Volume 29 Issue 5 | April & May 2024

MARTY SOHL HAUI Sondra

MARTY SOHL HAUI Sondra Radvanovsky in Medea, The Metropolitan Opera, 2022 Leech also spoke in the interview about how the Canadian Opera Company Theatre on Front Street offers creative opportunities that the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts cannot encompass. “We want to present stories that haven’t been told on the operatic stage in Toronto. Opera is an expensive business, so a smaller and more intimate space is a good starting place for someone new to opera. … You can really see the sweat on people’s faces and see them get into the story in a way that is hard to do in a larger auditorium. You can feel the impact of the human voice pressing on your chest. It’s a deeply engaging and immersive way of seeing opera. What I want to do in that space is much more of that.” Neema Bickersteth The season’s final show is a case in point: Aportia Cryptych: a Black Opera for Portia White appears to be an example of the COC walking the walk in response to all the recent talk about more diverse stories in opera. “Portia White was a Nova Scotian Black singer who sang opera and would have been an absolute world superstar. However, she wasn’t able to perform on stages because of rules that didn’t allow Black singers and performers to be on stage. So the telling of her story is way overdue. Of course, there are more opportunities now, but you also have to consider if there are still those kinds of barriers in place for Black singers today. Barriers are coming down, but are they coming down quickly enough?” Created by composer Sean Mayes and director/librettist HAUI, Aportia Cryptych runs June 14 to 16, with Neema Bickersteth, Adrienne Danrich and SATE, in the roles of Portia Body, Portia Spirit, and Portia Soul respectively. Michael Zarathus-Cook is Editor-in-Chief of CANNOPY Visual and Performing Arts Newsletter. The interview with Perryn Leech quoted here appears in tandem with a similarly-themed conversation with Hope Muir, Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada, in the Hubs & Huddles series presented by CANNOPY. You can access the full story by visiting www.performingarts.substack. com and subscribing to Hubs & Huddles. BEAT BY BEAT PART TWO: OPERA ROUNDUP This thing we call opera happens in a diverse range of spaces and forms: from plush-seated theatres to barebones settings, and from in-concert presentations to elaborately staged.. Below are some samples to tempt your appetites. You’ll find more in our EVENTS BY DATE starting on page 36, or by searching “opera” online at thewholenote.com/index.php/listings/just-ask. All is Love April 11-14 Imagine a world where “Amour” cannot resist getting involved, for better or worse, in the emotions and choices of everyone else. Opera Atelier’s spring production combines music of the French Baroque with 19th and 20th century repertoire on this theme, in a blended, fully staged program of magnificent singing, ballet and orchestral music. Conductor David Fallis leads a stellar cast including tenor Colin Ainsworth, soprano Measha Brueggergosman-Lee, tenor Jesse Blumberg, and soprano Meghan Lindsay. (Koerner Hall) El huésped del sevillano (The Guest at the Inn) May 3-5 A wealthy young man arrives in Seville seeking adventure, meets a group of gypsies including a beautiful singer and things, of course, get complicated. This 1926 zarzuela with music by Jacinto Guerrero, blends folk elements with the operatic; and spoken dialogue with some lively dancing. Toronto Operetta Theatre, founded by Guillermo Silva Marin, is Canada’s only professional operetta company. They have presented more than 58 operettas, some seldom seen, since their 1985 production of Lehar’s The Count of Luxembourg. (Jane Mallett Theatre) The Hobbit (May 31- June 2) Dean Burry’s critically acclaimed opera The Hobbit was commissioned for a 2004 premiere by The Canadian Children’s Opera Company, and remounted in 2016. With a cast of over 100 children and youth, and accompanied by a chamber orchestra, Bilbo, Gandalf and their companions embark on an adventure replete with