operaramblings

The COC’s revival of Cosi fan tutte is still a visual feast and a few deft updates and some terrific singing make it worth seeing, even for the third time! My full review<...

Steve Reich turned 90 on Saturday and on Tuesday evening Soundstreams staged a celebratory concert at Koerner Hall. It began with an unusual performance of Clapping Music. Steve Reich had been filmed in New York playing one part. That was screened while Russell Hartenberger played the other part live on stage. It was simple, effective and very apt.

I sat down with mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska this morning to talk about her upcoming show at Koerner Hall with guitarist Sean Shibe. It’s a touring show that’s being seen in multiple cities across Europe and North America and Ema was very clear that she sees it as an “experience” and “not a song recital”. So let’s take a step back and look at how it came into existence and th...

Friday lunchtime saw the annual appearance of the UoT Opera programme in the RBA lunchtime series. All the Master’s and PG Diploma students were on display for a series of semi-staged excerpts from Mozart operas directed by Mabel Wonnacott and her students.

Rohinton Mistry’s novel A Fine Balance is a complex, six hundred page long saga about events during the 1975-77 State of Emergency in India. Turning it into a coherent, stageable play is a considerable feat and Anosh Irani has managed that; even if the result is a long evening at the theatre. It’s actually pretty clever. Besides the ruthless elimination of minor char...