
Opera By Request — Bach: Coffee Cantata & Peasant Cantata. Soprano Michaela Chiste, tenor Cameron Mazzei, baritones Nathan Dyck and Taylor Gibbs. Feb. 1, 2025 at the Crown and Press Café, Hamilton, ON.
This past weekend (Feb. 1), Toronto’s Opera by Request headed west to perform Bach’s Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet, BWV 212, the Peasant Cantata, and Schweigt stille, plaudert nicht, BWV 211, aka the Coffee Cantata, in a Hamilton café. The same double bill was performed in Toronto at the College St. United Church on January 25.
The Crown and Press, a café/art gallery, was the eminently suitable setting for the performance. As a venue, it’s both spacious and intimate, offering table seating along with a few rows of chairs near the stage area at the back. Paintings and other art objects are displayed in the same area, adding to the ambience.
A quartet of young singers — soprano Michaela Chiste, tenor Cameron Mazzei, and baritones Nathan Dyck and Taylor Gibbs — debated the new governor, and then the addictive nature of coffee in engaging performances.
About the Performers
The singers brought both the music and the humour of Bach’s secular cantatas to life with a palpable sense of fun.
Tenor Cameron Mazzei is Toronto native. He’s studying towards his Diploma of Operatic Performance at the University of Toronto. That follows a Masters in Music Literature & Performance from Western University, and a Bachelors of Music Performance (hon. Voice) at Western University. He’s performed a variety of roles at the UofT and Western.
Taylor Gibbs, baritone, grew up in Stouffville, Ontario, and is a graduate of York University. Toronto audiences will recognize him from his frequent performances with Toronto Operetta Theatre and VOICEBOX: Opera in Concert, along with other Opera by Request productions. He has also performed with the Orpheus Choir, and continues his studies privately with Jason Howard.
Baritone Nathan Dyck is a native of Manitoba, and his performance history includes work in choral music, musical theatre and opera. He toured the province with the Manitoba Underground Opera as Papa Bear in a children’s musical. Nathan earned a Masters in Vocal Performance and Literature at Western in spring 2023, and is based in London.
Soprano Michaela Chiste comes from Okotoks, Alberta, where her studies and performing life began in the world of musical theatre and dramatic arts. She made the switch to classical singing in 2013, and completed a Bachelor of Music at the Unversity of Alberta in 2017, followed by a Master’s in Vocal Literature and Performance at the University of Western Ontario. She has performed as a concert soloist and recitalist across Canada and internationally.
The Performances
Bach’s secular cantatas are full of humour and sly social observations, and all four of the performers brought both dramatic and vocal skills to the table. First up was The Peasant Cantata, performed by Michaela Chiste and Baritone Nathan Dyck.
The full title, Mer hahn en neue Oberkeet, translated as ‘We have a new governor’, reveals the focus. A farmer and his wife Mieke laugh about the tax collector, and gossip about the new governor’s wife. They finish by cheering on the new official — in truth, hereditary lord Carl Heinrich von Dieskau, chamberlain to the Elector of Saxony. The work was debuted at his 36th birthday celebrations in 1742. While the work, naturally, ends by celebrating Dieskau, it’s the flirty relationship between the couple that provides the humour.
The duo was nicely matched as vocalists, and the duo passages were a highlight. A well crafted sense of character enlivened the push and pull of a married couple’s relationship throughout the piece.
For the Coffee Cantata, Cameron Mazzei provided an engaging Narrator, with Taylor Gibbs as Schlendrian, and Michaela Chiste as his caffeine-addicted daughter Lieschen. It’s Bach at probably his most lyrically accessible — a parent complaining about their child, and coffee as an all consuming love.
On that note, diction was excellent in all performers, with special props to soprano Michaela Chiste and her clear, soaring soprano that made every word understandable. Mazzei has an impressive high register, and a charismatic stage presence — not that any of the four were lacking in that respect.
Nathan Dyck reappeared near the end as the first hapless, then pragmatically accepting future husband of Lieschen, captured by her father after a brief search through the café. Dyck and Gibbs both have a nice feel for comedy, along with a gift for juggling the heroic and funnier moments in the music well.
The cantata ended with its highlight, Die Katze läßt das Mausen nicht (The Cats don’t leave the mice alone..) where the trio sing together as they all come to the realization that coffee is life.
With its dimensions and a lot of hard surfaces, as a venue the café tends towards loud, and the music filled the space.
Pianist (and OBR music director) William Shookhoff provided able accompaniment throughout, including several solo passages ably acquitted on a whitewashed upright piano, complete with a classic, slightly tinny upright timbre.

Final Thoughts
The venue was nicely full with a crowd that was mixed in age from 20-somethings to the usual 55+ suspects, the mood casual to midwinter chic — a cross section of the cultured and the hip that bodes well for the future of this kind of performance.
Other companies like Against the Grain and Opera Revue have taken opera out of the concert hall to great success. This is just further proof of the viability of this kind of venue as an enduring alternative for classical music performance, and not simply a big city fad.
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