Top 5 opera, dance and classical music experiences from 2022

How do you manage the return to live in-person performances after a pandemic-induced, industry-wide shutdown? That question has loomed large over Toronto’s opera, dance and classical music companies this year.

There’s no road map for these times. No matter if organizations had pivoted to online programming during the pandemic or if they were coming back cold after a two-year hiatus, companies were entering a brave new world marked by unpredictable and shifting consumer habits, declining attendance rates and general economic uncertainty.

So it’s been fascinating to see how arts organizations have charted their return to the stage. For some, it meant going big: presenting innovative works that would attract newer, younger audiences. But for many other companies, including the city’s mainstream titans, “safe” was the keyword.

Revivals and remounts dominated this season’s programming. So too did solo and small ensemble works.

In previous years, it would not have been difficult for us to compile separate top five lists for opera, dance and classical music. This year, however, proved to be a challenge to pick a top five that included all three — partly for the reasons stated above but also because there were simply fewer productions and concerts this season.

Yet the opera, dance and classical music experiences that stood out in 2022 are still worth celebrating, presented below in no particular order.

“Dido and Aeneas,” Reborn

If Opera Atelier has a signature production, it’s Henry Purcell’s 17th-century baroque opera “Dido and Aeneas,” based on the love story between Dido, the Queen of Carthage, and the Trojan hero Aeneas from Virgil’s epic poem “Aeneid.” The company has toured the piece internationally and presented it in Toronto no less than three previous times. But this 2022 incarnation, with Meghan Lindsay delivering a scintillating performance as the titular queen and a deliciously devilish Measha Brueggergosman-Lee as the Sorceress, felt fresher, bolder and sharper than before. At a brisk 60 minutes, Marshall Pynkoski’s reimagined production, mounted at the Elgin Theatre, was refreshingly spare, allowing the music and Jeannette Lajeunesse Zingg’s light choreography to soar against the backdrop of Gerard Gauci’s expressionistic set. It proved, once again, why this opera remains one of the most accessible and enjoyable in the baroque canon.

A Rite to Remember

On an October night that those present will surely never forget, an almost 30-member cast of dancers assembled from 14 different African nations by Senegalese dance centre École des Sables gave a viscerally explosive performance at Toronto’s Meridian Hall of German choreographer Pina Bausch’s “The Rite of Spring.” It was the first time a company had been specifically and solely recruited to dance what is widely considered to be the definitive interpretation of Stravinsky’s groundbreaking 1913 score. These young men and women swept across a stage thickly layered with dirt, sweat pouring, feet pounding, their faces masks of dread. Driven by the music’s unrelenting pulsations toward the ballet’s sacrificial conclusion, the dancers committed every bone, muscle and sinew into lifting Bausch’s choreography beyond mere performance into a primal ceremony of terrifying immediacy. Dance simply does not get more mesmerizing than this.

Opera, With a Pint in Hand

How I only discovered Against the Grain Theatre’s Opera Pub events this year is beyond me. These informal cabaret-style concerts — currently held on the first Thursday of each month at the Tranzac Club but moving in February to the Drake Hotel on the first Monday of the month — are thoroughly entertaining, offering opera newbies and stalwarts a relaxed environment to enjoy performances by emerging and established artists, perhaps even with a pint in hand. Well-known classics are juxtaposed with lesser known works. Host Greg Finney is always charming and engaging, keeping the proceedings light and offering brief nuggets of insight before each performance. These free, non-pretentious events are what Toronto’s opera scene so desperately needs and what will, hopefully, introduce more people to the opera.

A Memorable Musical Moment

Trust revered cellist Yo-Yo Ma to find a way to create a moment of musical intimacy amidst the raucously enthusiastic climax of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s Nov. 16 centennial gala. Having poured his soul into Dvorak’s “Cello Concerto in B Minor,” Ma was repeatedly called back to the stage by his adoring audience. Ma’s precious cello was by now left backstage as he re-emerged with Spanish-born conductor and TSO music director Gustavo Gimeno in tow. Ma then borrowed principal cellist Joseph Johnson’s instrument and sat down to play. Gimeno, clearly taken by surprise, perched himself on the edge of the conductor’s podium. And what did Ma play? Not some big technically splashy solo but instead the delicate “Cant dels Ocells” (“Song of the Birds”), a traditional Catalan lullaby made famous by legendary Spanish cellist Pablo Casals. Commented concertmaster Jonathan Crow later: “It was such a beautiful moment, as if Yo-Yo was saying to Gustavo, ‘This is for you.’”

A Fitting Final Coda

The Emerson String Quartet, the much-feted American ensemble that is disbanding in October after more than four decades together, offered a richly rewarding farewell concert at Koerner Hall this fall. Philip Setzer, Eugene Drucker, Lawrence Dutton and Paul Watkins demonstrated, yet again, why they are one of the best string quartets of their generation. The program — beginning with Felix Mendelssohn’s “String Quartet No. 1,” followed by the Brahms quartet and ending with Antonin Dvořák’s “String Quartet No. 14” — elegantly showcased the quartet’s brilliance, balance and grace. After a sustained standing ovation, the encore piece, Dvořák’s wistful “I Wander Often Past Yonder House” from his suite of “Cypresses,” was the perfect way to cap off an evening to remember.

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