Behind an unsuspecting program, the Toronto Symphony puts on a show for the eyes and (of course) ears November 9th, 2022 | Roy Thomson Hall BY MICHAEL ZARATHUS-COOK We’re coming full circle: it’s actually refreshing when a program sticks to the old school, the meat and potatoes of the canon, taking a brief break from the premise of new music. While this dynamic Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) program - featuring Holst, Mendelssohn, Rossini, and Coleridge-Taylor - plays it safe, it manages to deliver the best show in town with an adventurous presentation. In my Globe and Mail review of the TSO’s season opener, I sought to put my finger on the pulse of the orchestra’s programming ethos: come for the old but stay for the new. This pulse remains, but it’s perfectly fine if it occasionally skips a beat with retro-programs like this that shift the focus towards the orchestra itself, and to just how much fun there is to be had on stage. With orchestras everywhere clamouring to be as relevant to the emergent now as possible, there’s a new metric to set the posers from the breadwinners: can you serve old recipes on dazzling new platters? On its surface, this program is mostly basic-cable, a random assortment from the TSO’s centennial jukebox. But the flesh-and-blood execution of these slightly anthemic pieces, presents something else entirely. In short, the vibes were immaculate and galactic, from downbeat to finale. This program doubles as a history lesson, a retrospective on the orchestra’s recent history via the vehicle of its previous music director, Peter Oundjian. When Oundjian made his debut, as guest conductor, with the orchestra on October 24, 1998, that program opened with the same La gazza ladra overture as this program. And from the sound of a few particularly enthusiastic “Brava!”, a handful of audience members present that October might have been in attendance for this program as well. Oundjian is a TSO staple, regardless of how long he’s been gone (at his other gig as music director of the Colorado Music Festival) his ability to connect with audiences right from the drop is something special. My own introduction to the TSO in my teens was with Oundjian as conductor, and his knack for delivering little quips within the program - for those who didn’t read the program notes beforehand - is missed. Before Oundjian was Andrew Davis, yet another British conductor whose career is intertwined with the TSO’s recent history. Throughout this week I’ve been listening to the 1986 recording of Holst’s The Planets by the TSO, conducted by Davis and recorded in Kitchener, Ontario. Hearing this piece resurrected again nearly 40 years after that recording, in the same building where the orchestra then might have rehearsed it (the TSO moved into Roy Thomson hall in 1982), is exactly the sort of historical undertone that added an extra kick to the usual concert proceedings. In practice, this program is a string of ten tableaus: Rossini’s overture, Mendelssohn’s Concert Piece No.2, Coleridge-Taylor’s Ballade in A Minor, and the seven movements that make up The Planets. The order I’ve just listed matches the order in the printed program, though that’s not exactly how things unfolded—Oundjian opted to swap the placement of Mendelssohn and Coleridge-Taylor, so the former could dovetail into the intermission. Throughout these ten parts, the energy waxes and wanes but never dissipates. The Rossini overture is a light fanfare with instrumentation that matches well with the other items on the program—a top shelf performance as far as mic-checks go. The intrigue kicks into a more robust gear with the onset of the Ballade. I went down a bit of a rabbit-hole on Colerdige-Taylor and his use of Brahmsian hemiola while putting together the program notes for this item. Here’s a fun tidbit that didn't make it through editing: Coleridge-Taylor formed his baton with wood from a tree that was growing in the yard of Frederick Douglass. The performance was right on target, albeit overshadowed – as much of the first half was – by the mighty good time that orchestra had playing Mendelssohn’s Concert Piece No.2. By far, the highlight of the night came by way of Miles Jaques (basset horn) and Eric Abramovitz (clarinet) tag-teaming for the Concert Piece. Talk about an entrance. The pair showed in matching glittering sequin tuxedos that caught and flung light throughout the hall. Jaques (black tux and blue bow tie) displayed the full range that can be covered by his instrument’s extra keys with virtuoso flourish. Abramovitz (blue tux and black bow tie) was far from an appendage to the basset horn, particularly shining in the improvised cadenza at the bottom of the Andante. The pair came back, following a feverish ovation, for a knives drawn tête-à-tête battle of woodwind wits, which ended with a draw. Even after the intermission that separated Mendelssohn from Holst, the energy generated by Jaques and Abramovitz could alone power the rockets needed to launch into the orbit of The Planets. During his stage banter at the start of the concert, Oundjian had little to say about Planets, perhaps on account of how ubiquitous it is across seasonal programs, how frequently it is referenced in popular culture, and how self-evident the viscerality of its sonic experience. He did however implore us to keep a keen ear out for the Toronto Children’s Chorus & Toronto Youth Choir’s part in the closing stretch of the Neptune movement. Their insertion into the soundscape could not have been more seamless. Offstage, their voices wafted in just barely above the wings of the string section, and they gently guided the intergalactic locomotive that took flight - nearly 50 minutes earlier - back down to earth.

