Before I have to leave for the opera house for my intermission duty at today's performance of Madama Butterfly I profit from a calm early Sunday afternoon to catch up with the blog.
 
Since my return from New York on Tuesday afternoon it has been a wonderfully busy week filled with cultural events of all kinds.

Almost right off the plane I had the privilege of attending the concert of the Cleveland Orchestra at Roy Thomson Hall, conducted by their Music Director Franz Welser-Most. I missed the first half of the concert (because of performance duty at the opera house), but how lucky I am not to have missed the second half with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 and the Prelude to the first act of Wagner's Lohengrin as an encore.

Of the so-called Big Five (the best American symphony orchestras: New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Cleveland) the Cleveland Orchestra with his warm, yet brilliant sound has always been my favourite—ever since I encountered the orchestra's recordings with George Szell. Their 3 CD-Set of Mozart's Symphonies and Serenades would be my orchestra recording for the desert island. I also keep fond memories of them performing Dvořák's Rusalka at the Salzburg Festival 2008, without any doubt the best playing I have heard coming from a pit.

At Roy Thomson Hall on Tuesday they turned yet into another unforgettable performance, the divided strings for the opening of Lohengrin coming close to miracle playing. They hadn't been to Toronto in 20 years. Let's hope they will be back much sooner!
 
On Wednesday I returned to Roy Thomson Hall, this time for the Toronto Symphony with a delightful performance of Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and a powerful interpretation of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 4, which I had never heard in concert before. It was the first time I saw Peter Oundjian conduct and I was most impressed how committed a performance he drew from his wonderful musicians.
 
For our performances of both Madama Butterfly and The Nightingale we had some more illustrous visitors: Sarah Billinghurst, the Metropolitan Opera's Assistant Manager Artistic who also auditioned the members of our Ensemble Studio, and Bernard Foccroulle, the General Director of the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, our co-production partner for The Nightingale who came from Europe for one night to attend the third performance.
 
So successful has our production of The Nightingale and Other Short Fables been that—for the first time in the COC's history—we have added a performance at short notice. The date is Nov, 2 at 7:30 p.m. Hurry up to get one of the few remaining tickets.