Vasily Petrenko made headlines in 2013 – but not for his accomplishments as a rising star in the world of orchestral conducting, leading the Oslo Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic at only 37 years old. It was for his overtly sexist comments alleging that women don’t merit a place on the conductor’s podium.

“[Orchestras] react better when they have a man in front of them,” he told the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. “A cute girl on the podium means that musicians think about other things.”

Petrenko immediately came under fire: critics called for his resignation, while Norwegian conductor Cathrine Winnes questioned his “extra-unacceptable” comments, and National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain chief executive Sarah Alexander expressed disappointment in his “narrow view.”

Yet, less than two months later, Petrenko’s album of Shostakovich symphonies topped the United Kingdom’s classical charts; the following year, he was invited to conduct the European Union Youth Orchestra. His career continued to skyrocket without a hitch.

Petrenko has since walked back his Aftenposten comments, noting that his words had been poorly translated from Norwegian and interpreted out of context. “What I said was meant to be a description of the situation in Russia, my homeland,” he explained in a post on the Oslo Philharmonic’s website. “I have the utmost respect for female conductors.”

Petrenko immediately came under fire: critics called for his resignation […] Yet his career continued to skyrocket.

“I’d encourage any girl to study conducting,” he added in the statement. “How successful they turn out to be depends on their talent and their work, definitely not their gender. I also want to add that my beloved wife is a choral conductor.”

A “description” of sexism in Russia, without context or critique, is far from a condemnation. History has also proven that one can be married to a woman and still participate in misogynistic thought and culture. However, the general consensus in the classical music industry now seems to hold that Petrenko’s comments were misreported and not spoken with misogynistic intent. In the court of public opinion, Vasily Petrenko was acquitted of all charges.

Last month, on February 22, Petrenko joined the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (OSM) as a guest conductor, strolling on stage at Place des Arts’ Maison Symphonique to enthusiastic applause. The audience, though not a full house, was surprisingly large for a midweek show. They were there to catch Petrenko and the OSM interpret Brahms’ brooding First Symphony, and to hear Blake Pouliot, the 22-year-old winner of the prestigious 2016 OSM Manulife Competition for emerging classical musicians, perform Erich Korngold’s cinematic Violin Concerto.

Under the baton of a conductor who may or may not be a misogynist, the orchestra flailed.

Also on the docket was Plages, Quebec composer Serge Garant’s 1981 abstract symphonic soundscape meant to portray “[bands] of musical time and orchestral colour,” according to the OSM’s program notes. The piece fell flat: combinations of instruments blasted discrete pillars of sound in plodding and dissonant sequence, leaving the audience uncertain of when to applaud.

It was refreshing to hear a contemporary work programmed alongside symphonic strongholds like Korngold and Brahms – particularly a work by a Quebec composer. However, a certain mediocrity plagued Plages, along with the other two pieces on the program. Pouliot’s showmanship – knees bent à la Elvis, leaning in to face concertmaster Andrew Wan for a warmly phrased duet in the third movement – managed to compensate for a solo tone that was far too hushed. Meanwhile, gruff brass and occasional high-octane vibrato made the Brahms fall a bit below the OSM’s usually exquisite standards.

The OSM is regularly hailed as one of the greatest symphony orchestras in North America. Yet, under the baton of a conductor who may or may not be a misogynist, the orchestra flailed.

Vasily Petrenko’s alleged misogyny, however, is not the problem – it’s a symptom of something larger: a systemic force that bars women from participating equally in the orchestra.

Vasily Petrenko’s alleged misogyny, however, is not the problem – it’s a symptom of something larger: a systemic force that bars women from participating equally in the orchestral workplace.

To use the OSM as a case study: according to data collected from the 2016-17 brochure, out of 87 works programmed throughout this season, only one was composed by a woman. The OSM commissioned and premiered two brand new works this season, both by men. Twenty two men performed with the OSM as invited instrumental soloists, compared to only three women. And out of 14 guest conductors invited to lead the orchestra this season, exactly zero were women.

The OSM hired a conductor who was once censured for his alleged misogyny, but did not hire any women to fill that role.

These patterns are not exclusive to the OSM. While the Los Angeles Philharmonic has announced a promising lineup of four women guest conductors to take the helm in the 2017-18 season, journalist Brian Lauritzen noted in an article for KUSC radio, “More women will conduct the LA Phil next season than the symphonies of Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Dallas, Houston, Indianapolis, Nashville, Oregon, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Philharmonic combined.”

The numbers are unsurprising, McGill bassoonist Danielle Findlay observed in a phone interview with The Daily. “These are industry standards everywhere,” Findlay said. “There’s no pressure […] to have ten per cent minimum female composer works, so there’s just no reason for that. They have no mandate or idea or concept in mind that this even matters.”

To Findlay, however, representation does matter a lot. Several years ago, while participating in a musical ensemble, she was harassed by the ensemble’s male conductor. “I was one of the more advanced players, so that kind of gets you attention,” she explained. “This was when I had only restarted bassoon playing [following an injury], so I was progressing quickly as I picked up the instrument again, and people thought well of me. That’s when the director started talking to me more, and it started getting sort of too close for comfort, and this was getting worse as time went on.”

The OSM hired a conductor who was once censured for his alleged misogyny, but did not hire any woman to fill that role.

Findlay began receiving inappropriate messages from the conductor. “It was all too often,” she said. “There were a few sexual jokes he’d make […] Then he’d say he was just kidding, or, ‘oh, I shouldn’t have said that.’” When Findlay discovered that another woman in the ensemble was receiving similar messages, she offered her colleague a warning, and ultimately decided to leave the ensemble.

“The ensemble’s great – all the musicians were super, which is why I stuck it out. I can’t describe the sense of family that this ensemble really offered, which is the only reason that I stayed […] But eventually I couldn’t go to rehearsals anymore. I didn’t have it in me to wear the smile and play.”

Findlay’s experience is not unique. Smaller orchestras may lack the human resources infrastructure to investigate complaints or accommodate anonymity, and in larger organizations, the person making advances may be in a position of power, such as a conductor or Principal player – thus discouraging any reports of the incident.

Beyond non-consensual advances, sexism in orchestras often takes subtle forms. “Misogyny is all over the place,” Findlay stated. “When I started playing contrabassoon […] I wasn’t really taken seriously. I’d have people doubting that I could fill the instrument with air, or transport it around.”

Assumptions and biases about women in the music industry begin as early as childhood: a University of Washington study found that five-year-olds exhibit preferences for certain musical instruments based on gender stereotypes – boys favouring trumpet, percussion, or saxophone, while girls tended toward violin, clarinet, or flute. As a future music educator, Findlay aspires to challenge these preconceptions.

“My goal would be a nice, even distribution between men and women within the section, so that there’s no being shy to play tuba if you’re a girl […] You don’t need to be a dainty, small girl to play flute,” Findlay said. “I will do what I can to get [these assumptions] out of their heads and just present every instrument as equal opportunity to musical creativity, and that no one is imposing limitations that don’t actually exist.”

When Vasily Petrenko’s comments first came to light in 2013, Marin Alsop – acclaimed Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra – was about to become the first woman conductor to lead the celebrated final concert of the U.K.’s annual BBC Proms, a milestone 118 years in the making. Regarding her appointment to conduct the performance, Alsop told the Guardian. “There is no logical reason to stop women from conducting. The baton isn’t heavy. It weighs about an ounce. No superhuman strength is required. Good musicianship is all that counts.”

“As a society we have a lack of comfort in seeing women in these ultimate authority roles,” Alsop added.

Biases about women in the music industry begin as early as childhood […] Boys [favoured] trumpet, percussion, or saxophone, while girls tended toward violin, clarinet, or flute.

Across industries, opponents of workplace gender parity argue that hiring a woman for a position denies that job to a man who might be more qualified. However, this argument ignores the systems of privilege and oppression that have, for centuries, woven a false narrative of equivalency between maleness and workplace competence. As the OSM proved on February 22, placing a man on the conductor’s podium does not guarantee successful results.

In the 1970s, professional orchestras began instituting “blind auditions” (where the musican’s identity is concealed behind a screen) to curtail the bias that prevented women from even crossing the threshold into the orchestral workforce. Even as more women are hired for orchestral positions, there is one job post – the conductor – that remains out of reach.

Findlay calls this “the final frontier.” “It’s this leading role, and everyone just has to believe in what you’re doing,” Findlay said. “You’ll see orchestras can be close to gender parity, but the podium will definitely be a long time coming.”