“For the record: not all classical musicians want to cheat on their partners or spouses because the music compels us to.” BY EMMA SCHMIEDECKE *SPOILERS AHEAD* A musical superstar, the performance of a lifetime, and a genius that can’t be contained. Every few years, a film is released about classical music and there are many overused and false stereotypes about the classical genre and its musicians that are utilized. The recently released Tár is far from the most egregious of these misdirected and uninformed dramas, instead, providing us with a more layered and nuanced interpretation of the classical world: part exposé, part top-drawer soap opera. The film provides many angles of analysis, but as a professional classical musician myself, I was most curious about how they would portray the musicians’ personalities and work habits. And whether they would use the same stereotypes so many other “accurate” films about classical music have relied upon to create a sensational piece of entertainment for the big screen. The film stars Cate Blanchett as Lydia Tár, widely regarded as one of the most famous and sought after musicians of our time who has recently been appointed the first female Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic. Right off the bat, the film attempts to legitimise itself by name-dropping as many classical institutions and notable figures as it can, showing the audience that the film has “done its homework” in finding out who and what really drives the classical music scene. Curtis and Juilliard for conservatories, the Big Five Orchestras of the United States, JoAnne Falletta and Marin Alsop for conductors, Jennifer Higdon and Caroline Shaw (interviewed for Issue 9 of smART Magazine) for composers. They’re all there in the first ten minutes of the film and, of course, Lydia Tár has had something to do with all of them. She is portrayed as knowledgeable but haughty, someone who really likes herself and thinks that everyone else should too. Whatever she says goes, and if anyone takes issue with that, they are dispensable. All in all, I think that Blanchett – who is known for her deep commitment to role preparation – did an accurate job in embodying the higher-than-thou persona one would assume of a classical music giant. Though in this era of performance, not many people in her position can get away with that anymore. Blanchett plays the piano herself, instead of relying on cutaways and hand doubles (upon investigation, I found that she studied piano well into her teens), and though she does not play the instrument much in the film, when she does it is indeed her playing. Her conducting, on the other hand, is not convincing – there’s a moment when she slices through the air with the baton as though it is an axe, and she lunges and thrashes around so much I was afraid she’d fall off the podium into the violas. I’ll cut her a little slack; it’s hard to expect someone who has not had musical training throughout their life to convincingly portray someone who has, but many conductors start their conducting education later in life, and it is much easier to teach someone the basic techniques of conducting than a musical instrument, so whomever prepared Blanchett should have stuck around for the shooting of the film to make sure that conducting accuracy made it into the final cut. What I take issue with is the material Blanchett was given to work with, and the storyline at large. The same old stereotypes of classical musicians are there in every setting, from rehearsals to artist interviews, concerts to teaching—only this time dressed up in the costume of an art film. Tár has a commitment to women in classical music, having founded a conducting fellowship for female artists, and a big emphasis is put on the fact that she promotes music by women. This definitely reflects current real-world movements to include more women in the conversation of classical music, but instead of a celebration of female artistry, her actions come back to bite her. She is accused of grooming a former student into providing sexual favors in return for professional opportunities, but when that student ultimately commits suicide because of her entanglement with Tár in the midst of the conductor’s preparation for her debut with the Philharmonic, Tár is investigated and her true colors revealed. She reacts to the news of the student’s passing dismissively, saying that the student was disturbed and obsessed, telling her distraught assistant to “forget about her” because she was not “one of us”. This callous response only adds to the stereotype that musicians are so committed to the dramatic that we are immune to the tragedies of life and can go it alone without considering anyone else’s feelings