If you’re used to a performance of Handel’s Messiah with soloists in formal dress, black-bound scores in hand, you’d have been surprised by the version staged by Against the Grain Opera last weekend at the Opera House.
Not the Four Seasons Centre on Queen West, but the one on Queen East, typically a rock concert venue. That space set a different tone for the production, directed by Joel Ivany and choreographed by Jennifer Nichols.
Directed? Choreographed? Not words you associate with the holiday oratorio. But the company, which pushes the borders of song and opera, wanted to explore what it would happen if we saw the work differently would it, for instance, mean that we heard it differently, too?
This was not a stand-and-deliver performance, but one filled with gesture and movement by soloists and chorus. The four solo singers – soprano Jacqueline Woodley, alto Krisztina Szabó, tenor Isaiah Bell and bass Geoffrey Sirett – were all put to untraditional use they were barefoot for most of the production.
Bell had the first aria, which he delivered not as a solemn reading of a famous piece of music but in a simple, engaging storytelling fashion. That was powerful enough, but speaking words about the low raised up and the high lessened, he began stripping, removing the formality of his tuxedo the action echoed the words.
Not all the movement worked. Sirett, the most physically agile soloist, had far too much to do in the aria “The people who walk in darkness.” Less would have been more effective.
But generally the singing and the actions were moving and powerful. Woodley’s aria “Rejoice greatly” was accompanied by a simple round dance by chorus members. Bell became a Christ figure in the second half, the chorus turning away from him one by one as Szabó sang “He was despised and rejected by men.”
Sirett morphed into a bleating sheep as he joined the chorus for a comical reading of “All we like sheep have gone astray,” and later, in “The trumpet shall sound,” removed his shirt and turned it into a Superman cape for a text that includes the lines “We shall be changed / For this corruptible must put on incorruption.”
The performance blended joy, celebration, worship and playfulness, qualities that caught the audience up as well. We all stood and sang the ringing Hallelujah chorus together, choristers mixed in with the audience, and the final chorus and amen had them with us again for a soul-stirring finale.
Hatching new art
The Hatch season at Harbourfront Centre doesn’t start until 2014, but guest curators Michael Wheeler and Aislinn Rose, who run Praxis Theatre, have announced the participants early.
Since Praxis focuses on social media, the pair have chosen artists who want to look at how the electronic world can be used in the development or performance of new work. Some of the shows are interactive pieces involving the audience.
First up is Legacy, developed by Rob Kempson. Its focus is three women over 65 looking to use Twitter to make a lasting impression, and how social media should be hashtagged. You can follow the trio now on Twitter: @judith_dove, @Joan_Belford2 and @McCroq.
Melissa D’Agostino’s BroadFish brings together folktales, music, improv and motion pictures to explore female stereotypes and myths in our everyday lives, especially the thin line between reality and fantasy, relationships and romance. Have the internet, social media and digital technology caused an evolution or a degeneration of what we believe and feel?
Francisco-Fernando Granados uses The Ballad Of ___B to look at a young refugee’s obsession with opera star Maria Callas.
Finally, Faster Than Night features Vanessa Shaver, Pascal Langdale and Alison Humphrey, the artists of the newly formed Digital BlackBox, who blend live performance with real-time 3D animation and audience interaction to tell the story of a social media billionaire who wants to cheat time and death.
There’ll be more info in the new year at harbourfrontcentre.com/hatch.
Revving up Canadian Stage
Canadian Stage has announced its shows for 2014-15, a season that again relies on dance and movement-based works as much as conventional theatre.
At the Bluma Appel Theatre, look for Kiss & Cry, a dance work from Belgium by choreographer Michèle Anne De Mey and filmmaker Jaco Van Dormael, in which two hands (male and female) stand in for a pair of lovers.
Helen Lawrence, created by writer Chris Haddock and visual artist/director Stan Douglas, mixes theatre, visual art, film and computer images in a tale of urban renewal and revenge. It’s followed by Le Cirque Invisible, a circus piece by Victoria Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin’s daughter) and Jean-Baptiste Thierrée.
Daniel Brooks directs Sharr White’s The Other Place, about a neurologist whose life seems to be falling apart the truth, though, is far more complex. Canadian Stage’s artistic and general director Matthew Jocelyn helms Harper Regan, by Simon Stephens, in which a woman walks away from her family. The Bluma season ends with a return of Robert Lepage’s Needles And Opium, which sold out its run earlier this year.
The season at the Berkeley Street Theatre begins with Jennifer Tarver and Justin Ellington’s (son of Duke Ellington) What Makes A Man, a look at singer Charles Aznavour the show is a collaboration between Necessary Angel and Canadian Stage. Next up is Moonhorse Dance Theatre’s latest version of Older And Reckless, conceived by Claudia Moore and featuring the work of older dancers. Chekhov’s The Seagull, a Crow’s Theatre/Canadian Stage co-pro directed by Chris Abraham, features Yanna McIntosh, Eric Peterson and Tom Rooney.
The Bluma and Berkeley Street are both hosting the biennial Spotlight series, this time featuring works from South Africa. Among the presentations are playwright Athol Fugard’s Nongogo and William Kentridge’s Ubu And The Truth Commission, which looks at apartheid’s scars using the remarkable creations of Handspring Puppet Theatre (Warhorse).
Dance is also part of Spotlight, in two double bills, one by choreographer Luyanda Sidiya and another by Mamela Nyamza.
Finally, Canadian Stage continues its contrasting rep shows during the summer. This year’s Shakespeare in High Park features the comedy As You Like It and the bloody Titus Andronicus.
See canadianstage.com for season details.
stage@nowtoronto.com