As the OSM prepares to announce its 2017-18 season on March 22, let’s hope that time comes sooner.

Data cited in this piece are drawn from the OSM 2016-17 season brochure, and include data from the Grands Concerts Series, Haydn & the Minimalists Festival, Italian Festival, and Closing Concert. Excluded were the Metro+Concerto Series, Holiday Season, OSM Pop Series, Children’s Corner Series, and Music & Images.

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Religious organizations stirred paranoia in the new Jacobin government: cloistered and secretive, might the nuns be plotting against the Revolution? The fourteen nuns were ordered to disband their convent – their home and community – but instead, they took a vow of martyrdom, willing to die for their beliefs. As they marched to their deaths on the scaffold, the nuns didn’t cry or scream in protest. Instead, they sang.

The true story of the singing Martyrs of Compiègne inspired a screenplay by French writer Georges Bernanos, which in turn inspired composer Francis Poulenc’s landmark 1956 opera Dialogues des carmélites. One of few regularly programmed postwar operas – most are overshadowed by the celebrated earlier works of Verdi and Psuccini – Dialogues is a meditative and tragic reflection on friendship, faith, and hardline ideology in times of danger and fear.

At first, the production seemed marred by a sense of cold detachment, with physical distance separating the characters and isolating the audience.

Opéra de Montréal presented Dialogues des carmélites in Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier for a four-show run between January 28 to February 4. The performance on January 31 featured successful delivery by an all-Canadian cast, bolstered by the phenomenal Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal under the baton of conductor Jean-François Rivest.

At first, the production seemed marred by a sense of cold detachment, with physical distance separating the characters and isolating the audience. Nuns sat in chairs spaced far apart along the perimeter of the stage, and a gauzy, semi-sheer curtain acted as a physical barrier between characters and scenes. Life in the convent felt bleak and lonely; even the long-winded death of the convent’s Prioress – sung with ample gravitas by mezzo-soprano Mia Lennox – failed to enact any sense of intimacy in shared sorrow among the community of nuns.

Protagonist Blanche de La Force – soprano Marianne Fiset – and Sister Constance de Saint Denis – soprano Magali Simard-Galdès – provided an intimate antithesis to this staged detachment. Blanche is the nervous, flighty daughter of a deposed Marquis. Frightened of the increasingly violent Paris streets, and professing her desire to “lead a heroic life,” Blanche enters into the Order of Carmel as a novice nun. There, she meets another novice, Sister Constance, a bubbly and blithe foil to Blanche’s anxious pessimism. The two become friends, even as Blanche is shaken by Constance’s eerie premonition that the two would die young, together, on the same day.

Simard-Galdès stole the show in the role of Sister Constance, effortlessly nailing each bright, leaping melody. She lent her character a sense of the supernatural – angelic, prescient – in contrast with Fiset’s overwrought Sister Blanche. Fiset sang the demanding role with musical success, while Blanche’s stiff, melodramatic arias echoed the cold, spacious staging of the opening two acts.

As they marched to their deaths on the scaffold, the nuns didn’t cry or scream in protest. Instead, they sang.

However, in Act III, the audience witnessed a shift. Jacobin officers forced the nuns to exchange their habits for plainclothes, and urged them to declare allegiance to the Revolutionary government. Resolute in their refusal, the nuns – now unrecognizable in threadbare civilian cloaks – gathered closely in a crowd, finding warmth and strength in one another, and bridging the icy distance that stretched through the previous acts. Suddenly, closeness became a theme of the final act – closeness of community, both physical and emotional; the encroaching nearness of death; and closeness to God, on the threshold of the nuns’ martyrdom.

Dialogues des carmélites counts among a series of sacred and spiritual works composed by Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) after the 1935 death of his father spurred his return to the Catholic Church. A member of Les Six – the six most prominent Parisian composers of the 20th century – Poulenc struggled to reconcile his devout Catholic faith with his queer sexuality. Dialogues sees traces of these identities: the intimate relationship between Blanche and Constance could easily be read as romantic, culminating in a literal “’til death do us part,” within a community of women and femmes devoted to serving God, and ultimately killed for their devotion.

When the nuns vote to take vows of martyrdom, Blanche’s faith wavers: she flees the convent, taking to the streets of Paris. However, on the day of the execution, she arrives at the city square and calmly takes her place on the scaffold, Sister Constance at her side.

Dialogues des carmélites continues to feel relevant in light of the perilous populism globally on the rise.

L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal delivered a colourful interpretation of Poulenc’s richly layered score. Woodwind melodies shone – especially a mournful, chant-like cadenza played by Pierre-Vincent Plante on English horn – while brass lent militaristic precision and resonant cellos and basses kept the orchestra grounded in a low, sombre range. The powerful ending featured the nuns’ final song: a harrowing rendition of the prayer “Salve Regina” as they approached the guillotine. Thunderous percussion paired with an electronic sound effect imitated the slicing of a blade, while each nun’s spotlight went out one by one, leaving the dead in darkness.

Written in a France still reeling from fascism and war, and recounting an earlier France similarly caught in the throes of extremism and terror, Dialogues des carmélites continues to feel relevant in light of the perilous populism globally on the rise. But there is a certain danger in ascribing heroism to Poulenc’s martyred nuns: they were willing to die for their beliefs, but not to stand and fight.

Nonetheless, Dialogues tells the story of a community of strong women and femmes who support one another, love one another, and uphold their faith and their values with outspoken pride in the face of violent political oppression – and who meet their fate not with resignation or fear, but with song. Here, song – music – becomes a political act: the voices of the oppressed, raised in unity, are impossible to ignore.

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The January 28 performance at the Monument-National Theatre was the final installment of a three-show run and took place in front of a full house. Esteemed alumni of McGill’s opera training program returned to the stage in crowd-pleasing cameos to celebrate Opera McGill’s decades-long history. The company delivered nothing short of an extraordinary performance – brilliantly executed by the student performers in a production that was, for a change, decidedly not racist, as their previous production of Alcina was.

Die Fledermaus tells a tale of romance, revenge, and mistaken identity. Charged with a misdemeanor crime, ingenuous aristocrat Gabriel von Eisenstein –zestfully sung by baritone Jonah Spungin – is served an eight day prison sentence. The night he is to leave, he lies to his bumbling lawyer Blind – tenor Torrance Gricks – and tenacious wife Rosalinde –Toumine, sneaking out instead to attend an extravagant ball hosted by the exceedingly wealthy and chronically bored Prince Orlofsky –mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh – for one last night of debauchery before his imprisonment.

[Opera McGill] delivered […] an extraordinary performance – brilliantly executed by the student performers.

Baritone Igor Mostovoi thrilled the audience as Eisenstein’s conniving friend Doctor Falke. Over the course of the evening, the moustache-twirling prankster tries to exact his vengeance for an embarrassing drunken incident that once left him passed out and costumed as a bat (hence the titular fledermaus) only to awaken to public ridicule in the town square. Falke pulls more strings than even a caffeinated Frank Underwood possibly could. He invites Rosalinde, disguised as a Hungarian countess, to witness her husband’s unfaithful flirtations at the Prince’s ball, along with the good-natured prison warden Frank (lanky baritone Paul Winkelmans) to catch sight of Eisenstein living it up on the dance floor instead of behind bars.

Tenor John Carr Cook commanded heavy laughs in the role of Alfred, a lecherous opera singer and former lover to Rosalinde, now bent on winning back her affections despite her marriage to Eisenstein. The determined Casanova climbs to serenade Rosalinde from her balcony. To protect Rosalinde’s reputation, he impersonates Eisenstein – lest she is caught at home with a man who is not her husband. However, the plan backfires, and Alfred ends up taking Eisenstein’s place in jail. Carr Cook sang with a confident voice that balanced melodrama with majesty: Alfred’s pompous, seeming improvisatory invocations of Mozart and Puccini might have been equally at home on the Met stage, or on an American Idol outtakes reel.

Meanwhile, soprano Gina Hanzlik stole the show as the Eisenstein’s stagy housekeeper Adele, who sobs and pleads for a night off work to care for her dear, sick aunt, but instead steals a dress from Rosalinde’s closet and hightails it to Prince Orlofsky’s party. There, she masquerades as an up-and-coming actress, charming the guests – including a disguised Eisenstein – and shaking the lethargic Prince from his sighs of boredom. Hanzlik’s spry charisma and sparkling voice took centre stage. Her command of comedy seemed natural as she floundered, flirted, and kvetched, while her rendition of the famous “Laughing Song” – accompanied by captivating, waltzing harmonies from the McGill Symphony Orchestra – lilted with effortless magnetism.