or circumstances. We will abandon our friends and colleagues once we have gotten what we needed from them, and so we have no true friends or sincere professional relationships. Despite the relentless pace of a life in the performing arts, we in the music world are indeed friends with each other! Yes, we’re all solitary to some degree; it’s a byproduct of being alone for hours on end practising, but we find ways to work together to make the music happen and certainly care about what happens to those around us. Another part of the story that really bothered me was the assumption that, in classical music, there is always an older, famous musician in power giving preference to a younger musician and expects favors, usually those of a sexual nature, in exchange for professional opportunities. They show nepotic favouritism towards the younger artist in question, giving them solo opportunities or finagling the system so that fortune goes their way. This trope is depicted in the relationship between Tár and a new cellist in the orchestra named Olga. Tár is immediately sexually attracted to Olga (much to the concern of Tár’s wife Sharon, also the concertmaster of the orchestra) and in hopes of romantic reciprocation and admiration, gives Olga the unearned opportunity to play Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto. This type of inappropriate conduct certainly happens in classical music, as was underscored by the #MeToo movement, along with the exposure of sexual abuse and harassment within the classical world. But, for the record: not all classical musicians want to cheat on their partners or spouses because the music compels us to. We admire each other’s playing and performance abilities, of course, but hearing a well-played phrase or beautifully executed melody does not launch us into throws of passion that make us want to abandon common sense and jeopardise long-standing relationships. Yes, this is a film and we want to see life’s triumphs and troubles taken to the extreme, but they could have easily found another way to add romantic intrigue to the plot. Perhaps the most nefarious stereotype of classical musicians is that we have “fragile and precarious mental states.” While Tár is being investigated as part of the court case involving the aforementioned student suicide, her personal life unravels due to the budding relationship with Olga, and the pressure is mounting for the upcoming performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. The stereotype is that when the going gets tough, when things don’t go our way, classical musicians completely break down and we are incapable of being rational. This stereotype culminates in a scene during the aforementioned Mahler 5 performance that is completely outrageous, totally improbable, bordering on sociopathic and would have resulted in Tár being carted off to jail instead of just escorted off the stage. With the amount of rejection we face in the arts, sometimes on a daily basis, musicians are some of the most resilient people out there. We know how to take a hit and get back up again because we do it so regularly, and this important skill does not immediately vanish once someone has made it to the level Tár has. Her reaction kind of made me want to shake her by the shoulders, tell her to go talk to a professional, and focus on getting the job done as a true musician would have, regardless of what may be happening in her personal life. This two-and-a-half-hour long film attempts to squish all the intricacies and eccentricities of a life in music into one storyline. I understand that the director, writer, and yes, Blanchett herself, were trying to give the viewer as complete a picture of this character and her situation as possible, but in a film about music, there is not a whole lot of meaningful discussion about the music at all. There is instead an attempt to make an edge-of-your-seat drama out of the small and, in this case, inaccurate details of how classical musicians supposedly live and work. Our lives are not psychological thrillers, far from it, unless one considers hard work, dedication, and intense study the precursors of a dramatic and sensational existence worthy of a movie. What this film tries to explain through the character of Lydia Tár is that classical musicians, by virtue of what we do and how we do it, can’t help but be overly dramatic, unreasonable, irresponsible, and bizarre. Inevitably, these unavoidable traits lead us to being knocked off our self-awarded pedestals - or, in this case, conducting podiums - into reality, and this couldn’t be further from the truth. Go ahead and rhapsodise on what it’s like to be a misunderstood genius in classical music, Lydia - I have a rehearsal to get to.

