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Urban Shocker's Neighbourhood Watch

I was tempted to go on Sunday, but didn't get round to it ( assuming tickets were still available, of course... ).

On Saturday night I was at Eastminster United on the Danforth for some early Beethoven - four pieces written in the 1790s in Vienna. The last performed, the Clarinet Trio Op.11 in B-flat major, was the only one I'd heard before, and the best performed I thought. All good musicians, but with the violinist there were a few times when she sounded a bit "off". The church is an uninteresting barn, but the acoustics are rather good. Cookies and little plastic cups of water- which I was hoping someone might turn into wine - at intermission.

Last Friday evening, out with a couple of friends for dinner at Fare ( where Verveine used to be, next to Kristapsons ) on Queen East. Pretty good, we thought - the prix fixe was $34 ea. with a nice bottle of wine.

And, working backwards even further, to the Enwave Theatre at Harbourfront last Thursday night for a program of six dances by Coleman Lemieux, choreographed by James Kudelka ( he danced the final one ). The second piece, a premiere commissioned and danced by the National Ballet's Ryan Boorne, with Xiao Nan Yu in full ballerina red, was particularly lovely. Two more were premieres, including a funny/silly one with a cast of nine and a puppet called Malcolm, set on the mean streets of Toronto. All were done to the same piece of music - The Guardian Angel Sonata by Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber. A young fiddler, Jaron Freeman-Fox, performed several versions. The audience was packed with National dancers, including principal Piotr Stanczyk.

Tomorrow, with a neighbour to hear Robert Gleadow at the lunchtime concert at the opera house followed by lunch at Osgoode.
 
Gleadow had a cold, replacing one lengthy Mozart piece ( Per Questa Bella Mano ) with two Sarastro arias that he hadn't sung "in years" ( he's 26! ) and dropping This Nearly Was Mine from South Pacific and Old Man River to save his voice for tomorrow night's Magic Flute, but he sounded wonderful nonetheless. The Handel - Ombra mai fu, Si tra i ceppi ( Berenice ), Verdi prati ( Alcina ) and Where'er you walk ( Semele ) were glorious. And, of the several Schubert songs, he acted the Trout for the very small, young people present with glee.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Welcome to our 50,000th visitor ... whoever it was.
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Although I have never been to the opera, I enjoy reading your descriptions of events around town.

Each morning I get emails from all the Toronto Daily Deal websites and when an opera deal comes up I think I should post it here. The last one was sold out before I could post it but today on www.fabfind.com you can purchase a $215 COC Nixon in China ticket for Saturday Feb. 26 for $45.

I see above you have already been but perhaps someone else can use this.

Cheers,

Greg
 
Thanks, gregv, and welcome to the Neighbourhood!

There are also good seats to be had ( for $22 each ) on the day of most opera performances - if you go to the box office and line up before it opens at 11 a.m.

There are also new "standing only" tickets ( $15 each, I think ).
 
TSO Thursday 24 Feb & COC Saturday 26 Feb

24 Feb - TSO conducted by Vasily Petrenko:

A superb Elgar - Liszt - Stravinsky concert conducted by an amazing young hot shot, Vasily Petrenko. Make no mistake about it, this is a 35 year old conductor who clearly knows his way around a score. The pianist was Andre Laplante, who made the Liszt concerto into a masterpiece. We loved the dramatic shadings that Petrenko was able to pull out of the Stravinsky Rite of Spring. Alas, this guest conductor is not in next season's TSO roster.

Incidentally, I loved what one critic had to say about the evening's two guests (pianist and conductor): Pianist Andre Laplante toured China with the TSO before the evening's guest conductor, Petrenko, was born.

26 Feb - COC - Nixon in China (John Adams):

We both loved this, including the controversial last act. Great score, great singing. You guys & gals have said a lot about this opera already. I will add that it was lovely to see an opera about an event that occurred in my lifetime. So Roy, you didn't get the last act? To this viewer, the final act tells us that the heads of state are also mere mortals capable of vapid wanderings of the mind. In a quasi hallucinogenic manner. I dug it.
 
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I think you'd have loved today's lunchtime concert at the opera house too, Tony - the COC's Betty Waynne Allison and Peter McGillivray singing excerpts from John Adams's operas:

"The heart, knowing no fear" ( Kumudha's aria from A Flowering Tree )
"Mister Premier, distinguished guests" ( Nixon's toast )
"I don't daydream" ( Pat Nixon's aria )
"Your hair contains an entire dream" ( from Dr. Atomic )
"Batter my heart" ( Dr. Atomic )
"May the Lord God and His creation be magnified" ( The Death of Klinghoffer )

Adams introduced each of the songs and talked about their creation with great good humour - and expressed high praise for the singers and piano accompanist Anne Larlee. He was sorry not to have been able to see the Toronto production of Nixon due to his involvement with the Met's production. A couple of weeks ago I had the good fortune to hear pianist Adam Sherkin perform several Adams piano works in the City Room - China Gates ( 1977 ); American Berserk ( 2001 ); Phrygian Gates ( 1977 ), along with his own Daycurrents.

