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Urban Shocker's Neighbourhood Watch

Opening night! We await your review.

I wonder what the story is with Beth Clayton's withdrawal for "health reasons" from the whole run?

Here's part of the interview Alexander Neef just gave to Opera News. He talks about the openness of the Toronto audience for new opera:

" What's really interesting about the public here — and this is something I like a lot — is that people are very open to things that they didn't know before, and they give you a chance to convince them that it's actually good to do it. They just come in, sit down and build an opinion. They're not opinionated before they come in. It gives us a lot of freedom in programming. Last season, our '08–09 season, consisted of War and Peace, Don Giovanni, Fidelio, Rusalka, Bohème, A Midsummer Night's Dream and Simon Boccanegra. Apart from War and Peace, which was everybody's favorite, we got the most feedback for Rusalka and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Those were the productions and pieces that everybody really got excited about. I thought that was really interesting. Of course, in an English-speaking country, with an opera after Shakespeare, in English, it might be a bit easier to sell than, let's say, in France or in Germany. But I was still surprised about how popular A Midsummer Night's Dream was, and how much people enjoyed that performance. And genuinely enjoyed. Sometimes audiences feel that they need to like something to give you the impression that they're sophisticated enough. I don't really get that feeling here. The people just genuinely enjoyed that piece.

It brings me back to something that I've been thinking about a lot. When you can tell your public great stories, they will not think as much about tonality or atonality as they might do when you don't tell them good stories. What our public expects us to do here is tell them great stories, and if we do that, they're ready to accept a really broad range of musical language. That's something that I feel gives us a lot of programming possibilities. We have a subscription rate that's about 70% of all our tickets. It's absolutely fantastic to have that loyal support-base of people that come back annually and give us a lot of confidence when we announce the season — people who actually buy the complete season. It's a very solid foundation we can build on also, because, as you know, most of the money comes in before the season starts, and this way we can avoid a lot of the ugly cash-flow issues that other North American companies have to deal with."

http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/issue/article.aspx?id=5452&issueID=342
 
Nice quote. I wonder if "openness" is a euphemism for "wouldn't-know-art-if-it-slapped-them-in-the-face". A friend of mine does set design in Germany and finds this North American "openness" so refreshing. The "impress-me" attitude of the Europeans has led to an endless array of pseudo-minimal productions where sets consist of blank walls, and costumes are limited to shiny speedos.
 
I get the impression Neef thinks quite highly of Toronto as a cultural centre with a knowledgeable audience, not at all a "wouldn't-know-art-if-it-slapped-them-in-the-face" kind of place. Here's a bit more from the interview:

" Developing the art form, or talking about the art form, is a much larger task. It's something that I feel is very important here. Not in Toronto, but people in the rest of the country are underexposed to opera and the arts in general. So we are putting quite substantial efforts into an education program that's not limited to the greater Toronto area. "

And he's dealing smartly with another challenge - booking great singers who happen to be Canadian, and need as much advance notice of COC productions as any other leading singers, for future productions:

" One of the major changes that I've made to the company is that we've extended the planning process from two years to three or four years, as most of the big international companies do now. So when I came in, we started preparing the 2011–12 and '12–13 seasons at the same time, because I was convinced that we needed to get in a certain preparations cycle, mainly to be able to access certain people who hadn't been with the company before — international and Canadian artists. We've been very successful in building these relationships now, 2012–13 and beyond. Because we ask people at a time when they're still free, they are actually able to commit to being here. That's mostly true for the great Canadian artists — and most of them, funny enough, live in Toronto or close to Toronto — who have an interest in performing with us. Some of them have always had a relationship with the company, and some of them haven't, because they were often asked to perform at a time when their calendar was already full. We've tried to correct that and actually become a home company for these artists. "

The presence of the National Ballet as a tenant obviously cramps the COC's style slightly when it comes to putting a season together:

" We have a mainstage season that consists of seven operas, which is divided into fall, winter and spring seasons. We own our theater, but we share it with the National Ballet of Canada, who is our principle tenant. There are certain periods where we do performances and certain periods where we don't, which kind of influences our planning and the way we need people to be available. When we talk to certain artists, we cannot tell them, "Just give me any period in '09–10 and we will accommodate a production for you."
 
... and talking of the National Ballet, and Toronto as a centre of excellence ... here's a follow-up on the news item interchange posted a few months ago ...

Why ballet dancer Jiri Jelinek came to Canada
The dancer who has been praised all over the world for his powerful stage presence and strong partnering skills is the latest coup for National Ballet artistic director Karen Kain.

