A Ménage à Trois at The Gladstone

Volcano and CMC hosted an intimate Ménage à Trois at The Gladstone this weekend in support of the premiere of A Synonym for Love in August. The event featured very special guests Deepa Mehta, Russell Smith, and Andréa Tyniec, and a special sneak peek at the show with soprano Tracy Smith Bessette and music director Ashiq Aziz.

We'll have video of the performances posted soon. In the meantime, enjoy the photo highlights!

Soprano Tracy Smith Bessette and music director Ashiq Aziz
perform an aria from A Synonym for Love

Ross Manson, Deepa Mehta, and Russell Smith getting
excited about love triangles

Ross, Deepa, and Russell address the crowd

Violinist Andrea Tyniec

Russell Smith gives a lesson on love triangles between Surrealists

At The Gladstone

Ashiq's harpsichord...a beautiful instrument to get you in the mood

Photography by Julius Tapper.

Side Note: "Oh dang, it's singing."

A Synonym for Love is Volcano's first opera, so reading this article from the CBC about a Grade 5 class' first foray into the genre really struck a chord (pun!).

 

"This opera has done things for my class that I never expected," [teacher Susan] Reschny said. "In the last three months I have noticed an incredible change in how they address education. First of all, they take risks, they are not afraid of making mistakes, they go for it in the areas that are most challenging for them. They feel that they are a team, they feel that they support each other, and it has gone into every aspect of their education."

Read the full article here.

Early Bird Discounts!

Tickets are on sale for A Synonym for Love and we want to make sure as many people as possible can afford to see it:

DISCOUNTED SHOWS

August 21 & 22
$20 Under 30/Seniors/CAEA/CADA using the promo code OPERA30
$25 General Admission using the promo code GLADADV1

August 23 & 24
$25 Under 30/Seniors/CAEA/CADA using the promo code OPERAHAN
$35 General Admission using the promo code GLADADV2

Click here to book today.

Ticket holders must show ID at the door to claim the Under 30/Senior/CAEA/CADA discount.

Make a Night of It!

One the perks of site-specific performance is spending time in one of Toronto's hottest culture and hospitality venues.

The Gladstone boasts 37 artist-designed hotel rooms and fantastic bars and restaurants. A Synonym for Love ticket buyers can enjoy the best of what the hotel has to offer with pre-fixe dinner packages and room-booking discounts throughout the run of the show.

Pre-order a pre-fixe meal for before or after the performance, and book a room for only $169+tax. Visit the Tickets page of this blog for more details, or go to brownpapertickets.com and book now!

Workshopping @ The Gladstone

Volcano and the CMC got site-specific last week with a week-long workshop at The Gladstone Hotel. We snapped a few pictures of the team exploring the space...the tiniest preview of what's going to happen in August!

Countertenor Scott Belluz and Librettist Deborah Pearson

The Performers: Scott Belluz, Emily Atkinson, and Tracy Smith Bessette

Music Director Ashiq Aziz (CMC), Stage Director Ross Manson (Volcano), and Librettist Deborah Pearson

Big Team, Small Space

Soprano Emily Atkinson

Assistant Directors Marjorie Chan and Laury Leite

Side Note: Baroque Opera and Economic Development

Which came first, the artists or the stable economy?

In an article for The Atlantic, Richard Florida addresses the "chicken and egg" skepticism around the arts and its role in urban and regional economic development — ie: that the arts can only flourish in cities that are already rich, rather than play a pivotal role in job growth and wealth creation — by looking back to the time of Baroque opera.

Citing a study published in the journal Labour Economics (which you can read here), Florida explains that the location of German opera houses built in the 17th and 18th century had a significant correlation to economic growth in later periods:

"Baroque opera houses, [the researchers] found, have a strong relationship to a region's later ability to attract high skilled talent and to grow...The opera houses and the cultural amenity they provide came well before the jobs, in this case by centuries...the talented, skilled high human capital people who locate in places that boast Baroque opera houses are the sources of measurable economic growth."

You can read Florida's full article here.

Just another reason to bring Baroque opera to Toronto. :)

Side Note: Sexuality and Speculation on Clori, Tirsi e Fileno

Clori, Tirsi e Fileno is a love story between a woman and two men, but a cantata written for a man and two women. While casting sopranos in male parts was a common conceit of the period, The Guardian's Tim Ashley points out the sexual ambiguity between character and actor "reveal [Handel's] awareness that sexuality is too fluid to be constrained along normative social lines." Other writers have cited this tension in speculations over Handel's own sexuality.

For more, check out the full article at The Guardian.