Golijov at last The 21C concert of music by Osvaldo Golijov, postponed on account of the January blizzard, finally got presented at Mazzoleni Hall on Sunday afternoon.  There was a varied line up of professional m…

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Room of Keys Room of Keys is a short monodrama written for actor/pianist Adam Sherkin by David James Brock.  It had a short run a couple of weeks ago in a production directed by Tom Diamond at the Nanostage on …

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Bread and Buddha? Clyde’s, currently playing at the Bluma Appel Theatre, is so much more than a play about ex-cons making sandwiches.  There are layers of meaning here that I’m only beginning to unpack. …

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A Night in Venice Toronto Operetta Theatre’s last show of the season is Johan Strauss II’s A Night in Venice with the libretto lightly updated by Guillermo Silva-Marin; who also directs.  It opened on Fr…

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Dance Nation is a grimly hilarious look at competitive pre-teen dance culture Clare Barron’s Dance Nation is a grimly hilarious examination of how cut-throat competition culture affects the lives of children in small town America.  It’s currently playing at Coal …

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Opera Atelier’s Pelléas et Mélisande is a very mixed bag Opera Atelier opened a production of Debussy’s symbolist opera Pelléas et Mélisande at Koerner Hall on Wednesday evening with direction by Marshall Pynkoski and choreography by Jeannette Laje…

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Elegant, straightforward Tristan Marco Arturo Marelli’s production of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde first appeared at the Semperoper in Dresden in 1995.  It was revived in 2024 and recorded for video.  It’s an eleg…

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CD Review | Aribert Reimann: Ein Traumspiel, Wergo Ein Traumspiel was the first opera by Aribert Reimann. It premiered in 1965 in Kiel. It is based on Strindberg’s Ett drömspel (A Dream Play)...

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He's raising Epstein from the dead

CD Review | Stravinsky: Sankofa, The Soldier’s Tale Retold Sankofa takes Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du Soldat and reframes it as the story of a young man of African heritage trying to join the Canadian army in 1914...

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Yiddish Glory again Way back in 2018 I wrote about a CD called Yiddish Glory: The Lost Songs of WW2 (though I don’t think I wrote an actual review of the CD… I should fix that).  Since then various partici…

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Pedal to the Metal On Saturday night I saw a double bill of works, inspired by memories of Hong Kong,  for percussion, electronics and live video at That Art Box black box theatre on Dupont. It’s quite a large,…

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What do I have to do to get some disrespect? The headline is a quote from late in the second half of Zaiba Baig’s double header Kainchee Lagaa + Jhooti: The Begging Brown Bitch Plays which opened on Thursday night at Buddies in Bad Time…

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White Girls in Moccasins Yolanda Bonnell’s White Girls in Moccasins, presented by manidoons collective and Native Earth Performing Arts opened at the Aki Studio on Friday night.  Co-directed by Bonnell and Carmen Alv…

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…and not in a good way… Cyclops is the only satyr play by Euripides to come down to us though I guess whether it’s “complete” is a bit of an open question.  A satyr play was a kind of weird hybrid of com…

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Lieder Nachmittag Thursday’s RBA concert featured members of the Ensemble Studio singing German Lieder.  First up were tenor Angelo Moretti and pianist Kimly Wang with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte. …

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Love Songs Back in the dark days of December 2020 Tapestry Opera and New Music Concerts collaborated on a filmed version of Ana Sokolović’s Love Songs featuring soprano Xin Wang.  Thursday night, a quit…

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Satisfying Theodora from UoT Handel’s Theodora may just be his best oratorio, even if nowadays it’s better known in fully staged versions.  On Friday night it was presented by a combination of the Schola Cantorum, …

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Confluence Concerts 2026/27 The Confluence Concert series for next season was announced last night.  There are eight concerts: August 20th – Side by Side.  The Confluence team will spend a week in workshops with a group…

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Even more Grimm Back in December 2012 I reviewed the 500th performance of Dean Burry’s opera for children, The Brothers Grimm. On Wednesday I went to the 25th anniversary performance in the RBA.  It was pack…

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La Maupin | Opera Q | Opera Canada La Maupin | Opera Q | Opera Canada

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Unusual double bill from the Glenn Gould School The Glenn Gould’s Spring Opera, which opened on Wednesday night, is an intriguing double bill.  It pairs Rossini’s first, and rarely performed, opera; La cambiale di matrimonio with Puc…

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Met Live in HD 2026/27 Here’s my take on what’s coming up in the Met “Live in HD” cinema series in the 2026/27 series.  There are again eight operas in the series.  One is a work new to the Met, t…

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Is it all? – UoT Opera’s The Rape of Lucretia I have a very ambiguous relationship with Benjamin Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.  Britten’s music I love and there’s a pretty dramatic story (albeit nonsense historically) tryin…

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A Mirror is disturbing but compelling theatre Sam Holcroft’s A Mirror opened on Thursday evening at 918 Bathurst in an ARC production directed by Tamara Vuckovic.  It’s a complex play with many levels and multiple places where the …

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Nobody expects… Ryan McDonald My second Walter Hall DMA recital on Tuesday featured one of Toronto’s most interesting, and least predictable, musical talents; countertenor Ryan McDonald.  Having seen Ryan perform as Dido …

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