02:52 AM
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Event Details
Join us for an in-concert presentation of The Lesson of Da Ji, winner of the 2013 Dora Mavor Moore award for Outstanding New Musical/Opera. The libretto – from an ancient myth based on a true story about the concubine Da Ji and her forbidden love for a young nobleman – is by Marjorie Chan, and the music, in which traditional baroque instruments (viola da gamba, lute, violin, recorders) are joined by Chinese instruments (pipa, erhu and guzheng), is by Alice Ping Yee Ho. Together Ho and Chan have created an opera of unusual intensity and beauty.
With a stunning cast, fresh from recording the opera for a Centrediscs release later this year, you are in for a rare treat of one of Canada’s finest new operas.
Toronto Masque Theatre is one of the only companies in the world devoted to the masque form. Taking our inspiration from the traditional masque - a courtly entertainment that combined elements of dance, music, drama and spectacle - we reinvent and renew the art form for contemporary audiences. To date, we have commissioned eight new works from Canadian artists.
Featured Program
Composer: Alice Ping Yee Ho
Librettist: Marjorie Chan
Conductor: Larry Beckwith
Singers
Marion Newman, mezzo-soprano, as Da Ji, concubine to the king
Derek Kwan, tenor, as Bo Yi, her lover
Vania Chan, coloratura soprano, the maid and the moon
Charlottee Corwin, soprano, the duchess
Benjamin Covey, baritone, the duke
Alexander Dobson, baritone, the king
and special guest
William Lau, Peking Opera singer
Instrumentalists (Chinese)
Patty Chan, erhu
Ziwen Cynthia Qin, guzheng
Wen Zhao, pipa
Instrumentalists (Baroque)
Elizabeth Loewen Andrews, violin
Patty Chan, erhu
Kathleen Kajioka, violin
Lucas Harris, lute
Beverley Johnson, percussion
Alison Melville, recorder
Joelle Morton, viola da gamba
Wesley Shen, harpsichord