Toronto Beaches

Kew Balmy Beach, Toronto

A free day so, of course, it was rainy! However I walked right along Queen Street East to Kew and onto The Beaches. Lovely stretches of sand with a wide boardwalk and a great view back to Toronto centre.

Local Residents

Sitting on our roof terrace this evening, my housemate and I were joined by a local resident who, as bold as brass, wanted to help himself to our tea lights.

                                       

We sat not 2 yards way from him, both taking flash photos for about 20 minutes and the Racoon was completely unfazed and unaggressive.

A really amazing experience, though I expect our Toronto colleagues will berate us for not shooing him off - Racoons are a real pest here.

Autumn in Toronto

Changing leaves in Toronto - each day a different colour.

COC

I'm here in Toronto reviving 'Death in Venice' by Benjamin Britten. This production began in Aldeburgh three years ago and I've been with it through revivals in Bregenz, Prague, Lyon and now Toronto.

It's a simple and beautiful production of a complex but very rewarding piece. This time round we are lucky enough to have the conductor of the original 1973 production, Steuart Bedford, working with us (seen above rehearsing the wonderful Canadian Opera Company Chorus and Ensemble on the set in the Imperial Opera Rehearsal Theatre).

The company here in Toronto is excellent. Well run, well organised and well motivated. It's a joy working here.

We have been rehearsing hard getting the show ready for stage rehearsals which start next week, so there has been little time for sightseeing yet. Hopefully later.

Another full rehearsal this evening. It's exhausting running a big rehearsal, keeping everyone focussed and involved with all the information and encouragement they need. It is also very rewarding though.

The Four Seasons Centre, Canadian Opera Company's Home

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Eight hours with my MacBook

The perfect evening. It may only be an eight-hour old relationship, but already I know it's for life!


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First free day in Toronto!

We've been having lovely crisp, clear Autumn days since I arrived so I was looking forward to today, my first free day, to get out into the sunshine and explore. However, torrential rain greeted me this morning.

But that does bring me to the second thing that we love about North America.....the many and wonderful opportunities for retail therapy!

The rest of the day has been spent in blissful silence, admiring my new macBook!

Back Blogging

Well, an obscene amount of time since I last blogged. Partly the lack of broadband in my apartment in Bregenz, and partly getting out of the habit.

Anyway, I'm back and determined to blog my way through my time in Toronto. Hurrah for strong broadband at the lovely house I'm staying in, and for the iPhone app which is making it possible.

I'll leave you for now with the first of many reasons why we LOVE North America.....


....the breakfasts!


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RELUCTANT BLOGGER 26: Much to agree with

I can't help agreeing with much in this article by opera critic Robert Thicknesse. When we are in the rehearsal room, I always imagine we are preparing a performance for people like us - and despite the occasional diva strop or difficult colleague, most people involved in the coalface of opera are pretty normal folk - but come the performances I always feel very uncomfortable surrounded by an audience from a very different world. Something has to change, but I don't know how.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 25: New Blog

I've started the new off-the-road blog. That's where you'll find me until June 8th when I go back on the road. It's called ...and when the music stops...  and you'll find it here.

RELUCTANT BLOGGER 24: Review

So Idomeneo opened 10 days ago. The final stages of getting the show ready for the public were not entirely without problems so it was a bitter-sweet experience for all of us on the production team. We were not quite able to realise the standard of technical proficiency we were aiming for. Not that the lovely people at the Estates Theatre were unwilling or unable, just that there is a cultural difference which seemed to make consistency and responsibility for these elements of the production difficult to achieve. The public reaction was very good at the premier though and the management happy with it. the show did look very beautiful and all performances were strong, especially those of Charles Workman (Idomeneo) and Hannah-Esther Minutillo (Idamante) who in performance  found new psychological depths to the troubled father/son relationship.

I was very glad to get home and have been thoroughly enjoying being back in York. It's funny though, this blog is something of a lifeline when I am away and has been a very good exercise for me. However it feels like a work place - a place for part of me but not all of me. It doesn't seem the right place to talk about what I am doing when at home, although I want to share that too.

So I think I am going to start another tandem blog - a sort of 'home space'. here I will write about life in York, our allotment, how a freelancer gets his head around life when not working. Whether that will be interesting for you I don't know, but I think it will be another good exercise for me and will fill in the gaps.

So watch this space....for news of another space!

Goslings down by the River Ouse, York