Beats, bats and ballet
Our highlights from Toronto’s fall performing arts calendar
In a Toronto arts season that feels as epic as Meat Loaf’s anthems, tonight’s premiere of the enginerevving Bat Out of Hell The Musical sets an appropriate tone. Toronto’s upcoming arts calendar is as intense, ambitious and dramatic as the city’s newest rock opera.
Take the Canadian Opera Company, which has challenged soprano Jane Archibald to an operatic marathon as she performs in three shows throughout the season as the COC’s artist-in-residence.
Or the fight for balletic bragging rights as international dance greats go toe-to-toe at the Sony Centre’s All Star Ballet Gala. Even the hand-jiving kids of
Grease get gritty in a new high-profile Toronto production. Check out these highlights coming to the city’s stages: Arabella
Arabella dreams that true love conquers all, even as her family pleads with her to marry well so they can skip out on financial ruin. The Canadian Opera Company premiere of Richard Strauss’s romantic romp is also the first of three shows this season to star Canadian soprano Jane Archibald, the COC’s first artist-inresidence. On now to Oct. 28, Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, 145 Queen St. W., My.COC.ca Bat Out of Hell The Musical The epic anthems written by Jim Steinman for Meat Loaf’s three Bat Out of Hell albums — including Paradise By the Dashboard Light, I Would Do Any- thing for Love (But I Won’t Do That), and It’s All Coming Back to Me Now — are belted out as a dystopian rock fairy tale heavy on the bats and bikes. On now to Dec. 24, Ed Mirvish Theatre, 244 Victoria St., Mirvish.com Dual Light Dance Works, Canada’s longest running contemporary dance series, celebrates its 40th anniversary with the world premiere of Dual Light. Eight dancers perform not only to music but inventively orchestrated light and sound environments. Thursday to Oct. 21, Harbourfront Centre Theatre, 235 Queens Quay W., harbourfrontcentre.com Théâtre français de Toronto’s Fall Program The French-language theatre company kicks off its 50th anniversary season with the premiere of Ici les arbres s’enracinent
dans l’eau ( Where Trees Take Root in Water), a new play written entirely by using excerpts from Toronto’s acclaimed French-language novelists, poets, playwrights and more. Americandream.ca explores how much America influences the Canadian identity in a way Théâtre français’s artistic director Joël Beddows describes as “very timely.”
December brings Petites bûches, the story of the friendship between a Canadian boy and two orphaned girls who have survived the war in Serbia. “It is incredibly luminous,” Beddows says. “I thought it was the perfect show to do right before the holidays, for just that reason.” Ici les arbres s’enracinent dans l’eau, Oct. 26-28 (presented with English surtitles); Americandream.ca, Nov. 16-19 (English surtitles at all performances except Nov. 19); Petites bûches (no surtitles), Dec. 16; Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley St., TheatreFrancais.com Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Opera Atelier remounts its popular comic opera with American bass-baritone Douglas Williams in the role of the soon-to-be-wed (he hopes!) Figaro and all the lavish spectacle the company is famous for, including the opulent, Dora Awardwinning costumes of Martha Mann. Oct. 26-Nov. 4, Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre, 189 Yonge St., OperaAtelier.com Divas Live Female vocalists are front and centre in the Royal Conservatory’s fall season, including soprano Erin Wall’s salute to the songs of the summer (not to mention fall, winter and spring) A Song for All Seasons; the unique collision of Spanish-Ladino singer Yasmin Levy and the traditional-with-a-twist Eastern European Jewish sounds of the Klezmatics; soprano and Order of Canada recipient Barbara Hannigan’s selections from the Second Viennese School, as accompanied by pianist Reinbert de Leeuw; and Canadian jazz great Holly Cole, who will no doubt dive into her beloved holiday repertoire. Erin Wall, Oct. 15; Yasmin Levy and the Klezmatics, Nov. 1; Barbara Hannigan with Reinbert de Leeuw, Nov. 10; Holly Cole, Nov. 17; TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, 273 Bloor Street W., RCMusic.com Canada All Star Ballet Gala In a summit of star power, 17 dancers from Canada and eight companies around the globe showcase ballet in its most heightened form. Oct. 28, Sony Centre for the Performing Arts, 1Front St. E., SonyCentre.ca Grease The Musical Broadway choreographer Josh Prince takes the original high-school musical back to its original Chicago setting for a revamped, grittier Grease The Musical that stars Janel Parrish (a.k.a., Mona from Pretty Little Liars) as Sandy, How To Get Away With Murder’s Katie Findlay as Rizzo and newcomer Dylan S. Wallach as Danny. Nov. 1-Dec. 10, Elgin and Winter Garden Theatre Centre, 189 Yonge St., GreaseOnStage.com Heisenberg This story by Tony Award-winning playwright Simon Stephens ( Harper Regan, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time) about a chance encounter between two strangers, Georgie and the much-older Alex, at a London train station makes its Canadian premiere in this Canadian Stage production. Nov. 28-Dec.17, Berkeley Street Theatre, 26 Berkeley St., canadianstage.com