GPO Box No.211; written and directed by Carmen Lee (also responsible for lighting) and performed by Chun Shing Au (also responsible for the model/mask/paper design), is a theatre/dance piece inspired by an exchange of letters with the creators’ friend Siu Ming (a pseudonym), who was incarcerated as a political prisoner for three years following the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. It’s presented by Theatre du Poulet at A Space Gallery as part of SummerWorks.
James Harley’s Wild Fruits was inspired by two texts; Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard and Wild Fruits by Henry David Thoreau. The five movements all involve combining extracts from the texts read by Jim Bartruff, Theresa Carson and Anne-Marie Donovan with sounds recorded in nature and, in some cases, worked over in the studio. It was originally conceived as an eight channel surround sound experience but the commercial release has been remixed for stereo and Dolby ATMOS. Obviously some of the spatialization is lost and I’d be curious to hear the ATMOS mix. As it is I’m going to write about the 48kHz/24bit stereo version which I listened to on headphones because I find that’s closer to the immersive experience than speakers.
Our Other Ogan is a one man show (almost) written and performed by Boaz Barkan. It was originally designed specifically for the old anatomy theatre at the medical school in Copenhagen. For the performance at SummerWorks we have to imagine the black box of the Incubator as an amphitheatre with busts of Galen and Hippocrates looking down at the anatomist and his subject.
Blood Brothers, written by Brianna Russell and directed by Catie Thorne, is loosely inspired by the assassination of Julius Caesar but here a similar story of conspiracy, betrayal and death is set in the UoT’s Delta Upsilon Fraternity which is also the performance space for the play.
There are three late works by Kaija Saariaho on the disk. Indeed I think the orchestration of the Saarikoski Songs is pretty much the last music she wrote. Those songs are settings of rather depressing texts about environmental destruction by Finnish poet Pentti Saarikoski and were written originally for voice and piano between 2013 and 2020; an orchestral version being created in 2020/1. There are five songs. “LLuonnon kasvot” (The Face of Nature) is the story of the destruction of ancient forests told by the voices of extinct birds. There’s a lot of high vocalise; almost screaming with quite dramatic orchestration. “Jokaisella on tämänsä” (Everyone will have their own this) depicts a society where everyone holds to their own truth. It’s dramatic, high and, again, almost screaming against shimmering orchestration. “Kaikki tämä” (All of this) – is a brooding and much more lyrical piece offering some hope amid environmental destruction. “Lintu ja käärme” (Snake and bird) is pretty weird with declamatory vocals over an orchestra hammering on A. “Sumun läpi” (Through the Mist) has interstitial time petrifying into mountains of mist. There’s a long brooding orchestral introduction prefacing a lyrical vocal line. The last two songs were composed during COVID and seem to reflect the spirit of the times. The performance is by Anu Komsi (soprano) with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sakari Aramo and it’s a live recording.
Being distinctly impressed by Erin Morley and Lawrence Brownlee’s performance at Koerner Hall las month, I got my hands on the CD on which the tour is based. It’s much the same material but with orchestra which really changes things up a bit. It’s a different order too. They begin with six numbers in French starting with comic duets from La fille du régiment and Le comte Ory. It’s very playful but backed up by exquisite technique. There’s no sense of strain despite some serious high notes and some exacting coloratura passages for Morley. The orchestra; the Múncher Rundfunkorchester conducted by Ivan Repušić sounds great too.
Lysistrata or, The Nude Goddess; music and libretto by Mark Adamo, is very loosely based on the play by Aristophanes. It’s not a simple farce or anti-war propaganda piece. Rather it’s a complex interrogation of various dualities; male/female, peace/war, eros/thanatos, lust/love and, perhaps above all, everything that’s implied by the duo Ares/Aphrodite. So, although we are still in Athens during the Peloponnesian war and there’s still a sex strike it’s not Aristophanes. If there’s an overarching idea it’s that we all want love and we all want peace but on what/whose terms?
Opera Queens have a six month residency at the Tranzac and they handed over their slot this Saturday to Opera Sustenida who put on their show Women in Arms. It’s a series of “chapters” each of which features a few arias illustrating a typical female role in opera e.g. sisters, lovers, queens etc. The singing is shared between coloratura soprano Nicole Dubinsky and her dramatic colleague Stephanie DeCiantis; with several duets, plus Suzanne Yeo on the piano. They also included two of their short films from the COVID era.
The 2023 video recording of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor from Milan’s La Scala is quite interesting. The production is not especially exciting but the singing; especially the partnership of Lisette Oropesa, as Lucia, and Juan Diego Flórez as Edgardo is. The rest of the singing is excellent as is the orchestral playing. It’s also given without the usual cuts.
Wednesday’s lunchtime concert at Heliconian Hall; part of Toronto Summer Music, featured two pieces of chamber music by Beethoven and Shostakovich. The first was the third movement of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op.132. It was played by Justin Saulnier, Ashley Tsai, Bill Ko and Claire Park. It’s an unusual movement, especially taken out of context. It intersperses intricate, very slow passages where phrases are passed between the players without too much in the way of obvious clues for where the music is going. It’s profound and quite ethereal. These sections arr interwoven with livelier sections where the “cues” are more obvious. I would think it’s difficult to get just right at the best of times and for what amounts to a “scratch” quartet to handle it as well as they did is admirable. It feels like the sort of music that one needs to play with the same colleagues for twenty years! Incidentally, the same team is playing all four movements of this work tomorrow at noon.
operaramblings 