Leonard Slatkin's shaky Traviata at the Met: Should we really be blaming the conductor for everything?

Leonard Slatkin may not be returning to the Metropolitan Opera anytime soon. 

The music director of the Detroit Symphony is conducting a remount of Verdi's La Traviata -- substituted after John Corigliano's Ghosts of Versailles was busted from the season due to budget cuts -- and the people talking think the conductor doesn't know what he is doing.

You can read all about it in Anthony Tommasini's review in The New York Times.

It's a fact that a great orchestra will make it through a piece of music without a stumble when a conductor gets lost or doesn't really know what he or she is doing. It probably happens far more often than any of us would really care to know.

Opera is much more complicated, because, once rehearsals are out of the way, the singers are in charge, too. The conductor has to cue them, but also follow them. In the same instant, he has to let the orchestra know with his hands what is going on on stage.

Slatkin, the very American model of a modern musical maestro, keeps a detailed blog, in which he describes the rehearsal process in detail. The day before dress rehearsal, his Violetta (Angela Gheorghiou), doesn't feel like showing up for work. At dress rehearsal, he notices that there are new faces in the orchestra pit.

A section from Slatkin's blog entry from last Thursday sums it up:

In the orchestral world, we get used to very limited rehearsal time. With instrumental soloists, it is a luxury to get them for two sessions before a concert, something that I usually insist on. And with people I know well, we rarely meet before playing with the ensemble. Most passages get worked out as you go along, in front of everyone. It is one thing to play through a work with the piano, and another when the full orchestra is there. There have been other times when there was no rehearsal at all and we just showed up for the concert.
      It is no different at the opera.
     But this was a different matter altogether. Not only was the work new to me, but also I had never even met the soprano! It is a very good thing that the orchestra is used to changes such as this. They negotiated every turn with an amazing ease, saving me in a couple critical moments. I apologized just before Act 2 and thanked them.
     “Welcome to our world,” was the response.

So, do we blame the conductor or the chop-chop way in which a staple of a house's repertoire gets slapped together for an eager public?

When all is said and done, it needs to be about the final product: convincing, assured performances that sound and feel as if nothing else in the world could possibly matter more than this story. That's what the critic sees. That's what the audience sees.

If things aren't up to expectations, someone needs to get blamed. It just so happens that it's the conductor's head, nicely lit with a spotlight as he takes his bow in front of the house, that's closest to the swinging axe.

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I can't help adding on this bit of Wii Music silliness as a coda:

Toronto Summer Music Festival unveils musically rich and diverse 5th anniversary season

I've just received the press release for the fifth annual Toronto Summer Music Festival. There are many familiar returning artists, as well as some significant new ones, including baritone Matthias Goerne.

As was the case last year, there won't be an opera production once again in 2010.

Here is the press release:

2010 marks the fifth annual TORONTO SUMMER MUSIC FESTIVAL (TSMF), and Artistic Director Agnes Grossmann is delighted to unveil her plans for this year’s edition devoted to the theme Songs of the Earth. The Festival takes place in downtown Toronto from July 20 to August 13, and features an array of Canadian and international stars including Matthias Goerne, Andreas Haefliger, Anton Kuerti, Menahem Pressler, Connie Shih and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi; top flight international chamber ensembles the Pacifica String Quartet, the Vienna Piano Trio, the Gryphon Trio and the Penderecki String Quartet; and four imaginative concert programmes that combine music with an added dimension: the Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe from the United States together with Japan’s Imada Puppet Troupe; The Art of Time Ensemble with musical transformations based on Korngold-inspired themes; a tribute to the legendary choreographer, the late Pina Bausch, with a film of her ballet set to Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring projected as duo-pianists Anagnoson and Kinton perform the composer’s chamber version of this volcanic dance score; and the Gryphon Trio with James Campbell performing Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time against the backdrop of evocative paintings by Stephen Hutchings. Another highlight of the Festival will be a performance of Mahler’s masterpiece, Song of the Earth in the Schoenberg/Rhien chamber version. Landmark anniversaries of composers Schumann, Chopin and Mahler will be celebrated in concert programmes throughout the four-week Festival, which includes the world-premiere of a new Mahler-inspired work by Glenn Buhr.

 

“As the Toronto Summer Music Festival enters its fifth season, I am truly thrilled with the opportunity to share these 13 concerts inspired by the theme Songs of the Earth. With Mahler’s eponymous masterpiece as my cue, I have selected music that celebrates the beauties of the earth and reflects the profound love that many of the featured composers felt for nature. I am sure that audiences will find these concerts fascinating, engaging and thought-provoking,” says Agnes Grossmann.

