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LuminaTO

Simply everyone hates Toronto, darling, but they all play here. I wouldn't take Dufus too seriously.

The Queen of Puddings operas don't have hummable showtunes, but they're intensely addictive theatre, and stay with you.

Larger scale, I want the COC to do John Adams's Doctor Atomic with Gerald Finley, for a start.
 
Cirque du soleil to create event for Toronto's Luminato festival

cirque-soleil-cp-w3767141.jpg

Cirque du soleil's Timo Wopp, left, of Berlin and Rene Bibaud, right, of Seattle, Wash., perform in New York's Times Square. Cirque street performers will be in Toronto for the Luminato festival. (Jason DeCrow/Associated Press)

Canadian circus troupe Cirque du soleil will create a new event to close Toronto's Luminato festival in 2009.

The free event will see Cirque members as two tribes of colourful characters interacting together in street performances.

Luminato, the Toronto Festival of Arts and Creativity, announced the Cirque collaboration on Friday, along with other closing weekend activities.

Cirque du Soleil, based in Montreal and Las Vegas, has performed all over the world and premiered two permanent shows in Asia last year, in Macau and Tokyo.

The Luminato Cirque event will be staged June 12 to 14 at Harbourfront Centre, the Toronto Music Garden and HtO Park, all on the Toronto waterfront.

Also taking place that weekend:

* 1000 Tastes of Toronto: Toronto chefs, restaurants and cafés provide a selection of gourmet street food at the central waterfront.
* Goran Bregovic and his Wedding and Funeral Orchestra: The Balkans-based composer and musician gives a concert June 12 at Yonge-Dundas Square.
* Brazilian Guitar Marathon: A day-long exploration of Brazilian guitar music, from jazz to samba to bossa nova and Chorinho, with performances by Sérgio and Odair Assad, in Yorkville Park.

Luminato runs June 5-14.

Source
 
Lipsynch-Robert Lepage

Well, I got my tickets for this nine hour extravaganza. I think I'll take my chances with the rest of the festival at TIX. It worked out well last year; I paid full price only for the performance I wanted to see most (Blackwatch) and then got to see a lot of other things for 20 bucks.:)

http://www.luminato.com/2009/
 
I may take that approach, too. Last year I booked early, but this year I'm waiting for some trees to die so a glossy listings brochure can be born.
 
... which it has been.

Lots to see on stage: R. Murray Schaefer's The Children's Crusade ( directed by Tim Albery ); Lypsynch; Tono; A Poe Cabaret; Nevermore; Nederlands Dans Theater.

Also, big red balls.
 
Nederlands Dans Theater tickets are selling like hot appeltaart! Lipsynch for Saturday wasn't easy to get. No problem with the Zisele matinée.
 
Egad! My head is going to BLOW UP! What do I see? Where do I go? There's too much to choose from! ARRGH!:eek:
 
Tim Albery spoke about The Children's Crusade at the Gardiner last night. It'll be performed in three large warehouse spaces, each different in character, and the audience will migrate from one room to the next with the performers ( yes, there will be seating! ). It runs almost 90 minutes. There was a model of the space on display, indicating how the freestanding sets may look; designer Leslie Travers was there. A copy of the libretto and score was available, and photos of the warehouse spaces.

The story, which Adrienne Clarkson described in historical context before Tim spoke, will be told as linear narrative, but lifted from the original Christian context and transformed into a world of dream and myth for a multicultural audience. In simple terms, a boy hears angels, masses of children are inspired with joy and love to sail to Jerusalem, they drown, but their failure doesn't deny the dream.

There will be a chorus of 44 children, 24 adults, soloist singers, large choral numbers but no duets or trios, actors and dancers who don't sing, a modern chamber orchestra augmented with a huge percussion group, brass, and Mediaeval instruments. As Tim said of the production, "The logistics get more scary every day" so it's very much a work in progress.
 
Time to kick-start this thread again; Luminato starts on Friday! I was at Dundas Square last night and watched them set up the stage for the opening night concert. It looks great!

I broke my own vow and got tickets to "Nevermore" and will try to see "The Childrens' Crusade". I've already got tickets to "Lypsynch" (all nine hours of it!). The rest I will trust to half-price TIX and to fate. There was a good teaser on Bravo tonight regarding Luminato....so, I may break my vow yet again.
 
Last night - as I flounced excitedly through Brookfield Place, spreading happiness throughout my realm - I noticed the big red balls in the Galleria!
 
The Children's Crusade

Thank you, TIX, for coming through with a 20 dollar ticket for this! Ninety minutes, standing (a few seats available for those who really needed them, no intermission) never went by so quickly. Stunning. Moving. A privilege to have witnessed. No company in the world could afford to stage this opera, with this number of cast, musicians and crew, for an audience that CAN'T exceed 550(maximum capacity for the warehouse venue.) Moving from room to room, following the plot, the characters, and the musicians, mimicked the progress of the children themselves. Truly intimate in that I was never more than a few feet from the performers. Perfectly intelligible singing and the music and musicianship was wonderful. The sets, staging and choice of venue are imaginative and original

I was surprised to see Diego Matamoros from Soulpepper in a non-singing roles. The children were terrific and the lead kid Jacob Abrahamse as "The Holy Child" more than held his own vocally. Not a happy piece, quite ugly in fact,and some parts drifted into musical theatre, but hell, it was great! I want to see this again.


Adrienne Clarkson and John Ralston Saul in the audience.

http://www.luminato.com/2009/events/42
 
Lipsynch.

In by one ... out by ten.

It captivated and carried me along for nine highly addictive hours - a complex web of connected and parallel stories that are shocking, hilarious, poignant, puzzling, haunting, manic and at times quite banal. Beautifully staged and densely layered, with images that have somehow embedded themselves in my memory, I'll mine it for meaning for quite some time.

Just two of the poetic sequences that stand out: In the opening scene a young woman with a crying baby in her lap is found dead on a plane - the discovery and reaction of the air crew and pasengers unfolds in a slow, silhouetted, balletic mime sequence. Later, when the baby is a man and is flying over the Atlantic to make a film about his mother and his mysterious origins, Lepage's staging has the young mother walk slowly across the top of the plane's fuselage; both scenes are accompanied by the haunting songs of minimalist composer Henryk Górecki about loss and a mother parted from her son.

If you get the chance, go.
 
Really cut back on the art exhibits this year. :( I was hoping they would have had something at the harbourfront like they did a few years back with the light beams. Also nothing in yorkville or the distillery district.
 
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