Multi-Media, May 24, 2013

My Wagner
Cosmic connections, music/man/myth, nine T&I's, Mahler

We asked friends to write us a small piece on the theme "My Wagner" to celebrate the composer's 200th anniversary this week. Enjoy!

Axel Van Chee (former opera critic for The Charlebois Post)
I remember my first Wagner, I was 22 and it was on the first night upon arriving in Sydney, Australia. After checking into the hostel, I went immediately to the iconic opera house to see what was on offer, it was Tannhäuser. The only seats available were the expensive front rows where you can observe the beads of sweat dripping our of the pores of the singers, I told the kind lady that I would just get a standing room ticket. She looked at me and replied in a concerned tone, "you do know that this is a Wagner right? I really don't think you want to stand though it." I told her that I was just a student backpacker with a tight budget and reaffirmed my decision. She took pity on me and gave me a seat in the box at a price slightly above standing room, then wished me a great time in Australia. 

I remember the opera vividly: it was an avant-garde production, and incidentally, my first avant-garde opera ever. Venus came on stage bathed in neon green lights while wearing a skin tight silver lame dress, complete with spiked high heels and a whip. The chorus pranced about her in S&M costumes and tormented each other. There were giant mirrors and lots and lots of lasers. Throughout the opera, men in post-modern, gothic crow/bat costumes were suspended above and about the sets, perched in precarious positions, and observed the going ons on the stage. They occasionally expended their wings to reconfigure into grotesque and unfathomable shapes. 

Review: (Toronto) Turn of the Screw

(photo credit: Darryl Block)

Suffer the Children
Against the Grain scores again with Britten
by Axel Van Chee


Against the Grain Theatre has done it again. The company has set a very high bar for their future endeavors this time around with a stunning production of Benjamin Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, opening at the Helen Gardiner Phelan Playhouse. It is musically satisfying, theatrically absorbing, and they really should consider keeping this in their repertoire. It is perhaps the best production of the Screw that I have seen. 

The Sunday Read: Backstage at Semele

Quiet On The Set...and...Remember!

Backstage at the COC brings the past and the biggest question facing opera

by Alex Van Chee

(photos by Karl Forster from the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie production of Semele, 2009) 

So there I was standing in the backstage of the Four Seasons Centre for Performing Arts amongst a frenzy of camera crew, reporters, and other media writers like a fish out of water on a Friday afternoon, wondering what to do. It was Canadian Opera Company’s media meet and greet event for the upcoming big budget production of Handel’s Semele and everybody was excited. There were speeches about the history and the mechanics of the very impressive “set” (a real 500 hundred-year old Ming temple made of camphor wood, dismantled and put back together here in Toronto), about the multiculturalism and its significance both to the opera and the city of Toronto, about the impossible task of running 3 different operas simultaneously, each with its own sets. Having never been at an event quite like this before, I was suddenly at a loss: I didn’t know what I was doing there. I didn’t have a clear agenda (I knew I had to write something after the trip), I am an introvert (my friends would protest violently on this) so speaking to strangers in an event like this was quite frightening, and I was ill prepared for any one-on-one interviews (I didn’t know this was part of, or even the point of a media event). I must have sweat buckets because the media kit prepared for me that I clutched tightly in my hands was wrinkled and damp.

Review: (Toronto) Armide

Photo: Bruce Zinger / Marie McDunnough & Jack Rennie, Artists of Atelier Ballet.

The One by Lully
Armide - the singer and the opera - are gorgeous
by Axel Van Chee


The story of Armida by the Italian poet Torquato Tasso about an Arabian sorceress and her unrequited love with the Christian soldier Rinaldo during the First Crusade is a popular subject in opera literature; Handel had one (of course, it is actually harder to name what he doesn't have), Gluck had one, Rossini had one, even Dvorak and Haydn, who is not exactly known for his operatic works had one. The first known rendition of the poem in operatic form however, is Jean-Baptiste Lully’s Armide, first performed in 1686, and it opens at the Elgin Theatre in a visually stunning production by Opera Atelier.


Reincarnated from its 2005 run, Marshall Pynkoski unfolds the story like an enchanted fairy-tale manuscript, with the sets and costumes exquisitely designed by Gerard Gauci and Dora Rust D’Eye. There are intricate details everywhere, enfolding both Asian and Western motifs to further accentuate the conflicts between the East and the West. The lighting design by Bonnie Beecher further adds a layer of spectacles to the opera.

Review: (Toronto) Tales of Hoffmann

(l - r) Andriana Chuchman as Olympia, Steven Cole as Cochenille and Michael Barrett as Spalanzani (Photo: Michael Cooper)

Beyond Expectations
COC delivers a minor miracle
by Axel Van Chee


Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffmann is a whale of a tale in both its fancifulness and length, and when haplessly done, can be a tediously exhausting evening. With a large cast, most opera houses would also consider themselves lucky to have only two or three stars to carry the burden of this hafty show. With that said, what the Canadian Opera Company has on their hands is nothing short of a minor miracle with its beautiful stage sets and costumes, lush and nuanced playing from the orchestra, and brilliant, brilliant singing from a superb ensemble cast, half of whom are making their COC debuts.