Attention to detail manages to bring fresh perspectives to a classic October 20th, 2022 | Four Seasons for the Performing Arts | Toronto BY DR. JANE FORNER The Canadian Opera Company (COC) revival of their Carmen production presents a captivating performance, offering a superb ensemble that brought real emotional energy to the canonic opera. Starring as the ill-fated central couple (Carmen and Don José), Rihab Chaieb and Marcelo Puente brought a convincing flair for sensitive acting and vocal flexibility. This was complemented by a well-rounded supporting cast and chorus and a lively orchestra under Jacques Lacombe’s baton, who consistently brought out subtle contrasts in colour and tempo. After a storming prélude, everything came together stronger with each act, gaining as it went along. By the end of Act II, the ensemble had blossomed, offering a depth that had been lacking a little at the start. The children’s chorus, for instance, were very sweet, but too well-behaved – lacking a little in the adorably chaotic energy that “street urchins” are bound to provide. After their excellently choreographed line-march at the front of the stage, they somewhat meekly surrounded the adults. Whereas the women’s factory fight fizzled with confrontation, the children weren’t quite bothersome enough. Then again, I am biassed from happy memories of my first operatic experience, which, as for many singers, was being in the children’s chorus in a production of Carmen, in my case at the Grand Theatre in Leeds, England, with West Riding Opera, when we would run around the actual streets to smear ourselves with mud and moss as a prelude to causing often genuinely violent havoc on the stage – thoughts and prayers to all operatic chaperones the world over. Especially well-controlled on their entrance in Act I, the choeur des cigarières impressed: Lacombe took the 3/8 andantino slower than expected, yielding a mesmerising effect from the chorus who presented a striking control on Bizet’s seductive ascending lines, mimicking the swirling of rising smoke that entrances them (la fumée qui vers les cieux monte) just as the soldiers fixate, voyeuristically, on the women. As an aside, I was curious about the decision to translate bohémien[ne] as “Romani” throughout. To be sure, what has typically been used in English is generally considered an offensive slur. I wondered if this has become common practice, rather than simply using the Anglicised “bohemian,” though the latter wouldn’t capture the more multifaceted implications of the French. I won’t recount here the long historical rabbit-hole I descended down over the past week tracing the etymologies and nineteenth-century literary uses in both languages. However, it does call attention to the politics of translation that we might not always think about as audiences, but which those in the surtitle (and musicology) game confront regularly. Regardless, it’s a welcome change of direction – it’s certainly not my experience that omitting “gypsies” altogether has become mainstream (I noted the continued use in the Met Opera’s 2019 Carmen, for example), but it is certainly a topic that would benefit from further consideration. Chaieb’s “Habañera” was confident and assured, although even more rubato would have been welcome at times. It struck me as really quite a casual scene, staged to downplay rather than emphasise any seductive implications, with Carmen positioned very much among the crowd of cigarières rather than distinct from them; there are no excesses of choreography, and Don José is not spotlighted (figuratively speaking) as the “recipient” of her advances. Productions quite often stage it like that, similarly to Musetta’s “Quando m’en vo” in La bohème – as a diva’s sensual showstopper, where surrounding action pauses and all focus is on the female character’s body and voice – but that tends to misread the context of Carmen’s song and dance here, as Susan McClary points out in her classic study of the opera: Although a few soldiers look on, the women do not dance for their benefit: they are intruders, tolerated only because of the power they wield. Consequently, when Carmen enters it is not as a femme fatale, but as a member of this community… Unfortunately, Don José witnesses her dance and systematically misreads all its signs. (1992, 144) I found Chaieb’s acting captivating throughout, but especially so in portraying the nuances of Carmen’s emotions, her signature mix of confidence and fiercely guarded sensitivity that causes her to feel love, betrayal, and jealousy so deeply. In the séguedille, she did a good job of coming across simultaneously bored and sexy – again, like in the “Habañera”, not an overblown performance, preferring to play with the elasticity of Carmen’s alternately scale-like and disjunct melodies. At times I simply wanted more volume and heft behind the sound, but as Act II progressed, this developed to match Puente’s strong tenor, whose powerful and rich voice impressed consistently, particularly shining in the Act III finale. As was the case with several of the cast, I raised a slight eyebrow at some of the French diction in the spoken dialogue, but