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La Scena Online is the digital magazine of La Scene Musicale.Contents: News, Concert reviews, CD reviews, Interviews, Obituaries, etc; Editor: Wah Keung Chan; Assistant Editor: Andreanne Venne
ISSN: 1206-9973

Pianist Antoine Joubert with Ensemble ArtChoral. Photo: Tam Photography

Review | Ensemble ArtChoral Charms with Beatles Tunes

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By on Choral, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Vocal

On May 17, Matthias Maute led Ensemble ArtChoral in a concert of a cappella Beatles tunes at Montreal’s Maison symphonique. Maute shared anecdotes about the Fab Four throughout, enhancing the show’s warm and genial atmosphere. What you missed Besides the diverse poetry of the lyrics, Beatles songs are filled with complex instrumental arrangements, inspired melodies, and rich harmonies. For the most part, the arrangements did justice to the Fab Four, drawing out the wealth of musical richness already present. Using the sopranos to act as violins in Eleanor Rigby was fresh and thoughtful, as was the alternating staccato and legato…

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Sabine Devieilhe (Lucie Ashton) & Sahy Ratia (Lord Arthur Bucklaw) in in Opéra-Comique's Lucie de Lammermoor, 2026. Photo: Herwig Prammer

Review | A French Lucie de Lammermoor Triumphs at Opéra Comique

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By on Concert Reviews, Opera, Vocal

With Opéra-Comique’s new production of Lucie de Lammermoor—the little-known French version of Donizetti’s most famous work—a rarity has returned to the Parisian stage not as a mere curiosity piece, but as a living and surprisingly potent work of theatre. In reviving the original adaptation created for Paris in 1839—premiered not at the Opéra-Comique itself but at the Théâtre de la Renaissance—the Salle Favart-based company offers more than a linguistic variant of the familiar Lucia di Lammermoor: this Lucie reveals a different dramatic metabolism altogether—leaner, colder, psychologically more exposed. Under Speranza Scappucci’s superb musical direction and with a cast led by…

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Artists of Ballet BC in FOR GLASS. Photo: Millissa Martin

Review | For Philip Glass and Ballet BC, from Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber

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By on Concert Reviews, Dance, Vancouver, West

The stage was bustling, with 16 Ballet BC company artists and four emerging artists dancing their hearts out to the warmth of live music played, from a downstage corner, by the Microcosmos Quartet. The occasion was Ballet BC’s May 7-9 end-of-season show at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, a premiere of Bobbi Jene Smith and Or Schraiber’s For Glass. Philip Glass, of course, the American minimalist composer renowned for his masterly use of pulsing rhythms and hypnotic repetitions.  For Glass was in two parts, with an enormously exciting act one, enigmatically titled “Performance becomes practice,” driven by the often tender momentum…

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Arturo Chacón-Cruz, & Rihab Chaieb. Opéra de Montréal, Carmen. Crédit photo: Vivien Gaumand et l’Opéra de Montréal

Review | Opéra de Montréal’s Carmen Features Strong Singing

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By on Concert Reviews, Montreal, Opera, This Week in Montreal

With high anticipation, Montrealers have been waiting for years to hear Montreal native, mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb portray Carmen in a full production of Bizet’s best known opera. Opéra de Montréal’s current run of Carmen showcases Chaieb and features a strong cast of Mexican tenor Arturo Chacón-Cruz, Indigenous Mexican-American baritone Ethan Vincent and Canadian soprano Magali Simard-Galdès. What you missed As La Scena Musicale previously reported in 2019 and in our November 2020 cover story, Tunisian-Canadian Rihab Chaieb has the vocal fire, intelligence and bewitching charm to encapsulate the role. The Carmen we saw on Thursday, May 7, 2026 at Salle…

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Werther
Victoria Karkacheva (Charlotte) and Russell Thomas (Werther) in the Canadian Opera Company’s Werther, 2026. Photo: Michael Cooper

Review | Radical Trad Werther at the COC

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By on Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

