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The Knights Chamber Orchestra

2/17/2013

Eric Jacobsen leads the Knights.

In recent years, there’s been a flowering of new chamber orchestras in the USA. Here’s an article I wrote about one of them – the Knights – from Saturday’s Houston Chronicle.

The Knights sounds like the name of a street gang from West Side Story.

But no, it’s a Brooklyn chamber orchestra, made up mostly of young hot-shot players – founded by two musical brothers, cellist Eric and violinist Colin Jacobsen.

As Eric Jacobsen tells it, the history of the orchestra dates to about 2000, when teenaged music students would get together in his Long Island home to play for the fun of it. They jokingly called themselves the Knights of the Many-Sided Table.

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The COC's Clemenza di Tito

2/11/2013

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McCausland as Tito (photo: Michael Cooper).

The gods have not been kind to the Canadian Opera Company’s cast of La clemenza di Tito. At the performance I heard on Saturday (February 9), it was announced that star tenor Michael Schade, in the title role, was unwell and would not appear. Furthermore, Keri Alkema, singing Vitellia, was also unwell but had consented to perform. And at the previous performance, it was Isabel Leonard, as Sesto, who was ill and had to be replaced – but Leonard returned on Saturday without caveats.

So by all rights this could have been a rough night at the Four Seasons Centre. But what transpired was astonishing, with everyone on stage giving a brilliant vocal performance. And with a tight, lively and theatrically committed effort from all, this Tito was a chain with no weak link.

Much credit for this is due to conductor Daniel Cohen, whose fluid and mercurial handling of the cast and the COC Orchestra made for a musically vivid evening. The pace was brisk yet the music was detailed. Even the recitatives were well shaped and engaging.

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Tristan, Isolde – and Peter Sellars

2/9/2013

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Would you buy an opera from this man?

Last night I braved a blast of wintry Toronto weather to take in the Canadian Opera Company’s Tristan und Isolde. The production opened on January 29 with what was, by all accounts a strong cast, with Ben Heppner and Melanie Diener in the title roles. (See here, here or here.) But I heard the “B cast,” featuring tenor Michael Baba and soprano Margaret Jane Wray.

This Tristan is the brainchild of the brilliantly inventive director Peter Sellars, and was originally staged at the Paris Opéra in 2005. (We haven’t had any T und I in Toronto since 1987, so it was certainly high time for some more!) Embracing and expanding Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, Sellars added cinema to the operatic mix in a big way.

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Music High and Low

2/7/2013

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Some take one road, some take the other.

Over at San Francisco Classical Voice, Michael Zweibach has argued that classical music fans may be harming the music they love by insisting on its unique status as “high art.” I think he’s right about that. And there’s much else in his clever editorial that I can support, as well. (You can read his essay here.)

I agree that placing art and entertainment in opposition to one another can lead to a false either/or dichotomy. And I share Zweibach’s interest in those performers who are leading the way to reinvent the classical concert experience. They are fighting the Good Fight, and I wish them well!

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Esprit Plays the Rite

2/1/2013

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There were no riots for the Rite in Toronto.

Toronto’s Esprit Orchestra was back at Koerner Hall last night – with a program that was, for Esprit, a little unusual.

The first half of the concert was pretty much what you’d expect from Canada’s new-music orchestra: a world premiere (Paul Frehner’s Phantom Suns), and a “contemporary Canadian classic” (Claude Vivier’s Orion). But the second half of the program was given over to Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.

There were no riots at Koerner Hall last night – but Esprit’s choice to tackle the Rite was an eyebrow-raising decision. The piece turns 100 this year, making it surely one of the oldest works Esprit has ever performed. By music director Alex Pauk’s standards, it was a rare foray into “early music.”

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The Knights Chamber Orchestra

The COC's Clemenza di Tito

Tristan, Isolde – and Peter Sellars

Music High and Low

Esprit Plays the Rite

Eatock Daily

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