True to form, the students onstage outshone the behind-the-scenes professionals. Director Patrick Hansen, Professor of Opera Studies, concocted a trilingual version of the originally German script. While the performers navigated every codeswitch – German to English to French – with convincing precision, the mere presence of all three languages onstage seemed excessive. This over-complication might stem from the feeble reasoning behind Hansen’s linguistic decision, which he explained in his Director’s Notes as “just to make things interesting” and “[to bring] a nice flair to the story.”

The choice [of having three languages] was a superficial one: it added little to the production.

While French, the language of the 19th-century Russian court, sounded at home in the Russian Prince’s mansion – and, of course, fit right in on a Montreal stage – Hansen’s rendition saw Adele and her flirtatious sister Ida (soprano Jacoba Barber-Rozema) alternating between Viennese German and Estuary English. This choice demanded backstory: how did two working-class Londoners find the resources and motivation to up and move across the Channel? Ultimately, the choice was a superficial one: it added little to the production, other than predictable laughter at Hanzlik’s exaggerated outbursts of “Oh, bugger!”

Set and costume designs by Vincent Lefèvre and Ginette Grenier, respectively, were heavily advertised as drawing inspiration from the symbolist art of Gustav Klimt. True, Lefèvre and Grenier borrowed Klimt’s propensity for gold leaf and concentric squares, but they neglected the subversive eroticism central to Klimt’s work. The result was an extravagant and visually engaging turn-of-the-century aesthetic, but the purported Klimt inspiration seemed shallow and unnecessary. But then again, Klimt’s work did thrive in a culture of excess – the opulent upper crust of Viennese society, a world in which the Eisensteins would have felt right at home. And, after sixty seasons, Opera McGill well deserves some gold.

Like the characters blundering through Prince Orlofsky’s lavish ball, privileged and insulated from the outside world, the audience at Monument-National capped off a long week by watching an opera – an art form so often seen as elitist and inaccessible. But opera should, and often does, engage with societal issues in ways both subtle and broad. In Opera McGill’s Die Fledermaus, an extraordinarily talented young cast took the stage, made musi, and landed jokes with utmost professionalism. The audience, entranced, was far from insulated. Instead, after a week of difficult headlines, Die Fledermaus was the perfect coda. We could all use a laugh right now.

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“Leave the women alone? You’re mad!” Don Giovanni exclaims in Act II of the opera that shares his name. In a later scene, he eschews consent: “Just kiss. I don’t even wait.”

Oh, sorry, there’s been an error: that last quote was uttered by American president-elect Donald Trump.

The two men are easy to mix up. Both are powerful, wealthy, manipulative, and openly misogynistic. If Don Giovanni was not a fictional 18th century nobleman, he might have contended for the Oval Office.

Composed in 1787, Don Giovanni recounts the exploits and ultimate downfall of the titular mythical libertine. Opéra de Montréal showcased Mozart’s iconic opus from November 12 to 19 at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, starring baritone Gordon Bintner as the shuddersome Don.

Opéra de Montréal’s production transported the setting from a grand palace in a distant era, to the mansion of a mafia kingpin – with the theme of copious violence threading each scene together. In the very first scene, there was an attempted rape and a point-blank homicide – in a captivating, film noir vibe. Lighting designer Anne-Catherine Simard-Deraspe deserves praise for her attention to the mesmerizing interplay of shadows across Donald Eastman’s minimalistic set.

Over the course of two acts, the audience meets three women who have been assaulted by Don Giovanni. In the opening scene, Donna Anna – powerfully portrayed by soprano Emily Dorn – stands backed against a wall, struggling to push the masked Don’s grip from her thigh. Later, Donna Elvira, Don Giovanni’s abandoned wife who is pregnant and livid, takes the stage. Played by soprano Layla Claire, Donna Elvira is equal parts courageous and keen. She embarks on a mission to warn other women about Don Giovanni’s cruelty and duplicity: the way he manipulates his words to spin blatant lies into promises of a better tomorrow. Sound familiar?

The libretto by Mozart’s longtime collaborator Lorenzo da Ponte leaves no room for doubt that Don Giovanni is the villain of the story. In fact, the opera’s full title is Il dissoluto punito – “the philanderer, punished” – with Don Giovanni facing interment in literal Hell for the sins he committed and his refusal to repent by the end of the opera.

However, this narrative of punishment for wrongdoing doesn’t absolve the opera of participating in a culture of misogyny and violence against women and femmes – which is not to say that Don Giovanni is immoral, inappropriate, and therefore should not be performed. Rather, it must be performed – frequently and fervently. Through the critique of Don Giovanni, the audience is invited to confront, question, and conquer the patterns of sexual violence embedded within art and society, from the opera stage to the White House.

Opera is a living art. Each director, each singer, and each lighting designer approach the story differently. The art becomes versatile and dynamic, crafted meaningfully through thoughtful interpretation. Context also has a significant impact: a performance of Don Giovanni in November 2016 holds a different sort of significance than an identical performance a month earlier, or a decade.

Shortly after the October release of Donald Trump’s misogynistic comments (caught on a hot mic back in 2005) where he bragged in no uncertain terms about making non-consensual sexual advances, two women came forward to the New York Times with their accounts of sexual assault by Trump. The then-candidate responded with vehement denial. “These people are sick,” he accused at a rally in North Carolina, adding that the allegations were “all false. They’re totally invented, fiction. All one-hundred-percent, totally and completely fabricated.”

Donald Trump seems to have borrowed this tactic from his operatic counterpart. When Donna Elvira reveals Don Giovanni’s past crimes to Donna Anna and her fiancé Don Ottavio – played by tenor Jean-Michel Richer, who shone in Opéra de Montréal’s Les Feluettes last season – Don Giovanni’s response is to twist and discredit her words. “The poor woman is crazy,” he attests. “She’s crazy! Pay her no mind.”

Anna and Ottavio stand strong. They hesitate: “in whom should we believe?” they wonder aloud, but ultimately remain unconvinced by Don Giovanni’s words. Later, they join forces with Donna Elvira and with Zerlina’s husband, Masetto – bass-baritone Stephen Hegedus, to formulate a plan for the Don’s demise.

Anna and Ottavio’s questioning whether to believe Donna Elvira’s accusation, or Don Giovanni’s discreditation – that is the truest danger of Don Giovanni, and of Donald Trump. Both men leverage their wealth and influence to distract, lie, and distort reality for their own benefit and absolution.

The audience, like the electorate, is complicit in this pattern of blame and distortion. Don Giovanni’s attendant Leporello – who, in Opéra de Montréal’s rendition, is a wily, gunslinging goodfella sung by bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch – presents Donna Elvira with a detailed list of the Don’s past sexual targets. However, the famous “Catalogue Aria” is delivered as a laugh line. “My dear lady, this is a list of the beauties my master has loved,” Leporello begins, rifling thoughtfully through the pages of a pocket-sized notebook. “In Italy, six hundred and forty […] In Spain, already one thousand and three.” The audience chuckled as if on cue. The scene was portrayed as comedic, even though the aria’s lyrics enumerated thousands of women who had experienced sexual assault.

Later, in the aria “Là ci darem la mano,” Don Giovanni promises to sweep Zerlina away to an extravagant villa. “You were not meant to be a peasant girl,” he tells her. Zerlina swoons, caught in the fantasy of wealth and romance, even though she is already married to Masetto. Later, when Masetto finds out, he accuses her of infidelity and stupidity. And for a moment, the audience agreed: yes, Zerlina was stupid to let herself fall for Don Giovanni’s tricks. It was her fault. She was asking for it.

Then the moment dissipated, and I was left horrified for wrongfully blaming Zerlina, and my complicity in accepting Don Giovanni’s advances as trickery rather than harassment.

In the second presidential debate, Donald Trump responded to a question about his lewd 2005 comments with a shrug: “It’s just words, folks. It’s just words.” But it’s never “just words.” Words are power. Words are peril. In Don Giovanni’s words, alluring fictions conceal a lifetime of criminality. Even resolute Donna Elvira falls under the spell of his dangerous words – his serenade “Deh, vieni alla finestra,” beautifully sung by Bintner – chasing the hope that she might again be loved by the man who harmed her.

