofmannsthal could tell it. The Berkshire Opera Festival, now in its second season, is offering a vibrant and thoroughly engrossing production of Richard Strauss’ unique 1916 melding of the sublime and the ridiculous – Ariadne auf Naxos – now at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, through Friday, September 1 (performances August 26, August 29 and September 1, all at 7:30 p.m.; viewed here opening night,…

Final Concert of l’Orchestre de la Francophonie

By Ian Cochrane on 21 August 2017 Art Song, Classical, Classical Music, Concert Reviews

Would you be willing to spend a sweltering summer evening listening to a youth orchestra in a venue with no air-conditioning? The hundreds who did avail themselves of such an opportunity on August 4 at the resplendent Chapelle Notre Dame de Bon Secours in old Montreal were delighted with the experience. The 2017 edition of l’Orchestre de la Francophonie marshalled its forces for a final time to perform a diverse programme- the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, Le Boeuf sur le toit by Darius Milhaud, and Mahler’s 4th Symphony. Since its inception in 2001, this orchestra has provided enrichment for accomplished young…

Tapestry Opera Presents the World Premiere of Bandits in the Valley at Toronto’s Historic Todmorden Mills

By Newswire on 16 August 2017 Canadian Music, Contemporary, Newswire, Opera

-A free, all-ages opera for the community, weekends in September- TORONTO, ON: Canada’s leading contemporary opera company, Tapestry Opera, in conjunction with the Toronto Arts Council and the Todmorden Mills Heritage Site, is pleased to announce the world premiere of Bandits in the Valley. Set in 1860s Toronto, Bandits in the Valley tells the story of a local bandit group, aided by a troupe of travelling Gilbert & Sullivan players, who attempt to steal a mysterious object from a wealthy citizen’s home in the Don Valley. Six performers will make their way through the site singing and playing a variety…

Gun-Brit Barkmin as Salome, Photo: Aline Paley

Verbier Festival’s Salome by Richard Strauss, Medici.tv’s There and Here

By Lois Silverstein on 11 August 2017 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

One of the great delights of today’s viewer technology is sitting in your living room, a cup of chocolate in your hand, and, before you, a vibrant, young orchestra, a brilliant and famous conductor, and a dozen notable first-class singers embarked…eroticism…genius – in other words, Salome. Thanks to Medici.tv’s ample coverage of significant classical music events across the globe, we can attend landmark performances, live and in replay. The live concert performance appears on screen straight from the world-famous Verbier Festival in the Swiss Alps thanks to Medici.tv, the premier music live-streaming instrument for viewers. All I had to do…

Lebrecht Weekly – Joyce El-Khoury, Michael Spyres (Opera Rara)

By Norman Lebrecht on 11 August 2017 CD and Book Reviews, Lebrecht Weekly, Opera, Romantic

Now here’s a surprise. A new release from Opera Rara usually consists of some bel canto work that has languished forgotten in a vault since its premiere 160 years ago, and usually for good reason (as becomes apparent when you’re halfway through the unreviewable second disc). This package, though, is different: a pair of debut releases by two fast-rising singers, soprano and tenor, mingling well-known arias with the fairly obscure. El-Khoury, a Lebanese-Canadian, sticks mostly to well-trodden tracks, albeit with interesting variations. The Berlioz setting of a Freischütz piece is new to me, as is anything from Hérold’s Le Pré aux clercs, which turns out…

Lebrecht Weekly – Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius (DG)

By Norman Lebrecht on 4 August 2017 CD and Book Reviews, Choral, Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral

The first thing you need to know about Daniel Barenboim’s live performance with the Staatskapelle Berlin is that it is the best-sounding Gerontius on record. No British string section has ever played the work with such sweet serenity. No British winds ever breathed with such deep assurance. Strange as it may seem, the Berlin musicians and chorus singers feel this most English of works in their fingers and bones. There is something akin to love in their playing. This is not to disparage past recordings, all by English forces, notably the Halle’s with John Barbirolli and two-thirds of a dream…

Star tenor Juan Diego Flórez releases his first album of Mozart arias

By Newswire on 4 August 2017 Arts Industry, Classical, Classical Music, Newswire, Opera, Vocal

Acclaimed across the globe for the beauty of his voice, the emotional power of his performances, and his extraordinarily dazzling high notes, the Peruvian superstar tenor Juan Diego Flórez has so far in his career focussed almost exclusively on the masterpieces of the bel canto repertoire by Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, and others. Now, in his eagerly awaited debut recording for Sony Classical, he turns his attention to a composer with whose works his talents also have an ideal relationship.’I’ve always wanted to do it, but now is the time. I finally feel I’m ready to convey the expressiveness, the simplicity, the…

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