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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

Photo : Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Jag Gundu

Highlights | Historic TSO Legacy Donation, Decca Records Signs Yunchan Lim

By Zenith Wolfe on 20 October 2023 Classical Music, Highlights, Montreal, Scena Jazz, Toronto, Vancouver, West

Canadian ensembles like Toronto Symphony Orchestra are feeling a wave of generosity this week after an influx of legacy donations, and Decca Records signs Yunchan Lim.

Ensemble Caprice (Photo by Tam Photography)

Concert Review | Vivaldi’s Gloria, Ensemble Caprice

By Viktor Lazarov on 16 October 2023 Chamber Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal

On Sunday afternoon, October 15, 2023, a packed Maison Symphonique welcomed Mathias Maute’s Ensemble Caprice in “Vivaldi’s Gloria”: a concert celebrating the reputable baroque ensemble’s 35 years. The ensemble collaborated with the Ensemble ArtChoral and members of the Jerusalem Baroque Orchestra (JBO), Israel’s first baroque orchestra. Maute shared the podium with Maestro David Shermer, conductor and founder of the JBO, who played continuo on harpsichord and pump organ. Maestro Maute presented and welcomed his guests, and thanked the members of the JBO, performing despite distressing international circumstances. The concert opened with the performance of a text by poet, author, songwriter,…

Israel Camerata Jerusalem

Highlights | Musicians Respond to Hamas Attack on Israeli Music Festival

By Zenith Wolfe on 13 October 2023 Classical Music, Highlights

Welcome to La Scena Musicale’s weekly Highlights, a roundup of classical music news from Canada and beyond. In light of the recent Hamas attacks in Israel, ensembles and musicians from around the world have cancelled shows in the Middle East, and put out statements condemning the attack. Music World Responds to Hamas Attacks The Oct. 7 attack was carried out at Israel’s electronic music festival Supernova (Al Jazeera), hosted in celebration of the Jewish harvest-related holiday Sukkot. Hamas killed around 260 of the roughly 3,500 festival-goers. Some concert workers, including 31-year-old Daniel Levy, have spoken out about being chased and…

Lebrecht Weekly | Handel: Israel in Egypt (Avie)

By Norman Lebrecht on 13 October 2023 Lebrecht Weekly

When Georg Friederic Handel lived in London in the first half of the 18th century, there was not much to do after a concert and a composer could drone on as long as he liked. Handel’s propensity for inordinate length was tolerate for a couple of decades but the backlash caught up with him in April 1739 when the second of his dramatic biblical oratorios fell flat with aristocrats complaining it was too long and static. This was unfair, in part. Handel had stopped writing operas when the upper classes imported Italians to do it supposedly better. Facing penury, Handel…

A scene from the Canadian Opera Company’s production of La Bohème, 2023 (Photo by Michael Cooper)

Concert Review | Canadian Opera Company’s La Bohème Makes a Triumphant Return

By Denise Lai on 10 October 2023 Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto

Even nearly 100 years since Puccini’s death. La Bohème remains one of his most beloved and frequently performed operas. This COC revival production has now been staged three times in the past 10 years, yet it has a fresh feel. It also features the most diverse cast that has graced the Toronto stage in recent memory. Rodolfo, Marcello, Schaunard and Colline are four impoverished friends who share a flat they can barely afford. One Christmas eve, while Rodolfo is working alone, his neighbour, the beautiful but frail Mimi, knocks on his door asking for help to light her candle. The…

Lebrecht Weekly | Shostakovich symphonies 2, 3, 12, 13 (DG)

By Norman Lebrecht on 6 October 2023 CD and Book Reviews, Classical Music, Lebrecht Weekly

I can’t remember a pre-Christmas season that started so sluggishly, without an obvious blockbuster on display. DG and Sony are leading with cultish solo pianists; Warner are dormant. Jonas Kaufmann is singing weakly about cinema. There are no big releases out there to drive a healthy economy. I turned to the continuation of the Boston Shostakovich cycle which I have reviewed before with some enthusiasm. The conductor Andris Nelsons is a Latvian who grew up in a post-Soviet country still shadowed by Shostakovich’s ghosts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra sound stronger on record than any of the original Russian performers and…

Highlights | New Métis Opera Releases This Fall, Sphere Concert Wows Las Vegas

By Zenith Wolfe on 6 October 2023 Highlights, Montreal, Obituaries, Opera, Orchestral, Vocal

Welcome to La Scena Musicale’s weekly Highlights, a roundup of classical music news from Canada and beyond. With the reveal of a new Métis opera, the impending release of a Canadian actor’s first French album, and the inaugural Sphere concert in Las Vegas, musical innovation is in the air this October! Recent and Upcoming Shows The Canadian Opera Company has opened their 2023-2024 season with Fidelio. It’s the first time the COC has performed this opera in 15 years and they did not disappoint, says critic Denise Lai. Vancouver Bach Choir will unveil their new season (Stir) with works by…

New Releases (October 2023)

By Wah Keung Chan on 6 October 2023 Canadian Music, Discovery CDs, Opera

This section is an advertising supplement. To announce here, contact [email protected]. Etiquette Maureen Batt and Erin Bardua, soprano; Lucy Hayes Davis, mezzo-soprano; Tara Scott, piano; Brad Reid, clarinet Leaf Music, September 2023 Etiquette by composer Monica Pearce, with libretto by John Terauds, offers a glimpse of 1920s icons by diving into the lives of Dorothy Parker, Emily Post, and Nancy Astor. Inspired by Parker’s sharp critique of Post’s “Etiquette” from 1927, the opera offers a window into their era. Commissioned by Essential Opera in 2013, this première recording blends traditional themes, echoing the timeless practice of revisiting history to shed…

Clay Hilley as Florestan and Miina-Liisa Värelä as Leonore in the Canadian Opera Company’s production of Fidelio (Photo: Michael Cooper)

Concert Review | Canadian Opera Company opens 2023-24 season with Beethoven’s Fidelio

By Denise Lai on 2 October 2023 Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto

The Canadian Opera Company opened its 2023-24 season with a rare gem. Fidelio is the only opera Beethoven ever wrote, and it has not been performed by the COC in almost 15 years. Leonore hatches a plan to rescue her husband Florestan, who has been wrongfully incarcerated for trying to expose the wrongdoings of Don Pizzaro, governor of the prison. She disguises herself as a man by the name of Fidelio, to work at the prison where her husband is held. She saves him just in the nick of time, as Don Pizzaro is about the silence Florestan for good…

Lebrecht Weekly | Beethoven: 1st piano concerto, &c (DG)

By Norman Lebrecht on 29 September 2023 Lebrecht Weekly, Orchestral, Piano

This weirdly unbalanced album opens with a live performance of Beethoven’s first piano concerto and continues with solo pieces from the bottom drawer, some of which are little higher than kindergarten level in difficulty. No explanation is offered in the glossy booklet. To work out what’s really going on, you’ll have to delve into the background of Alice Sara Ott, the German-Japanese soloist who, four years ago, made it known that she had been stricken with multiple sclerosis, a degenerative condition. In sympathy and solidarity, her record label has been quietly gathering her unreleased material while Alice continues to enhance…

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