{"id":39144,"date":"2016-10-14T14:02:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T18:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=39144"},"modified":"2016-10-14T14:02:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-14T18:02:19","slug":"against-the-grain-opera-pub-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2016\/10\/14\/against-the-grain-opera-pub-night\/","title":{"rendered":"INTRODUCING | Against The Grain Pours A Glass Of Spontaneity At Inaugural Opera Pub Night"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Against
Against the Grain Opera Pub at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club (Photo: Amanda Hadi)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A packed house of opera enthusiasts were reminded of the joys of spontaneous music-making at Against the Grain Theatre\u2019s first edition of Opera Pub, their new series of casual concerts where you can experience music in a different space with a beer in hand and not many rules.<\/p>\n

In most cases, the casual atmosphere didn\u2019t compromise the high-quality singing. It was programming suitable for the mixtape era including music by Rossini, Mozart, Bernstein, Tosti, Puccini, and Gilbert & Sullivan, sung by Against the Grain regulars Clarence Frazer, Stephanie Tritchew, Aaron Durand, Caitlin Wood, John Brancy and Krisztina Szab\u00f3. The night was hosted by charismatic Music Director Topher Mokrzewski from behind the piano.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the spontaneous moments that made this a memorable evening of music. A malfunctioning iPad forced one singer to hold a note indefinitely, to great cheers from the audiences. The crowd responded so instantly to each performance. They clapped to the beat when Frazer hit the blistering coda in \u201cLargo al factotum\u201d from Rossini\u2019s Barber of Seville<\/i>, and laughed along when Durand substituted beer bottle for pan flute in Papageno\u2019s Suicide Aria from Mozart\u2019s Magic Flute<\/i>. It had the feeling of an after party when musicians kicked back, loosened up and playfully made music with their friends. <\/span><\/p>\n

Opera Pub is not Artistic Director Joel Ivany\u2019s response to the question of how to bring new and younger audiences to opera. The near-capacity crowd didn\u2019t look much different than an audience at the Canadian Opera Company, though they were dressed far more casually. Insider jokes about trouser roles and convoluted plots went over well with the audience of enthusiasts. Over at the bar, a few surprised pub regulars seemed to stick around despite the surprising musical menu. But when Mokrzewski asked how many first-time opera-goers were in the audience, only two hands were raised.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Against
Against the Grain Opera Pub with John Brancy (Baritone) and Topher Mokrzewski (Piano) (Photo: Michael Morreale)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Against the Grain has the enormous benefit of being a small, nimble company that\u2019s mostly unrestrained by operational burdens faced by the city\u2019s larger organisations. It doesn\u2019t have to worry about filling enormous halls or keeping up with high overheads. As the company grows and becomes more successful, the challenge will be to maintain its ability to put on an event like Opera Pub without months of planning and a major financial investment.<\/span><\/p>\n

The total budget for the night was the cost of a well-loved piano purchased on Craigslist earlier this week and rolled into its new home at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club. The piano was tuned earlier in the day, but as the evening went on the tuning became wobbly and fuzzy. But that\u2019s known to happen in a pub.<\/span><\/p>\n

Opera Pub by Against the Grain Theatre<\/a><\/span> continues on the first Thursday of each month at the Amsterdam Bicycle Club, 54 The Esplanade. The next edition is Nov. 3. Admission is free.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

#LUDWIGVAN<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No opera house or orchestras required, just a pre-loved piano from Craigslist. AtG launches Opera Pub night, a casual night with plenty of fun, beer, and singing on tap.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":39145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5723,30],"tags":[4370,6430],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2016\/10\/IMG_4548.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-abm","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39144"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39153,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39144\/revisions\/39153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39144"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=39144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}