 

 

Toronto Summer Music Festival at a Glance

 

Tuesday series: SCHUMANN & CHOPIN RECITAL SERIES

Honouring two of the most inspiring piano-composers of the Romantic era

 

July 20, 8 pm at Koerner Hall

Anton Kuerti, piano

Master pianist and 2007 Schumann prize-winner Anton Kuerti launches the 2010 festival with a solo homage to Schumann’s 200^th anniversary. Praised as “one of the truly great pianists of this century” (CD Review, London), Kuerti’s past three Festival appearances have sold out. His gala performance in the superb acoustics of Koerner Hall on a brand new Hamburg Steinway includes Schumann’s Novelettes, Op. 21, Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 11, the Fantasy in C major, Op. 17, and the Toccata in C major, Op. 7.   

 

July 27, 8 pm at Koerner Hall

Masters of Song — Matthias Goerne, baritone and Andreas Haefliger, piano  

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Dr. Ryan McClelland

Known as “perhaps the greatest Lieder singer of our day,” (Chicago Sun-Times), baritone Matthias Goerne makes his highly anticipated Festival debut. He is joined by his long-time collaborator, the superb pianist Andreas Haefliger in a programme of Lieder including Schumann’s Three Songs to texts by Heinrich Heine, Liederkreis, Op. 24, and Brahms Lieder, Op. 32. Haefliger also performs the Three Intermezzi, Op. 117 — among the best-loved of Brahms’ music for solo piano.

 

August 3, 8 pm at MacMillan Theatre

Piano Legends — André Laplante, piano

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Don Anderson

One of the great Romantic pianists of our time, André Laplante returns to the Festival to pay tribute to the Chopin bicentenary. He performs the rarely-heard chamber version of Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11 with string quartet. Franz Liszt’s Book 2 Pilgrimages (Italy), which was inspired by timeless masterpieces of painting, sculpture and poetry by Raphael, Michelangelo, Petrarch and Dante, completes the programme.      

 

August 10, 8 pm at Walter Hall

Romantic Duo — Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, cello and Connie Shih, piano

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Dr. Robin Elliott

Japan’s revered cellist Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi returns to share the stage with the Canadian-born, Germany-based young pianist, Connie Shih. The programme features virtuoso Romantic cello sonatas by Mendelssohn and Chopin and is completed by folk-flavoured selections including Schumann’s Five Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102 and Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major, Op. 3.

 

Wednesday concert:

August 4, 8:00 pm at MacMillan Theatre
An Evening of German Art Song  — Colin Ainsworth, tenor;  Leslie Ann Bradley, soprano;

          Peter McGillivray, baritone

This celebration of German art song features three of Toronto’s most remarkable and accomplished young Lied-singers. The programme includes some of the most beautiful songs by Robert Schumann, and shows the evolution of German art song into the 20^th century through Hugo Wolf

and Richard Strauss.

Thursday series: MUSIC PLUS SERIES

Music experienced through multi-disciplinary forms

July 22, 8:00 pm at MacMillan Theatre

Music & Theatre — Buraku Bay Puppet Troupe and Imada Puppet Troupe

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Martin Holman

 

Bunraku [boon-rah-koo]: a vivid, sophisticated style of puppet theatre that originated in Japan more than 300 years ago.

TSMF is thrilled to present the Toronto premiere of the only American troupe that performs traditional Japanese Bunraku puppetry. The Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe is joined by its Ina Valley, Japan-based mentors, the Imada Puppet Troupe, which was founded in 1704. Using half life-size puppets and accompanied by chanted narration and music played on traditional instruments, the two companies perform a series of delightful, inspiring short plays. Chicago Weekly praised the Bunraku Bay Troupe’s “wonder in craftsmanship and coordination,” remarking, “the entrance was enough to send chills down everyone’s spines ....”

 

July 29, 8:00 pm at Walter Hall
Musical Transformations — Erich Korngold: Source and Inspiration

Andrew Burashko and Art of Time Ensemble
6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Andrew Burashko

Andrew Burashko and the Art of Time Ensemble performances have earned the reputation for being among Toronto’s most engaging concert experiences, with programs that are thought-provoking and compelling. TSMF is proud to present Art of Time’s programme inspired by Erich Korngold, the father of the classic Hollywood film score. Korngold’s Suite, Op. 23 for Two Violins, Cello and Piano anchors the evening. A performance of six contemporary songs inspired by Korngold’s Suite are performed by their composers, the singer-songwriters Martin Tielli, “who paints aural pictures from the heart” (Chart Attack), John Southworth, who is “delightfully eccentric, and seems to have emerged out of a time vacuum,” (New York Press), and Danny Michel, “one of this country’s most undiscovered musical treasures.” (Toronto Star).

