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Death of Tenor Alain Nonat

By Wah Keung Chan on 4 January 2025 Arts Industry, Obituaries, Opera

La Scena is sad to learn of the passing of tenor Alain Nonat on Dec. 31, 2024 at the age of 82. Alain was a good friend of singers and La Scena Musicale. We include below his official obituary and the last article we wrote on Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques (JAL) organized by Théâtre Lyrichorégra 20 (TL20). We offer our condolences to his family. Every fall, young singers from across Canada prepare for auditions and competitions. The rewards are usually cash prizes and recognition. The set of auditions of the Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques (JAL) organized by Théâtre Lyrichorégra 20 (TL20), however,…

Cast of Koerner Hall's Into the Woods. Photo: RCM/Lisa Sakulensky

Review | Stellar cast enlivens flawed Into the Woods at Koerner Hall

By Gianmarco Segato on 31 December 2024 Concert Reviews, La Scena Online, Opera, Popular Music, Toronto, Vocal

The nearly 40-year-old musical Into the Woods, with music and lyrics by the legendary Stephen Sondheim and book by American playwright James Lapine, has become a staple on North American stages. Its appeal is clearly linked to an ingenious amalgamation of familiar characters from classic fairy tales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Jack and the Beanstalk. Their stories are utilised to deliver a universal message that boils down to “be careful what you wish for”. Koerner Hall has assembled a cast which includes the crème de la crème of Canadian musical theatre in a smartly-staged production by Richard…

Holly Chaplin in the title role of Toronto Operetta Theatre's Countess Maritza. Photo: Gary Beechey

Review | Toronto Operetta Theatre’s Marvellous Countess Maritza

By Gianmarco Segato on 30 December 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera, Toronto, Vocal

As is their tradition, Toronto Operetta Theatre livens up the in-between-Christmas-to-New Year lull with an annual production of a classic, golden age operetta. This year, it’s Hungarian composer Imre Kálmán’s Countess Maritza with its non-stop succession of great tunes and authentic czardas-infused rhythms. TOT can always be relied on to present some of the best young Canadian talent and this was certainly no exception at Dec. 29th’s opening performance. A Maritza that moves TOT’s General Director, Guillermo Silva-Marin is also the show’s stage director and he does a lot with comparatively modest means. Maritza’s country mansion is appropriately decorated with…

Review | Maria is a Complex Cinematic Traversal of Callas’s Last Days

By Gianmarco Segato on 12 December 2024 Film, Opera

For fans of the legendary opera diva Maria Callas, it feels like rumours of a major film based on her life have been swirling for years. As with any heavily-invested fan base, knives were flying before anyone had even seen it and there was a hew and cry when Angelina Jolie was announced to star. Finally the wait is over, and though not perfect, Pablo Larrain’s Maria is a compelling, visually-stunning, auteur take on Callas’s final days in Paris. What immediately stands out is the care taken to replicate Callas’s late 1970s look: outrageous bejeweled capes, appliqued fur coats and…

Photo: Alice Pennefather/Royal Ballet and Ken Howard/Metropolitan Opera

Royal Ballet and Opera and The Metropolitan Opera Join Forces with New Cinema Collaboration

By Newswire on 5 December 2024 Dance, Newswire, Opera

For the first time, the Royal Ballet and Opera and The Metropolitan Opera are joining forces for their cinema seasons on their respective home turfs, giving more audiences in both the UK and US the opportunity to see much loved opera and ballet productions from each world-leading company. The first-of-its kind collaboration will increase the reach of each company to hundreds more cinemas in new markets. As a result of this partnership, RBO’s cinema partner Trafalgar Releasing will broadcast The Met’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia to a larger number of screens in the UK than are currently carrying the Met, while Fathom, the Met Opera’s cinema partner in…

Photo: Tam Photography

Review | Gala Talent: In Search of Vocal Treasures

By La Scena Musicale Team on 27 November 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera

On Wednesday December 20, Opéra de Montréal presented its Talent Gala, featuring 11 finalists in the company’s annual Atelier lyrique entrance competition. Adrian Rodriguez, Justin Bernard and Wah Keung Chan attended this decisive final for the future careers of these young artists. Here are their impressions. Heidi Duncan, soprano AR: A great all-around talent with a beautiful mastery of her middle voice. – Adrian JB: Solid technique, but lacking the vocal personality that makes her stand out. – Justin Tessa Fackelmann, mezzo-soprano Ready to embark on a full-on operatic career. Her large lyric mezzo voice effortlessly filled the acoustically challenging…

Kateřina Kněžíková (Vixen) National Theatre Brno’s The Cunning Little Vixen. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek

Review | An Over Full Cunning Little Vixen at Janáček Brno Festival

By Gianmarco Segato on 26 November 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera

The 2024 Janáček Brno Festival closed on Nov. 24 with a revival of National Theatre Brno’s 2018 production of Janáček’s 1924 opera, The Cunning Little Vixen. Set in Brno’s historic Dagmar Children’s Home for abandoned children, company artistic director Jiří Heřman’s vision is inventive, but insufficiently focused. Too many competing visual and dramaturgical elements distract from the original story’s life-affirming message. At the start, we see period photos of the original care home’s functionalist edifice which are echoed in the clean lines and round window of the set. Children are everywhere, running on and off stage pushing wooden animal toys…

Eliška Gattringerová (Foreign Princess) & Jana Šrejma Kačírková (Rusalka) in Rusalka at Janáček Brno Festival

Review | Rusalka on the verge at Janáček Brno Festival

By Gianmarco Segato on 25 November 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera

Years that end in a four have a special significance in the Czech Republic as a cause to celebrate their national musical heritage with a ‘year of Czech music’. The Janáček Brno Festival therefore extended its umbrella this year to include works by other Czech greats like Antonín Dvořák. His opera Rusalka was seen on Nov. 23 in a production by David Radok that premiered earlier this year at the festival’s hometown National Theatre of Brno. This deeply psychological interpretation exchanged the opera’s traditional, fairy tale associations for an adult story centred around problematic relationships. Czech director Radok, who also…

Sarah Dufresne (Ophélie). Photo: Vivien Gaumand

Review | Opéra de Montréal: Hamlet or Ophélie’s Triumph

By Justin Bernard on 21 November 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera, Romantic

On Nov. 16, Opéra de Montréal (OdeM) took up the challenge of presenting a little-known work from the French repertoire for the first time in its recent history. Of the entire production, conductor Jacques Lacombe was the only one to have performed it before. It sure speaks for the rarity of this Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas. But what a discovery, what an abundance of musical themes, what genius of orchestration! Without analysing the score in detail, we can legitimately be enthusiastic about the saxophone solo at the start of Act II, Scene 2, a gesture as astonishing as it is…

Barbora Perná in the title role of Jenůfa at Janáček Brno Festival. Photo: Marek Olbrzymek

Review | A Divisive Jenůfa at Janáček Brno Festival

By Gianmarco Segato on 21 November 2024 Concert Reviews, Opera

Janáček Brno Festival presented a new staging of Janáček’s Jenůfa on Nov. 20 in a co-production with the Moravian Theatre Olomouc where it had its premiere on Nov. 15. Director Veronika Kos Loulová offers a radical take that includes spoken text as well as some surprising tinkering with the score. The result was both stimulating and provocative, raising the ire of audience members who vocalised their disapproval. Ultimately, Loulová and her all-woman team have created a Jenůfa for today that questions tropes around motherhood and familial relationships. The creative team worked in conjunction with the organisation Úsměv mámy (A Mother’s…

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