The final concert of this year’s Toronto Bach Festival was Voices Lifted; a presentation of four of Bach’s chorale cantatas at Eastminster United. These pieces typically use the classic Lutheran chorale text sung quite simply to bookend material reworked from biblical sources into a mixture of arias, recitatives and duets. The chorale parts were sung here with two singers to each part. Accompaniment was a small period instrument ensemble anchored by Christopher Bagan on organ and conducted by John Abberger.
Here are some shows to take in in June:
Kaffeehaus is the Toronto Bach Festival’s somewhat less formal concert. It played twice on Saturday at Church of the Holy Trinity and we caught the evening show. It’s set up to replicate Herr Zimmermann’s coffee house in Leipzig with RH Thomson playing Zimmermann. It’s staged in the round with a central stage surrounded by cafe style tables with extra seating around the edges. Coffee (not recommended!), tea, wine and beer are available. It’s quite a fun concept though the “in the round” set up means one is looking at people’s backs rather a lot!
The death last week of Dame Felicity Lott had me thinking about English singers of that generation who featured a lot in the first live opera and recordings that I experienced back in the 1970s. A bit of digging around led me to a 1993 recording of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw with Philip Langridge (who died in 2010) as Quint and Felicity Lott (not yet a Dame) as the Governess. It also, perhaps surprisingly, features American Wagnerian Nadine Secunde as Miss Jessel. Less surprisingly, it was recorded in Aldeburgh with Steuart Bedford conducting.
operaramblings 