Category Archives: Uncategorized

John Gielgud once recalled that, when offered the play Home by David Storey in 1970, he was “quite taken with it but didn’t understand it.” Yet, he added, “there was something very fascinating about it. It’s one of the most … Continue reading →

In Soulpepper’s current production of You Can’t Take It With You, by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman, you won’t find anyone hooked up to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email or other media of incessant and obsessive connection. After all, these … Continue reading →

As the curtain descended yesterday to end Opera Atelier’s performance of  Lully’s systematically evolving Armide, what came to mind, of all things, was music certainly from another musical era, Sviatoslav Richter’s sublime recording of the first movement of Schubert’s  Piano … Continue reading →

    In some ways, the plays of Samuel Beckett are as much an artistic tuning fork of one’s existence as, say, the late quartets of Beethoven which are also, at once, profoundly spiritual, playful, poetic, and uncompromising expressions of resolution … Continue reading →

James Sommerville is a French horn soloist of international reputation and the current principal hornist for the legendary  Boston Symphony Orchestra. He is also the inspiring and inspired conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and thus a major force in … Continue reading →

-Stacie Dunlop (above right) performs Rêve doux-amer/Bittersweet Dream with pianist Krista Vincent (above left) at Toronto’s Gallery 345 on February 2nd 1.First of all, what personal reasons compelled you to decide on an evening of Baudelaire set to music by … Continue reading →

Christmas cheer this year –or cheering, rather- finds its source in the enthusiastic audience for Miklos Laszlo’s Parfumerie, first produced by Soulpepper two years ago and now in a return run at Toronto’s Young Centre for the Performing Arts. The … Continue reading →

With an L-shaped sofa, a counter holding both sink and stove, and a large coffee table, it’s a neutral, modern setting, sterile and uncluttered. It is made of functional, meaningless elements and inherent corpse-like stillness and, no doubt, resembles many … Continue reading →

Shelby Lynne’s CD launch tour last week passed through Toronto’s Hugh’s Room where she featured the new Revelation Road in its entirety for the first half of an almost two hour set. Grammy-winner Lynne then gave the second half over … Continue reading →

Wilhelm Furtwängler, in a letter to Dimitri Mitropoulos, once wrote: “The question of tempo in Don Giovanni has been raised by amateurs and music critics who feel that it is their duty to be my adversaries on a dogmatic basis. … Continue reading →