Reviews 2006
Reviews 2006
✭✭✭✩✩ / ✭✭✭✭✩
by William Walton, directed by Ashlie Corcoran /
by James Rolfe, directed by Michael Albano
Canadian Opera Company, Imperial Oil Opera Theatre, Toronto
December 6-10, 2006
This year the Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio presented the company’s first-ever production of William Walton’s The Bear on a double bill with the world premiere of Canadian composer James Rolfe’s Swoon. The two one-act works (seen December 5, 2006), both comedies about the battle of the sexes, made a well-matched pair.
Walton’s The Bear of 1967 follows the plot of Anton Chekhov’s popular 1888 farce of the same name. Mezzo-soprano Lauren Segal, sang like a Carmen trapped in widow’s weeds, giving lustrous voice to the mourning Madame Popova and dazzling us more with the beauty of her vocal line than the comic excesses of her character. As the bearish Smirnov, baritone Jon-Paul Décosse gave a boisterous performance and sounded much like a younger Russell Braun. Fresh-voiced bass-baritone Andrew Stewart tried hard to look and sound like Popova’s aged servant.
Conductor Steven Philcox turned the sixteen-piece orchestra into a taut comedic chorus mocking the events on stage and making the most of Walton’s use of onomatopoeia and Façade-like musical parody. Ashlie Corcoran’s direction, unfortunately, was more preoccupied with keeping the two principals in constant exaggerated motion than in highlighting the psychological shifts occurring within and between their characters.
Swoon is worlds away from James Rolfe’s Beatrice Chancy, his 1998 tragic opera that became a critical and popular success. In Swoon, Rolfe and librettist Anna Chatterton set themselves the ambitious goal of writing a dramma giocosa on the model of Mozart’s Figaro but set in contemporary Toronto. Even if Swoon falls short of its lofty model, it succeeds so well it is sure to see future productions.
Chatterton’s libretto confronts a poor, young couple, Leah and Roy, with a wealthy, middle-aged couple, Mona and Ari. When Leah goes to work as a maid for Mona, she becomes the object of Ari’s attentions and Roy’s jealousy. Realism gives way to the artifice of eavesdropping, plots and counterplots and, unlike Figaro, we never feel any real sense of danger. Under Michael Albano’s insightful direction, the work ends ambiguously with each couple publicly reaffirming fidelity while privately anticipating future affairs.
Rolfe’s attractive music took three basic forms--quirky syncopation to accompany staccato scenes of plot development, Latin dance when characters reach some accord, and, for passages of reflection, slowly thickening build-ups of orchestral tension supporting beautifully soaring vocal lines.
Sopranos Virginia Hatfield as Leah and Melinda Delorme as Mona and tenor Lawrence Wiliford as Roy all displayed light, agile voices and a gift for comedy while the baritone of Justin Welsh as Ari stood out as impressively rich. Conductor Derek Bate led a thirteen-piece ensemble in deftly creating Rolfe’s precise degrees of sheen, spice and ecstasy.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in Opera News 2007-03.
Photo: Jon-Paul Décosse and Lauren Segal in The Bear.
Lawrence Wiliford and Virginia Hatfield in Swoon. ©Michael Cooper.
2006-12-07
The Bear / Swoon