In the opera’s final scene, the ghost of Donna Anna’s father – killed in cold blood by Don Giovanni at the start of Act I – reawakens to urge Don Giovanni to atone for his sins. When Don refuses, he is dragged offstage, where Hell awaits. This, of course, is pure fantasy – not because of the ghost, but because in the real world, men who assault women aren’t held accountable for their actions. Instead, they’re elected president.

The post Donald Trump and Don Giovanni appeared first on The McGill Daily.

“Not many opera companies – let alone student opera companies – make it to sixty years,” he commended.

To celebrate, the company plans to present a season of exciting performances: in January, a gala production of Strauss’ lighthearted Die Fledermaus; in March, an Opera B!NGE Fest featuring seven different operas staged throughout Montreal. Kicking off this celebratory season was the November 5 opening of Handel’s magical opera Alcina, directed by Professor Hansen and performed by a stellar cast of Schulich students.

In needlessly imagining Alcina’s island as Other – foreign, exotic, and imbued with magic, mystery, and illusion – Hansen in fact subjugated the opera’s legitimately dissident intricacies beneath an aesthetic that proved loaded and problematic from every possible angle.

In his lecture, Hansen described not only Opera McGill’s anniversary milestone, but also his own: nine years ago, he began teaching at McGill. During that first year, he also directed Alcina.

Anniversaries are an opportunity not only to acknowledge the accomplishments of the past, but also to consider the potential for growth and achievement in the future. However, in 2016, Hansen chose to lead an Alcina that acknowledged only the company’s past: a “remounted” production featuring sets, costumes, lighting, and theatrical blocking nearly identical to his decade-old original.

The 2016 Alcina looked backward in more ways than one. Beyond Hansen’s arrival at the Schulich School in 2007, and maybe beyond even Opera McGill’s 60-year history – all the way back to a time when racism, apparently, was okay.

That era, of course, is a fictional one. Even back when society actively condoned racism – and, really, doesn’t it still? – there was nothing okay about it. Yet, it’s dangerously easy to let racism slide in an art form that is a product of a seemingly distant past.

“Opera is fraught with racism and sexism and all sorts of ‘-isms,’” Hansen stated in his lecture. “It’s part of history.”

Hansen’s attitude is not unique; the opera world is infamous for such passive dismissal of the problems inherent in its art. Therefore, it’s time Hansen and his fellow opera directors get a stern talking-to: yes, racism and sexism and all the other “-isms” are part of history and part of opera; but what are you going to do about it?

Apparently, the answer to that question is: not much. Hansen’s Alcina was a cesspool of racist imagery: white singers in yellowface, appropriative costumes and Asian stereotypes concocted by white designers and directors. In the centre of the stage sat an enormous “Chinese coin” – a round, raised platform punctured by a square hole, and painted with supposedly Chinese script signifying the four points of a compass. The singers stood on, around, and within the coin; faces painted powder-white, they wore kimonos and samurai armour as they gripped fans, swords, and parasols.

Yes, racism and sexism and all the other “-isms” are part of history and part of opera; but what are you going to do about it?

In his lecture, Hansen described this setting as “pan-Asian,” a phrase with a complex history tied to Japanese imperialism. In using this phrase, Hansen presents the continent of Asia in a false and demeaning light as housing a single, monolithic culture designed to feed the Western appetite for an exotic Other.

“Vincent [Lefèvre, set designer] is an acupuncturist and a kung fu black belt. I practice Buddhist meditation and tai chi,” Hansen explained in his lecture, as if these white men’s participation in Asian cultural activities bestows them with the laurels of authenticity and excuses them from accusations of appropriation.

As a further attempt at imbuing the production with some degree of Asian legitimacy, the singers received weekly training from the Taoist Tai Chi Centre of Montreal. “There is a flow to tai chi […] that actually is quite helpful in Handel,” Hansen asserted in his lecture. “It’s a very disciplined way of learning.” He went on to equate the tai chi practice of “watching others move through space” with the task of staging an opera.

Hansen and his colleague’s pursuit of “authenticity” through these channels reflects an all-too-common pattern of racial fetishization. White people, whether Hansen realizes it or not, have oppressed, colonized, and traumatized people of colour for centuries. As such, the use of Asian cultural artefacts is implicitly loaded with vestiges of colonialism, with a white person objectifying, stereotyping, and fetishizing the cultural output of a marginalized community of colour.

Hansen and his colleague’s pursuit of “authenticity” through these channels reflects an all-too-common pattern of racial fetishization.

Notably, the Asian setting of Hansen’s production is not central to the plot of Alcina, but rather is a deliberate choice made by Hansen and the Opera McGill creative team. When George Frideric Handel composed Alcina in 1735, he based its plot on sections of a 16th-century epic poem set on an island ambiguously “east of India.” Inhabiting this island is the titular character, a powerful sorceress who enchants men to fall in love with her only to transform them into trees, stones, and wild beasts when she grows bored of their affections. The geography of the island, then, is not nearly as important as its mystical qualities – qualities which Hansen consciously opted to ascribe to a stark, exotic “Orient.”

Outstanding performances by the Schulich School’s talented opera students were overshadowed by these threads of exoticism and appropriation. Soprano Megan Miceli sparkled in the role of Morgana, a lovesick sorceress and sister to Alcina. Her breathtaking aria “Ama, sospira” – joined by Marie Nadeau-Tremblay’s insolent, agile violin solo – contrasted with the small, dainty steps with which she walked to comedic effect (the audience laughed every time she shuffled offstage).

Hansen’s decision to use physical comedy to portray a delicate, submissive Asian woman reeks of fetishization. It further perpetuates a racialized and gendered trope that runs rampant across art forms and reduces East Asian women to a demeaning stereotype.

Baritone Igor Mostovoi sang a stiff yet successful Melisso, a wizard and mentor to the opera’s protagonist, Prince Ruggiero. Mostovoi’s role was only disappointing in comparison to his absolutely stunning performance as Bhaer in Opera McGill’s 2015 Little Women. However, Mostovoi’s costume constituted “Fu Manchu” attire – the moustache, hat, robes, and staff which Hansen insisted in his lecture were inspired by Gandalf, but in fact evoked the racist classic Hollywood trope, created in an era of increasing hostility toward East Asian people in North America.

Another standout was mezzo-soprano Simone McIntosh as Prince Ruggiero, a warrior trapped on Alcina’s island and under her love spell, despite being betrothed to the warrior princess Bradamante (played by a stoic and regal Veronica Algie). Fresh off winning first prize in the Canadian Opera Company’s illustrious Ensemble Studio Competition only two days before Alcina’s opening night, McIntosh sang with a spellbinding intensity, exacting an earnest chemistry with her co-star Algie. However, the broad panelled sleeves of Ruggiero’s robe comprised what Hansen described vaguely in his lecture as “sort of a fanciful, martial-artsy kimono,” and a slash of prominent red eye makeup across Ruggiero’s brow evoked Japanese kabuki theatre.

Outstanding performances by the Schulich School’s talented opera students were overshadowed by these threads of exoticism and appropriation.

Alcina is actually a complex and subversive opera all on its own, interrogating layers of queerness and upending gender roles with no need for fancy sets or staging. McIntosh, for instance, crossdressed as a character historically reserved for a high-voiced male castrato singer. Meanwhile, a subplot sees Morgana fall head-over-heels for Princess Bradamante, who is disguised as her brother Ricciardo in order to mount a rescue mission for her bewitched fiancé Ruggiero.

Hansen emphasized this narrative in his lecture. “Alcina [is] full of powerful women,” he said.

Unfortunately, these currents of subversion were lost in a larger scheme of appropriation, orientalism, and patent disrespect for a marginalized community. In needlessly imagining Alcina’s island as Other – foreign, exotic, and imbued with magic, mystery, and illusion – Hansen in fact subjugated the opera’s legitimately dissident intricacies beneath an aesthetic that proved loaded and problematic from every possible angle.

Opera McGill has a lot to celebrate in its sixtieth season, but its Alcina merits interrogation as a perpetuation of the operatic genre’s pervasive racist norms. With a cast of young, innovative, and passionate voices on the precipice of professional careers, it’s time for Opera McGill and its leadership to turn away from the genre’s historically oppressive practices, and look ahead toward thoughtful, purposeful, and compassionate interpretations of a problematic art form. Only then can we raise our glasses and say in earnest, here’s to another sixty years.