goblins, wolves, spiders; a dethroned dwarf-king, a mysterious ring and a terrifying dragon. Suitable for all ages. (Harbourfront Centre Theatre.) Opera Masterpieces with Jonathan Kravtchenko (April 5) presented by Alliance Française features soprano Antonina Laskarzhevska and baritone Bohdan Kirieiev, with pianist Jonathan Kravtchenko and violinist Daniel Temnik, in a program of mainly Mozart and Rossini. Kravtchenko follows it with Tango for Two (May 5 and 17) about a sailor and his soulmate in a Nova Scotia coastal town, with music and libretto by Kravtchenko and the same soloists, in a new concert-opera, “where dance and opera unite in a revolutionary harmony.” (Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre) La battaglia di Legnano (April 7) wraps up VOICEBOX | Opera in Concert 50th anniversary season with a rarely seen Verdi opera set in 1176 against the backdrop of the Lombard League’s triumph over Frederic Barbarossa at Legnano, and so welll-received at its Rome premiere in 1849 that the audience demanded the fourth act be repeated. (Jane Mallett Theatre.) VOICEBOX | Opera in Concert’s own remarkable history – presenting more than 158 operas, 90 of which were Canadian premieres – will be likewise applauded at Opera in Concert’s 50th Birthday (May 11) – with a salon in the intimate Edward Jackman Centre. Iron Chef d’Orchestre (May 21), co-hosted by 15-year Tapestry Opera regular Jennifer Tung and Keith Klassen, is being pitched as a “delicious” mix of classical and opera, “with a little game show, some improv and maybe even some ventriloquism,” and with the audience invited to “participate in the creation process.” Special guests include Krisztina Szabó. (Theatre Passe Muraille). Le Kitchen Party (May 22), another culinary-themed Tapestry Opera affair, features Julianne Gallant who brings infectiously warm Acadian traditional and contemporary compositions to Toronto, with everyone encouraged to join in singing and dancing that will transport you to small-town Maritime Canada: Jacques Arsenault, tenor; Marie Andrée Gaudet, violin; Pierre-André Doucet, piano (Theatre Passe Muraille) 34 | April & May 2024 thewholenote.com

BEAT BY BEAT PART THREE: CHORAL ROUNDUP April and May in Ontario are a time of great choral activity. A whole season of singing together typically culminates in concerts that celebrate a collective love for the music shared and the love of sharing the music. Friends and family in the audiences rub elbows with people who just like the sound of many voices raised together in song, and also people who think that maybe…just maybe…they’d like to do some singing themselves. They “audition” choirs by going to concerts. The WholeNote’s “Canary Pages” is our annual choral directory. The online version includes profiles of many Ontario choirs, with more being added all the time. On page 55 of this print edition you’ll find an index that includes “teasers” for them. Our printed event listings include 75 choral performances, with 56 different choirs named. Online, our online event listings are updated weekly and searchable for “choral.” You can find the online Canary Pages and the updated event listings by visiting thewholenote.com Here are a few samples of what all the singing’s about. Details are in the event listings, starting on page 36! ANNIVERSARIES The Upper Canada Choristers celebrate their 30th anniversary with their “New Beginnings” concert on May 10, conducted by Laurie Evan Fraser.The UCC’s accomplished Latin ensemble Cantemos, pianist Hye Won (Cecilia) Lee, and the Boys’ Choir of Maurice Cody Junior Public School directed by Carole Snow are also featured in the performance, which includes four premieres - one by a grade five student. The Amadeus Choir of Greater Toronto, conducted by Kathleen Allan, celebrates their 50th anniversary season this year. “As we reflect on our five decades of artistic excellence, we recognize that it has only been made possible through the dedication of our community.” On May 15 they are presenting Haydn’s Creation, with soloists Midori Marsh, soprano; Andrew Haji, tenor; Tyler