that aside, Puente gave a splendid performance. The word that was at the front of my mind throughout the evening and in the days following was realistic – not operatic verismo, but that Chaieb and Puente suggested an authentic couple in turmoil; their duet at the culmination of the second act was deeply moving. I enjoyed Joyce El-Khoury’s Micaëla, finding her a stronger presence that didn’t play too much into the stereotype of the meek, virtuous country girl, though vocally she shone much more in the latter half, receiving deservedly rapturous applause for her rendition of the Act III aria (Je dis que rien ne m’épouvante). Alain Coulombe was a convincing and solid Zuniga, while replacing Arianne Cosette, Midori Marsh absolutely sparkled as an energetic and playful Frasquita, her high notes ringing especially well through busy textures with a crystalline timbre, and she showed an impressive control and power that brought this secondary role alive. Along with Queen Hezumuryango, replacing Alex Hetherington as Mercédès with equal aplomb, the two made a delightful pair onstage, and I hope to see a lot more of them both in the future. A memorable highlight was Lucas Meachem’s almost parodic performance as Escamillo – a wonderfully funny stage presence that, after a while, had the audience laughing even at the faintest strains of the Toreador March, which ended up functioning as a kind of comic leitmotif (that is, up until its haunting echo as the chorus sings while Carmen is stabbed). His entrance in Act II was a suitable nod to the 1930s Hollywood associations of the production, though sauntering onstage amid adoring fans in sunglasses and a glittering jacket, I would have placed him a couple of decades later, more as Elvis than an off-duty Toreador; indeed, it’s only in Act IV as he entered for the bullfight that he really took on the traditional matador guise. I could have done with far fewer blinding camera flashes in the café scenes, though – the first minute or two achieved the desired impression of paparazzi adulation, after which it became more agonising than effective. Meachem offered a self-satirising performance of the macho tropes that dominate in Carmen, and swagger was complemented by rich and assured singing throughout. Perhaps a little more attention could have been paid to stagecraft – especially given the dramatic weight that both Puente and Meachem lent to their characters throughout, their “duel” was underwhelming, Don José’s knife seeming more appropriate for peeling potatoes than stabbing… I found the second and fourth Acts the most impressive from a design perspective, particularly the attention to small details in Act II, where some non-singing roles at the beginning weren’t just plonked anywhere on stage as decoration but placed strategically – a woman languishing in a dark alley in the corner, lit only by a warm halo, an almost cinematic focus which helped to bring the whole scene to life. I did wonder about the setting, however: not being already familiar with the COC’s production, I was confident after a while that it was set in roughly the 1920s or 1930s – it’s all in the hats! – but it struck me as odd that there was no mention or discussion of this in the program. Moreover, I certainly didn’t pick up on the Cuban setting; a pre-performance video with Joyce El-Khoury (singing Micaëla) on the COC website offered some explanations, but I wouldn’t say there was all that much that screamed Cuba rather than Seville or Andalucía. The stage screen, its array of marbled warm colours imitating something between faded walls of once-grand golden palacios and a Rothko painting, was completed with graffiti in its lower segment, but this modern touch seemed out of place; when the graffiti was transferred to the stage itself in Act IV – adorning the walls of the bullring – it was good to see it had some use, but it implied an urban grittiness that didn’t match the rest of the production aesthetic. Act IV brought a juxtaposition of spectacle and starkly effective simplicity; the former, from the staggered procession of the chorus – as city folk, toreadors and their assistants – through the audience, eventually forming a cheery crowd. Sitting quite far forward in the stalls, and focused on the jolliness on stage, I didn’t notice, until my seatmate nudged me, that Don José was flailing around in the aisle right beside us. Putting actors among the audience can go either way, sometimes clichéd, but the decision here worked very well to place us inside Don José’s perspective: with the tableau disrupted, I watched the stage differently, seeing the effect of his possessive watching of Carmen more immediately (it helped, of course, that he was so physically close), if not quite through Don José’s eyes, because there isn’t all that much that could convince me – even in Puente’s moving portrayal – to sympathise with the predicament of his own making. Contrasting with the excitement of the chorus’ appearance was the set design for the final act, whose undoubtedly impressive feats of construction were masked by a remarkably un-busy aesthetic, dominated by clean lines, bold streaks of colour, and