1. SUPER VILLAINS: THE BEST OF THE BAD GUYS (AND GALS)
Magneto, Sweeney Todd, Joker, Green Goblin, The Queen of the Night. The list is long and meaty. The Supervillain has always had an attraction. There is something about Lex Luther that is equally as appealing as Superman. Baritone Gene Wu is joined by coloratura soprano Ambur Braid, mezzo soprano Vilma Vitols and bass baritone Stephen Hegedus as they present some of the best bad boys (and girls) of opera and musical theatre. They’ll be joined at the piano by Christopher Mokrzewski. The night also features Noa May Dorn giving an interpretation of Medea. Come out and warm up for Halloween with some of theatre’s best Villain’s in a part of Toronto you’ve always wanted to check out, The Junction. You won’t be disappointed as Against the Grain Theatre kicks off it’s second season in style. Oh yeah…it’s in an antique furniture store. Thursday, October 27, 2011. 8:00pm. Smash Furniture Store, 2880 Dundas St. W. 416-522-6515. $25. Click for event info.
2. SOUNDSTREAMS CANADA: MASSBRASS
A grand celebration in brass opens their 29th season. The world’s greatest brass ensembles, the Stockholm Chamber Brass (Sweden), Simón Bolívar Brass Quintet (Venezuela), and True North Brass (Canada), perform Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, R. Murray Schafer’s mysterious and ritualistic Isfahan, a world premiere by André Ristic, works by Gabrieli, and music from Sweden and Latin America. Sunday, October 30, 2011, 3:00 pm. Starting at $42.00. Koerner Hall. Click for event info.
3. COUNTERTENOR PHILLIPPE JAROUSSKY AND APOLLOS’S FIRE
French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky and Apollo’s Fire, “one of the nation’s leading baroque orchestras,” (The Boston Globe) set sparks flying with Vivaldi’s Four Violins in B Minor for and La Folia (Madness ). Tuesday, November 01, 2011. 8:00 pm. Koerner Hall. Click for event info.
PROGRAM:
Antonio Vivaldi: Allegro from Concerto grosso in D Major, after Concerto RV 511 (arr. Sorrell); Georg Friedrich Händel: “Agitato da fiere tempeste” from Oreste; Orfeo’s recitative and aria “Ho perso il caro ben” from Parnasso in festa; Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in E-flat Major, Op. 8, No. 5 “Tempesta di mare” (Olivier Brault, violin); Georg Friedrich Händel: “Se potessero I sospir miei” from Immune; “Con l’ali di costanza” from Ariodante; Georg Friedrich Händel: Prelude in A Major for solo harpsichord (arr. Sorrell); Chaconne from Terpsichore (Il pastor fido), HWV 8c; Antonio Vivaldi: “Se mai senti spirati sul volto” from Catone in Utica; Concerto grosso “La follia” (Madness), after Sonata Op. 1, No. 12 (arr. Sorrell); Antonio Vivaldi: “Vedro con mio dilettto” from Gusting; “Frà le procelle” from Tito Manlio.
4. OPERA ATELIER: DON GIOVANNI
Opera Atelier’s Don Giovanni returns to Toronto in a glittering new period production designed by OA’s award-winning design team of Gerard Gauci and Martha Mann. Mozart’s outrageous comedy tells the tale of an incorrigible young playboy who blazes a path to his own destruction in a single day. OA’s production of Don Giovanni features Italian conductor Stefano Montanari conducting Tafelmusik Orchestra. Canadian baritone Phillip Addis (who created a sensation as the Count in OA’s 2010 production of The Marriage of Figaro) as the incorrigible Don Giovanni. The production features soprano Carla Huhtanen (Zerlina), baritone Vasil Garvanliev (Leporello), soprano Peggy Kriha Dye (Donna Elvira), soprano Meghan Lindsay (Donna Anna), baritone Curtis Sullivan (Masetto/Commendatore), tenor Lawrence Wiliford (Don Ottavio) and the full corps of the Artists of Atelier Ballet. Sung in Italian with English surtitles. Saturday, October 29, 2011, 7:30 P.M; Sunday, October 30, 2011, 3:00 P.M; Tuesday, November 1, 2011, 7:30 P.M; Wednesday, November 2, 2011, 7:30 P.M. Click for event info.