Duncan, baritone; and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Common Thread Community Chorus, conducted by Isabel Bernaus is an 80-voice SATB choir that promotes community and social justice through music. “Sing On!” is their 25th anniversary concert, on May 25, with guest artists Anne Lederman and Ian Bell. “With our diverse and meaningful repertoire, we aim to change the world one song at a time – and have fun doing it!” VOICEBOX | Opera In Concert is celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, and the OIC Chorus, currently directed by Robert Cooper, has sung in nearly every production since 1978. But the chorus itself has also had its own rich musical life, performing with orchestras, at festivals, and in shared concerts with other choirs. They sang the Toronto premiere of Paul Winter’s jazz mass Missa Gaia, and they sang in R. Murray Schafer’s Apocalypsis during the International Choral Festival. VOICEBOX | VOICEBOX | OIC has two performances upcoming, Verdi’s La battaglia di Legnano (April 7) and a salon, Opera in Concert’s 50th Birthday (May 11). The Upper Canada Choristers UPCOMING CHORAL CONCERTS (Greater Toronto Area unless otherwise noted) Apr 13 Healey Willan Singers. Spring Delights Apr 14 Toronto Classical Singers. Morning and Evening - In the Afternoon. Apr 20 Elmer Iseler Singers. Triple Choir Splendour: Sonic Light Apr 20 Toronto Beach Chorale. W. A. Mozart: Requiem Apr 20 Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Singsation: Harmonizing Resistance – The Power of Music in Social Change. Apr 27 Mississauga Chamber Singers. Fauré’s Requiem Apr 27 Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Verdi’s Requiem Apr 28 Achill Choral Society. Illuminare (Orangeville) Apr 28 Metropolitan United Church. Gala Hymn Festival Apr 28 The Edison Singers. Warm Breath of Spring: Folksongs & Spirituals (Niagara-on-the-Lake). Also May 4 (Toronto) & May 5 (Elora). Apr 30 Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Verdi’s Requiem May 02 Serenata Singers. Sing Me A Love Song. Also May 3. May 04 Karen Schuessler Singers. Secrets of Old South (London) May 04 North Halton Community Singers. Spring Concert: What a Wonderful World (Georgetown) May 04 Yorkminstrels Show Choir. Celebrating 50 Years of Song and Dance May 05 Toronto Chamber Choir. The Bard, Reimagined (Kaffeemusik) May 05 Toronto Children’s Chorus. True Colours: Let Your Light Shine! May10 Exultate Chamber Singers. Home in the 6ix–Part 2! May 11 Oriana Singers. A Tribute to Gordon Lightfoot. (Port Hope) May 11 Orpheus Choir of Toronto. The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci May 11 Peterborough Singers. St Matthew’s Passion (Peterborough) May 11 Vesnivka Choir. Spring Concert May 11 VOCA Chorus of Toronto. Earth, Sea & Sky III May 13 West Toronto Community Choir. Singing Across the Generations May 25 St. Elizabeth Scola Cantorum. Vespers Spring Concert May 25 VIVA Singers Toronto. Poetry in Motion May 25 Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. Take the Podium Conducting Symposium May 31 Tafelmusik. A Handel Celebration. Also June 1 & 2. Jun 01 Etobicoke Centennial Choir. Musica del sur Jun 01 Jubilate Singers. Requiems Jun 01 SoundCrowd. Back to Broadway Live Jun 01 Voices Chamber Choir. All-Night Vigil Jun 02 Jubilate Singers. Requiems. (Newmarket) Compiled and edited by WholeNote staff TORONTO CITY OPERA’S MACINA COMPETITION Saturday May 11, 2pm, Church of the Redeemer, Toronto Founded in 1946 by James Rosselino, and transformed by Giuseppe Macina into Toronto Opera Repertoire in 1971, Toronto City Opera was reborn again in 2017. The first annual Giuseppe Macina Operatic Voices Competition, made possible by a generous donation from Anthony Fusco Sr, honours Macina’s legacy of championing Canadian opera artists of tomorrow and culminates in a live public performance featuring eight young Canadian opera singers. Thanks to the generosity of the Azrieli Foundation, TCO will welcome these eight Emerging Opera Artists to their Opera Mentoring Program for each opera in their season. torontocityopera.com/macina-competition thewholenote.com April & May 2024 | 35