 

August 5, 8:00 pm at Walter Hall

Music & Dance — James Anagnoson, piano and Leslie Kinton, piano

This performance is presented in memory of choreographer Pina Bausch (1940–2009)

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Michael Crabb

The dynamic combination of dance on film with live music promises an unforgettable experience. The Festival honours the celebrated modern choreographer Pina Bausch, who died in 2009, with a film of her thrilling ballet set to Stravinsky’s 1912 landmark composition The Rite of Spring that forever changed the way we listen to music. Festival favourites, the piano duo Anagnoson and Kinton perform the composer’s four-hand piano transcription of the score. The programme includes cornerstones of the two-piano repertoire: Brahms’s Haydn Variations and the spectacular Suite No. 2 by Rachmaninoff.

 

August 12, 8:00 pm at MacMillan Theatre

Music & Painting — Gryphon Trio with James Campbell, clarinet

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Stephen Hutchings

One of Canada’s pre-eminent chamber ensembles, the Gryphon Trio returns to the Festival following four previous sold-out concerts. In the grand finale to the 2010 Festival, they are joined by clarinetist James Campbell to perform Olivier Messiaen’s prophetic Quartet for the End of Time. Paintings by artist Stephen Hutchings, inspired by Messiaen’s music, will be projected above them. The Trio closes the Festival with a final song of the earth, Schumann’s Piano Trio No. 2 in F major, Op. 80.

Friday concert

July 30, 8 pm at Walter Hall

New Compositions — Penderecki String Quartet

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Dr. Glenn Buhr

Canada’s renowned Penderecki String Quartet continuously pushes the envelope of their musical medium with repertoire that ranges from Brahms and Britten to collaborations with a wide spectrum of contemporary musicians from trip-hop performer DJ Spooky to Chinese pipa player, Ching Wong. For this concert, the Quartet performs works by four emerging composers who are in residence at this year’s Toronto Summer Music Academy. The programme also includes Quartet No. 4 by Academy composition coach, Glenn Buhr.

Saturday series: CHAMBER MUSIC SERIES

Concerts created around the music of Gustav Mahler

July 24, 8:00 pm at Walter Hall

Mahler & Friends — Vienna Piano Trio with Sharon Wei, viola

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Dr. Robin Elliott

The Vienna Piano Trio, hailed by BBC Music Magazine for performances that are “quite simply, stunning,” presents a programme of early works by composers who enjoyed close ties. Arnold Schoenberg’s love poem Transfigured Night is paired with Piano Trio, Op. 3 by Alexander Zemlinsky and Mahler’s one-movement Piano Quartet in A minor. 

 

July 31, 8:00 pm at MacMillan Theatre

Mahler’s Heroes and Admirer —Pacifica String Quartet with Menahem Pressler, piano

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Dr. Colin Eatock

Profound experience joins hands with youthful passion in this concert, as revered pianist Menahem Pressler – who toured the world for more than 50 years as a member of the illustrious Beaux Arts Trio – teams up with the brilliant young artists of the Grammy Award-winning Pacifica String Quartet. They salute the Mahler anniversary with music by two of the composers he most admired – Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 6 in B flat major, Op. 18, No.6, and Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44. The String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73 by Shostakovich — a composer who was deeply influenced by Mahler — completes this programme.

 

August 7, 8:00 pm at MacMillan Theatre

Song of the Earth — Roxana Constantinescu, mezzo-soprano, Gordon Gietz, tenor

          TSM Festival Ensemble

6:45 pm: pre-concert talk with Dr. Jürgen Thym

The stunning Romanian alto Roxana Constantinescu and the outstanding tenor Gordon Gietz are the featured artists in Song of the Earth, a TSMF-commissioned vocal work by the prominent Canadian composer Glenn Buhr. It is paired with a chamber version of Mahler’s monumental Das Lied von der Erde, the work that provided the thematic anchor for the entire 2010 festival. 

CD Review: Jean Guillou's Bach organ set is a box of vivid, dancing colours that's a bargain to boot

JEAN GUILLOU

The Organ Works of Bach (Dorian)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

This 6-CD box set is a compilation of recordings the Dorian label made in 1987 and 1990. (For more information, click on the disc image, left.)

