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Urban Shocker's Neighbourhood Watch

Yikes! Shock Horror! Is it too late for the COC to rustle up a few pachiderms and set them loose on stage, maybe build a pyramid or two?

Shan't be seeing Radvanovsky, unfortunately, but I'll hear her at the free City Room concert later in the year.

The Passion of Joan of Arc at Lightbox last week was fabulous, with a live band and singers crowded onto the smallish stage. One of the highlights of the new season, for me. The hall was half empty - which is a pity for those who missed it. The sound's as dry as dry can be, and it seemed odd to hear such great musicians and singers through speakers when we knew they could fill a proper live music venue with "real" sound - but oddly enough the performance worked well when translated into the medium of the movie-soundtrack.
 
If only a few pachiderms could solve the problem! Here's Alexander Neef's rebutal to the tsunami of criticism. He doesn't get the point; if Albery had given us what he did with Götterdämmerung, I'd have been ecstatic. Now THAT was a slick, modern, shiny, urban production, my favourite of COC's Ring Cycle.

http://www.coc.ca/AboutTheCOC/AlexanderNeef/Blog.aspx?EntryID=9991
 
To the Ashmolean yesterday. Much - and handsomely - enlarged after the recent renovation, but it didn't win the Stirling Prize last weekend. The addition is invisible from the street, and the new galleries are fine - there are two large atriums with stairs, and gallery windows strategically placed to give views down into them, and views into other galleries on different floors. The museum's collections are a cross between our ROM ( without the natural history component ) and the AGO. The new display system isn't unlike the ROM's approach. Fancy restaurant upstairs. Spent half the day there.

Walked the city, though the campus isn't anything like as open as, say, our U of T. Only managed to roam freely at All Souls - the chapel, and quadrangles. The larger one, by Hawksmoor, contained a couple of towers that looked like rocket ships - Gothic with a Classical sensibility. And what a monochromatic campus ( "Oxford needs more colour" ), with variety through building shapes; standing outside the circular domed Camera, with the spires of All Souls on one side and the Church of St. Mary's on the other, for instance.
 
Recent outings, TSO Oct 14th, Canadian Opera Company Oct 19th

Just time for a two-liner before I dash off:

TSO - Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sibelius and Shostakovich, Oct 14th:

Worst program I've been to with this ensemble in years; conducting cannot get worse than what I witnessed here.

COC - Death in Venice, October 19th:

As good as opera can ever possibly get - the overall effect is that of a giant chamber opera. Totally captivating.
 
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Oh, good - I'm going next Wednesday. I thought Aida, last Thursday, was tremendous - the new lead especially. My friend Bruce had a Grand Ring seat, lucky boy, thanks to a COC staff ticket that became available to me a few hours before the performance by sheer luck and through the good graces of my baritone friend. I had no difficulty accepting Aida's staging and sets which were clear and logical and helped focus on the story. Nobody famous in the fancy lounge, though I had a UT sighting of sorts. I'm glad I'm back in Ring 3; the sound's glorious everywhere ... but especially to my liking there.

I'm logged on at a library. I was surprised to see how many free passes to cultural institutions they have available. Now I'm a retiree on salary continuance from my former employer I'll be desporting myself at all of them in due course.
 
Measha Brueggergosman-Roy Thomson Hall

After her performance, Measha told the audience she was surprised we could hear her over her dresses. And what dresses! This woman has stage presence, beauty, a delightful sense of humour and, oh yeah, a wonderful voice. One of my favourite moments of the evening was her rendition of Chanson Triste, by Henrie Dupare; her voice just seemed to get better, richer as she left Mozart and moved her repertoire into the nineteenth century. She blew her encore, a song by Liszt, but recovered nicely, inviting the audience to sing along. She was superb.

Her accompanist, Justus Zeyen, treated us to two piano solos; Schumann and Chopin. Lovely! The Hall is so much kinder to instruments that aren't the human voice.

The hall was half-empty;I wish I could have seen it as half-full, but that is a BARN of a building! It would have made a great evening better had we heard her in a smaller, more intimate setting.
 
Death In Venice

Excellent: And it was fun watching many people, unfamiliar with the story, shift uncomfortably in their seats.
 
Roy G Biv said:
Death In Venice

Excellent: And it was fun watching many people, unfamiliar with the story, shift uncomfortably in their seats.
Click to expand...


Agreed! Stunning! One of the most cerebral (so much is interior monologue) operas I've ever heard, and one of the most honest. By the second act, I was so into what he was was saying, I forgot he was singing.
 
Ditto what TonyV, Roy and Benc said.

As with Brian Macdonald's directing of Madama Butterfly last season, and the recent Aida, I thought Yoshi Oida's restrained stage presentation worked very well. The use of water, for instance, was as effective as last season's much splashier The Nightingale and Other Short Fables. Alan Oke inhabited the role of von Aschenbach. The dancers, too, were perfect.

The previous week I'd been to one of the free lunchtime recitals - tenor Lawrence Wiliford singing Britten's later works ( including a North American premiere of his setting of Burns's Ae Fond Kiss that was more a farewell to life itself than a goodbye to a lover ). And harpist Jennifer Swartz gave us Britten's lovely Suite For Harp.
 
To Lightbox on Tuesday to see La Dolce Vita. Worth the price of admission for the scene where Anita Ekberg slowly descends from a plane, glam, preening, waving, posing for the photographers and engulfed in a sea of camera flashes.
 
Back to Lightbox last night, for the restored Metropolis - a nightmarish film about badass city planners - which includes 25 minues of recently found footage ( especially attractive were restored scenes of the nightclub/red light district Yoshiwara ... ) featuring composer Gabriel Thibaudeau conducting a performance of his highly spirited contemporary score. More or less a full house. Some creepy characters, especially Fritz Rasp as The Thin Man - back in all his glory.
 
Joseph Calleja-Roy Thomson Hall

Maltese tenor, Joseph Calleja, sang a wonderful concert last night at Roy Thomson Hall. This was his rescheduled performance to make up for last year's cancelled concert and it was well worth the wait. What a beautiful, powerful voice he has, capable of filling that huge space with sweet, sweet music! He did Verdi and Puccini justice, and ended the evening with four encores, to the delight of an appreciative audience. I hope he comes back again soon.
 
After seeing the contemporary Canadian ceramic exhibition at the Gardiner Museum on Sunday afternoon - four young designers each with quite different works - I struggled through the Santa crowds to Hart House for the ambitious choral concert ( and a look at the exhibition of Canadian conceptual art from the early '70s in the gallery there ). There was time to get to Victoria College for the next concert, but I wasn't in the mood. So many musical choices on or around campus that day, all free admission. Today I picked up my next free library pass, which is for the Textile Museum, which I'll visit this week.

To the ROM last Friday for a behind-the-scenes look at some of the items going in the Modern Design Gallery in the centre block of the third floor - objects now in storage - and an explanation by the curators responsible for selecting them. The Planetarium is crammed with ROM objects ( furniture, armour etc. ) which they'll have to remove and return to the main building now that the land has been sold.
 
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