{"id":99346,"date":"2023-09-28T14:22:57","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T18:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=99346"},"modified":"2023-09-28T14:22:57","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T18:22:57","slug":"scrutiny-toronto-mendelssohn-singers-compagnie-de-la-citadelle-create-performance-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2023\/09\/28\/scrutiny-toronto-mendelssohn-singers-compagnie-de-la-citadelle-create-performance-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"SCRUTINY | Toronto Mendelssohn Singers & Compagnie de la Citadelle Create Performance Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Laurence
Laurence Lemieux dances as music director Jean-S\u00e9bastien Vall\u00e9e conducts the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers (Photo courtesy of TMC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Toronto Mendelssohn Singers & Compagnie de la Citadelle \/In Time: At the Intersection of Music & Dance, featuring music by Bach, Handel and Caroline Shaw, conducted by Jean-S\u00e9bastien Vall\u00e9e, choreographed by Laurence Lemieux, Jeanne Lamon Hall, Trinity-St. Paul\u2019s Centre, Sept. 22 & 23.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

In Time: At the Intersection of Music & Dance was an inspired concert, and the standing ovation and thunderous applause that followed was deservedly heartfelt and emotional.<\/p>\n

The 24-member Toronto Mendelssohn Singers are the professional arm of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. They were joined by dancers from Compagnie de la Citadelle in two of the works (Bach and Handel). The program ran without an intermission, giving the concert a wonderful sense of continuity.<\/p>\n

There was also continuity within the works themselves. Both Bach\u2019s Christ lag in Todesbanden (Christ lay in the snares of death) and Handel\u2019s Dixit Dominus (The Lord Said) premiered in 1707 when the composers were 22-years-old. (Frankly, I never thought of Bach and Handel as the same age).<\/p>\n

The Bach piece was based on an Easter hymn by Martin Luther, while Handel\u2019s text was a setting of Psalm 110. The arc of both works was moving from darkness to light. Bach\u2019s cantata was anchored in polyphony, but Handel, who came from that same Lutheran music tradition, wrote Dixit Dominus during his Italian sojourn. Inspired by the Italian baroque of Arcangelo Corelli, Handel\u2019s offering was a rush of florid melodic music, as opposed to Bach\u2019s contrapuntal complexity.<\/p>\n

The work separating the Bach and Handel was Pulitzer Prize\/Grammy winning American composer Caroline Shaw\u2019s six-part To the Hands (2016). Her connection to the Baroque period was responding to the third cantata, Ad Manus, of Dieterich Buxtehude\u2019s Membra Jesu Nostri (1680) which addresses Jesus in terms of his sacred body parts, specifically, his crucified hands.<\/p>\n

In Shaw\u2019s case, she asks the audience what is in our hands, in particular, the refugee crisis. Movement five (the Litany of the Displaced) has the choir speaking the names of various countries and their numbers of displaced people (circa 2016), from the smallest number (224), to the largest (7.6 million), and it is a sobering list indeed.<\/p>\n

The beauty of this work, set to a string quintet, is the dichotomy between the harmonious choral part, and the more dissident orchestral part, at one point keening beneath the melodic richness of the singing. Shaw also uses techniques like wordless syllables, and quotes from Emma Lazarus\u2019 poem on the Statue of Liberty. She also manages to avoid what I call the twelve-tone curse of contemporary composers to embrace actual melody. It is truly a magnificent work, that is eminently friendly to the ears, as well as being very moving.<\/p>\n

\"Music
Music director Jean-S\u00e9bastien Vall\u00e9e conducts the Toronto Mendelssohn Singers (Photo courtesy of TMC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thus, the music alone would have made a worthy concert \u2014 two early and rarely performed cantatas by peerless composers, an outstanding contemporary work, the excellent choir that also produced the five soloists for the Handel, and the cracker-jack eight musicians of the instrumental ensemble, all extremely talented young players, not to forget the sensitive conducting of the TMC\u2019s music director Jean-S\u00e9bastien Vall\u00e9e, who has freshened the image of the choir since taking over in 2021.<\/p>\n

But Vall\u00e9e went one-step further for this concert, and that is linking up with former Qu\u00e9bec native, choreographer Laurence Lemieux and her Compagnie de la Citadelle. The seven dancers included nine-year-old Santina Lawrence and Lemieux herself. You could say it was a Qu\u00e9bec cabal responsible for the sheer pleasure of this concert.<\/p>\n

Liturgical dance is not easy, because, once you show devotion, what else do you have? You still have to respond to the sacred core of the music, which often limits movement \u2014 unless you are a choreographer who is willing to take chances.<\/p>\n

Lemieux solved this problem in two ways. First, she split focus. She, herself, performed the Bach as a solo, while the other six dancers infused the Handel with life. Second, she was not afraid to choreograph both dances with movement that was definitely un-liturgical, like marching, walking and running, bicycling legs in the air, lying down on the floor, including flamenco-like steps, wild thumping feet, not to mention all manner of jumps and turns.<\/p>\n

For her solo, and costumed in a simple black dress and heavy shoes, Lemieux turned the Bach into a lament of despair, with the repeated motif of her arms held downward behind her, and body pressed forward as she ran. Did she find the light? That was not her intention, because she ended on her knees, body bowed down, and one could not help but be moved. It was a very powerful solo.<\/p>\n

For the brighter sound of the Handel, Lemieux produced an energetic ensemble piece. The dancers, clad in various light-coloured leisure wear, performed highly spirited and robust movement, along with sensual, almost sexy gyrations, choreography that came in waves, and intriguing gestures that seemed to be revealing secrets. The inclusion of the child introduced a new generation of resilient women. (Young Santina\u2019s ability to perform complex choreography was a marvel.)<\/p>\n

Yes, both the Bach and Handel cantatas moved from darkness to light, but Lemieux made the Bach the darkness, and the Handel the light. Together they created the canopy that embraced the evening. Women sorrow, but women also endure, while the presence of a child was hope.<\/p>\n

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In Time: At the Intersection of Music & Dance was an inspired concert, and the standing ovation and thunderous applause was deservedly heartfelt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73,"featured_media":99350,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40430,74,11,19,20,52,63],"tags":[40789,40273],"yst_prominent_words":[32723],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2023\/09\/Copy-of-REVIEW-20.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-pQm","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99346"}],"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\/73"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99346"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99352,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99346\/revisions\/99352"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99346"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=99346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}