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Visit La Scena Musicale Online Reviews. [Index] Critiques de La Scena Musicale Online
May 12th 2001,
Gaynor Jones, mezzo-soprano David Pomeroy, tenor Joseph Kaiser, baritone Kenneth Baker, bass Albert Krywolt, Music Director Robert McQueen, Director Kevin McAllister, Designer Dean Burry, Composer In sales, market research is everything — in other words, know your consumer. The Canadian Opera Company was wise to do some consumer-testing of its brand-new children’s opera, The Brothers Grimm, on a young audience last Saturday, prior to kicking off its annual tour of Ontario schools. The Company is to be commended for its ongoing efforts in audience development from the ground up, by offering drastically scaled down and highly mobile productions of works that typically appeal to school children, performed by COC Ensemble members. This year, the tour is supported by Enbridge Consumer Gas and the McLean Foundation.
Why Brothers Grimm? "Everyone knows the fairy tales, but few know much about the brothers themselves", responded Burry. "I decided to base the opera on all real people — the brothers of course, but also Brentano, who is a poet and scholar himself, and Fraulein Wild and Fraulein Viehmann." The opera revolves around the writing of three familiar Grimm tales, that of Rapunzel, Little Red Cap, and Rumplestiltskin. Burry ingeniously intersperses sung sections with spoken dialogue, making it more accessible to children unfamiliar with the operatic idiom. The vocal writing is typically "modern-operatic" without being difficult or alienating, expertly woven to plenty of stage business, a must if you want to capture an audience raised on TV, video games and action movies. On this occasion, the several dozen kids sat on the floor, transfixed at the happenings onstage throughout with very little fidgeting — a very good sign! Much of the credit goes to the team of energetic singing actors drawn from the COC Ensemble (David Pomeroy, Joseph Kaiser, and Shannon Mercer), augmented by Kenneth Baker and Gaynor Jones from the chorus, ably supported by the deft piano of Albert Krywolt. All with good voices, they sang and acted with verve and excellent comedic timing, particularly Joseph Kaiser and David Pomeroy as the Grimm brothers. Judging by the reaction of the children during the show and in the Q&A afterwards, the COC might just succeed in nurturing a taste for opera among the audience of tomorrow. For information about the tour schedule, contact the Canadian Opera Company at 416-363-6671. Visit La Scena Musicale Online Reviews. [Index] Critiques de La Scena Musicale Online |
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