Romantic - my/maSCENA

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…

Crédit photo: David Mendoza Hélaine

Les Violons du Roy: 40 Years of Musical History

By Justin Bernard on 8 November 2024 Baroque and Early, Chamber Music, Romantic

The 2024-25 season marks the 40th anniversary of Les Violons du Roy. Founded by Bernard Labadie in 1984, the Quebec City chamber orchestra first made a name for itself with concerts and recordings of Baroque repertoire, before tackling a whole range of works from different eras—from classical to contemporary to Romantic—over the past few decades. The programming of this new season is a tribute to the diversity of the ensemble’s repertoire. Les Violons du Roy opened its current season with Mozart quartets and quintets. Next came Bach cantatas with countertenor Hugh Cutting, followed by a touring Handel program with the…

Clockwise top L-R: Teiya Kasahara; Geoffrey Sirett; Andrew Haji; Rose Naggar-Tremblay

Concert Review | Toronto Mendelssohn Choir’s shock & awe Verdi Requiem

By Gianmarco Segato on 29 April 2024 Choral, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Romantic, Toronto

Toronto Mendelssohn Choir under Jean-Sébastien Vallée delivered a hugely affecting Verdi Requiem at George Weston Recital Hall.

Lebrecht Weekly | Bezhod Abduraimov: Shadows of My Ancestors (Alpha-Classics)

By Norman Lebrecht on 23 February 2024 Lebrecht Weekly, Piano, Romantic

In the more sentimental pieces of the Prokofiev set on this new album, Bezhod Abduraimov melts the listener’s heart like spring snows.

Rafael Payare conducts Mahlers 7th Symphony (Photo by Antoine Saito)

Concert Review | Rafael Payare Conducts MSO in Vigorous Mahler Seventh Symphony

By Viktor Lazarov on 19 January 2024 Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Montreal, Orchestral, Romantic

On Jan. 16, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra delivered a sumptuous performance of Szymanowsky’s Violin Concerto n.1 op.35 and Mahler’s Symphony n7 in E minor.

Fazil Say (Photo by Fethi Karaduman)

Newswire | Fazil Say to Headline Pro Musica’s First Cartes Blanches Concert

By Newswire on 10 January 2024 Montreal, Newswire, Piano, Romantic

Pro Musica presents a recital by virtuoso pianist Fazil Say as the headliner of its first concert in the Cartes Blanches series, January 21 at Salle Pierre-Mercure.

Toronto Symphony Orchestra performing Mahler, conducted by David Robertson (Photo by Stelth Ng)

Concert Review | David Robertson Makes Toronto Symphony Debut in Berg and Mahler

By Joseph So on 27 November 2023 Concert Reviews, Orchestral, Romantic, Toronto

Replacing Michael Tilson Thomas this week was American conductor David Robertson, who made his Toronto Symphony Orchestra debut.

N’essuie jamais de larmes sans gants: Certainly not nostalgia

By Nathalie de Han on 10 November 2023 Montreal, Romantic, Theatre, Violin

Reading Jonas Gardell’s novel N’essuie jamais de larmes sans gants, set in Sweden at the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, appealed to Alexandre Fecteau, who has now become a recognized director.

Frankenstein - photo by Kevin Condon

Composer Gregg Kallor – Chatting with Monsters

By Charles Geyer on 11 October 2023 Classical Music, Opera, Romantic, Theatre

Composer Gregg Kallor’s new opera, Frankenstein, premieres at Arizona Opera on Friday the 13th…. Kallor has rightly been commended for his fusion of classical gestures and jazz inflections in works that range from solo piano outings to highly accessible art songs to chamber music to full orchestral works. He also has a strong affinity for literature –notably but far from exclusively for works that smack of the gothic. Kallor is the creator, for instance, of a tour de force one-woman setting of Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” (check Poe’s story — the gender of his psychopathic protagonist is indeterminate), scored for…

CD Review | Concerto Antico: à travers un miroir fumé (Leaf Music, 2023)

By Zenith Wolfe on 6 October 2023 Baroque and Early, CD and Book Reviews, Classical, Orchestral, Romantic

Concerto Antico: à travers un miroir fumé Jaap Nico Hamburger, composer; Orchestre classique de Montréal; Ensemble Caprice Leaf Music, April 2023 Jaap Nico Hamburger brilliantly explores centuries of musical history in a powerful 11 minutes on Concerto Antico. Hamburger suggests in the album’s booklet that just as Nostradamus “stared into a smoke covered mirror to look at the future,” Hamburger himself is “star(ing) into the mirror of our times to look at the past.” Split into five concise tracks, Concerto Antico addresses modern, romantic, baroque, and classical eras through a variety of styles. An airy flute conjures the image of…

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