Brott to You in February? ‘Filumena’
Boris Brott’s on-demand channel presents three scenes from John Estacio’s grand opera
Pivot or disappear.
That was the stark reality facing every musical organization grappling with how to continue sensibly and responsibly under protocols designed to combat the spread of the coronavirus.
The Brott Music Festival, recognizing last spring that they wouldn’t be able to bring performers and audiences together in a concert hall setting, pivoted quickly and joined the worldwide stampede to online platforms. They hired high profile musicians such as violinist-violist Pinchas Zukerman and cellist Steven Isserlis to lead master classes over Zoom for the National Academy Orchestra. And they uploaded interviews, mash-up videos plus a physically-distanced and condensed version of Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” to YouTube and/or Facebook, soliciting donations in lieu of ticket purchases.
Late last year, realizing that we’d all be living alongside the coronavirus well into 2021 if not longer, the BMF launched its on-demand video streaming channel, Brott to You.
“This would provide our audiences with continued great music, our artists with continued income and performance opportunities, and provide some box office income,” said BMF artistic director Boris Brott about his eponymous channel.
The channel’s newest addition is a 45-minute video of three scenes from Newmarket-born, Calgarybased John Estacio’s two-act grand opera, “Filumena,” viewable from Feb. 1 to 28.
Co-commissioned by Calgary Opera
and the Banff Centre, “Filumena” premièred to great fanfare in Calgary in 2003. Based on the tragic story of convicted murderess Filumena Losandro, a.k.a. Florence Lassandro, who was hanged in Alberta in 1923, Estacio’s opera, with a libretto by John Murrell, has gone on to be staged at Edmonton Opera, Ottawa’s National Arts Centre, and was remounted in Calgary in 2017.
The BMF originally planned to mount these three scenes in FirstOntario Concert Hall on June 18, 2020 as part of a rather ambitious opera blockbuster which was to have also included Act 2 from Julien Bilodeau’s “Another Brick in the Wall” and the première of Odawa First Nation composer Barbara Croall’s “Kikzootaadwak” (Hide and Seek).
The three scenes, “There will be a storm tonight,” “Picnic,” and “Final Prison Scene,” were filmed over two sessions Nov. 4 in the FirstOntario Concert Hall. Stringent health and safety protocols were followed. No audience was present in the hall. The singers on stage and all 13 NAO musicians in the pit were physically distanced. Plexiglas screens were placed onstage between the singers and in front of the five wind musicians. The remaining eight musicians wore masks as did Brott, the videographers, and the seven crew members from IATSE Local 129.
Baritone Gregory Dahl, who created the role of Filumena’s husband Charlie Losandro at the 2003 Calgary première and was bootlegger kingpin Emilio “Emperor Pic” Picariello in the 2017 remount, was tapped by Brott to reprise that latter role and stage direct the scenes.
Tenor Ernesto Ramirez reprises his 2017 role of Stefano Picariello, Filumena’s love interest and cobootlegger decoy. Alberta-born soprano Sydney Baedke, who covered the role of Donna Anna in “Don Giovanni” last June, appears in the title role.
Alas, changes had to be made to the opera’s scoring.
“Because of COVID regulations, the full orchestra was impossible to accommodate at physical distancing, so with John Estacio’s approval, we created an arrangement for solo strings, woodwinds and brass, piano, percussion and harp,” said Brott.
The artistic team also included Ed Kotanen who co-ordinated the costumes, and the BMF’s artist-in-residence Jacqui Templeton Muir who created the backdrops. Postproduction
and editing were handled by Neil Craighead in Calgary.
The video also includes Estacio’s spoken introductions to scenes, interviews with cast members, comments from Taras Kulish who was director of artistic operations at Calgary Opera in 2017, plus a tribute to retired IATSE Local 129 head carpenter, Jim Brown.
Ticket at brottmusic.com: $15 per household.
Leonard Turnevicius writes about classical music for The Hamilton Spectator. leonardturnevicius@gmail.com