If more organists played with the verve and imagination of Jean Guillou, the organ would be a much more popular concert instrument.

Nearly four decades ago, a new generation musicians playing period instruments extricated Bach's orchestral and vocal music from the slow, big, murky sound that the Victorians had bestowed. In the best cases, these new musicians made Bach's counterpoints dance with life.

Most organists, on the other hand, responded with quiet reverence, afraid to interfere with Bach's neatly arranged notes with too much gaudy colour.

But Jean Guillou -- who turns 80 in a couple of weeks -- is not most organists. First of all, he is a direct musical descendant of the greatest organist-composers of the 20th century. He landed his first organist's position when he was 12 and went on to study in Paris with Marcel Dupré, Maurice Duruflé and Olivier Messiaen.

Hearing Guillou play Bach is as much of a shock as when Dorothy opens the door to the colour-saturated Land of Oz. Typically, Guillou gives each voice a distinct sound on whichever organ he is playing on, further accentuating the details in the composer's musical architecture. The tempos are lively. The playing is finely articulated.

Five of the six discs are set up like concert programmes, mixing concert works with chorale preludes. There is variation in mood, sound and tempo, so you can listen without a break from beginning to end.

The 1987 recordings are at the hand-shaped organ, pictured right, found in Notre-Dame-des-Neiges (Our Lady of the Snows), high up in ski country in Alpe d'Huez, in France. The 1990 set is from the Tonhalle in Zurich, Switzerland.

The sixth disc is my favourite. It contains Guillou's own transcription of the Goldberg Variations. This is hardly music to snooze by, as the organist uses the trumpets quite a bit. There isn't a dull moment from beginning to end.

I think Guillou sometimes goes a bit overboard with his choice of sounds (registration) on the organ, but I can't help but admire what he does.

(This Goldberg disc should still be available as a single CD.)

Guillou has been the titular organist at Saint-Eustache church in central Paris since 1963. The building itself is gorgeous and hosts regular concerts throughout the year, including the summer months. As the Michelin guide would say, it's worth a detour. (Guillou played a recital of works by 19th century German composer-organist Julius Reubke last Sunday evening).

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Here's an example of what I've been trying to say. The first clip of is of Lebanon-based organist Setrak Setrakian playing the Aria and first two Goldberg Variations (feel free to switch off at the first sign of ennui). Then try Maître Guillou's interpretation.

Here is Guillou. The first clip is of the Aria and Variation I. Variations II to IX follow:

In case you have time, interest and can understand French, here is Guillou giving us a fabulous, improvised tour of the Saint-Eustache organ, using "A la claire fontaine" as guide:

The strange attraction of Wozzeck proves that we have nothing to fear from atonal music. It's the emotional content that matters.

In January, Scottish director Paul Curran told me how, as a boy growing up in council housing in Glasgow, his life was changed when a teacher took him to his first opera: Alban Berg's Wozzeck, which had its premiere in 1925.

The 90-minute, largely atonal journey through tortured human emotions changed his life, turning him on to the worlds of opera and theatre.

On Friday, 22-year old Eliot Madore, the Etobicoke-born-and-raised baritone who is spending the next three years in the Metropolitan Opera's Lindemann Young Artists Program, told me how he also was inspired by Wozzeck.

His first exposure to live opera came when he was 13, when his mother took him to see the Canadian Opera Company's production of Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd. He didn't enjoy the experience, and didn't feel compelled to go see any more opera.

But then he bought a disc of Wozzeck, on sale, and was hooked.

"I was a pretty weird kid," Madore said in the interview. But it appears that he wasn't weird at all.

We all know the power of a strong melody, and many of us have a natural skepticism that atonal music will be able to push out emotional buttons the same way. But, the mysterious case of Wozzeck's magnetic magic tells us that it is the combination of words, music and dramatic expression on the part of singer and orchestra that creates the alchemy of attraction. The love of opera does not necessarily begin with a pretty tune.

Berg's ever-shifting orchestral score is amazing in how it changes and establishes mood with just a few notes.

The lesson here? Every piece of music deserves an open-minded hearing. It may not be the opera or the piece of music that's the problem -- it could be the interpretation, or the hall, or the person with whooping cough sitting directly behind you.

Since he has had a chance to actually sing it, Madore admits that Billy Budd is now one of his favourite operas.

