{"id":4038,"date":"2012-05-27T06:36:12","date_gmt":"2012-05-27T11:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=4038"},"modified":"2012-05-27T06:36:12","modified_gmt":"2012-05-27T11:36:12","slug":"today-two-very-different-takes-on-french-art-song-from-continuum-and-neapolitan-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2012\/05\/27\/today-two-very-different-takes-on-french-art-song-from-continuum-and-neapolitan-connection\/","title":{"rendered":"Today: Two very different takes on French art song, from Continuum and Neapolitan Connection"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The words of French literary and film icon Jacques Pr\u00e9vert (1900-1977) animate today’s premiere by Continuum Contemporary Music.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every now and again — like today — the sun, moon and stars align to create curious musical eddies of Frenchness around the city. Here are two very different\u00a0options for our Dominical delectation:<\/p>\n

Continuum Contemporary Music<\/strong><\/p>\n

The musicians of Continuum premiere Victoria composer Christopher Butterfield’s full adaptation of French poet Jacques Pr\u00e9vert’s 1947 collection Contes pour enfants pas sages<\/em> (Tales for Unruly Children) with the help of the composer’s brother, pillar-of-strength tenor Benjamin, sister-in-law, soprano Anne Grimm, and Toronto’s contemporary-focused Choir 21, led by David Fallis.<\/p>\n

Christopher Butterfield is a fascinating guy, one of the rare contemporary composers of any nationality to willingly fold humour into the creative process.<\/p>\n

Look around the Anglo-Germanic worlds of visual art, literature, theatre, opera and art music, and you realise what a rare — and rarely respected — commodity laughter is.<\/p>\n

Laughter is unsettling, unpredictable and subversive. That comes up frequently in\u00a0the oft-nonsensical world of Pr\u00e9vert, an icon of French literary and film culture for most of his adult life (born with the 20th century, he died in 1977).<\/p>\n

Contes pour enfants pas sages<\/em> is a collection of eight weird-and-wonderful allegories, filled with the kind of smart, twisted contrasts that make children’s eyes open wide before they guffaw at the improbability of it all.<\/p>\n

Many composers — art and pop — have set Pr\u00e9vert’s poems and stories to music. Most recently in Canada, Quebecer Beno\u00eet C\u00f4t\u00e9 set Contes<\/em> to music a couple of seasons ago for a multi-displinary show that involved dancer Marie-Jos\u00e9e Chartier.<\/p>\n

Christopher Butterfield, never afraid to stir in a pinch of this and a dash of that, like a mad-genius chef, will have produced something strange and memorable. Whatever the result, the musical forces gathered to pull off the stunt are as good as they get.<\/p>\n

If you’re feeling brave — perhaps a bit unruly, even — check out the show in the friendly upstairs performance space tucked into the soaring roof at the 918 Bathurst centre, just north of Bloor St. at 8 p.m.<\/p>\n

The run includes two school shows and a repeat all-ages performance on Tuesday at 8 p.m. Check out all the details, including a preview video and programme notes, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

These two videos, which have nothing at all to do with the Continuum show, are an excuse to see the “elevator” sequence from Le roi et l’oiseau<\/em> (The King and the Bird) Pr\u00e9vert’s longest (and final) film collaboration Paul Grimault, and to hear Yves Montand sing Pr\u00e9vert’s words in Feuilles mortes<\/em> (which later became known in the English-speaking world as Autumn Leaves<\/em>) in a 1951 film:<\/p>\n