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At only 28, Jordan de Souza may seem an unlikely superstar in the genre of opera, an art form widely perceived as belonging to an older generation. Nonetheless, he is one of Canada’s most acclaimed young maestros. The McGill alum, now based in Berlin, joins Opera de Montreal this season to conduct Mozart’s iconic – and controversial – Don Giovanni. The 18th century opera tells the story of a young and arrogant nobleman and includes accounts of sexual violence. The Daily had the opportunity to sit down with de Souza, who, despite bringing up interesting points about opera as a contemporary art form, shows a lack of understanding about Don Giovanni’s complicity in condoning violence against women.

“Mozart was 31 when he wrote Giovanni,” de Souza told The Daily. “I did a piece by Franco Faccio, Hamlet, in Austria; he was 24 when he wrote that […] This has always been an art form [created] in the hands of young people.”

According to de Souza, the notion that opera is the music of an older generation is simply a myth. “I think what we hear so much in the media […] and what I experience actually working in the business, are two completely different things,” he stated. “Take this Giovanni we’re doing, for example. The whole cast is young Canadians, and all of us have this passion and this kind of adoration of opera and what we can do together through this form.”

According to de Souza, young people’s attitudes toward opera are shaped by a misunderstanding of the art form. “If I have a lack of understanding of something else, that if I met the right person that I had a chance to chat with, they could kind of open a window to that world, and all of a sudden you find something that resonates with you. And I think music, in such a deep way, is a great demonstration of that,” de Souza said.

De Souza himself realized his passion for conducting at a very young age. As a student at a Toronto choir school, de Souza worked as a piano accompanist and church organist; the latter role helped him learn to improvise and think on his feet. “Already as a young guy, I always had this kind of desire to lead musicians,” he explained. “I always had a kind of idea of how I thought music should sound, and how we might go about realizing that together.”

“If I have a lack of understanding of something [and] if I met the right person that I [could] chat with, they [could] open a window to that world […] I think music […] is a great demonstration of that.”

—Jordan de Souza

Those early musical interests eventually led de Souza to study conducting at McGill, where he encountered what he calls the “esprit” of an arts-loving city and province. The greatest resource de Souza experienced at McGill, however, was its people. He explained, “I think the best thing about my time at McGill was the interactions I had with so many great professors and so many great students that never tried to put us in a box, and they kind of allowed us to find ourselves as musicians and not try to fit us in a mould.”

Today, in addition to returning to Montreal for a four-show run of Don Giovanni, de Souza heads the music staff at the Komische Oper Berlin, which specializes in avant-garde interpretations of operas, and continues to serve as conductor-in-residence for the Toronto-based Tapestry Opera, which focuses on performing new and contemporary operas through close collaboration with living composers. This broad range of sounds and styles, from a 1787 Mozart staple to a Canadian world premiere, poses a stark contrast, which de Souza believes offers a learning experience.

“To then go back and work on a piece like Don Giovanni – which, obviously, it’s been the same way it is for 250 years – but to come in with that mindset of still trying to find the beats, of trying to see what’s behind the notes […] I think that’s the great parallel that I enjoy [working] with contemporary music and […] staples of the repertoire like the great Mozart.”

For de Souza, this process of “trying to see what’s behind the notes” is one that is purely artistic. He focuses solely on the formal elements of the opera and avoids addressing its reception, even when the opera has harmful social implications for marginalized groups.

Don Giovanni has received much criticism for its misogynistic values. Partway through the play, female love interest Donna Anna takes her solo, singing: “with one hand he tried to silence me, and with the other gripped me so tightly that I thought I must succumb.” Anna’s story may resonate with some survivors of sexual assault. However, in this opera, violence against women is both normalized and romanticized. The narrative focuses instead on Don Giovanni’s pursuit of his desires, frames him as almost heroic, and completely dismisses the lack of sexual agency attributed to its female characters.

Some contemporary interpretations of the Mozart classic address this aspect of the story. While Don Giovanni has been portrayed as a benign, suave seducer, other productions make it clear that he is a perpetrator of violence against women. De Souza doesn’t recognize the latter.

[Jordan de Souza] avoids addressing [the opera’s]reception, even when [it] has harmful social implications for marginalized groups.

“Giovanni is not an opera about sexual assault,” he says, “although sexual assault is a part of what is the departure point of the opera. To think of Giovanni as an immoral piece is to get lost in the details and not to see really what the totality of the message is […] Giovanni’s weapon is also not seduction as much as it is desire, and seduction as a byproduct of this desire.”

De Souza’s dismissal of the harmful implications of Don Giovanni, and the politicization of art as a whole, shows a fundamental misconception of the ways in which systems of oppression function. Even if an artist chooses to focus only on a piece’s formal elements, they cannot erase the social context in which it is created, especially when the piece perpetuates existing violence against disempowered communities.

In an effort to defend both Giovanni’s actions and his own directorial decisions, de Souza insists on putting the character’s actions “in the culture of the 18th century.” However, this does not absolve de Souza of the responsibility to address the opera’s harmful aspects in a contemporary context. By dismissing Giovanni’s actions based on societal values, de Souza refuses to hold the perpetrator accountable and to recognize that misogyny continues to run rampant today and manifests itself in the form of rape culture.

Though de Souza admits that the opera “puts us in a position […] to ask the right questions,” his passing nod to the controversial nature of Don Giovanni is a passive response to serious and rightful critique. Art cannot be untangled from its social context. Ignoring art’s participation in politics is itself a political act, as it obscures the role of art in reproducing systems of power. At the same time, art has the potential to reveal injustices and act against them. Even the opera, an art form so steeped in history and seemingly resistant to change, can surely be mobilized to this end.

Opera de Montreal’s Don Giovanni runs on select dates from November 12 to 19 at Place des Arts.

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Radamès and Aida sneak off for a midnight rendezvous. Amneris gets jealous (her cry of “Tremble, vile slave!” is definite Burn Book material). Trouble ensues — standard love triangle fare. That is, until Radamès’ love for Aida leads him to spill military secrets and stand trial for treason.

Opera de Montreal’s production of Aida, which opened at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier on September 17, captured all the romantic melodrama, musical grandeur, and exoticized spectacle for which this operatic staple is known. Though lacking in live elephants (the opera’s 1871 premiere boasted twelve), the Montreal performance featured towering statues of Egyptian gods, blazing fire-lit torches and an elaborately costumed yet alarmingly homogeneous cast of over a hundred. As wide-eyed Karen would ask: “Wait — if you’re from Africa, why are you white?”

While the traumatic legacy of colonialism is still potent, no context remains to encourage such an exoticized representation of Aida.

“Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask someone why they’re white.” Except, you can, when the white person in question is costumed in a braided wig that is definitely appropriative, singing prolonged arias about her besieged, and supposedly Ethiopian “homeland.”

Troublesome tropes abound in opera: anguished women die in the arms of their lovers (think Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata), mental illness is depicted in a comedic light (as the Comtesse from Opera de Montreal’s recent Les Feluettes), and characters of colour are either bumbling (Ping, Pang, and Pong in Puccini’s Turandot), villainous (Monostatos of Mozart’s Magic Flute), or sexualized (Bizet’s titular Carmen). It’s to be expected — not acceptable, but expected — in an art form that peaked at the height of the African slave trade, a time during which Charles Darwin proclaimed women to be of inferior “mental disposition.”

In fact, when Aida premiered in 1871 at Cairo’s Khedivial Opera House, it was not a symbol of racism, but of Egyptian nationalism. True, the entire debut cast was Italian, the music and lyrics were composed by white men, and costumes were designed (or possibly plundered) by a French Egyptologist — but in the face of rampant European colonialism, Egypt sure knew how to put on a show, elephants and all. The plot depicts Egypt in a patriotic light: while the Egypt of 1871 was under the shadow of British imperialism, the ancient Egypt of Aida was itself an imperialist power, conquering Ethiopia and showing off its pillaged riches to the tune of Verdi’s iconic “Triumphal March.”

The 1871 Aida was by no means progressive: after all, the opera depicts an oversimplified ancient Egypt using Orientalist tropes, deliberately designed to feed the European colonial appetite for a primitive and exotic Other. But the circumstances of Aida’s premiere offer some context — not an excuse, but certainly an explanation.