From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published on Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010
By Paula Citron

" The ruggedly handsome Jiri Jelinek, who has been praised all over the world for his powerful stage presence and strong partnering skills, is the latest coup for National Ballet artistic director Karen Kain as she carefully crafts the company of her dreams. But Kain didn’t go out and recruit the 32-year-old Czech as a principal dancer. It was Jelinek who came calling.

“I first saw Jiri dance [in 2007] in a gala in Stuttgart, where Reid Anderson [Stuttgart Ballet’s artistic director] expressed to me that he felt Jiri was the best Onegin in the world at the time,” Kain says. “I was delighted when Jiri contacted me and asked if I would consider having him join our company as a principal dancer.”

The obvious question is, why the National? He was enjoying a brilliant nine-year run at Stuttgart Ballet, where his rise through the ranks was meteoric, becoming a principal dancer in 2004.

For starters, Jelinek is not a typical dancer whose life is consumed by ballet. “I’ve always had a life outside dance.” Last October, he married his Czech girlfriend, Aneta, and the couple do not see their future in Germany. “We don’t feel comfortable with the lifestyle and mentality,” Jelinek says.

He also points out that, at the age of 32, the time to move was now while he has good dance years left. “We knew we wanted an English-language culture,” he says, “and we felt that Canadians are more down to earth than Americans. We were also worried about the economic crisis in the States.”

Part of Jelinek’s decision had to do with life after dance. To that end, he figures his best bet is the theatre. So Kain promised to help him find good drama and speech teachers in Toronto.

Jelinek was born in Prague in 1977. His parents divorced when he was 7, and his mother struggled with three jobs to raise him and his two older siblings. “I was a troubled boy,” he says, “always getting into fights with the neighbourhood kids. My mother put me in ballet to get rid of excess energy, but it didn’t work. She died when I was 17, so she never saw the dance artist that I became.”

In 1988, Jelinek was accepted into the Prague Conservatory of Dance, where trouble was his companion. “If I felt someone wasn’t treating me well,” he says, “I opened my mouth. At every year end, there’d be an argument between teachers who wanted to kick me out and those who fought to keep me in.”

In his graduating year, Jelinek came to the realization that he was trained to do nothing else but dance, so he had better take it seriously. To beef up his technical skills, he accepted a scholarship to the prestigious Ballet Centre Hamburg - John Neumeier, where he studied with the legendary Anatoly Nisnevitch.

But he didn’t join Hamburg Ballet. “I spent a lot of time on John Neumeier’s carpet being disciplined,” he quips.

Jelinek joined the National Theatre Prague as a soloist in 1997 and was promoted to principal dancer the following year, winning the 1999 award for Best Dancer of the Czech Republic. Uninspired by the artistic team in Prague, Jelinek move to Stuttgart, where he remained until moving to the National this month.

Kain has big hopes for her newest treasure, provided that she can keep the veteran on track and out of the nightclubs. For the past six years, he has been DJing in clubs in Stuttgart and Prague. “Electronica mixing is really creative,” he says. “Maybe I can get the odd stint in Toronto.”

And then there’s Thai boxing. When he was 10, Jelinek started with karate and moved to kung fu before falling in love with this particular form of kick-boxing. “I had to stop doing the sport because the physicality went against ballet and the injuries affected my dancing,” he says. “I’ll take it up again when I finish my dance career.”

Jiri Jelinek’s first role with the National will be Prince Siegfried in James Kudelka’s Swan Lake, which runs March 11 to 21 at Toronto’s Four Seasons Centre. "
 
Skip Carmen if you can. It was incredibly safe, bland and risk-free. The singing was good, but there no passion in the acting, and the sets and direction were the equivalent of warm milk. My mind wandered quite a bit as the 3 hour and 20 min performance ran on auto-pilot. This was a dud in my opinion.
 
Roy G Biv said:
Skip Carmen if you can. It was incredibly safe, bland and risk-free. The singing was good, but there no passion in the acting, and the sets and direction were the equivalent of warm milk. My mind wandered quite a bit as the 3 hour and 20 min performance ran on auto-pilot. This was a dud in my opinion.
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Thanks Roy.

We'll be going on Tuesday. I am never excited about Carmen and I recall being flabbergasted that it was even on the bill when they took the wraps off of the current season. It's an over-performed thing, what a waste that the COC didn't see fit to program something else. Oh well, at least Otello is coming soon. That's a great opera. Maybe I can sell my Feb 2nd Carmen tickets back to the COC? I am sure someone would grab 'em, "oh boy, Carmen!".
 
