The Canadian Opera Company is opening it’s Spring season with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor; a dark tale of forbidden love, deceit and mental illness with the brooding atmosphere of an Emily Brontë novel but set to a lush, beautifully sung Italian score.
Continue reading Review: Lucia di Lammermoor (Canadian Opera Company)
I’m a ‘90s kid. As a teenager I’d experience this ridiculous giddy excitement whenever I’d visit downtown Toronto and make my requisite trips to Sam the Record Man on Yonge and the MuchMusic building on the corner of Queen and John which was a sort of Mecca for my Canadian teen self.
Sadly, nowadays Sam’s is history, the iconic neon sign gone, I download my music and I couldn’t be more blasé when passing by the CTV-Bell-Globe media centre that now occupies the corner of Queen and John. If you can relate to any of the above sentiments then you might enjoy Big in Germany.
Continue reading Review: Big in Germany (Ten Foot Pole Theatre)
In November of 2008 when Barack Obama was elected president of the United States, political pundits openly mused about entering the era of a post-racial America. Perhaps they, like many of us, were swept up in the overwhelming joy and almost foolhardy optimism of the “hope” and “change” promised by the Obama campaign.
In RACE, the new play by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright David Mamet, currently presented in Toronto by Canadian Stage, we see that America hasn’t really moved past the issue of race at all but the dialogue has certainly shifted and evolved. Continue reading Review: RACE (Canadian Stage)
Mozart’s The Magic Flute is one of the most popular and widely performed works in the opera canon. It’s no surprise that Opera Atelier, Toronto’s resident company specializing in Baroque operas, is closing their 2012-13 season with a revival of their production of the opera; their fourth Flute in 22 years.
The opera tells the story of Prince Tamino and his mischievous, wise-cracking companion, the bird catcher Papageno. The pair are set on a quest by The Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter Pamina who has been abducted by her arch nemesis Sarastro.
Back in 2010 Victoria-based Atomic Vaudeville took Toronto by storm with their quirky hit musical Ride the Cyclone at the SummerWorks Festival and again in 2011 when it was subsequently picked up for a run at Theatre Passe Muraille. The company returns to the Passe Muraille stage to present their follow-up entitled Legoland.
Described as a prequel to Ride the Cyclone, Legoland tells the story of Penny and Ezra Lamb; a sister and brother duo who grew up in a hippie commune outside the town of Uranium, Saskatchewan. When Penny leads Ezra on a road trip across the continent to meet her pop star idol the two are eventually arrested for drug trafficking after selling Ezra’s ADHD medication. Continue reading Review: Legoland (Atomic Vaudeville/Theatre Passe Muraille)