“Oh my God, Karen, you can’t just ask someone why they’re white.” Except, you can, when the white person in question is costumed in a braided wig that is definitely appropriative, singing prolonged arias about her besieged, and supposedly Ethiopian “homeland.”

Egypt’s viceroy, Ismail Pasha, who oversaw his country’s increasing entanglement in encroaching European colonial powers, had ordered construction of the Khedivial Opera House to celebrate the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal, and to fulfill his grand vision of a (Westernized) globalized Cairo that could compete with the burgeoning ‘cultural hubs’ of Europe. To further this goal, he commissioned Aida from one of Europe’s foremost operatic composers, Giuseppe Verdi. On opening night, the audience was filled with dignitaries, journalists, and politicians, but a decided absence of the general public — signaling that, despite the subversion of portraying ancient Egypt as the colonizer rather than the colonized, Aida was, from its inception, intended to diminish and legitimize modern Egypt to Europeans.

Opera de Montreal’s rendition comes nearly a century and a half after the Cairo premiere, and while the traumatic legacy of colonialism is still potent, no context remains to encourage such an exotic representation of Aida. Nonetheless, several of Opera de Montreal’s production choices were baffling: a phalanx of predominantly white warriors wearing “natural-hair“ wigs was cringe-worthy, as were the servant girls’ braids — but then, at least they weren’t in blackface, which is an occasional practice among opera companies even today. New York’s famous Metropolitan Opera only decided to ban blackface in 2015.

Following the Met’s decision, Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette curated a conversation between prominent opera singers of colour regarding the practice of blackface and racism in opera. The singers all agreed that blackface, though problematic, is not opera’s biggest problem.

While the traumatic legacy of colonialism is still potent, no context remains to encourage such an exoticized representation of Aida.

“The conversation about blackface is a distraction,” said tenor Russell Thomas. “It’s not about whether or not [Met Opera tenor Aleksandrs Antonenko, in the role of Othello] was painted dark […] It’s about this: why aren’t the stages representative of the communities in which they are located?”

Soprano Alyson Cambridge added, “There are black singers who are qualified to sing these roles. Why don’t they get cast?”

Opera de Montreal’s mostly white cast delivered a musically successful performance. Although Radamès, portrayed by tenor Kamen Chanev, was stiff, soprano Anna Markarova as Aida hit some impressive high notes, and mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova offered a regal and robust Amneris. Soprano Myriam Leblanc stood out as the High Priestess — a small role, with brief appearances in only two scenes, but demanding a virtuosity of tone colour that Leblanc captured with impressive ease.

And yet, the question remains: what awaits the singers of colour who weren’t on stage? It’s time for opera companies to interrogate the twisted and often subtle channels of privilege and systemic oppression that influence production decisions from programming to costuming to casting.

Because an opera world in which singers of colour can feel safe and celebrated? Well, that would be totally fetch.

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The band describes their music as something between folk and jazz – defying genres, or perhaps creating a new one. Iyer’s background as a classical violinist shines through in her richly orchestrated compositions, and her website cites her studies of Carnatic music – a nod to her Indian ancestry – as another influence.

At the launch show, a space so crowded and brimming with palpable support for the artists on stage, layers of intimacy are bound to emerge in breathtaking patterns. Friend groups sat in clusters around tables of vegan eats: some were fans of the cafe; others, of the band; and still others were strangers, newcomers to this music or the space, yet welcomed like family.

Thanya Iyer’s music springs from family. There’s the family of listeners she has won over with her heartfelt songwriting and charming rapport. There’s the family on stage with her – the musicians who brought her album to life. There’s also the supportive “second family” of local women and femme singer-songwriters who joined the band on stage to sing backups for the haunting and waltzlike number “Can We Be Still.” And then there’s her own family, supportive of her career, watching in the audience with congratulatory bouquets tucked under their seats.

The band describes their music as something between folk and jazz – defying genres, or perhaps creating a new one.

“[Bassist] Alex’s mom was there and my mom was there,” Iyer said in an email interview with The Daily. “Alex’s mom has been super supportive of his music career and our band. She has always encouraged him to play music and really helps us with anything we need.”

“My mom […] is also very encouraging of the band and comes to almost all of our shows,” Iyer added. “My dad passed away just before I went to CEGEP, and it was there where I started writing music and singing. [He] was a singer himself.”

During her time at CEGEP, Iyer discovered many of the collaborations and friendships that would help shape her music. “Alex and Shaina and I all met at the Vanier [College] music program,” she said, “and what formed there was a really beautiful community of other musicians […], a lot of whom were at the show.”

Iyer and Hayes’ breezy vocals and spacious piano – described on the band’s website as “ethereal” – hovered over powerful bass lines played by Alex “Pompey” Kasirer-Smibert, punctuated by drummer Daniel Gelinas’ sparse yet compelling beats.

“[Our music is] constantly turning into something else and I hope to keep it that way […].”

“We […] understand each other’s personalities. For example, Daniel likes to drink tea and play music for two hours every morning, and is more of an introvert,” explained Iyer. “When it comes to arranging, usually Alex and Dan and I do everything together. With the album, it was a super collaborative process.”

At their Résonance show, the band played a set drawn from their debut album, Do You Dream?, paired with striking visuals by artist and designer Elysha Poirier. During the song “Painting,” close-up swirls of colour panned across the projector screen. “This one’s about finding your way,” Iyer said as she introduced the song. “It’s about finding your own path.”

“[Our music is] constantly turning into something else and I hope to keep it that way,” Iyer stated. “The music has changed so much this year and grown as we have [also] grown and developed a chemistry with playing together.”

“I’m not even sure if we have found our sound yet. But I hope we are onto something,” she continued.

They’re onto something, alright. Thanya Iyer has found her own path. It’s a path of music, and of family – a path that’s sure to lead her to enchant Montreal audiences for years to come.

Catch Thanya Iyer live on September 22 at Le Cagibi as part of POP Montreal, or stream Do You Dream? on Bandcamp.

The post Of music and family appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Based on the 1987 play of the same name by Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard, Les Feluettes was co-commissioned by Opera de Montreal and Pacific Opera Victoria, and had its world premiere on May 21. The plot follows Simon, an aging prisoner, as he forces his former schoolmate, Bishop Bilodeau, to watch his fellow inmates reenact the scenes from Simon’s life leading up to his incarceration for the murder of his first love, Comte Vallier de Tilly – a murder in which the Bishop might be implicated.

As the tale unfolds, the actors immerse the audience in Roberval, 1912 – a time and place where queerness was violently rejected from Quebec society. The opera’s title reflects this history: Opera de Montreal’s website defines feluette as “[a] Quebec expression with its root in the word fluet (thin, frail in appearance) which, in common parlance of the time, referred to men who were weak, frail, or effeminate.”

Tackling themes ranging from mental illness to matricide to wrongful incarceration, Les Feluettes breaks the bounds of classical opera, as a romance between the male protagonists unfolds during the early decades of the twentieth century. In a genre so often entrenched in the rigid and heteronormative tradition of a “high art” mindset, it was refreshing to see a queer narrative shine in the operatic spotlight.

Even in 2016, Les Feluettes marks the first opera starring queer male protagonists to be staged in Montreal.

On May 24, with a full house packed into Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, theatrics were underway even before the house lights dimmed. Costumed in grey prisoners’ uniforms, the Orchestre Métropolitain formed an omnipresent character essential to the plot, bringing to life an enthralling score written by Australian composer Kevin March. Under the capable baton of conductor Timothy Vernon, the orchestra cultivated a sound that was nothing short of cinematic.

The evening’s musical standout was baritone Aaron St. Clair Nicholson as the Comtesse Marie-Laure de Tilly, Vallier’s mother, affected by delusions and hallucinations. Through the eyes of the comtesse, a ragged dress became a fashionable ball gown, a crumbling villa became a grand palace, and her long-absent husband could return at any moment. Meanwhile, solemn scenes were interrupted by her sunny observations, eliciting laughter from a captivated audience.

The trope is all too common – a woman with a mental illness, naive and fragile, yet privy to some mystical wisdom beyond the grasp of a neurotypical populace. Though Nicholson’s performance was stunning, with a glowing voice and sublime acting that mesmerized the audience, the compassion and resilience he lent to his character failed to alleviate the ableist cliches inherent to the role.

In a genre so often entrenched in the rigid and heteronormative tradition of a “high art” mindset, it was refreshing to see a queer narrative shine in the operatic spotlight.

