Schmopera

Hello Schmop-Tops! Some of you may know who Nellie Bly was. She was a key figure in mental health reforms for women. A pretty well-known journalist, Bly infiltrated Blackwell’s Asylum in New York by pretending to be insane. Not a single professional in the Asylum was able to tell she was faking it. You would think that meant Bly was a phenomenal actor as well.

If you’re going to present Carmen, you’d better have a great Carmen. Regina Opera, blessed with the talents of Lara Michole Tillotson, indeed had just that. Ms. Tillotson, who has driven the success of Regina Opera’s productions of The Medium (as Madam Flora) and Il trovatore (delivering one of the all-time great renditions of “Stride la vampa”) once again triumphed here.

Heartbeat Opera has made a compelling case that Vanessa, a somewhat neglected American opera by Samuel Barber, should be programmed into a season of every opera company. In particular, this production should be the main ambassador in its travels. Director R.B. Schlather has found the soul of Barber’s masterpiece while stripping away all excess, making it accessible and also (so important in today’s economic realities,) affordable to stage.

Hello, Schmop-Tops! I was back at the Canadian Opera Company here in downtown Toronto, and this time we’re here to see Massenet’s romantic masterpiece, Werther. Last seen on the COC stage way back in 1992 - the year Absolutely Fabulous and Melrose Place both premiered on television - this one is a new co-production with Opéra de Montréal and Vancouver Opera.

Hello, Schmop-Tops, Against the Grain Theatre took back to the stage this past weekend at the Redwood Theatre in Toronto’s East End, and it felt good to have them back where they belong. Under the new Artistic Direction of librettist Royce Vavrek, and after an appropriate cancellation of Indians on Vacation, AtG is back with aplomb and continues its tradition of shaking things up. I caught the closing performance of Canuck Cantatas, a collection of three short “scenas”.

If there were a fleet of Barbara Hannigans, the musical world would be a vastly different place. But there is only one and we are grateful for her presence. Hannigan is the force of nature who swept through Lincoln Center’s David Geffen Hall for a three-performance run with the New York Philharmonic. She conducted Richard Strauss’ turbulent and disconsolate Metamorphosen and followed it by singing and conducting Francis Poulenc’s tragic one-person opera, La voix humaine.

Hey there, Schmop-Tops! So I’m back at the COC to check out the spring season offerings, and first up is a double-bill of Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Schöenberg’s Erwartung. The remount of this double-bill originally directed by Robert Lepage (who famously had two productions cancelled in 2018 due to acts of cultural appropriation) this time helmed by François Racine, pairs the stories of two women battling for their lives and sanity.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra took to the Carnegie Hall stage replete with red rose boutonnières, an expression of Boston gentility perhaps or possibly solidarity with Andris Nelsons, also sporting a rose, their outgoing music director. Their time-honored burnished sound would tackle three scenes from John Adams’ Nixon In China, arranged by Adams especially for the ensemble, before settling into Dvorak’s beloved Symphony No. 9, better known as From the New World.

Last year Harry Bicket and his English Consort brought a sparkling concert performance of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto to town in a performance marked as much by the aforementioned sparkle as superb musicianship. This year the composer’s Hercules came to call in a production that reveled in its solemnity. Mezzo-soprano Ann Hallenberg as Dejanira and soprano Hilary Cronin as Iole with members of the English Consort and Clarion Choir. Photo: William Termine.

Last week at the Four Seasons Centre saw me checking out the Canadian Opera Company’s remount (are we sensing a theme here?) of Verdi’s Rigoletto. A monster of the genre and a visually sumptuous production, the buzz around this production was, of course, Quinn Kelsey in the title role. Conducted by Johannes Debus, the COC Orchestra brought out a lush performance of the score.