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Don Quichotte at the COC

5/14/2014

Furlanetto as Don Quichotte.

This year, the Canadian Opera Company ended its season with a surprising triumph. Who’d have imagined that a staging of Jules Massenet’s Don Quichotte (based on Cervantes’ sprawling novel Don Quixote) would or even could turn out to be an emotionally compelling coup de théâtre?

On Sunday afternoon (May 11) I arrived at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre hoping for nothing more than a pleasantly sentimental operatic experience, and came away very much impressed by what I heard and saw. This Quichotte went from strength to strength: it was a chain with no weak link.

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Tafelmusik's Tribute to Jeanne Lamon

5/13/2014

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After 33 years, Jeanne Lamon steps aside.

Here’s my review of Tafelmusik’s “Celebration of Jeanne Lamon,” originally posted to Classical Voice North America.

It was fitting that the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra chose to present a tribute to Jeanne Lamon, the Toronto orchestra’s long-serving artistic director and concertmaster, at the end of her final season leading the ensemble.

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Moscow Virtuosi in Toronto

5/13/2014

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Conductor Vladimir Spivakov

The Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra was in Toronto on Friday evening, presenting a nearly sold-out concert at Roy Thomson Hall. And on the podium was the Russian éminence grise Vladimir Spivakov, who has led the orchestra since 1979.

From the first downbeat of Mozart’s Divertimento in F Major, Spivakov and his Virtuosi displayed the kind of playing that’s made them famous: perfectly balanced, dynamically expressive, with a warm swell in the phrasing, and a finish that’s as smooth as silk.

After the lively charms of Mozart came a full and lush reading of Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in G Major. Particularly impressive in the Tchaikovsky was the detailed attention that Spivakov and his players lavished on inner voices, enriching textures.

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Roberto Devereux at the COC

5/2/2014

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Radvanovsky as Elisabetta (photo: Michael Cooper)

Here’s my review of the COC’s Roberto Devereux, as originally posted on the Classical Voice North America website.

Already this spring, the Canadian Opera Company’s audiences have been treated to Handel’s less-known Hercules, and Massenet’s Don Quichotte, similarly unfamiliar here, is coming up in May.

Currently on the boards at its home in Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre is Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux, a tangle of love and politics set in Tudor England. The performance on April 30 (second in a run of seven, closing on May 21) was bursting with operatic virtues. An excellent cast? Yes. Clear and logical stage direction? Indeed. Solid leadership from the conductor’s podium? Absolutely.

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Don Quichotte at the COC

Tafelmusik's Tribute to Jeanne Lamon

Moscow Virtuosi in Toronto

Roberto Devereux at the COC

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