Last week, also, to hear TSO cellist Winona Zelenka's recital there - Bach's Suite for Solo Cello No. 2 in D Minor, Britten's Suite for Cello No. 1, Op 72 and Gaspar Cassado's Suite for Cello. What a treasure these midday concerts are!
 
... which turned out to be a pajama party of sorts, for that was the theme. Lunacy Cabaret/Zero Gravity Circus at 1300 Gerrard East last Saturday night at 9:30. Stuff with fire - scantily clad women with hula hoops aflame, twirling flaming batons. Juggling, high wire, clowns, live music and gross-out humour ( some woman on stage painting a portrait in "menstrual blood" ... ), audience participation, men dropping their pants, beer, a fake lesbian romp in a big bed ...

Never a dull moment in the east end.

"Ship Of Fools" to follow on April 2nd.

Yesterday to the Power Plant to see:

http://www.thepowerplant.org/Exhibitions/2011/2011_Spring/Phantom-Truck---Always-After.aspx

KPMB's reno is minimal, mostly to the entrance lobby. I thought the other major show, Das Auge, was pretty ho-hum in a we've seen it all before sort of way, but exploring the Phantom Truck in an almost pitch black gallery was an experience worth having. Some years ago the Power Plant "showed" Janet Cardiff’s Forty-Part Motet, a sound sculpture ( Spem in Alium ), and now ... invisible sculpture.

Today, emerging from the King subway and heading through the tunnel towards the PATH entrance to 1 King West, I paused to take in the Greenwood College School student architectural fantasy projects. Fairly mundane, save for Sam Sutcliffe's Astrology and Philosophy high-rise tower, slated for 15 Devonshire; delightfully ambiguous - were the planetary constellations scattered across the surface of the tower intended to suggest functional windows and a door, or was it an entirely zen and non-functional structure as befitting the arts imagined to be housed within?
 
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On Saturday, after brunch at Over Easy on Bloor, several of us from Urban Toronto walked the arduous camino to the Bata Shoe Museum - to prostrate ourselves before the altar housing Justin Bieber's purple running shoes. Getting close to said holy relics was easier said than done, but eventually I managed to elbow the hordes of little girls out of the way and had a few moments to myself to commune alone, in the half light, with the sacred objects of my desire. Like any revered religious icons, they had remarkable restorative powers - I felt the disabling ennui that has dogged me all week lifting, and I was restored immediately. Then, we were on to the Gardiner Museum to see their new exhibition and the permanent collection, followed by a walk through the U of T campus that left enough time for a beer at The Queen and Beaver on Elm, followed by a walk-past of the happy-happy-cheerful-baby-blue J Cloth On Elm Street. And so home.

Tomorrow night I'm to the next Fritz Lang film noir at Lightbox - Scarlet Street. Then, on Wednesday, to the lunchtime concert at the opera house ( soprano Wendy Nielsen ). Thursday to the free lunchtime concert ( the Mississauga Childrens' Choir ) at Roy Thomson Hall. Maybe to the lunchtime jazz at the opera house on Thursday. And next Saturday the annual ROM Colloquium happens:

http://www.rom.on.ca/collections/colloquium/pdf/colloquium_program_2011.pdf
 
Wendy Nielsen's recital last Wednesday at the City Room was fun - including four Lennon and McCartney songs sung and orchestrated in the style of other composers ( Ticket To Ride by Handel, Michelle by Ravel ... ) and an encore of Old Mother Hubbard also as per Handel.

Much fidgeting - forming a sort of white noise - from the young audience during the entire Mississauga Children's Choir programme at Roy Thomson Hall last Thursday. And towards the end an entire section of the balcony went rogue, standing up, walking around, some leaving the hall and returning now and then, and chattering.

To Gibson House, up on Yonge north of Sheppard afterwards. And to Colborne Lodge on Friday. Can't get enough of that heritage stuff! At Colborne, the framed watercolour views of early Toronto by architect John Howard which are often published though rarely in colour were delightful - and in pristine condition. Not to be missed.
 
Welcome to our 1,001st post ( wait, that's me ... ).

The COC's lunchtime concerts go from strength to strength. Last Thursday, to hear some mostly contemporary works, including William Cahn's amusing The Recital Piece - A Drama for Solo Xylophonist, with recorded voice-over by the performer. Crashing Through Fences by Timothy Andrews for piccolo, glockenspiel and two kick drums was also a delight. But Christos Hatzis's Arctic Dreams 1 for flute, vibraphone and digital audio was a standout, for me - especially Shelley Brown's flute playing. And as a change of pace, two piano works by Domenico Scarlatti performed by pianist Monique de Margerie, as well as Songbirdsongs by John Luther Adams and Le merle noir by Messiaen. Lots of tweety birdsong!

