Oh, big city folk, let’s count our blessings, not the least of them being our fine concert spaces. Oshawa may only be 54 km from my front door, but it’s a world away in terms of what it can offer a fine young soprano and a great symphony orchestra.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
I made the trek on Saturday night to hear American soprano Angela Meade make her Toronto-area début in Richard Strauss’s gorgeous Four Last Songs. Also on the programme was Anton Bruckner’s “Romantic” Symphony — the Fourth.
It’s a programme that repeats at Toronto’s Koerner Hall on Tuesday night — and is well worth checking out for anyone not going to the Toronto premiere of Peter Sellars’ Tristan und Isolde at the Four Seasons Centre.
The Ontario Philharmonic and their music director Marco Parisotto are celebrating the fact that they now have a permanent home in Oshawa’s historic Regent Theatre. It is an unprepossessing Edwardian box right downtown that is primarily used by Durham Region’s University of Ontario Institute of Technology.
Even a quick glance around the room reveals several significant acoustic impediments to a fine unamplified concert: thick velvet drapes along the back wall, recording studio-style acoustic panels glued over top the original plaster side walls, and a narrow, deep proscenium stage bedecked with thick curtains to hide the flies and wings.
Predictably, the resulting sound is as dry and brittle as unbuttered Melba toast, akin to the last, best, monaural sound recordings from the late-1940s.
An array of microphones amplifies various sections of the orchestra so that the audience can hear a proper balance. Although I don’t go to a lot of amplified concerts, this was the best use of the technology I had ever heard. It was only in the Bruckner, when I heard flute sounds patently not coming from where the flutes were sitting that I clearly knew the sound was doctored.
(I had asked at intermission if the sound was amplified, so it’s not like I was guessing. Apparently it took days of fussing with the audio technician to get the sound right — time clearly well spent.)
The concert revealed what was already amply clear at the Ontario Philharmonic’s season-opener at Koerner Hall in October: This is a fantastic orchestra being led by a first-rate conductor who needs to be far better known in his home metropolitan area.
Parisotto has a wonderful command of whatever music he tackles. He is a confident, expressive conductor who doesn’t use any more movement than is absolutely necessary.
To his credit, he has also assembled a best-of ensemble, featuring musicians who normally play with the Toronto Symphony, Canadian Opera Company and National Ballet orchestras, among others.
Bruckner’s long, long musical developments need a steady hand that also can take a long view of where the music is going. Silences are as important as the loud swells. And Parisotto revealed himself to be the master of all he surveyed.
He also didn’t hold back with the Strauss Lieder, pushing Meade to blow our hair backwards with her great, big voice.
It took Meade one song to truly get warmed up and comfortable with her surroundings. But once there, she displayed all the ingredients of a great operatic singer, including a solid grasp of the dramatic arc of each piece.
Although the Strauss songs are operatic in their sweep, the audience was given the opportunity to jump roaring to its feet with a Verdi encore: “Pace, pace…” from La forza del destino.
Set loose in the generous acoustics of Koerner Hall, this should make for a rousing, memorable night of music.
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
