Silver Dollar’s last night
After final show, patrons reflect on void left by venue’s closure
It was a dark and stormy night and then New Fries and Fake Palms and METZ — and suddenly, the Silver Dollar was no more.
Not that suddenly, I guess, since everyone has known this day was coming for some time, long before the developers who’ve purchased the property at Spadina Ave. and College St. in which it’s housed finally gave it a May 1 shutdown date early this year. Nor that suddenly on the occasion, either, since everyone who managed to cram him- or herself into the Dollar on Sunday night for the last stand at one of Toronto’s last original grotty rock-’n’-roll holes was left with a surprising amount of time to kill at the bar before lights out once the dust had settled on METZ’s pummelling headlining set shortly after midnight.
That was when the reality of the situation sank in, not least because all thinking had been well nigh impossible whilst METZ did its best to level the Dollar and everyone in it with its first hometown set in two years — a set beautifully crowned by the sight of talent booker Dan Burke crowd-surfing his way around the lowceilinged room to “Wet Blanket” atop a round Silver Dollar sign, liberated from behind the stage and decreed “a surfboard” by singer Alex Edkins just one song previous.
It’s been eight years since James Bond saved the day on the set of Philipp Himmelmann’s Bregenz Tosca in 2008. It was also the same year that the Canadian Opera Company first brought Paul Curran’s Tosca to Toronto for an audience that typically doesn’t mince words about Puccini.
They remounted it again in 2012 and, after three tries, this latest revival seems sure to satisfy the purists who think Tosca is fine just the way it is.
But for this critic, getting there was another story. With a subway line closed to travel and a parade marking the Sikh Khalsa Day along University Ave. (where Prime Minister Trudeau, Ontario Premier Wynne and the mayor joined the revellers), I was late for the first act.
Beyond simply getting there, what I found was essentially an esthetic counterbalance to last week’s COC production of Louis Riel. While this Tosca is an ideal safe bet for a season closer, it carried a message for the COC’s loyal fans: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
This time around, a number of new faces gave this production a fresh way to cut through the smoke-filled room of love, lust, treachery and deception.
Of these, Argentinian tenor Marcelo Puente brought a masculine, yet boyish vulnerability to the role of Cavaradossi. His voice was smooth, and unravelled just enough to let his blood-soaked costume look the part.
Markus Marquardt’s Scarpia was another surprising highlight. His malice perfectly embodied the archetype of a delicious antagonist. In particular, it was his chilling grins of joy that underpinned his false-hearted plans laid at the feet of Tosca, Angelotti and Cavaradossi.
His singing was effortless and wellrehearsed, though some standing issues were noticeable: namely his attempt to snuff out a defiant candelabra in Act II that stayed alight, despite his best intentions. Was this indicative of his trying to have his way with Tosca? His second attempt in a later scene saw the flames finally, and metaphorically, snuffed out.
Adrianne Pieczonka’s Floria Tosca was predictably strong, especially in the classic “Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore” (“I lived for art, I lived for love”) aria in Act II.
Beyond Pieczonka’s creamy velvet voice were her compelling interactions with Cavaradossi and Scarpia. Pieczonka nailed her scenes to the stage floor with an ever deepening understanding of the character’s subtext.
It is this subtext that emphasized the opera’s reliance on a verismo-like real-time action that was further served by the COC orchestra, under conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson (incidentally, partner to Metropolitan Opera general manager Peter Gelb).
One of the particular traits of Puccini’s warhorse is how the music works to support the ebb and flow of each scene. It functions to set the clock that provides the space for the actors to hit their marks without the anxiety of rushing or slowing down to meet them. It was here that Wilson seemed to miss the mark at times. Instead of allowing the orchestra to flex against the inflections of the singers, the flow was often too rigid. This resulted in brief moments where the music was slightly off, sometimes by as much as an entire beat.
Despite Wilson’s head-in-the-score approach, the orchestra itself was on the mark. They played with a bright spirit that made the Four Seasons shine with Puccini’s extraordinary gift for melody and orchestration.
As evidenced by the reward of a standing ovation, this time-tested COC production proves it doesn’t need any more scale to satisfy the senses. As long as Pieczonka is involved, a bare-bones Tosca on an opulence diet suits just fine.