Review: (Vancouver) Carmen (Opera)

(photo by Tim Matheson)

Inspired (and Flawed)
by Jay Catterson

After a long and languid summer break, the 2014-2015 Vancouver Opera season opened on Saturday night with the sure-fire opera hit, Georges Bizet's Carmen. This was a great move on the part of Vancouver Opera to reinvigorate interest in the company, and the music is recognizable enough for many opera newcomers to feel a sense of comfort. In fact, it seems like the company has reinvigorated their brand, with a freshly minted logo and show artwork that reflects a fresh, contemporary opera company that is both relevant and relatable.

Bathtub Bran: Tina Fushell on Waving is Funny (Dance)

We are very glad to welcome our newest occasional contributor, Bathtub Bran. We'd tell you what he does, but that would ruin the fun. 

Essay: Sable Chan on What Indie Opera is Doing Right - a case study

Survival of the Fittest

What Indie Opera is Doing Right

by Sable Chan (photos by Sable Chan)

@MissSable

Sable Chan is a Speech Therapist-Chorister-Choir Girl Blogger. Sable blogs about her Edmonton Opera Chorus adventures on The Choir Girl Blog. She's often found pondering about vowel formants on acoustic software, reading scientific journals on voice therapy, and monitoring her Twitter feed. [This article first appeared on Ms Chan's website - she has graciously allowed The Charlebois Post to reprint it.]

This past summer was the opening of #UncleJohn and it was exactly the kind of production I have hoped would come to Alberta. It was musically immersive and culturally relevant - all wrapped up in a sleek, modern, indie opera company. I will reiterate what I was hearing throughout the week: "This is the future of opera."

Interview: Roberto Campanella, Artistic Director of ProArteDanza

The Tin Celebration
It has to do with that transitional phase in your life where the balance is so precarious that you can go in a million directions - the good ones, the bad ones.
by Ramya Jegatheesan, senior contributor
rehearsal photos by Ramya Jegatheesan
@RamyaJImages

Born and raised in Rome, Roberto Campanella trained at the Scuola Italiana di Danza Contemporanea. In 1985, he joined the Compagnia Italiana di Danza Contemporanea and later joined the prestigious Aterballetto. In 1993 he joined The National Ballet of Canada where he was soon promoted to soloist and was cast in many classical and contemporary roles. Campanella choreographs predominantly for ProArteDanza, which he founded in 2004, although he also choreographs a wide variety of commissioned works for companies at home and abroad. He is now a sought-after guest teacher for companies such as The National Ballet of Canada and Stuttgart Ballet as well as companies in Italy, Korea and Japan. In 2001, Campanella was nominated for the Bonnie Bird Choreography Award in London. In 2007, he received the Fellowship Initiative Award from the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of the New York City Ballet, and in 2008, Campanella’s first full-length work Alice in Wonderland premiered at Ballet Augsburg in Germany. He was awarded the Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Choreography with co-choreographer Robert Glumbek for … in between…, which premiered at ProArteDanza’s Season 2010.

Artistic Director Roberto Campanella speaks to us frankly about ProArteDanza’s 10 year anniversary, the challenges of running a dance company, and what audiences can expect to see in the near future. 

Essay: Approaching Dance, Part II

The Fine Art of Approaching Dance
by Kallee Lins (Charlebois Post Dance Editor)

Introduction: Writing and talking about dance is something that intimidates a lot of people. As a performance scholar (who is going on a lot of dates these days), I am often met with blank stares at the inevitable response to inquiries about my area of study. Even worse, my conversational counterpart will attempt to hypothesize what the study of dance entails, asking something like, “PhD in dance? Is that mostly routines or do you look at historical and social context too?” 

Setting aside the fact that such a statement is reductive of both dance and academic inquiry, what these exchanges have taught me is that, in the eyes of many people, dance does not seem to function as art in the same way other disciplines do.  We expect art to speak to us, to tell us something about the world, to communicate something that cannot be articulated in more mundane ways. Why would artists spend years learning the conventions and techniques of their discipline and fostering their own aesthetic, and then sink weeks, months or even years into rehearsal or studio production if what they had to say could be articulated in an essay or press release?  And yet, observers continue to believe (whether they acknowledge it or not) that if what happens on a stage, canvas or screen cannot, in turn, be stated in words, then it does not have anything to say.  Dance, with its chronic underfunding and lack of visibility in schools compared to music, drama and the visual arts, is particularly susceptible to this fallacy.

Review: (Montreal) Nabucco (Opera)

The opera within an opera at the opera house
by Aleksandra Koplik

Giuseppe Verdi's Nabucco, is about a Babylonian King seeking revenge on the Jews for stealing his daughter, a vicious love triangle driven by power and the Hebrew people seeking freedom from the Assyrians. As the curtains open - on this collaboration between the Washington National Opera, Opera Philadelphia and Minnesota Opera - we are also submerged in 1842 La Scala, when Italy was under Austrian rule. We see three theatre balconies on stage and a group of upper-class Austrians taking their seats. An opera within an opera is taking place.

First-Person: Director Joel Ivany on Carmen (Vancouver Opera)

Michel St. Aubin's costume design

Conquering Carmen (x 2)
by Joel Ivany

Carmen is a stage director's dream. This piece has it all. Rich characters, a juicy story and tunes that seep into our minds and hearts.  

This is the first production of Carmen that I've had the pleasure to direct and I'm also excited to be making my debut with one of Canada’s great opera companies, Vancouver Opera.

Review: (Montreal) Densité d'un moment/In Mixed Company (Dance)

In Mixed Company (photo by Frédéric Chais)

The Density of Moments
by Chad Dembski, Editor - Dance

Densité d'un moment
The first piece presented in a double bill of works that opens Tangente's season, Densité d'un moment, is a 30 minute six-person performance from recent Université de Québec à Montréal (UQAM)  dance graduates.  The piece explores the density of a moment, how it is experienced differently by each person in that moment, both the active participant and the observer. 

Having been to the Studio space at Monument National a few times I am constantly surprised how a small, seemingly limited space can be transformed with limited resources.

Essay: Approaching Dance, Part I

The Fine Art of Approaching Dance
by Kallee Lins (Charlebois Post Dance Editor)

Introduction: Writing and talking about dance is something that intimidates a lot of people.  As a performance scholar (who is going on a lot of dates these days), I am often met with blank stares at the inevitable response to inquiries about my area of study.  Even worse, my conversational counterpart will attempt to hypothesize what the study of dance entails, asking something like, “PhD in dance? Is that mostly routines or do you look at historical and social context too?” 

Setting aside the fact that such a statement is reductive of both dance and academic inquiry, what these exchanges have taught me is that, in the eyes of many people, dance does not seem to function as art in the same way other disciplines do.  We expect art to speak to us, to tell us something about the world, to communicate something that cannot be articulated in more mundane ways. Why would artists spend years learning the conventions and techniques of their discipline and fostering their own aesthetic, and then sink weeks, months or even years into rehearsal or studio production if what they had to say could be articulated in an essay or press release?  And yet, observers continue to believe (whether they acknowledge it or not) that if what happens on a stage, canvas or screen cannot, in turn, be stated in words, then it does not have anything to say.  Dance, with its chronic underfunding and lack of visibility in schools compared to music, drama and the visual arts, is particularly susceptible to this fallacy.

The Abominable Showman, September 17, 2014

The Italian Stallion
The foremost Verdi baritone of his generation Paolo Gavanelli makes his grand Opera de Montreal debut in the title role of Nabucco

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

The eminent British classical music critic Hugh Canning once described Italian Baritone Paolo Gavanelli as “the foremost Verdi baritone of his generation.”

And certainly Gavanelli has been one of the most successful, with a repertoire of over 50 roles in a career that has spanned over 30 years. He is renowned for his signature roles: Rigoletto, Macbeth, Simon Boccanegra, Falstaff and, of course, Nabucco, which he will reprise in his L’Opera de Montreal debut opposite Russian soprano Tatiana Melnychenko as Abigaille.

Captured, September 15, 2014

The process...

Tangente has created a fascinating interview/extracts video of Emily Gualtieri and David-Albert Toth's In Mixed Company, and, as the co-creators say of their process "the politics of creation". (Video in French, interviews in English) (September 19-21)

First Person: Librettist Sharon Singer on Isis and Osiris (Opera)

How an ancient Egyptian myth is being reincarnated into a new Canadian opera
Isis and Osiris by Sharon Singer and Peter-Anthony Togni is in development 
by Sharon Singer (Librettist)

Toronto-born Sharon Singer is a published poet, librettist, journalist, and spoken word performer, known for her dramatic monologues. In addition to four published books, Ms Singer's work has been included in poetry journals and anthologies. More than 15 years ago, Sharon Singer began collaborating with musicians who wrote soundscapes to accompany her spoken word performances. This resulted in her work being set to classical and jazz music for the CDs Hail, Canadian Art Song and Global Warming, a collaboration with renowned New York jazz saxophone player Bob Mover. In 2008 Philip McConnell composed music for Sharon Singer's short story The Museum and  her documentary poem, The Burning Book both of which she  performed with the Toronto Sinfonietta Orchestra at the Royal Ontario Museum. Isis and Osiris is her first opera libretto. The opera’s initial public performance took place at the Art Gallery of Ontario. www.sharonsinger.com www.ariaworks.ca

Anyone who has ever been to my home sees evidence of my love for ancient Egypt.  There is the six foot tall poster of Ramses the Great, purchased at a Ramses le Grand exhibit of monumental sculpture in Paris in 1976.  My kitchen towels are Egyptian themed and in the living room is the Egyptomania poster from the 1979 exhibit at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. I have been enchanted by ancient Egypt since high school trips from Oakwood Collegiate Institute took me to the Royal Ontario Museum where I first saw mummies, scarabs, shwabti, and mysterious hieroglyphic symbols. From there I amassed a comprehensive collection of books about Egypt, and even sculpture reproductions. For many years I attended the all-day Symposium put on by the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. 

The Abominable Showman, September 12, 2014

Marie-Nicole Lemieux (photo by Denis Rouvre)

Opera Nation

Canadian opera companies stick to crowd-pleasing Italian masterpieces to anchor their 2014- 2015 seasons

by Richard Burnett 

@bugsburnett

The upcoming 2014-2015 opera season across Canada continues to rely on old Italian classics by such tried-and-true composers as Gaetano Donizetti and Giacomo Puccini. And the biggest buzz this season is the return of the Canadian Opera Company’s internationally-hailed double-bill of Béla Bartók’s Bluebeard’s Castle and Arnold Schoenberg’s Erwartung, directed by Robert Lepage.

Vancouver Opera’s upcoming 55th season features four productions: Georges Bizet’s Carmen, in French with English translations projected above the stage (Sept 27 – Oct 5); Stickboy, a moving new opera by world-renowned spoken-word artist Shane Koyczan and composer Neil Weisensel about the inner life of a young boy (Oct 23 – Nov 7, at the Vancouver Playhouse); Johann Strauss, Jr.’s melody-filled epic Die Fledemaus (Feb 28 – March 8, 2015); and to close the season with a bang, Stephen Sondheim’s darkly comical Sweeney Todd, starring real-life husband and wife Greer Grimsley, one of the great bass-baritones of his generation, as Sweeney Todd, and acclaimed mezzo-soprano Luretta Bybee as Mrs. Lovett (Apr 25 – May 3, 2015). All performances (except Stickboy) are at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.

First-Person: Stéphanie Morin-Robert on the Fringe Tour of Body & Light (Dance)

Stéphanie Morin-Robert (photo by: Stéphanie Morin-Robert)

Body and Light on The Fringe of Existence
by Stéphanie Morin-Robert

Multidisciplinary artist Stéphanie Morin-Robert graduated first from Cégep de Drummondville with a DEC in dance (2008) and then from Concordia University with a degree in Contemporary Dance (2011) and a designation as the most outstanding graduate of that year. She is the choreographer, artistic director and administrator for the company FOR BODY AND LIGHT (a collaboration with musician/spoken word artist Ian Ferrier) creating pieces that are intimately inspired by memory, imagination and the strength and fragility of the human body. After creative residencies at L’arrêt de bus (Montreal, Québec), Main & Station (Parrsboro, Nova Scotia) and at MainLine Theatre (Montréal, Québec), Ms Morin-Robert's company is currently touring western Canada. Over the last four years, her work has been presented at the St-Ambroise Montréal FRINGE festival, the Fundy Fringe Festival, the Frigid New York Festival, the Bouge d’ici dance Festival, the Mile End Poets Festival, Festival Carmagnole, the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word, Festival Phénomena, Studio 303 and the Tangente dance series. She  recently joined the DIRTY FEET podcast team as a co-host and is also a collaborating member of the multidisciplinary improvisation collective BODY SLAM directed by Greg Selinger. Stéphanie Morin-Robert currently works as Artist Liaison for the Montreal FRINGE festival and is Media Ticket Coordinator with the Just For Laughs PR team in Montreal. 

Trying to decide what to write this article about was a lot more difficult than I thought it would be, especially because as I write this we are still touring.

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. 

Captured, September 10, 2014 (Video)

A brilliant short film from David Cooper and Linda Arkelian, featuring Darren Devaney and Thibaut Eiferman from Ballet BC 

Off The Cuff, September 10, 2014 (Video)

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