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

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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 (Photo by Vancouver Bach Choir on Flickr, under CC 2.0 license, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Vancouver Bach Choir will unveil their new season (Stir) with works by Mozart and Haydn on October 7.

Dr. Suzanne Steele’s new opera, Li Keur: Riel’s Heart of the North, opens this fall at the Manitoba Opera (The Globe and Mail). The Métis poet wrote the 70% of the libretto, which tells “an imaginative story about Métis women that spans multiple eras and places,” in Cree-Michif, French-Michif and Anishinaabemowin.

Opera on the Avalon looks forward to the world premiere of February, an opera by Laura Kaminsky & Lisa Moore. The opera tells a story close to Canadian hearts: in 1982, on Valentine’s Day, the Ocean Ranger sank off the coast of Newfoundland, causing the deaths of all 84 passengers on board. Conducted by Judith Yan, audiences can catch February on October 13 and 14.

Debuts

Sphere, the new Las Vegas concert venue baffling the world with its modular exterior display and $2 billion price tag, featured Dublin rock band U2 in its inaugural concert (The Globe and Mail). Over 160,000 speakers help to carry the sound all through the massive sphere, which can generate “trippy” visual effects and beautiful landscapes.

Light up my nights.

🎥: @ItsWillCarmack pic.twitter.com/aaaHDSXdLS

— Sphere (@SphereVegas) October 4, 2023

Recordings

Canadian actor Aliocha Schneider’s third album (Le Devoir) will be his first in French. Many of the album’s songs have to do with the sea, inspired by the time he spent in Greece working on Greek Salad in 2021.

And JP Saxe, who wrote the pandemic hit “If The World Was Ending” with his partner Julia Michaels, reflects on the end of their relationship in his upcoming album (The Star), “A Gray Area.”

Awards, Appointments, and Competitions

Gramophone has announced the winners of its 2023 Classical Music Awards! Danish National Symphony Orchestra won Recording of the Year for Nielsen’s Symphonies Nos 4, ‘The Inextinguishable’ and 5, Krystian Zimerman won the Piano category with Piano Works, and The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen won Orchestra of the Year.

City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra has appointed Rita Castro Blanco and Charlotte Corderoy as assistant conductors. Christian Thielemann, who stepped in for Daniel Barenboim last year to conduct Berlin State Opera’s Ring Cycle, will be the ensemble’s next general music director.

The Ontario Arts Council has announced pianist Christina Petrowska Quilico as the 2023 recipient of the Oskar Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance.

Local News

Alexandre Da Costa

Eighteen of the Orchestre philharmonique de Quebec members have quit since 2019, when Alexandre Da Costa became the ensemble’s artistic director. A mediator helped the two parties sign an agreement back in June, but with the 2023-2024 season on the horizon, some are still concerned (La Presse) about his leadership skills, and his tendency to assume a principal instrumental role to the detriment of other ensemble musicians.

Having declared bankruptcy last week, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra’s musicians have set up a GoFundMe page, which has currently raised upwards of $400,000 dollars. The organization says it needs $2 million in order to resume operations.

San Francisco Symphony musicians have signed a two-year agreement with the board, settling on a $150,000 yearly minimum wage. The musicians also won “competitive vacation, sick leave, pension, and healthcare benefits.”

Obituary

Pierre Chénier

We would like to pay tribute to one of our fellow contributors, Pierre Chénier, who passed away from heart failure at 69 in May 2023. Despite being the busy president of the PMLQ and a National Executive Committee member of the Communist Party of Canada, he consistently took the time and effort to share his thoughts on the latest musical happenings for La Scena Musicale. His contributions to Canada’s working class and classical music scene will forever be missed. See his articles here.

Patricia Burda Janečková, a popular 25-year-old popular German soprano, passed away in the Czech Republic after an 18-month fight with breast cancer.

Several influential figures in the U.S. music scene have also passed away, including: Maurice Winnisky, who played double bass for the Milwaukee Symphony for 35 years until an injury forced him to retire in 2013; Nancy Van de Vate, the prolific composer behind the orchestral work Chernobyl and an adamant women’s rights advocate; and James Jorden, the founder of renowned opera news outlet Parterre Box.