I might go "oh boy, Carmen!" if it was a new production, but I believe this is the same one we saw a few years ago ... similar to last season's retread of their venerable La Boheme. John Terauds's review today is in line with our Roy's verdict.

I'm now reconsidering renewing my TSO subscription. I may give them a pass for smaller recitals at smaller venues - and more Luminato and Toronto Summer Music Festival concerts instead.
 
There were tonnes of suburbanites who were quick to applaud after every single aria and deliver a standing-O when the curtain came down. I'm not an operatic expert by any means, but to me (and the long-time subscribers) , it was more than obvious that this was complete filler. Never before have I actually felt ripped off.

I just read Terauds' review and I thought he was being generous. But he is right, the Israeli soprano played a fantastic Carmen. She was busty and sassy, and kind of reminded me of Amy Winehouse. If it wasn't for her, I probably would have left. Unfortunately her passion is dampened by the most wooden, life-less Don José you will ever witness. The final scene should showcase the breaking-point in his internal struggle with his obsession.... but his body plays like he's trying to decide between the '07 Malbec or the '05 Cab Sav at dinner.

More Lady Macbeth of Mtinsk and Nightingale/Other Short Fables... and less this please. The COC shoud compete on innovation, and leave the over-done, run-of-the-mill to Mirvish or something....and if they MUST do the overdone, make it grandoise.
 
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Roy G Biv said:
More Lady Macbeth of Mtinsk and Nightingale/Other Short Fables... and less this please. The COC shoud compete on innovation, and leave the over-done, run-of-the-mill to Mirvish or something....and if they MUST do the overdone, make it grandoise.
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For a 'bad girl' opera, how about Lulu?
 
Urban Shocker said:
I'm now reconsidering renewing my TSO subscription. I may give them a pass for smaller recitals at smaller venues - and more Luminato and Toronto Summer Music Festival concerts instead.
Click to expand...

Having checked out the TSO brochure I find lots worth attending. Originally I thought I might do a 'select five' but it turns out that my Saturday One subscription actually has superb content. Disappointed to see that Dausgaard is doing Bruckner's 6th. I like him but I don't want much more Bruckner for a while. I'll definitely catch Conlon's Beethoven 3rd.

Quite like yourself, I had started to consider going to smaller-venue things next season... maybe I will do some of that, too.
 
Roy: The counterargument, if there's one to be made ( and I'm not ), is that we're living too much in an age of director-lead productions rather than diva-lead singing, and that it's the quality of the voice that's paramount. That "endless array of pseudo-minimal productions where sets consist of blank walls, and costumes are limited to shiny speedos" is the prime target for such criticism, rather than retreads of earlier productions such as this Carmen, and the case of Deborah Voight ( removed from a Covent garden production a few years ago because she was overweight ) is held up as an example of the superficiality of a perceived trend towards stressing looks over vocal substance.

Have we strayed too far from substance? I like to think not. We can have our barihunks and eat them too.

Let's not be too mean to suburbanites. If I was cooped up there most of the time and let loose downtown now and then I might be just as frantic when I see something move on stage. 905 kids behave in a similar way in the entertainment district. I don't see a divide between where people live and the kind of music they enjoy.
 
Fair enough. I simply think the COC knew that much of the audience would be comprised of those who "always wanted to see Carmen", and therefore knew they'd be satisfied with anything. I am a born and raised suburbanite, and am left with enough bitterness and disdain for the whole lifestyle, so my unfair generalizations are derived from emotions and nothing else. As someone in his 20s who only got into Opera a few years ago, I probably have more in common with those suburbanites than you grizzled vets (I use that term affectionately of course).

In terms of direction, it was bland, but also confusing at times. The opening scene at the jail was a prime example. It was hard to tell what side of the stage represented the inside and what side represented the outside. The guards were guarding from the inside.. which was odd. Micaela was asked to come inside... when she already was... just a few glitches like that. The lighting was muddled as well. If these elements are to act as a canvas for great singing and acting, that's one thing, but when they are noticed for the wrong reasons....

You make good points, as usual, and I think if the male lead was significantly better, the singing and acting could have carried this production.
 
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Thanks for the link.

COMMANDOpera's gushing over Bryan Hymel seems to suggest a slight bias. However, COMMANDOpera is right about the music.

COMMANDOpera.
 
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