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Ensemble Parallèle, an experimental opera group, created a production of Wozzeck earlier this year in San Francisco that uses video backdrops that reference experimental films from the same era. Montreal composer (and McGill University professor) John Rea reworked Berg's orchestration.

Even without singing, there is a lot of power in the music, as it's recorded here:

Here is are scenes 2 and 3 from a powerful, straightforward, 1997 Viennese production conducted by Claudio Abbado, with Franz Grunheber as Wozzeck and Phillip Langridge as Andras:

What will the world make of opera queen Renée Fleming's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah?

Will non-classical listeners shrug a big whatever in response to Renée Fleming's take on "Intervention" by Montreal band Arcade Fire (or a dozen or so other tracks culled from current-favourite songs in the pop and rock worlds) while classical music and opera fans shudder in disgust?

We won't know until Universal releases the disc, Dark Hope, on the Decca label, later this spring.

A teaser e-single, "Endlessly," is being released on Tuesday.

The online version of a rambling feature on Renée Fleming in the Observer magazine in today's edition of the Guardian includes a few agonizingly short sound clips from the disc. They reveal that the diva left her operatic vocals at the studio door.

Fleming, who in a video on the Guardian site, reminds us that opera singers are "the only singers left in the Western world who are unamplified." In the article, she describes the difficult process of unlearning to sing operatically.

"It was scary to shed so much of what I knew," she said. "Most of the singing on this disc is easier than speech. I just whispered into this enormous mic in the booth; the technology did the rest. I got incredibly frustrated because I wasn't using my whole body. With classical singing you have to put out so much air – you project, you emit force. We add timbre to the text, we colour it by using vibrato, and in the end the words just become abstract sound. Here there's none of that, so the voice had no physical support and at first couldn't stay in tune – and I'm a fanatic about pitch! You're not allowed to improvise either, the way you can in jazz. The words really matter, you can't scat like Ella! Those kids cared about what they were saying, and you have to respect that – the political protest in the Willy Mason song, or the nightmare about women being treated as devils in 'With Twilight as My Guide' [by the Mars Volta]. It needs a much more straitjacketed vocal technique. They had to police my diction, for instance – they wouldn't let me use explosive consonants, so no dental sounds on d or t. As if that's not enough, the register is way below the entire soprano repertoire. In the Arcade Fire song 'Intervention' I'm using keys no soprano has ever sung in. It's the kind of sound you hear from whales as they're booming on the ocean floor! Most of these pieces were first sung by young men at the extreme top of their range, almost shrieking. I was the inverse: the sound had to come from deep down. It helped that we recorded in the early morning, when I was a bit phlegmy, since the voice gets higher as the day goes on."

If the British feature isn't enough, there's a Q & A with Fleming regarding the album on the Universal site.

This isn't Fleming's first crossover effort. She teamed up with baritone Bryn Terfel in an album of Broadway music, Under the Stars, (Decca) in 2003. Here is "My Cherie Amour," from Haunted Heart (Decca, 2005), a jazz-based album:

New group wishes to add a sheen of trendiness to opera with designer dash

 

On Thursday night at York University's new Accolade arts building, a new group -- Wish Opera -- tried to add layers of cool and hip to the tired-and-true concert of opera arias by decking out the singers in Canadian-designer clothes, surrounding them with designer-conceived stage décor and giving the evening a more salon-like feel, with fashion writer/editor Deirdre Kelly acting as emcee. (The picture above shows Tonia Cianciulli on Thursday night).

I'm told the singers, which include veteran tenor Ermanno Mauro, were decent, so it might be worth checking out the repeat performance this evening.

You can find all the details at wishopera.ca

Words of defense from Robert Everett Green, music critic at the Globe and Mail

I opened my email this morning to find a letter from Robert Everett-Green, my counterpart at the Globe and Mail, to a blog entry from last week, where I lamented how Toronto's other newspapers appear to be devoting little space to classical music coverage.

You can jump to that blog entry by clicking here.

Everett-Green's note deserves to be shown in full:

Dear John,

It has come to my attention that you have been spreading untruths about me and my paper on your Toronto Star blog.

On March 17, you wrote: “The Globe and Mail officially has a music critic on staff, Robert Everett-Green, but his writing appears in the paper only once in a while.”

In fact, I am a full-time staff music critic. My writing on music (classical and popular) appears in the Globe four or five times a week, and sometimes more often. I work at least as hard for my paper as you do for yours.

