Review: (Ottawa) Tosca (Opera)

Michele Capalbo (photo by Andrew Alexander)

Tosca : Love and Jealousy

by Jim Murchison

Due to an unpredictable circumstance I ended up seeing the second night of Tosca rather than opening night. As it turned out, that allowed me to see the original cast as it was intended to be performed. A medical emergency in the Opera Lyra company had required a radical improvisation on Saturday's opening night in the grand tradition of the show must go on. 

Review: (Ottawa / Opera) Madama Butterfly

(photo: Sam Garcia)

Delicate and Strong

by Jim Murchison

Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly is a little different from most operas. First performed in 1904, before the United States had declared itself liberators of the free world but at a time when the brash young country was starting to spread its influence and sense that the world belonged to it. Unlike other operas it does not have recognizable arias that have woven themselves into pop culture. It is only snippets of the Star Spangled Banner inserted into the score that would be hummable for an untrained singer. 

If it is possible for an opera to be intimate then Madama Butterfly is that opera. The set is sliding paper walls of a traditional Japanese home. One stage left and right and one upstage. That would of course make the audience the fourth wall looking in on the scene of domestic bliss. Director François Racine has infused the production with a sweet quality that allows the audience to fall in love with the heroine. By setting the table in such a way it makes the coming tragedy grander and Butterfly an even more compelling figure.

The Abominable Showman, September 12, 2013

Measha Brueggergosman (via measha.com)

Opera Nation

Canadian opera companies stick to crowd-pleasing Italian masterpieces to anchor their 2013-2014 seasons 

by Richard Burnett @bugsburnett

The upcoming 2013-2014 opera season across Canada continues to rely on old Italian classics by such tried-and-true composers as Guiseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini. And the biggest buzz this season is L’Opéra de Montréal’s superstar production of George Gerhswin’s Porgy and Bess starring soprano Measha Brueggergosman.

Vancouver Opera's upcoming 54th season will include Giacomo Puccini's Tosca  (Oct 26 – Nov 3), Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, co-produced with Pacific Opera Victoria (Nov 30 to Dec 8),  Mozart’s Don Giovanni (March 1-9, 2014) and – for the first time at the Vancouver Opera in 40 years – Giuseppe Verdi’s Don Carlo (May 3-11, 2014). All performances are at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

Across the bay, for their 2013-2014 season, British Columbia’s Pacific Opera Victoria – who boast they are “the only major opera company in Canada to build its own sets exclusively” – will present three productions: Falstaff by Giuseppe Verdi, with the Victoria Symphony and the Pacific Opera Chorus, and starring Brian Bannatyne-Scott as Falstaff (Oct 17 – 27); Ariadne auf Naxos (music by Richard Strauss and libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal) runs Feb 13 – 23, 2014; and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro (April 24 to May 4, 2014).

Review: (Ottawa) Carmen

Alessandra Volpe

Duty, Love and Blood
by Jim Murchison

Carmen has been described as possibly the world's most popular opera. Given that so much of the music has seeped into popular culture having been featured in film scores, advertisements and on television  ranging from the Muppets to Gilligan's Island, it is hard to dispute that parts of Carmen are definitely in our collective consciousness more so than almost any other opera. I have no doubt that if you sang the opening notes of the Toreador song there would be few that wouldn't be able to at least la la la their way through a major portion of it. 

French director Bernard Uzan has directed Georges Bizet's tale of duty, love and jealousy with understated precision. I say understated because it is important that when large casts move about a stage that it be with care and dedication to the rich tableau of imagery, while trying to maintain a certain naturalism in the crowd reaction in all the supporting areas. Uzan succeeds in creating a grandness that flows naturally and with truth. This is of course perfected in collaboration with the choreography of Rosa Mercedes.

Italian Mezzo Alessandra Volpe plays Carmen with a sultry moodiness that flashes with desire, anger and ennui in equal proportion as passions fickle flame flickers and fades, being reborn in the breath of new love before its inevitable snuffing.

Review: (Ottawa) La Traviata

La Traviata dress rehearsal photo credit: David Pasho

In the presence of the divine
by Nan Cormier

One might expect that a concert presentation of an opera might lack some of the emotion, soul and pathos of the fully staged opera.  But last night, in the first of two performances of Opera Lyra’s concert presentation of La Traviata, in Southam Hall, at the National Arts Centre, the lack of staging and sets which at first seemed to limit the physicality of the cast, were quickly eclipsed by the sheer beauty of the production.

La Traviata, by Guiseppe Verdi, is the story of a Violetta, a courtesan, who falls in love with a younger man, Alfredo, only to be asked to let him go by his father, Giorgio Germont in order to save his family’s honour. Violetta agrees out of love for Alfredo, and leaves the countryside, for Paris.  When Alfredo comes on the scene he misunderstands why she has left him and reacts badly, vowing revenge the next time he sees her.  All this time, Violetta is dying of tuberculosis.  Finally, Alfredo’s father explains the reason why Violetta has left him.  But by then, it is too late.  Violetta is at death’s door when Alfredo arrives at her bedside to beg her forgiveness.

Review: (Ottawa) La Bohème

Michael Fabiano and Joyce El-Khoury (photo credit: Sam Garcia/OLO)

From Rent to La Vie Bohème

The joyous return of Opera Lyra

by Jim Murchison

Saturday evening at Southam Hall marked the return of Opera Lyra after a year of hiatus brought on by financial difficulties. Now even people that have never been to the opera are aware of  La Bohème because of the phenomenal success of the modern musical it inspired: Rent. The other thing that the two pieces have in common is that very few people feel halfway about them. People love or hate Rent and the same thing can be said of opera. I would never be able to convert a zealot one way or the other, but here's the thing: many people that don't like opera have never been to an opera. If you have only ever heard opera on record or seen a production on the CBC it is not the same as going to the opera. Theatre and opera do not play well on television.