Review: (Toronto) The 7 Deadly Sins (and Holier Fare)

Sacred to Profane
Against The Grain tempts the devil
by Axel Van Chee


One thing I love about small companies is that they need to be innovative and constantly explore all the possibilities in terms of modes of production, venues, and repertory choices with their limited funds. Although they may not always succeed, the results are often surprising and enlightening. Against the Grain Theatre has done just that with their latest production of The 7 Deadly Sins (and Holier Fare) featuring four modern pieces, two of which are even by living American composers. It certainly is a daring affair, and like a charcuterie, each of the four is a different representation of the modern musical sound, and although you may not like one, chances are, you are going to like one of the others.

Review: (Toronto) Cosi fan tutte

As Everyone Does
Mozart at UofT
by Axel Van Chee


Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte is a comedy, a farce on love on the surface, but the depth of human emotions, the anguish, the questioning, the sharp barb of sting is ever present. And it is one of those operas that the directors love to play with: it can be colourfully camp, to intriguingly avant garde, to calculatingly grotesque. The Opera Division at the University of Toronto Faculty of Music’s Cosi went with a traditional production set in a baroque- classical style marble mansion designed by Fred Perruzza, complete with topiaries, roman garden statues, candelabras, a host of house servants, and at one point, an elaborate gondola. With some ingenious directing by Michael Patrick Albano, what is playing at McMillan Theatre is possibly one of the funniest Cosi fan tuttes  I’ve seen, with just the right amount of hilarity without being vulgar, and still hangs on to the uncertainty which really is the backbone of the opera.

Review: (Toronto) Obeah Opera

l-r Bemnet Tekleyohannes, Joni NehRita, Nicole Brooks, Macomere Fifi and Saidah Baba Talibah (Photographer: Nation Cheong)

Both Thought and Entertainment
The magical Obeah Opera
by Axel Van Chee


There is nothing like an accidental education, especially one that is delivered via beautiful music. The world premiere of the powerful Obeah Opera produced by b current & Theatre Archipelago proves to be just such a thing: it is both thought provoking and entertaining. The opera is sung entirely a cappella, using only female voices. For two hours starting with the very first chord, it is as if you are transported to a lush, distant Caribbean Island, and serenaded by the Islanders with their oral history. It is like Obeah, it is magical.

Review: (Toronto) L'Amour de loin (Love From Afar)

Krisztina Szabó as the Pilgrim (downstage left), Erin Wall as Clémence and Russell Braun as Jaufré (both centre stage). Photo: Michael Cooper

Confirming Its Greatness

COC proves its stature with a difficult work

by Axel Van Chee

The much anticipated first opera by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho L’Amour de loin has given the COC something to boast about: it has an exceptional cast of singers (all Canadians), it is directed by Daniele Finzi Pasca of Cirque du Soleil fame, and has an excellent team of designers. L’Amour is like a desert mirage that manages to elude Canada since its première in 2000 having been around the world, and like a desert mirage, it is shimmering, sensual, ephemeral, insubstantial, and ultimately like the title suggests, can only be loved, from afar.

Review: (Toronto) Tosca

COC offers the Tried and True...and Delivers
Tosca sounds and looks beautiful
by Axel Van Chee


Considered to be one of the most innovative and adventurous of all the opera companies in North America, it is interesting, and refreshing to see the Canadian Opera Company putting up a no-nonsense, traditional Tosca. After all, every opera house needs to balance its budget, and the COC is no exception to the rule. This is especially true with its upcoming, ambitious 2012- 2013 season (you really should check it out if you have not, it is alarmingly delightful), the COC needs all the money it can muster.

Review: (Toronto) American Idiot

Scott J. Campbell (photo credit: Doug Hamilton)

Bells and Whistles signifying...

Is there any there there in American Idiot?

by Axel Van Chee

With more bells and whistles than the biggest Santa’s sled imaginable, American Idiot by Green Day arrives at Toronto Centre for the Arts just in time to ring in the new year. It dazzles with psychedelic colours, exudes an abundance of energy and is unapologetically loud (unlike the Berkeley premiere, ear plugs are not provided). It is also chock-full of the best selling songs from the same-name album to satisfy the most rabid of fans, all superbly orchestrated by Tom Kitt, and performed admirably by the band under Jared Stein. It is also deep down, at the risk of irking all the Green Day fans out there, much ado about nothing.

Review: (Toronto) La Bohème

La Bohème, the Canadian way 

The sound of preconceptions falling...

by Axel Van Chee

I have a confession to make: Puccini’s La Bohème occupies the crowning spot on my “Top Ten Most Hated Opera List”, and I have seen more than 20 productions of it in different opera houses to continue to justify my belief. Why I still keep seeing it is a subject for another debate, but it was with trepidation that I went to the production put on by Against the Grain Theater billed as “A modern love tale told in English”. After all, not only is it my most hated opera, it is stripped to the bare bones, updated by a few decades, with a brand new libretto in English, and all crammed into a bar while a blue grass concert is playing right next door through very thin walls. Two hours later, I must admit that I had, possibly, one of the most entertaining evenings I’ve ever had at an opera.