You wrote: “There are freelancers who occasionally fill in, too.” Yes, there are, but not so haphazardly as you imply. Our regular freelance reviewers include Ken Winters, Elissa Poole and Tamara Bernstein, who are three of the best classical-music reviewers in the country.

You wrote: “Anyone looking at the Globe and Mail, National Post and Toronto Sun over the course of any given month would conclude that classical music is not a significant enough part of Toronto culture to deserve regular mention.” I can’t speak for those other papers, but I can tell you that the Globe certainly does cover Toronto classical events on a regular basis. I would also like to point out that, unlike the Star, the Globe publishes for a national audience. The Vancouver Opera’s Canadian premiere production of John Adams’s Nixon in China, for instance, was discussed in the Globe in two lengthy advance features and a review. The Star barely mentioned it.

We at the Globe consider classical music to be a very important part of our national cultural life. We also believe in getting the facts straight. I hope you do too.  

By the way, I have just begun a four-month leave from the Globe, to work on a book. But I remain,

Sincerely,

Robert Everett-Green
Music Critic
The Globe and Mail

Baltimore Whole Foods shoppers get a taste of guerrila opera, Traviata-style

Inspired by the success of open displays of public opera in Europe, singers from Washington National Opera hijacked a Whole Foods store in Baltimore earlier this week with the Brindisi from La Traviata in an attempt to drum up public interest in a Thursday-night concert featuring young singers (a concert that repeats Sunday).

I'm still waiting for members of tha Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio to give this a try in Union Station or St. Lawrence Market.

It's time for opera to capitalize on Mad Men retro appeal by reaching back to 1950s gems

My concert companion last night was describing a hip, Mad Men-style dress that a poet friend wore to the launch of her new book the night before. This morning, one of the newspapers had a full-page ad advertising a new glass condo on St. Nicholas St. using a blonde model standing in front of an early-1960s Chrysler Imperial.

It made me wonder if we should we should be paying more attention to 1950s opera. Two short works that are frequently used in student productions but that we rarely get to see done by real pros would make an excellent double-bill. They poke fun at the social mores of the day while also delving deep into our souls: Leonard Bernstein's Trouble in Tahiti (premiered in 1954) and Samuel Barber's A Hand of Bridge (1959).

Toronto composer John Beckwith's Night Blooming Cereus, first heard on CBC Radio in 1959 and premiered on stage at Hart House a year later, would also be nice to see and hear.

Above are Scenes 1 and 2 from Trouble in Tahiti. Sam is sung by Karl Daymond. Stephanie Novacek (a frequent guest with Toronto's Opera Atelier) is Norah. Below is Novacek doing a fabulous job with the title song in a BBC made-for broadcast production from 2001. It is available on DVD.

I couldn't find an excellent production of A Hand of Bridge on YouTube. The best available is this one, from the 2005 Netherlands Chamber Opera Festival (be patient; the vocal audio improves):

English pianist Daniel Grimwood likes to peer into forgotten corners of the late 19th century

 I've been going on about the excellent musicians we have in our midst in Toronto, which has reminded me of excellent musicians in other parts of the world who are next to unknown outside their home turf.

One such person is Daniel Grimwood, an English pianist now in his mid-30s who seems perfectly happy to play Wigmore Hall and anywhere else that's within easy commuting distance from home in a Kentish village. He also plays the viola and composes. He loves chamber music, collaborating most often with cellist Jamie Walton. He has performed in North America, but not often, and not in any  big-name venues, as far as I know.

Grimwood, like Marc-André Hamelin, is a junkie for virtuoso piano music from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and has spent a lot of time digging through musty bookshelves. He also likes to perform on vintage pianos.

Grimwood has been collaborating with host Mike O'Hara on a series of podcasts called Forgotten Melodies, in which he shares some of his discoveries and musical insights. The five current episodes coincide with concert programmes Grimwood has been preparing over the past three years.

In the fourth podcast, Grimwood plays Russian pieces on a rich-sounding borrowed modern piano (which sounds like it must be a Hamburg-made Steinway). One particularly enchanting piece is "Nuit d'été" (Summer Night) from 12 Transcendental Etudes by Sergei Liapunov (1859-1924).

Last year, Grimwood released an album of Liszt's Années de pèlerinage recorded on an 1851 Erard piano similar to one that Liszt loved to perform on. The disc received great reviews in the British press.

Here is a promotional clip for the Liszt recording, which came out last fall, followed by the charming second and passionate third movements of Camille Saint-Saëns' Op. 32 No. 1 Cello Sonata, with Jamie Walton, two years ago at Wigmore Hall: