Blog Posts

Arabella at the COC

10/16/2017

Erin Wall as Arabella. photo: Michael Cooper.

Arabella – do you know it?

You can be excused, gentle reader, if you don’t. Richard Strauss’s opera of 1933 isn’t done much, except in German-speaking countries, these days. For Toronto’s Canadian Opera Company, this Arabella was a company premiere – and a glance at the Operabase website (see here) reveals that the COC is the only company outside Germany staging the piece this year. But then perhaps all this makes sense, as the COC has Germanic leanings these days. (I am reminded of the time that Toronto Symphony conductor Peter Oundjian naughtily referred to the COC as “Die Deutsche Oper am Ontariosee.”)

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Elisa Citterio takes the helm of Tafelmusik

10/15/2017

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Elissa Citterio will make Toronto a little more Italian.

I originally wrote this article for Early Music America magazine.

It’s a September night in Koerner Hall at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music, and there’s a sense of anticipation in the air for a program billed as “A Joyous Welcome.” Onstage, Elisa Citterio is leading Tafelmusik, while also serving as soloist in “Summer” from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. The Italian violinist’s interpretation is dramatic, emphasizing abrupt changes in tempo and texture. And also dramatic is her stage presence, as she swiftly turns to divide her attention between her new orchestra and her new audience.

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The National Youth Orchestra comes to town

8/1/2017

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The NYOC kids are alright.

The National Youth Orchestra of Canada always puts together a big band – and this year was no exception. Indeed, when the NYOC played in Toronto on Wednesday (Aug. 26), hosted by Toronto Summer Music, the stage of Koerner Hall had to be enlarged to accommodate the 92 students in the orchestra.

The substantial size of the NYOC tends to govern orchestra’s programming, which is usually dominated by hefty scores from the Romantic, Impressionist and Modern eras. As well, the orchestra always hits the road with a new Canadian work in its music folders. And when it’s time for an an encore, the NYCO has a charming tradition of singing a couple of a-cappella selections. (They are a multi-talented bunch.)

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Toronto Summer Music discovers Canadian music

7/30/2017

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This year, Canadian music is big at TSM.

I originally wrote this article for the Classical Voice North America website.

As music festivals go, Toronto Summer Music isn’t a “big deal.” The festival doesn’t stage outdoor orchestra concerts for audiences in the thousands. It doesn’t present an endless parade of concerts and recitals by the world’s most glamorous and celebrated musicians. Yet throughout its twelve-year history, this “little festival that could” has presented about three dozen concerts and other events annually, in a three-week window in July and early August. Mostly, the concerts are chamber programs, small in scale but impressive in quality. And mostly, the festival has focused on the tried and true: canonic classical programming that is familiar and comforting rather than obscure or controversial.

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James Ehnes, Bach and Toronto Summer Music

7/22/2017

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Canadian violinist James Ehnes.

The place to be for music in Toronto on Wednesday evening was the Church of the Redeemer, at the corner of Bloor St. and Avenue Rd. It was in this small church – packed to the rafters with patrons of Toronto Summer Music – that violinist James Ehnes once again demonstrated he’s one of the best concert soloists on the stage today.

Most classical music fans in Canada are well aware that Ehnes is also Canadian, hailing from the town of Brandon, Manitoba. And I expect most have probably already heard him, and are well aware of his astonishing prowess on his 1715 Stradivarius fiddle. (Hence, the sold-out house.)

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When the World Stopped to Listen

6/7/2017

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I originally wrote this book review for the Classical Voice North America website.

In his new book, When the World Stopped to Listen: Van Cliburn’s Cold War Trumph and Its Aftermath, Stuart Isacoff brings both a pianist’s insights and a historian’s rigor to an event that shook the musical world – indeed, the world at large – almost six decades ago. It was in 1958, at the height of the Cold War, that a lanky young Texan went to Moscow and won the gold medal for piano at the first Tchaikovsky Competition.

Although Isacoff didn’t know Cliburn personally (at least, he makes no such claim), his presentation of the pianist is detailed and vivid. The portrait drawn here is not always flattering: for instance, Isacoff notes the overbearing influence of the pianist’s mother and first teacher, Rildia Bee O’Bryan Cliburn, his superstitious fascination with astrology, and his ill-placed faith in an amphetamine-dispensing quack, Max “Dr. Feelgood” Jacobson. Cliburn also is described as naïve, irresponsible, and plagued with performance anxieties. (Isacoff does not say much about Cliburn’s homosexuality, except to point out that the 1950s were not a time of tolerance.)

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The All-Stars “Bang on a Canada”

6/3/2017

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The spirit of Reich hovered in the hall.

I originally wrote this review for the Classical Voice North America website.

Way back in 1970, when high modernism ruled the earth, a young composer in New York named Steve Reich wrote “Some Optimistic Predictions About the Future of Music.” In this little manifesto, he predicted several trends, including the return of tonality and a strong rhythmic pulse in contemporary music.

I mention this in light of a concert on May 27 at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music. Presented within the RCM’s 21C Music Festival, the program was called “Bang on a Canada,” featuring New York’s Bang on a Can All-Stars playing recent works by a dozen Canadian and American composers.

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Bloch and Biss with the Vancouver Symphony

5/29/2017

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Alexandre Bloch led the VSO.

The concert I attended last Friday (May 19) by the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra wasn’t a “special” event. While guest pianist Jonathan Biss no doubt attracted plenty of piano-philes to the Chan Centre, there were no large-scale works, no world premieres, or anything else that could be called remarkable. A program comprised of a Schumann overture, a Mozart piano concerto and a Haydn symphony requires an orchestra of only modest proportions – the VSO consisted of about three dozen players on this occasion – and doesn’t stand out as unusual in any way.

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Tosca at the COC

5/15/2017

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Pieczonka strikes a reflective pose in Tosca.

Tosca is a real “opera opera” – bursting with dramatic situations, culminating in a murder, an double-crossed execution and a suicide. The musicologist Joseph Kerman famously dismissed it as a “shabby little shocker” – but I’m pleased to admit that it’s my favourite Puccini opera.

So I arrived at the Four Seasons Centre on Saturday evening (May 6) with high hopes. And the focus of my heightened expectations was the opportunity to once again hear Toronto’s own Adrianne Pieczonka in the title role. (She previously appeared with the Canadian Opera Company as Tosca in 2012.) Although she’s best known for her German-language roles, she often appears in Tosca: in recent year’s she has portrayed the ill-fated Italian singer in Berlin and Vienna, and next year she’ll sing the role at Covent Garden.

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Louis Riel at the Canadian Opera Company

4/25/2017

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Russell Braun as Louis Riel Photo: Michael Cooper.

I originally wrote this review for the Classical Voice North America website.

The Canadian Opera Company rarely stages Canadian operas. And with the current production of Louis Riel, which opened April 20 at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre, Canada’s largest opera company did something not just rare but virtually unprecedented: It remounted a Canadian opera written half a century ago.

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