It’s been 34 years since the Canadian Opera Company last presented Massenet’s Werther. While perhaps not in the top 10 of most–produced operas, it isn’t so much on the fringes to merit being out of the company’s repertoire for so long. A new production directed by Alain Gauthier opened on May 7, and immediately distinguished itself from the company’s other recent confused, ‘radical’ rethinkings of French 19th-century masterpieces, Faust and Roméo et Juliette. As the director states in his program notes, one can take a different path that is contrary to today’s penchant to modernize settings to make works more…

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Rihab Chaieb. Photo: Gaetz Photography; Arturo Chacón-Cruz. Photo: Lena Kern

Video | Behind the Scenes at Opéra de Montréal’s Carmen

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By on Interviews, Montreal, Opera, This Week in Montreal, Video of the day

La Scena Musicale’s Adrian Rodriguez and Justin Bernard dropped in on a rehearsal for Opéra de Montréal’s production of Carmen. Opening this Saturday, May 2, 2026, watch the following video for insights from Rihab Chaieb (Carmen) and Arturo Chacón-Cruz (Don José). https://youtu.be/ZCS7KwIyx9Q Opéra de Montréal presents Georges Bizet’s Carmen from May 2-12.

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Christian Van Horn (Bluebeard) & Karen Cargill (Judith) in COC’s Bluebeard’s Castle, 2026. Photo: Michael Cooper

Review | The Women Who Knew Too Much: Lepage’s Bluebeard’s Castle/Erwartung returns to COC

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By on Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

On the opening night of the Canadian Opera Company’s pairing of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Schoenberg’s Erwartung, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts proved as impenetrable as the eponymous Duke’s fortress. Heightened security, introduced after threats during the visit of the controversial Shen Yun Performing Arts, produced queues more suited to a stadium than to an evening of symbolist-expressionist opera. It was an oddly literal prelude. Before anyone set foot inside Bluebeard’s domain, entry had already become conditional. Robert Lepage’s double bill has long been one of the company’s safest bets. First seen in 1993 at the instigation…

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Bruce Liu with Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. Photo: Antoine Saito

Review | OSM’s Rite of Spring & Bruce Liu’s Tchaikovsky

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By on Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Orchestral, Piano, Romantic

As the weather in Montreal starts to warm again, Rafael Payare and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal hailed the return of spring with some fitting Stravinsky (The Rite of Spring) and welcomed an exciting guest soloist: pianist Bruce Liu. Twenty-eight-year-old Liu, back home in Montreal, returned to play Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1, while the OSM unveiled Denis Gougeon’s newest work within a program of great Canadian talent (seen Apr. 22). Gougeon was in the hall to witness the world premiere of his composition La Traversée, an OSM commission dedicated to Payare himself. This 12-minute piece celebrates a passing, journey, or…

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Photo: Art Streiber

Newswire | Remembering Michael Tilson Thomas, 1944–2026

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By on Arts Industry, Classical Music, Obituaries, West

It is with deep sadness that we share with you that Michael Tilson Thomas died at home on April 22, 2026 surrounded by family and friends. In 2021, he was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme, an aggressive type of brain cancer. Through his illness he continued to make music—a testament to his legacy as a musician and communicator. He was preceded in death by his husband Joshua Robison. Michael Tilson Thomas was Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony, Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra, and Co-Founder, Artistic Director Laureate of the New World Symphony and Distinguished Professor of…

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Madeline Cooper (Ciboletta) & Marcus Tranquilli (Pappacoda) in Toronto Operetta Theatre's A Night in Venice. Photo: Gary Beechey (BDS Studios)

Review | Comic Carnevale in Toronto Operetta Theatre’s A Night in Venice

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By on Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

Toronto Operetta Theatre closed their season with Johann Strauss’s 1883 operetta A Night in Venice. Set in Venice during carnival season, it revolves around plot devices that might be considered questionable today. These include a nobleman’s ‘right’ to deflower young women, and what must have been some hilarious cross-dressing at the time…all handled with taste and not too much unnecessary fanfare here. A young cast seized their roles for all they were worth, resulting in a fun afternoon (seen Apr. 19) of light entertainment—not a small thing given the current state of the world. As with many operettas, the story…

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