Joy Kogawa featured on CBC Radio "Sounds Like Canada" on Boxind Day morning 10:30am

Joy Kogawa is interviewed about her childhood home and the Save Kogawa House campaign. Kathryn Gretzinger met Joy at the house at 1450 West 64th Avenue earlier in November for this special interview. Joy also went to the CBC radio studio for some further interviews.

Listen to CBC Radio 690 AM in Vancouver - or on the web - www.cbc.ca 10:35am Dec 26, 2005

It has been such a pleasure getting to know Joy this year of 2005. The first time I met her was in 1986, at Expo 86's Folk Pavillion for a poetry and book reading. The next time I saw her was at a reading at the Vancouver Public Library in summer 2004 for Centre A. I was amazed at how tiny and fragile she was. But over the course of this year, I have gotten to know how, humble, warm and sincere she is. She truly is amazed at all the attention she has recieved from the Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver Opera, Vancouver City Hall, and the media for the Save Kogawa House campaign.

Some significant Joy Kogawa Events I have attended for 2005 include:

May at the opening event for One Book One Vancouver at the Vancouver Public Library;
Joining Save Kogawa House committee in September

September ACWW Ricepaper Magazine 10th Anniversary Dinner where ACWW presented Joy with a Community Builder's Award in September;

Vancouver Arts Awards which included performances from opera Naomi's Road

Reading at Word on the Street for final One Book One Vancouver event

Oct 1 - opening weekend for the premiere of Naomi's Road Opera;

Nov 1st - Obasan Cherry Tree Day at City Hall - with cherry tree planting

Nov 3rd - presentation at City Hall, asking for an unprecedented 120 day delay for demolition of Kogawa House

Nov 12th Save Kogawa House - Awareness concert with Harry Aoki, Raymond Chow and performance of Naomi's Road

Here are some upcoming media coverage for Save Kogawa House events.

CBC Radio One, Sounds like Canada, Dec 26, 2005, 10am - 11am .
Vancouver Sun, Reporter Kevin Griffin, Dec 30 or 31, 2006.
CBC Radio One, “On the Coast,” Early January 2006 (air date to be confirmed).
Shaw Cable, “The Express,” January 4, 2006, 6pm and 8pm.
Common Ground Magazine, January 2006 issue.
OMNI TV: BC, “The Standard,” January 11, 2006, 9pm and January 12, 8am and 12 noon.

Brigadoon brings out the kilts and haggis for opening night at Richmond's Gateway Theatre

It was a grand opening for Brigadoon at the Gateway Theatre's opening night on Friday, December 9th.  Following a wonderfully enthusiastic and well-recieved performance, the opening night audience was treated to a buffet feast of Scots broth, sandwiches, and haggis. 

A piper led the procession followed by Gateway Manager Simon Johnston, and Gateway Board president Gordon Dalglish.  Dalglish was dressed in Scots finery with his ancient tartan kilt, and his wife had on a fine tartan wrap.

The cast was so warm and friendly, revelling in tasting their first haggis.  For many of the male cast members, it was their first time wearing kilts.  Many of the cast members are Asian because the Gateway has a strong colour blind casting rule.  Wearing the kilt was "quite freeing" said actor Calvin Lee.

Review to follow - I will be reviewing the production on Tuesday night.

Brigadoon opens Dec 9th at Richmond Gateway Theatre until Jan 1st!

Tonight is opening night at the Richmond Gateway Theatre for Brigadoon, that wonderful Lerner and Lowe musical that features one of my favorite songs - Almost Like Being in Love.  Gene Kelly imortalized the mystical Scottish village that only appears once every hundred years in the movie version of Brigadoon.

I will don my kilt and sporran and go join the other Asians in kilts and tartans - as the Gateway Theatre has a colourblind casting rule.  General Manager Simon Johnston himself, is half Chinese and also playwright of Gold Mountains Guest, and Running Dog  Paper Tiger.

I'm heading down for the opening night party where scotch tastings will be featured.

Dialogues of the Carmelites: Not your ordinary opera - but extraordinary

By Francis Poulenc
Vancouver Opera
November 26, 29, December 1 & 3, 2005
All performances 7:30 pm  Queen Elizabeth Theatre

Conductor                 Jonathan Darlington
Director                    Tazewell Thompson   
Blanche de la Force    Kathleen Brett
Prioress                    Judith Forst
Madame Lidoine        Measha Brueggergosman
Marie Mere                Claire Primrose          
Constance                 Nathalie Paulin

I walked out of Vancouver Opera’s 2005 serving of Dialogues of the Carmelites simply amazed.  It was a production you either loved or hated. It pushed buttons. It wasn’t traditional. It was inspiring. It was beautiful. It made you think. There was no love story between a man and a woman.

There were no familiar songs that would ever appear on Opera’s greatest hits.  But it provided extraordinary showcase performances for Judith Forst, Kathleen Brett, Measha Bruggergosman and Claire Primrose.  How strange it is to see an opera where all the main characters are women, and where men play only secondary and supporting roles. But while there are no sexy tunes between men and women, there are many arias that deal with the relationship of spirit and to God. 

