The Canadian Opera Company has been slogging through Wagner’s interminable Ring Cycle over the past three seasons. And I’ve been slogging through my reviews of said marathons of melancholy Germans singing about dwarves. The summary was always the same: the set is bonkers but impressive, the singers and orchestra are technically sound, no one is […]

Right up front, I have to say that I just don’t love Wagner. I’ve tried, I’ve tried so hard (I was well-rested, well-fed, well-Mentos’d to keep me alert during this latest interminable Wagnerian ordeal), but I cannot force myself to invest in overblown German dramatics about trolls for five hours at a time. The plot […]

Time after time, I seem to land on the opposing point of view when it comes to the latest COC production. I never could wrap my head around the critical apathy towards my favourite show to date- Verdi’s Masked Ball– nor could I see the reported genius of so many pieces I found deathly boring. […]