PACKING TWO VENUES AT ONCE
Yo-Yo Ma concert to be simulcast
Despite appearances, the fundamentals of space-time were in effect. Yo-Yo Ma did not sell out the Maison symphonique before the Montreal Bach Festival made tickets available in February to the cellist’s traversal of the Six Solo Suites on Dec. 7. But those tickets moved at something like the speed of light, which led festival artistic director Alexandra Scheibler to hatch the idea of outfitting St. James United Church with an HD screen and selling pew space (first come, first served) for a simulcast. “It gives people the chance to take part in the event who missed buying a ticket for the concert at the Maison symphonique, either because it was sold out or because it was too expensive,” Scheibler said last week. As of this writing, tickets to the St. James alternative were still available. Space-time again prevails. The concert is not happening in two places at once. The festival is merely creating this appearance. How convincingly will depend on the quality of the technology (probably rather high, given the participation of ProdCan, the Montreal firm that works locally for Medici.tv) and the willingness of the St. James audience to suspend disbelief. Not that such suspension is exceptional. When the Canadiens play the Senators in Ottawa the night before, hundreds of thousands at home or in a bar will suppose themselves to be “watching the game” rather than a television simulcast. This might be to state the exceedingly obvious, but it is by no means clear that sports fans who spend a week’s salary on a pair of tickets have the superior experience. Live spectators are denied repeated close-ups. They do not benefit from the illuminating commentary of Don Cherry or the resources of backstage researchers who can summon archival information in an instant. And all it takes is one inconsiderate fan standing up suddenly to block your view of a key save. Opera enthusiasts also risk an obstructed view, especially in the parterre of a 1960s venue like Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts. Most contemporary cinemas are designed with the viewer in mind. Patrons of the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD broadcasts have no such problem. They also enjoy the advantage of a plot synopsis before the curtain and interviews with stars during intermission. Nevertheless, we like to believe that opera performances, and especially concerts, are best experienced in situ. After all, live performances and recordings have coexisted for more than a century. Despite the predictions of Glenn Gould, live experiences are thought to be more intense, more authentic. Will this priority withstand the HD challenge? Spectators at arena and stadium rock concerts are more likely to watch closeups on the giant screen than the little puppets on stage. Now opera has begun to adapt some of this technology. In the high-tech Opéra de Montréal run of Wagner’s Das Rheingold that concluded last week at Place des Arts, we saw a projected close-up of Alberich before he commenced his advances on the Rhinemaidens. Fafner and Fasolt were also rendered larger than life as their images appeared in skeletal outline on a scrim above the camera into which they stared. Chilling at first, the effect eventually turned stale. As Robert Lepage made clear in his so-so Ring cycle for the Met, technology is not a foolproof aid on the opera stage. Sound remains paramount at concerts. The Maison symphonique is a remarkably good facility for chamber music. There is little doubt that Yo-Yo Ma (who on Nov. 11 played the Sarabande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 5 at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris) will make himself heard. But the 63-year-old cellist is a great one for facial expression. St. James customers will get a close-up view of all those grimaces. For better or worse. It is significant also that the streamed event is near the real thing. Would a simulcast in Hampstead have the same appeal? Probably not, even though the broadcast (disregarding a few Einsteinian nanoseconds) would be no less simultaneous. “I really like the idea that St. James United Church is only a few blocks away from Place des Arts,” Scheibler said. Even if the simulcast were farther away from the source, the church setting might be expected to foster a communal experience with fellow music-lovers. This element is hard to duplicate in the living room. “In my personal view, as much as I think streaming of concerts to be able to watch them at home on the sofa is useful, streaming a concert into another venue makes everyone experience the event with a number of human beings together,” Scheibler says. “There will be a certain vibe in the church. As in the concert hall, it is nice to experience the music not alone but with other people.” Ma’s recital concludes the Montreal Bach Festival, which began in earnest on Thursday with St. John Passion as conducted by Julian Prégardien in the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul. The acclaimed German tenor was also scheduled to sing the role of the Evangelist. One New York gig in 2012 aside, Prégardien has made Montreal his only outpost in the Americas. He appears also in the Kent Nagano-led OSM performances of Bach’s Mass in B Minor on Dec. 4 and 5 in the Maison symphonique. Events of all kinds are forthcoming in the festival: vocal and instrumental, solo and ensemble, playful and scholarly, period and modern. Nor is Ma the only cellist. Stéphane Tétreault brings his remarkable Stradivarius (purchased by the late Jacqueline Desmarais) to the vast expanse of St. Joseph’s Oratory on the afternoon of Nov. 25, in a program including Bach’s three Sonatas for Viola da Gamba. Rather surprisingly, Mireille Lagacé uses the mighty von Beckerath organ as an accompanying instrument in the first of these sonatas (written for the fretted baroque relative of the cello). Tétreault will be in the organ loft for this. Then the artists repair to an acoustic sweet spot in the middle of the sanctuary. Lagacé plays a small positif organ. Tickets are limited to 500. The festival has never been didactically attached to historical practice. The honour of the modern piano is upheld in Bourgie Hall by Jeremy Denk (Goldberg Variations on Nov. 28) and Sergei Babayan (Chopin sandwiched between Rameau and Bach on Dec. 5). Vocal fans should take note of an appearance by mezzo-soprano Julie Boulianne with the McGill Chamber Orchestra under Boris Brott in St-Jean-Baptiste Church on Nov. 27 (Bach’s Cantata No. 199, with Ted Baskin on the oboe, a pair of Vivaldi arias, and a new piece by Indigenous composer Barbara Croall for voice and flute, the latter being Tim Hutchins). Polish counter-tenor Jakub Józef Orlinski joins the Granby ensemble L’Harmonie des Saisons at the Church of St. Andrew and St. Paul on Nov. 29 in a program of various 18th-century selections, including Bach’s rewrite of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater. Valérie Milot plays her harp versions of Bach harpsichord concertos on Nov. 30 with Ensemble Caprice under Matthias Maute, as well as a new piece by Airat Ichmouratov. If you want to hear harpsichord concertos played on a harpsichord, Mélisande McNabney obliges with the compact Pallade Musica in Bourgie Hall on Nov. 26. On Dec. 3 the German violist Nils Mönkemeyer plays Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1, also in Bourgie Hall. Many violists play Bach’s Cello Suites in private, although few performance opportunities arise. As if hearing a musician named Mönkemeyer is not appealing enough, the program with pianist William Youn includes Brahms’ so-called Viola Sonatas, written originally for clarinet but enthusiastically embraced by violists in transcriptions by the composer. Pianist Carter Johnson, a student at the University of British Columbia, is the grand prize winner of the 2018 OSM Manulife Competition. The prize package includes an appearance on Jan. 16 with the OSM under David Robertson in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3. According to his website, Johnson plays oboe and harpsichord as well as piano. He also sings. More unusually, he acts, holding an “ATCL with Distinction (a diploma) in Speech and Drama from Trinity College London and has won many awards for his performances of Shakespeare.” Johnson is the second thespian in three years to win the OSM competition. The 2016 victor was violinist Blake Pouliot — who, as a teen, appeared on the Canadian television shows Flashpoint and Warehouse 13.