As the performance unfolded, the set was transformed – a grim prison cell became a school theatre, a hotel terrace, a dilapidated mansion, and a moonlit forest in the Quebec countryside. The floating spectre of a whimsical hot air balloon became a cratered full moon thanks to the video projections designed by Gabriel Coutu-Dumont. The striking visuals, from the glowing moon to a raging fire, immersed the performance in a thrilling and dynamic multimedia landscape.

Baritone Étienne Dupuis as young Simon and tenor Jean-Michel Richer as Vallier commanded the stage with captivating magnetism. The singers, both based in Montreal, navigated their roles with raw chemistry – a stolen kiss in an empty school theatre, a nude embrace on a moonlit night – each tracing threads of breathtaking intimacy and desire. Both voices shone, with richly nuanced tone and skillful control. Richer in particular stood out, his velvety tenor spinning those haunting words with earnest passion: “I compose you. I create you. I let you live. I kill you.”

Queer narratives are often tainted by problematic patterns of erasure and tropes of tragedy. In portrayals of queerness, a fatal ending often seems unavoidable, as though queer people can only exist tragically, their love made “impossible” by the inevitability of death. Yet, in an art form famous for its over-the-top depictions of deadly drama, tragedy is an inevitability for all characters, not just queer ones – making the tragic outcome of Les Feluettes seem, in a way, expected.

In portrayals of queerness, a fatal ending often seems unavoidable, as though queer people can only exist tragically, their love made “impossible” by the inevitability of death.

However, the repeated tragic deaths of queer characters across different media – a trope known as “bury your gays” – persists as problematic even in a genre as death-obsessed as opera. Other genres similarly teeming with tragedy and bloodshed fall into the very same cycle: dystopian TV thriller The 100 saw the death of a major queer character, as did zombie drama The Walking Dead and the aptly named American Horror Story. In shows as gory as these, viewers tacitly accept that “any” major character might die, making the deaths of queer characters – out of all the characters who might have been killed – seem less than coincidental and decidedly disproportionate, given the rarity of queer representation across media.

Further, this scarcity of queer characters makes the “bury your gays” paradigm all the more troublesome – particularly in opera, a genre originating centuries before television and film. Even in 2016, Les Feluettes marks the first opera starring queer male protagonists to be staged in Montreal.

Simon and Vallier inhabited a spotlight usually reserved for heteronormative romantic duos in the operatic literature, and exhibited a love as real, moving, and undeniably existent as any other to have graced the opera stage. This, perhaps, was the greatest strength of Les Feluettes: discovering possibility within what society has forbidden, and lending voice to a love story that refused to be silenced.

The post Love letters and prison fetters appeared first on The McGill Daily.

Rodelinda, composed in 1719 by Georg Friedrich Händel, is a rarely performed spectacle of a convoluted plot with larger-than-life characters. It’s loosely based on the events surrounding the usurpation and attempted assassination of Perctarit, king of the Lombards, in the 7th century. Since it’s hard to confine a medieval military coup to three hours of theatrical staging, Händel’s work focuses instead on the twisted yet decidedly human relationships between the parties involved.

Stage director Patrick Hansen was stumped by Rodelinda’s relative obscurity. In the director’s notes, Hansen wrote, “[Rodelinda] is not as well known in North America as it should be. […] I’m not sure why, as the themes and characters present in this opera are timeless and currently reflected in HBO’s Game of Thrones television series.” He cites violence, lust, obsession, and royal intrigue as common to both works. It should be noted, however, that Rodelinda is sadly devoid of dragons.

Throughout the production, talented opera students from McGill’s Schulich School of Music dominated the challenging, ornate vocal lines for which Baroque-era music is known. Stellar voices and acting skills, even in the context of the storyline’s melodrama, amounted to an impressive collective performance. Meanwhile, an orchestra hidden in the pit beneath the stage aced the trills and flourishes of Händel’s capering score.

The evening’s standout was countertenor Nicholas Burns. Hailing from British Columbia, the 21-year-old took on the lead role of King Bertarido with impeccable vocals and an enthralling stage presence. In Rodelinda, Bertarido has been deposed by the tyrannical Grimoaldo and presumed dead by his son Flavio and wife Rodelinda. But Burns’s arrival on stage midway through the first act made it apparent that the king, in fact, lives on.

Throughout the production, talented opera students from McGill’s Schulich School of Music dominated the challenging, ornate vocal lines for which Baroque-era music is known.

Burns channelled the regal poise of a monarch and the pained urgency of a father and husband separated from those he loves, all encapsulated by a skillful voice rarely heard in a performer so young. Often, countertenor roles will be reassigned as “pants roles,” or male roles played by a lower-voiced woman, in absence of a male singer sufficiently capable in the high vocal range demanded of countertenors. Luckily for Opera McGill, Burns was more than capable, with a voice that could compete with the pros.

Soprano Lauren Woods in the role of Rodelinda was another highlight, depicting equal parts majesty and woe with a voice at once agile and nuanced. Woods performed with a gripping and elegant intensity, capturing the eponymous queen’s acts of mourning, loyalty, and defiance. Woods made her regal entrance in the first scene, wearing a swirling pink crown that would have made Effie Trinket jealous.
Despite the student performers’ display of utmost professionalism, the actual professional stage designers failed to hit the mark, resulting in a production that was visually interesting, but thematically half-baked.

The opera appeared to be set inside a dystopian Ikea: bare metal scaffolding, grey mesh columns, and, oddly, a chair suspended upside-down from the ceiling. The set amounted to an aesthetic that perhaps can best be described as “warehouse chic.” In his director’s notes, Hansen explained that he hoped “to create a minimalist expression” in which to frame the characters and their interactions, abstracting the plot to its most basic emotional core.

Despite the student performers’ display of utmost professionalism, the actual professional stage designers failed to hit the mark, resulting in a production that was visually interesting, but thematically half-baked.

The look was, if nothing else, cool. The set was sleek and flexible, with movable pieces meant to signify scene transitions. But some conspicuous design flaws undercut the set’s success: as the orchestra struck its opening notes, outward-facing lights at the back of the stage nearly blinded the first several rows of audience members, while characters ducking around the mesh columns disappeared completely, though unintentionally, from the audience’s view.

And that chair – oh, that upside-down chair. Characters would periodically stand off to the side of the stage and reach longingly toward the chair with outstretched arms. The airborne furniture, hanging awkwardly above stage left, was overtly symbolic of Bertarido’s contested throne, and more generally, of power and control. Pro tip: if your symbolism is overt, it’s not doing its job.

Throughout the production, bizarre currents of violent sexuality came into focus. Lust and desire are unquestionably central to the opera’s plot, but when a vengeful aria sung by King Bertarido’s sister Eduige (chillingly and charmingly portrayed by mezzo-soprano Emma Bonanno) turned into a choreographed BDSM ostentation alongside the scheming Duke Garibaldo (a role brilliantly sung by baritone Jean-Philippe McClish), the effect was more comical than intense.

Pro tip: if your symbolism is overt, it’s not doing its job.

The sexual bent would have been more compelling had it examined or thwarted gender roles. Though the opera features two powerful women, Queen Rodelinda and her sister-in-law Eduige, it fails the Bechdel Test, the set of criteria, usually applied to film and television, that evaluates how women are represented in media. The test asks whether a given work has at least two female characters who talk to each other about a topic other than any of the male characters. (For some perspective, Jessica Jones passes the test, while Daredevil falls short).

Rodelinda and Eduige score on the first and second criteria, but their sole interaction is about, you guessed it, men. This is to be expected of an opera written in the 18th century, but Opera McGill’s abstracted set and staging choices at first seemed to point toward a fresh perspective. Yet, even as Eduige takes on the domineering role in her BDSM aria early in the opera, this staging doesn’t carry through: by the final scene, she docilely agrees to wed Grimoaldo. Here, Hansen had the opportunity to stage Eduige’s betrothal through a lens of empowerment and agency, as a grab for monarchical power or a return to the earlier motif of intertwined dominance and desire. Instead, Eduige’s previous display of passion fizzles in favour of a conventional happy ending.

Even if these components had come together more persuasively, the fact remains that such a modernized take is hardly original. Opera directors are constantly reimagining and reinterpreting their repertoire, searching for innovative settings and unexplored nuances to reinvigorate a centuries-old genre. The question that directors must ask themselves is whether their updated version presents the opera in a way that doesn’t simply transplant the original, but transforms it. Does the staging interrogate the opera’s themes, or simply reroute them? Opera McGill’s vision for Rodelinda was on the cusp of achieving this interpretive metamorphosis, but fell short on multiple counts.

