WINTER SOLSTICE – REVIEW OF 2025 NECESSARY ANGEL’S PRODUCTION AT BERKELEY ST. THEATRE

Reviewed by James Karas 

Winter Solstice is a captivating play by Germen playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig and is now playing at the Berkeley Street Theatre in Toronto. The play is fascinating on two levels. First is the structure of the play and second is its slowly unfolding theme. The program lists five characters but there are in fact six (perhaps seven, if we count the little girl). There is a narrator who stands on the side much of the time and describes the action for us and comments on it. He is played by Frank Cox-O’Connell who also plays the artist Konrad. The narrator tells us that we are in the booklined and well-appointed house of a wealthy couple in Europe. It is Christmas Eve.

We see none of that because the production is done on an empty stage and we will imagine seamlessly that we are in the kitchen, the living room, the bathroom and other places in the house. The narrator will continue with his commentary on what is being said and give us precise information about the music being played on the unseen piano. For example, Chopin’s Nocturn no. 2 in E minor and other pieces. He gives us the precise time of the action.

The couple are Albert (Cyrus Lane), a maker of avant-garde films and his wife Betina (Kira Guloien), a sharp-tongued writer that thinks that nobody watches her husband’s movies. Betina’s mother Corinna (Nancy Palk) has just arrived for a visit, and we learn that their relationship is strained. A stranger, Rudolph (Diego Matamoros), rings the doorbell and we learn that he met Corinna on the train, and she invited him over.

Rudolph is a gentleman of the old school, well-dressed, impeccably mannered and an accomplished pianist. He is from Paraguay but not Paraguayan and the catalyst that will reveal the slowly emerging but shocking plot of the play. He calls Corinna: Gudrun, a name from German mythology and evokes Richard Wagner. Albert realizes that there is something peculiar about Rudolph. The climax of the play is reached when Rudolph realizes what Albert is.  I will not disclose it. 

Kira Guloien, Frank-Cox-O'Connell and Nancy-Palk in Winter Solstice. 

Photo by Dahlia Katz, Necessary-Angel.

The fifth character is the artist Konrad and Cox-O’Connell morphs into that role seamlessly. We also hear from the couple’s daughter, but she does not appear.

I found the variation of the Brechtian epic theatre structure fascinating, and it worked well, both removing us from the action and involving us more intimately in it. We move from one scene to another quickly and sometimes repetitively as if we may have missed something or for reasons of style that were not always clear to me on a first viewing.

There are scenes that are simply described by the narrator instead of acted. Again, this is an attractive approach because we get more information about what is happening than if we had seen the action. We are better informed and forced to know more than if we had witnessed the action.

Albert has issues with alcohol and drugs, and he is planning a movie titled “Christmas at Auschwitz”. There are strong suggestions of sexual liaisons. Rudolph coming from Paraguay but emphasizing that he is not Paraguayan, and racial references alert us to the underlying theme of the play: neo-Nazism. It is a disease that is violently on the rise in Germany and the rest of Europe in different degrees. Schimmelpfennig wrote Winter Solstice in 2017 and must be credited with some prescience.

The highly experienced cast was expertly directed by Alan Dilworth and deliver strong performances in a fascinating play.
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Winter Solstice by Roland Schimmelpfennig, translated by David Tushingham, in a production by Necessary Angel Theatre Company in collaboration with Birdland Theatre and Canadian Stage, opened on January 19, 2025, and continues until February 2, 2025, at the Berkeley Street Theatre, Toronto, Ontario. https://www.necessaryangel.com/

This review appeared in The Greek Press and its late posting here is a matter of record. 

MARIA - REVIEW OF BIOPIC ABOUT CALLAS

Reviewed by James Karas 

As the lights fade at the end of Maria, during the endless credits we hear “Va Pensiero”, the great chorus of the Hebrew slaves from Verdi’s Nabucco. It is a riveting vocal piece that rose to national status during the unification of Italy in the 19^th century. In a film about a great soprano, it is the longest operatic piece that we hear and of course it has nothing to do with Maria Callas.

The film begins in September 1977. Days before Callas’s death on September 16. We see the terrible end of a great singer during those days but there  are of necessity numerous flashbacks in Callas’s life from her stay in Greece before and during World War II and her years of struggle and triumph in opera houses around the world. We also see her astounding failures when her voice declined and get a glimpse of her husband Giovanni Meneghini (Alessandro Bressanello). More attention is paid to her affair and deep love for billionaire Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer), and her two faithful servants Ferruccio (Pierfrancesco Favino) and Bruna (Alba Rohrwacher).

