Toronto Summer Music opened its 2024 festival in the most grand, celebratory manner possible with the local premiere of Les Arts Florissants’ production of Henry Purcell’s The Fairy Queen. Already a hit at the world’s most prestigious venues including Teatro alla Scala, Versailles’ Opéra Royal and New York’s Lincoln Center, its run now extends into 2025. Choreographer and stage director Mourad Merzouki’s completely original concept blurs the lines between virtuoso music-making and astounding movement such that they become indistinguishable.
Purcell’s 1692 ‘semi-opera’ was intended to be performed as short masques or interludes between acts of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. As Les Arts Florissants’ Co-Director Paul Agnew notes in the program, “Purcell does not set any words of Shakespeare … each musical act…(are like)…divertissements in the French baroque opera sense …They have no dramatic role, do not advance the plot, and contain no specific characters.”
Photo by Lucky Tang
The company, based at founder William Christie’s magical country estate in France’s Loire region, therefore dispenses with any conventional narrative, focusing instead on Purcell’s enchanting succession of arias, choral ensembles and orchestral interludes. A vague air of the fête champêtre hangs over the proceedings; a bucolic backdrop where the vicissitudes of love unfold. Any sense of an overarching concept is eschewed, allowing the performers’ natural musical and physical expressivity to achieve emotional impact.
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Merzouki founded his dance company Kӓfig (‘cage’ in Arabic and German) in 1996, naming it ironically out of his desire to signal ‘openness’ and refusal to become locked into a single style. In his Fairy Queen, this ethos is manifested in a mix that includes breakdancing alongside contemporary ballet as well as striking tableaux. Merzouki offers an abundance of jaw-dropping choreographic surprises. None characterize his inventiveness better than the physical response to Canadian mezzo-soprano Georgia Burashko’s sparkling coloratura as dancers’ bodies bounced like popcorn off each other and the stage floor.
Photo by Lucky Tang
The eight young singers (two sopranos, mezzos, tenors and basses), are current laureates of the company’s Le Jardin des Voix, its Academy of Flourishing Arts for Young Singers. All of them perform at a very high level of technical accomplishment and emotional investment. As befits this repertoire, most possess instruments of modest size, helped no doubt by Koerner Hall’s superior acoustic. One must single out Lithuanian tenor Ilja Aksionov whose tone, though light, is full of enough forward, pinging presence to fill any hall. He also stood out for his sinewy legato, binding long phrases into communicative sentences.
Burashko is blessed with a unique, burnished tone quality that is instantly recognizable and distinguishes her in the current surfeit of talented, yet very ‘soprano-ish’, mezzos. She received a rousing ovation from her hometown Toronto crowd, a student at University of Toronto just down the lane, only a few short years ago.
Photo by Lucky Tang
It’s difficult not to be overenthusiastic about the company’s dancers, largely drawn from Merzouki’s Compagnie Kӓfig. Their physical stamina; friendly camaraderie with the singers; their physical response to the texts and, the virtuosity of their head spinning break dance solos were a constant source of delight. The amalgam of modern dance and old opera can often seem forced, but here, the ‘new’ moves felt as if they were invented in 1692, so perfectly attuned were they to Purcell’s dance-inspired rhythms.
Toronto was lucky to have William Christie, founder of Les Arts Florissants, conducting the proceedings. The legendary American expat who moved to France and jump-started the French Baroque music revival spent most of the evening turned away from his orchestra, fully engaged with the troupe of performers. The joy etched on his face mirrored the audience’s own feelings. What a coup for Toronto Summer Music, which has quickly become the city’s most important classical music festival.
Toronto Summer Music runs from July 11 to August 3. https://torontosummermusic.com/
William Christie’s Le Jardin des Voix continues their tour of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen into 2025: https://www.arts-florissants.org/le-jardin-des-voix.html
