Here’s a fun piece of news: Mayor Rob Ford is the main character in a new absurdist opera being presented by University of Toronto Faculty of Music students on Jan. 22.
“He’s kind of bigger than life. And he generates an awful lot of energy around him from things that he does. So he’s a very interesting catalyst,” librettist and director Michael Patrick Albano told the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale.
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
It looks like the opera includes a scene where Ford goes to Heaven, to discover that God looks an awful lot like Margaret Atwood. There is another scene where Ford is judged by a jury made up of Toronto librarians. The score is by UofT composition students.
You can read the whole article here. There’s also a bit more information, courtesy of BlogTO here.
Although the UofT effort is absurdist, it’s not difficult to imagine Rob Ford as a classic Pantalone from commedia dell’arte. If I were suggesting a quick adaptation, I would borrow Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, renaming it Don Roberto, and transfer the role of Malatesta to, say, Adam Vaughan.
If you have any fun suggestions, send them along to suchacritic@gmail.com, and I’ll post them here.
To further prime your imagination, here is “Bella siccome un angelo” from Don Pasquale. Instead of describing a lovely bride, imagine Malatesta (Roberto de Candia) singing to Don Pasquale (Alessandro Corbelli) about an alluring lakeside mall cum amusement park, joined to downtown by a sleek, curvy monorail:
John Terauds
- Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
- Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
- CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019