The question that directors must ask themselves is whether their updated version presents the opera in a way that doesn’t simply transplant the original, but transforms it. Does the staging interrogate the opera’s themes, or simply reroute them?

Fortunately, sublime performances shone where the staging faltered, with the Schulich School of Music’s brilliant students lending vivacity and passion to this final production of Opera McGill’s 2015-16 season.

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Così fan tutte, first performed in 1790, counts among Mozart’s most famous comic operas. Its protagonists are the gullible soldiers Guglielmo and Ferrando, who disguise themselves as aristocrats and attempt to seduce each other’s unwitting fiancées, Fiordiligi and Dorabella, in a twisted competition to prove that their fiancées, as all women, are fickle and thus are inherently unfaithful. Overseeing the gambit is cynical philosophaster Don Alfonso, who, aided by the scheming housekeeper Despina, interjects his own intentions into the adulterous experiment.

Opera da Camera wove a fun and vibrant presentation of this Mozartean warhorse, imbued with a creative roaring twenties spin. From Art Deco set pieces to glittering flapper costumes, the 18th-century storyline came to life within a Gatsby aesthetic.

Preceding the performance was a half-hour lecture by Marie-Pierre Poulin, librarian at the Montreal Goethe-Institut, investigating Così fan tutte through a feminist lens. Poulin introduced Mozart’s biography and the context surrounding the opera’s composition before delving into possible subtexts.

Every detail amounted not to a mere performance, but to an experience.

The Enlightenment, an era defined by intellect and reason, was at its peak as Mozart set pen to paper. The plot of Così fan tutte, then, might convey an Enlightenment-style science experiment, an objective observation of romantic cause and effect. Poulin pointed out that Enlightenment society viewed women as the very opposite of its rationalist ideals: “Women were considered unreasonable and unpredictable by nature,” Poulin said at the lecture. The opera’s title alludes to this, translating to “thus do all women” – meaning that all women are, like Fiordiligi and Dorabella, innately impressionable.

Contrary to the assumption implicit in the title, the women of the opera embody scandalous autonomy, unheard of back in 1790. “[They] take lovers in full sight of the public,” Poulin added, “staging actions completely against what was expected of women at the time.” With Opera da Camera’s 1920s twist in mind, Poulin drew attention to the archetype of the flapper girl, a fiercely independent woman who “smokes, drives, and has sexual liaisons.”

These flappers were skillfully brought to life by soprano Carol Leger and mezzo-soprano Kathrin Welte, who were sublimely charming in their respective roles as Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Leger’s sparkling voice and unceasingly concerned facial expression recalled the poised melodrama of Downton Abbey, while Welte’s emphatic pouting and mischievous glances harkened back to the leading ladies of silent film. Fiordiligi and Dorabella are traditionally portrayed as dim and coquettish Neapolitan noblewomen, so it was refreshing to see them coiffed and garbed as emancipated, freewheeling flappers in Opera da Camera’s vintage adaptation – especially in light of Poulin’s discussion.

The male leads shone as well, with tenor David Menzies as Ferrando joining baritone Laurent Deleuil’s Guglielwmo in a comedic duo à la Abbott and Costello, equal parts clumsy and conniving. Their mastery of physical comedy – demonstrated in a scene in which the disguised lovers feign near-death in order to win the ladies’ sympathy, with Menzies and Deleuil writhing exaggeratedly on the floor after drinking fake poison – was matched by their controlled voices, tight harmonies, and suave delivery.

[T]he women of the opera embody scandalous autonomy, unheard of back in 1790. “[They] take lovers in full sight of the public,” Poulin added, “staging actions completely against what was expected of women at the time.”

Supporting roles, however, were underwhelming – though, fortunately, mezzo-soprano Meagan Zantingh’s over-the-top antics as Despina compensated for her strained vocals. Zantingh’s brand of comedy was, in fact, a highlight of the show: her impersonations, disguises, and aptly smug stage presence left the audience in stitches.

Opera da Camera’s Così fan tutte celebrated smallness, with the seven-voice chorus as just one example. An “orchestra” of only five instruments performed on stage alongside the singers rather than ensconced in a pit, while a cleverly minimalist set design lent fluidity and efficiency to each scenic transition.

What truly made the production stand out, however, lays beyond the stage. Opera da Camera’s dedication to intimacy was noticeable as soon as one entered the Théâtre Le Château, from the table of Mozart-themed snacks to the handwritten admission tickets and the cozy audience that gathered in folding chairs for Poulin’s lecture. The lecture elevated the performance even further, tasking the audience not only to enjoy the show, but to ask questions and draw connections between the drama on stage and the social issues that concern our everyday lives. Every detail amounted not to a mere performance, but to an experience – a warm welcome into the oft-intimidating world of classical opera, which Opera da Camera proved can be relaxed, friendly, and fun.

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According to an old tale, Tristan seeks counsel from a revered magician, who offers him a powerful love potion as a remedy to Princess Isolde’s persistent rejection. Upon Tristan’s first sip, Isolde’s heart is softened. But it is not the legendary elixir that lends L’elisir d’amore its title. Rather, it’s a bottle of ordinary Bordeaux, peddled by a quack doctor, which nonetheless proves to have magical qualities of its own.

The performance on January 30 was one in an intense, four-show run. Lead roles were double-cast – one set of singers on Thursday and Saturday and another on Friday and Sunday, giving a greater number of talented students their moment in the spotlight. Vocal performance majors at the Schulich School of Music auditioned for the roles in September and have been preparing since. After all, it isn’t easy to memorize two and a half hours’ worth of Italian lyrics.

A nearly full audience of students, faculty, and other Montrealers packed into the Schulich School’s 600-seat Pollack Hall, joined by a virtual audience via CBC Music’s live webcast.

L’elisir d’amore, written in 1832 by Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti, is nothing short of a rom-com: someone falls in love, but get rejected, and goes to great lengths to win their love over; misunderstandings and hilarity ensue. Opera McGill’s energetic cast delivered a performance full of heart and humour. Saturday’s comedic standouts included Megan Miceli as the wily gossip Giannetta; Jesús Vicente Murillo as the impossibly impish, fourth-wall-breaking Doctor Dulcamara; and Bruno Roy as Sergeant Belcore, a role that he approached with all the cynical swagger (not to mention the moustache) of an operatic Groucho Marx. Accompanying Belcore was a phalanx of bumbling soldiers, whose crisply uniformed antics paired a Monty Python sensibility with Napoleonic aplomb.

Jan van der Hooft lent stilted charm to the role of Nemorino, a sentimental character-in-love and, not the brightest crayon in the box, whose hopeless affections for Adina lead him to drink Doctor Dulcamara’s cure-all “elixir.” Van der Hooft’s subdued tenor is perhaps better fit to the dulcet melodies of an older, Baroque opera, rather than the stirring anthems of the 19th century bel canto style to which L’elisir belongs. Nonetheless, his stumbling Nemorino, emboldened by the “potion,” left the audience in agitation while the singers on stage summed up Act I with a chorus that roughly translates to “go home, Nemorino, you’re drunk.”

Stage director François Racine encouraged these over-the-top portrayals. “For this work, I’m inspired by the Commedia dell’arte; that is, simple stock characters written larger than life,” Racine writes in the press release. “I’m banking on the intrigue found within the come-from-away charlatan, who promises everyone happiness and healing purchased with a fake potion. And yet ultimately, true love and integrity will conquer.”

The other stars of the show could be heard but not seen. Members of the McGill Symphony Orchestra, hidden in the pit below the Pollack Hall stage and led by conductor Patrick Hansen, made Donizetti’s celebrated score feel as fresh as a hot new EP. During Nemorino’s famous aria “Una furtiva lagrima,” bassoon soloist Chris Kostyshyn’s remarkable melody rivaled a heartfelt van der Hooft.

Spoiler alert: at the end of the opera, Nemorino and Adina get together. Their victorious embrace was met by cheers from the audience (spurred by an encouraging wave from Doctor Dulcamara) — and that, perhaps, was the most enchanting part of the performance. Not the miraculous elixir, nor the triumph of true love, but the audience, transported and enthralled by a love story and united in laughter throughout an entirely enjoyable evening of humour, magic, and music.

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