5. LECTURE: MOZART’S DON GIOVANNI AND THE COMIC THEATRE OF HIS TIME
Mozart’s own day held the Don Juan legend in lower regard, considering it a humble form
of entertainment derived from the commedia dell’arte and popular in the streets.
Even so, Mozart and Da Ponte themselves draw on these more popular traditions in putting
together their opera. This presentation will focus on one aspect of this influence: how low
comedy shapes their portrayal of the libertine himself. Dr. EDMUND J. GOEHRING is Associate Professor of Music, University of Western Ontario.
He is the author of many publications, articles and essays specifically dedicated to Mozart and his contribution to opera. In 2004 he published the book Three Modes of Perception in Mozart: The Philosophical, Pastoral, and Comic in “Così fan tutte” (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Thursday, October 27, 2011 – 6:30 pm. Istituto Italiano di Cultura – 496 Huron St., Toronto
Free admission. Infoline: 416.921.3802 ext. 221 Click for event info.
6. TYLER DUNCAN, BARITONE
Canadian Voices Series: Tyler Duncan, baritone. Schubert: Goethe Lieder; Brahms: Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht; and other works; Ravel: Don Quichotte à Dulcinée; Hahn: Five Little Songs; Vaughan Williams: Songs of Travel. With Erika Switzer, piano. Thursday, October 27, 2011. 8:00pm. Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front St. W. 416-872-4255. $29.50–$49.50 Click for event info.
7. OZ WITH ORCHESTRA
Toronto Symphony Orchestra. Oz with Orchestra. Screening of The Wizard of Oz (1939), accompanied by the TSO; with Emil de Cou, conductor. Saturday, October 29, 2011. 8:00pm and Sunday, October 30 (mat).Click for event info.
8. OFF CENTRE MUSIC: RUSSIA IN TWO ACTS
Act I: Shostakovich, the non-conforming conformist. Act II: Who was Onegin? Shostakovich’s only Cello Sonata was composed in 1934, only two years before Lady Macbeth of Mtensk gave Soviet censors the opportunity to publicity denounced Shostakovich as an enemy of the state. Twenty five years later, while he was being hounded to join the Communist Party, Shastakovich composed the Satires song cycle, setting five dangerously satirical poems by Sasha Cherny. Again, the censors were up in arms. To save himself, he joined the Party – a questionable move that ultimately allowed Shastakovich to keep pushing the compositional “envelope”. From there, our program reminds 100 years to Tchaikovsky’s 1879 opera Eugene Onegin based on Pushkin’s novel in verse. But who was Onegin? A careless, selfish cynic sacrificing the promise of young love and loyal friendship, or a man who could not recognize happiness because it was just too close? Uncovering the mysteries of a character who still resonates with audiences today are soprano Lindsay Barrett, mezzo soprano Erica iris Huang, tenor Ryan Harper, baritone Geoffrey Sirett (OFF CENTRE DEBUT), cellist Winona Zelenka, Inna Perkis and Boris Zarankin at the piano. October 30, 2011 2:00pm. Glenn Gould Studio, 250 Front St. W. 416-466-1870. Click for event info.
Bonus listen from home listings:
9. LISTEN LIVE FROM THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: SIEGFRIED
Thursday, October 27, 2011. 6:00pm. Featuring Luisi; Voigt, Bardon, Morris, Siegel, Terfel, Owens Click for event info.
10. LISTEN LIVE FROM THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DON GIOVANNI
Monday, October 31, 2011. 7:30pm. Featuring Langrée; Rebeka, Frittoli, Erdmann, Vargas, TBA, Pisaroni, Bloom, Kocán Click for event