Today, Collaborations - artists of the COC Ensemble Studio ( including the incomparable and very much in-the-news Wallis Giunta ) with artists from Atelier lyrique de l'Opera de Montreal. Handel, plenty of gorgeous Mozart ( yes, I know, we've heard it all before, but rarely this good ... ), Tickling a trout, poaching a hare from Britten's Albert Herring, Salome's aria from Massenet's Herodiade sung by Chantale nurse and a nod to the COC's next production with Dandini's aria from La Cenerentola.

Ship of Fools, the latest Lunacy Cabaret last Saturday night at 1300 Gerrard East was a bit of a bore compared to their previous Pajama party theme.
 
Anyone else going to Mulroney: The Opera? They're sold out at the Scotiabank Cineplex downtown, so I'm off to see it at Silver City at Yonge and Eg. - on Saturday April 16th at 1 p.m. Should be a hoot - everyone's least favourite P.M. Lipsynched, with actors playing Brian, Mila, Pierre, Chretien etc. ... but impossible to turn down as an amusement for that weekend.

The film noir series is over at Lightbox, finally. I'd noticed Piers Handling at several of them ( at Lang's Human Desire on Tuesday, for instance ... ), and since he lives on my street and we were on the same 504 back to Riverdale afterwards I took the opportunity to let him know some of my thoughts on how the membership experience could be improved. And it certainly could be improved. And he seems to get it. We'll see.

Tidied up the garden a bit. Weather looks pretty good for this weekend, too.

Loved the new show at the Textile Museum ( this cultural entity is a prime candidate for a smashing new standalone building methinks ... ) - gorgeous great big silk coats and shroud-like outerwear from 19th century Bukhara. Loved how they shaded off the colours into the neutral ground.
 
Urban Shocker said:
Today, Collaborations - artists of the COC Ensemble Studio ( including the incomparable and very much in-the-news Wallis Giunta ) with artists from Atelier lyrique de l'Opera de Montreal. Handel, plenty of gorgeous Mozart ( yes, I know, we've heard it all before, but rarely this good ... ), Tickling a trout, poaching a hare from Britten's Albert Herring, Salome's aria from Massenet's Herodiade sung by Chantale nurse and a nod to the COC's next production with Dandini's aria from La Cenerentola.
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Wanted to take that in but I had a frustration of many choices to do, that day. Perhaps I'll bump into you sometime soon there. Wallis Giunta is amazing, I saw her at Koerner last year and she dazzled.

BTW - we are catching James Conlon Saturday night conducting TSO, looking forward to that (my fave Beethoven is on bill).

edit: PS--on long walk yesterday, I sunburned! I have to start wearing hats now (long boring story) and so I need directions to best fashion consultant around ... any ideas?
 
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Me too - gotta keep them death rays at bay. I've always wanted a straw boater - editor and writer Alfred Holden at The Star has a lovely one, which he sometimes wears around town, but so few men sport them nowadays. You'd look swell in one too, I expect - twinned with a rumpled linen von Aschenbach suit. Your partner could dress in a striped Tadzio sailor suit and you could cause le grand scandale next time you go to Roy Thomson Hall to hear some Mahler. Hmmmm ... I think the COC are doing Mahler and Strauss on Thursday 21st at lunchtime.

Wallis Giunta did the pants role of Annio to soprano Suzanne Rigden's Servilia in the duet Ah! Perdona al primo affetto from Mozart's La clemenza di Tito at yesterday's recital. Lovely - and quite sexy in a cross-dressing sort of way. Giunta, Chantale Nurse and Neil Craighead did a glorious Soave sia il vento to wrap up three excerpts from Cosi fan tutte.

I've bought a ticket to Louise Lecavalier at the Fleck Dance Theatre next Thursday ( Q&A after, that night ). I haven't seen her dance in over 20 years - when La La La Human Steps were at the O'Keefe performing Human Sex.

So much to see, so much to do ...
 
^ Cruel fate that such dashing specimens as you and me should now have to hide under hats. The world is poorer for it (well, except that they'll have us around longer for it).

Last night's TSO concert was an outrage in the good sense. James Conlon started the program by laying a huge compliment on Toronto for its cultural life and treasures, and most of all, complimenting the orchestra in a way that almost never gets done around here (they get taken for granted so). In any event I haven't the time now to publish my mini-review except to say "you had to be there" and that my partner had to work and sadly missed the concert, damn! Full hall except for the seat beside me.

Will review later ...
 
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