Chatting about Masque
Hi there,
It's a great pleasure to write an inaugural posting to the TMT discussion page. I call it a "discussion page" because I'm not a big fan of the word "blog" for some reason! Things are progressing at a fast and furious pace for TMT in our sixth season. I will write a longer submission soon about our first five years and what inspired us to create TMT, but for now I'm happy to report that plans for the immediate future, and into the longer range, are going very, very well. Of course, fundraising remains a very high priority, but I am so pleased with the response that our productions have had from performers and audiences alike. We've built a wonderful production team, including our designer Caroline Guilbault, lighting designer Gabriel Cropley and our associate artists Derek Boyes and Marie-Nathalie Lacoursiere. I'm amazed at the level of singers we have managed to engage, with the recent experience of our Dido double-bill with Monica Whicher and Alexander Dobson fresh in my memory. I'll write soon again outlining initial responses to the brand new Mummers Masque by Dean Burry, which has just been finished. We are so looking forward to putting it up on its feet and having fun with this engaging and entertaining work.
- Larry B.
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Thanks and Planning
I wanted to thank all of you who came to our recent Dido and Aeneas/Aeneas and Dido performance at the Glenn Gould Studio. It was a wonderful night for TMT. Everyone on the stage seemed to feed off each other's energies and the great energy of the audience and it was a supreme pleasure to revisit these terrific pieces. We made an archival recording of the evening, which turned out very well. I was happy to be able to give James Rolfe and Andre Alexis and recording of their very fine piece.
While it seems as though the season is just getting started, it is this time of year that we begin planning for next season, putting together various ideas, juxtaposing programs, trying to come up with an interesting mix of material that will appeal to and challenge audiences. I find this especially challenging as we've opened up several avenues of repertoire that we want to continue, and experimented with many different types of programs that we still feel work under the umbrella genre of "masque".
We're rooted in the 17th and early 18th century baroque response to "masque" and have already offered productions or concert performances of the greats in this area: Handel's Acis and Galatea, Blow's Venus and Adonis, our Purcell cycle of his great operas and semi-operas, Monteverdi's Combattimento, Charpentier's La Descente d'Orphee aux Enfers. We are proud of our commissions of Canadian composers and writers to explore the masque form and I'm happy that there are a couple of new projects in the works for next season and 2011-2012. We've had such fun putting together "theme" evenings such as Commedia!, Masques of Love, Masques of War and Tears of a Clown and would love to revisit this format for a program next season. And there are 20th and 21st century existing pieces that would work very well on the TMT stage; pieces by Milhaud, Ravel, Britten and others.
So, it's a challenge, but a fun one. I also welcome ideas of repertoire, poetry, dance pieces....anything you feel would work well on our stage. I never want to get to a point where I feel I've run out of ideas - can't imagine it - or that we are limited at all. Juxtapositions of repertoire, art forms, cultures and traditions seem to be at the core of what we do, and hope to do for many years to come.