bifurcated into two levels by way of a raked spectator stand that had the chorus high up and almost out of view watching the bullfight. I found this an extremely successful use of depth and line: filling up the dead air conversely created the impression of more space. Dividing the stage diagonally, moreover, meant that Carmen and Don José’s final altercation plays out underneath, away from anyone else to see. It’s a visible and painful reminder not only of domestic violence hidden out of sight behind closed doors, but also to society’s complicity. While this isn’t necessarily unique to this production, something about the fact that the chorus are not actually offstage but so visibly close to Carmen and Don José, sitting merely a few metres above, drives home their blissful ignorance of the crime going on below their feet, while the audience witnesses the full escalation throughout, from tugs and shoves during an arrest to Carmen tossed across a table, to a slap, to the inevitable ending. l’ll never not want Carmen to turn the tables on Don José at the end, particularly with my feminist musicology hat on, but failing that, this production’s attention to detail at key moments still manages to bring fresh perspectives to a classic. Carmen is playing at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts until November 4. Dr Jane Forner is a musicologist and opera scholar researching the politics of gender, race, and language in contemporary opera. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. jforner20(at)gmail.com | Twitter: @FornerJane

Tony Taylor Toronto artist with a unique take on portraiture WORDS BY TASH COWLEY | QUÉBEC CITY | STUDIO SESSIONS STUDIO SESSIONS NOV 18, 2022 | ISSUE 4 Tony Taylor "With A Little Help From My Friends" by Tony Taylor En route to my favourite butcher in Toronto’s Kensington market this past summer, I noticed a loose line forming along the sidewalk. Would-be buyers pointing, chuckling, and then eventually buying one of Tony Taylor’s wood-block prints from his pop-up kiosk. The most striking feature of his style is perhaps how swiftly it explains itself to the curious observer: various icons of pop culture are depicted with their heads replaced with that of an animal. It’s in the succinct pairing of various heads, with variously famous bodies, that Taylor’s wit—and artistic flair—comes through in vivid colour. This unusual approach to portraiture is (literally) backed-up with an unconventional wooden canvas that make the artworks very hangable.

Kent Monkman At The ROM How the celebrated artist appropriates Western styles of portraiture for new perspectives on Indigenous identity WORDS BY ROWAN RED SKY | TORONTO | VISUAL ARTS SPACES FEB 26, 2023 | ISSUE 11 From "Being Legendary" - Courtesy of the ROM Kent Monkman’s recent exhibit, Being Legendary , recontextualizes a variety of surprising objects from the Royal Ontario Museum’s collections, alongside paintings and sculptural art pieces made by the artist’s studio. A member of Fisher River Cree Nation, Monkman uses the framework of Indigenous cultural specificity to call attention to the way historical narratives of Canada have been written from a settler-colonial perspective. This dominating perspective has been cloaked as objective and universal for centuries by suppressing Indigenous peoples’ histories. Drawing inspiration from Cree story-telling traditions such as âcimowina – stories that carry knowledge – Monkman challenges Euro-Canadian narratives of history and amplifies Indigenous stories and knowledge from within the museum. As with his 2017 exhibit, Shame and Prejudice: A Story of Resilience , which sought to reinsert Indigenous voices into the past 150 years of Canadian history, Monkman appropriates and subverts Western art historical conventions...

Mikhail Baryshnikov How can something as active as dance be contained in a still? WORDS BY TASH COWLEY | TORONTO | LIGHTHOUSE IMMERSIVE SPACES NOV 28, 2022 | ISSUE 7 Mikhail Baryshnikov by Annie Leibovitz Dance is a medium of action, and is perhaps one of the most difficult art forms to capture in photography. Looking for the Dance, Mikhail Baryshnikov’s latest exhibit in partnership with Lighthouse Immersive, takes up the task of expressing movement in photography. Beginning September 18th, Looking for the Dance will be presented at One Yonge Street in Toronto, alongside select images from his previous series, Dance This Way , and Dominican Moves . For this Canadian collaboration, the acclaimed dancer, actor, and photographer has put together a breathtaking display of his quest to capture dance in transformative moments. It is a document of his journeys, from exploring the milonga and tango of Argentina, to the South Indian Odissi styles. In his own words, “On these journeys, more than the shape, I am looking for emotional impact through colors, gestures, and steps of the dance and dancers.” Despite being stills, the photos are vigorously alive. After the success of the exhibition, inaugurated in 2013 at the Contini Art Gallery in Venice, and its subsequent presentation at the Cortina d’Ampezzo location, Baryshnikov’s series makes its way to Toronto.