It is 1789, the dawn of the French Revolution.  After an incident in which her carriage is surrounded by The by mobs fin the street, a young agitated aristocratic woman named Blanch de la Force decides to join the Carmelite Order seeking refuge from both her family and the social turmoil happening in France. 

Blanche discovers an inner journey that is challenged once again by inside forces when she befriends a fellow initiate named Constance who shares with Blanche that they will die together.  Blanche is again challenged when  she is present at the death of the Pioress, who wails that Death is ugly, unforgiving and unspiritual. Soon after, outside forces come to play when the New French Republic orders that all Religious Orders become outlawed, and the nuns are forced to leave their home. It is at this point that Blanche flees the convent to find refuge as a servant in an aristocratic house.

Judith Forst sings a knock-out performance as the Prioress, while sitting in her death bed.  Kathleen Brett readily captured the agitated psychological state of Blanche de la Force, although her voice was weak at points - perhaps due to playing Blanche's weak state of mind, because in Act 2 & 3, as Blanche matures psychologically in her convictions, her voice becomes stronger.  Nathalie Paulin provided a clear and calm foil as Constance, to Brett’s Blanche.  And when finally Measha Bruggergosman came on stage in the 2nd Act, her voice and movement had so much presence it was hard not to be enthralled.

This is not a "pretty opera" despite its beatific moments where the nuns pledge themselves to martyrdom.  It is indeed a psychological drama that questions our own relationship to spirit, heroism, totalitarianism, religious order and self-sacrifice.  While watching I could not help but compare the exiling of the nuns from their convent to the internment of the Japanese-Canadians in 1942, which was nicely explored in Vancouver Opera's production of Naomi's Road.  Nor could I not draw comparison to the Vancouver Opera's past production of Beethoven's only opera Fidelio, also set during the French Revolution.

The final climatic scene is difficult to tear one's eyes away from.  Here is a spoiler - but good to know as the real story was first published by Marie Mere as a memoir.  Despite first suggesting martyrdom to her fellow nuns, it is she alone who somehow survives the imprisionment of the nuns, and their final walk to the guillotine.  Musically it is very powerful, as the cast sings Salve Regina, each one walks up, across and finally off-stage, one  by one, until you hear the metalic sound of a guilotine.  The choir of voices becomes smaller one by one until only Constance remains.  It is then that Blanche appears to hold hands with her friend Constance and to fulfil Constance's vision that they would die together.

Here was a modern opera written by Francis Poulenc, sung in French, set during the French revolution, about Carmelite nuns – and directed by African-American theatre and opera director Tazewell Thompson.  As a 9-year old boy, Thompson was sent by his grandparents to live in the convent of the Sisters of St. Dominic, in Blauvelt, N.Y. where he spent six years.  He says he learned Gregorian chants before he ever knew pop, jazz, folk or opera music.  What an extraordinary experience to learn and develop a relationship with a spiritual diety, as well as evolving one’s own spiritual development!  It makes sense that Thompson was asked to help create this particular production first with Glimmerglass Opera and New York City Opera.

Poulenc's music is indeed both beautiful and spiritual. I was moved by its thoughtful passages, and found myself humming Stravinsky's Infernal Dance of King Katschei from the Firebird Suite.  As well, I found myself thinking of Gershwin's American in Paris, and Porgy and Bess.  It was not a surprise then to read in the progam notes that Poulenc named Stravinsky as one of his greatest influences, as well as Gershwin.

Donald Eastman’s set design is beautiful in its simplicity.  A simple wall, stands halfway back on the stage, creating the interior of the Church.  Muted light enters through a high window.  At scence changes the pillars come forward to become walls, and to create individual rooms.  Later they recede, and the lighting changes to create and exterior scene.  The lighting changes again, and it is another scene in the Church, this time the harsh early light of morning.  The walls move again, and the nuns are in a prison cell.

Classical music has always been kind to colour-blind casting, as opposed to theatre or film. Casting New Brunswick born Afro-Canadian Measha Bruggergosman has absolutely no negative impact.  In fact, I think it speaks loudly about the multicultural ease that opera moves with.  The opera audience listens to French, German, Italian easily, and there has even been an opera now in Cree.  The settings are from around the world such as China in Vancouver Opera’s production of Turandot.  I look forward to the January 2007 production of Mozart’s Magic Flute reconstructed with a First Nations theme blending western and First Nations traditions together and designed with a team of First Nations artists.

In the end, it is the inspiration of the performances that moves us.


check out these reviews and links
Dialogues of the Carmelites
Georgia Straight review by Jessica Werb
Divine inspiration behind Vancouver Opera's latest
Vancouver Courier Review by Louise Phillips
All Praise to the singing nuns
Globe & Mail review by Elissa Poole
Religious Reflections
Georgia Straight interview with director Tazewell Thompson by Colin Thomas

Vancouver Opera Insight Articles
Facing the World Inside the Walls
Notes on the production of Dialogues of the Carmelites
by Stage Director Tazewell Thompson
Measha!
by Doug Tuck
Francis Poulenc, Graceful Composer
by Doug Tuck
Hearing the voice of Grace, Poulenc's Musical Style
by David Shefsiak