Weekend Roundup, or, Biting off More than I Can Write
"Did you get that reference?"
A great many things had just happened on stage during the "Wet Hot Canadian Summer" burlesque show. So, I wasn’t entirely sure which one Shawna, sitting across the table at Cake Cabaret with an expectant grin on her face, was referring to. Nonetheless, I deduced that it was probably the part where dancer, choreographer, and all-around role model A'Slayna Von Hunt had appeared, bald head and sunglasses, amidst a ring of other performers.
No. I did not get the reference.
"It's Pitbull!" Ah. Okay. In my defence, I do more or less know who Pitbull is, although I don't know his music.
This was last Saturday night. The show marked one of five very different performances I attended over the past seven days. I just never set aside time for actually writing about any of them. Let’s just say this is my best effort at catching up: One burlesque show, one opera (The Tender Land), two lunchtime concerts, and finally one night where I felt like a complete square.
Life is a Cabaret
I was at the burlesque show because of opera, as it happens. A couple of years ago, in a moment of serendipitous inspiration, some burlesque dancers did a show with Opera Revue. Then they did it again, and again, and then I watched them do it five times. That's how I became familiar with A'Slayna Von Hunt and Tucker, both of whom were performing Saturday night along with a slew of other dancers. And you know what? When there's not a fabulous soprano competing for my attention, they are really pretty jaw-dropping.
Cake Cabaret is a new-ish venue on the Danforth that does burlesque, drag shows, and a variety of other events like a Queer Trivia Night I saw advertised this week. It's a very nice spot with cocktails, cake, and an ample dance floor. The music is loud, the crowd is lively, and, while I kept my earplugs in to avoid being overstimulated, the whole atmosphere is very welcoming.
Obviously, the kind of show they put on here is meant to be titillating, which it certainly was. It was also remarkably funny through a series of loosely connected summer scenes, from some campy camping antics, a Friday the 13th inspired striptease, and a slow-motion Baywatch parody that had so many moving parts I could scarcely take it all in. The scale of the show is quite something for the meager amount we paid for tickets.
A Tender Evening - Toronto City Opera
Wednesday night! Toronto City Opera’s production of The Tender Land opened with an interesting directorial decision. Well in advance of Act 1, two of the performers (Jennifer Routhier as Ma Moss, and Daniela Carreon Herrera as Beth) were on stage doing chores. This was repeated with a larger cast of party-goers before Act 2. In each case it lent a nice ambiance and made one feel as if we were intruding on events in progress once the music started. Elsewhere some subtle and not-so subtle means were used to direct our attention to the early attraction and delicate moments between Laurie Moss (Emily Rocha) and Martin (David Walsh). This, I think, helped to ensure the romance didn’t just sprout out of the ground, which was appreciated.
The cast all gave us something different. Ben Wallace as Top broadcast a kind of exaggerated bravado that made the roguish baritone role endearing rather than merely cretinous. Jennifer Routhier as Ma Moss, conversely, seemed to have landed on a more subdued approach in her singing, which I imagine took a good deal of restraint. Her sound fit the character well, and helped to imbue the performance with a sense of suppressed frustration that simmered just under the surface.
This approach also made for a good contrast with Emily Rocha’s rendition of Laurie. More than simmering, she was fairly boiling over with a mixture of hope, ambivalence and worry all plain on her face. Rocha and tenor David Walsh both sang wonderfully, of course, and it was all too satisfying when they finally got around to harmonizing after some of the opera’s more talky stretches of singing. I’m trying to think of a term other than “Tender” for their dynamic, but I fear I am doomed to pun.
It was the large and boisterous chorus that really made the show for me, though, and the TCO ensemble provided a delightful wall of sound. I also found that it suited the generally “folksy” tone of the opera that by and large the show had only the piano (Ivan Estey Jovanovic) for accompaniment. Well, apart from the part with the fiddle.
It wouldn’t be a party without a fiddle, after all.
Lunchtime with the Opera
It’s always a good time when you get to hear a voice like Maeve Palmer’s.1 Over the past seven days I heard her twice, joined on the second occasion by mezzo-soprano Hillary Tufford and tenor Christian Matta. It was a very good week.
Let me take you back to last Saturday at 11:00, for one of Opera Atelier's free summer concerts at St. Lawrence Market. Accompanied by Jo Greenaway on keyboard, she packed a lot into a 30-minute set. First came "Der Hölle Rache", which, Maeve quipped, would sound a bit like the car alarm that had just mercifully cut out. This, along with a bit of Pamina, made for a quick sampler of Opera Atelier's forthcoming production of The Magic Flute. You'd think that signature stunning staccato would provide sufficient vocal pyrotechnics for one morning, especially when they had two more performances to do by 1:30. Yet we returned to dizzying heights with a playful "Glitter and Be Gay" before they finally slowed down to end with a very Pride-appropriate "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."
Round two brought me to St. Andrew's United Church on Thursday at noon, where the trio of Maeve, Hillary and Christian were joined by Helen Bequé on piano in a fundraiser for their upcoming trip to Banff. It was a solid hour of opera standards, all stellar. You can hardly have this kind of “opera hits” concert without a mezzo-soprano singing Carmen, and Hillary’s rich, sultry rendition was a standout. I’m always a sucker for patter before an aria, so enjoyed Christian’s self-effacing admission that, yes, the tenor was singing about love again, although it did nothing to diminish the expressive “Una furtiva lagrima” that followed. Likewise Hillary and Maeve joked their duet “Pur ti miro” was a love song between the two absolute worst people. Personally I’d be willing to forgive all manner of villainy after sounds like that. We were in a church after all.
Boor Out of Sorts - Happenstancers
Occasionally I feel like the protagonist in Bob Dylan’s “Ballad of a Thin Man.”2 Something is happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? Such was my experience with The Two Deaths of Ophelia by the Happenstancers on Thursday night. A polar opposite to my lunchtime engagement, the evening seemed designed to throw any non-expert ear off balance, and speaking for the dilettantes in the audience, I think it accomplished that task.
Lacking any notes, commentary, or clear indication of where we were in a program of challenging contemporary music, I felt lost. But that’s not to say I didn’t find some highlights. I found the preludes, Linda Catlin Smith’s “Stare at the River” and “The River”, to have a somber and contemplative quality. “Love Is” was a potent and punchy piece for four voices, interspersed with sharp jabs of spoken word. “Ophelia Sings”, saw Reilly Nelson blaze through an intense and dramatic rendition of the titular character’s seesawing emotions, and was definitely the high point for me.
It took a lot of effort to keep up. At a certain point, like a drowning soprano (sorry Ophelia), I simply stopped struggling and let the tide pull me under. Selections from Ann Southam’s “Rivers” played by Joonchun Cho on piano did eventually wash me ashore with its bubbling melody. I felt like I had my feet back under me for the explosive, jarring finale of Claude Vivier’s “Bouchara”, in which Danika Lorè’s undulating voice and some literal hammer blows from the percussion section just about knocked me flat again.3 I left the venue on Bathurst Street, about three hours after my arrival, feeling stunned and a bit concerned I might not actually *get* music after all.
Anyway, this is all to say that the “Boor” in my blog’s title is something more than tongue in cheek. I intend to be honest here, and honestly, sometimes I just don't get it. Sometimes I'm the biggest square in the room. But I’m hopeful that if I keep putting myself in the room something will rub off.
I'm still not listening to Pitbull, though.
UP NEXT: Opera Revue! (and others) at the Luminis Vocal Arts Festival
Last seen in this space at A Cabinet of Curiosities 2
Without the “thin” part.
It’s entirely possible I got some those titles wrong.