Angelina Jolie and Haluk Bilginer in Maria (2024) 
Photo by Pablo Larraín/Netflix - © 2024 Netflix, Inc.

All of that could have added up to a significant, informative and enjoyable film. It does not. Maria appears disjointed, confusing and in the end boring. We frequently have no idea where we are. The Eiffel Tower is a dead giveaway for Paris but the shots inside opera house provide almost no help. Are we in Mexico City, Venice, London, New York? We could be but we get very little help at times in recognizing the location and I found that annoying,

We know that Callas started building her career in Athens during World War II and she is shown in the film singing for two Nazi officers with her sister. We then see a plump girl sitting on a bed in a small room starting to undress herself. “Not now” says the nazi officer and asks her to sing. She sings the Habanera from Carmen a cappella, not one of her signature roles, with the obvious suggestion that she was prostituting herself. There is no evidence that she ever did that, but director Pablo Larraín and writer Steven Knight have decided to follow one of the rumours that circulated about her after the war.

We go from flashbacks in black and white to triumphal performances and epic ovations and witness her affair with Onassis, the loss of her voice and the ebb of her her life in the last days before her death. The action is framed in the appearance of Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee) a handsome reporter with a cameraman to record the life of La Divina. She is tempestuous, irrational, a star, a diva, and we see all those characteristics. And are given a snap character portrait of the supremely wealthy and equally crooked Onassis. She got pregnant by him but her body did not carry the baby to term. We are not sure what happened.

We do hear her singing some of the Mad Scene from Anna Bolena and a full version of “Vissi d’arte” from Turandot, one her greatest recordings. There are snippets of arias along the way and if you can recognize them, good for you, if you don’t tough luck.  Jolie lip syncs where necessary but the voice is always Callas’s.

The making of Maria received considerable publicity because Jolie was to play the starring role. We see her expressive and beautiful face as Maria in the last days of her life. It is a moving portrait of a tragic end to a great career. Her successes are passed mostly in small pieces that give little impression of the great singer or the woman behind it. Jolie’s sheer appearance enlivens the film but not enough to save director Pablo Larraín and writer Steven Knight’s movie. It does not work even with a length of a little more than two hours. I ended up checking my watch. “Va Pensiero” is a wonderful chorus but it has nothing to do with the life or career of Maria Callas.

P.S. After writing my review and I read what some critics had to say and I was surprised to find out that the scenes with the Reporter Mandrax were Maria’s delusions! The clue is in the word Mandrax which was a drug that Maria was presumably taking whose “dependency symptoms include irritability, sleeplessness, delerium tremens, mania and epileptiform attacks” according to Dr. Michael Kelly of Dublin. I knew nothing about the drug and had no idea that Larrain and Knight were filming Maria’s delusions. It lowered my opinion of the film even further.

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Maria a film directed by Pablo Larrain and written by Steven Knight was scheduled to be released on Netflix in December 2024. 

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press.

COUNTESS MARITZA – REVIEW OF 2025 TORONTO OPERETTA THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The Toronto Operetta Theatre brought a vibrant, well-sung and delightful production of Imre Kalman’s Countess Maritza to bid farewell to 2024 and ring in the New Year. I am not sure if the operetta has been produced in Toronto before (I have not heard of any recent productions) but it is the 100^th anniversary of the work and the 40^th year of TOT and both are good reasons to celebrate.

The operetta has a large cast and some wonderful melodies. The plot? Well, Countess Maritza (Holly Chaplin) is rich, beautiful, eligible, available (a widow) and the target of suitors galore. To avoid them and enjoy her huge estate, she announces and publishes that she is engaged to Baron Zsupan. It is a subterfuge to get rid of the suitors because there is no Baron Zsupan. Oops, there is a Baron Zsupan (Joshua Clemenger) who shows up to claim his betrothed.

In the meantime, a handsome but impoverished Baron Tassilo (Scott Rumble)  works as manager on the Countess’s estate disguised as Bela Torek. He needs to raise some money for his sister Countess Lisa’s (Patricia Wrigglesworth) dowry. You see, he is no gold digger,

We have a fictitious fiancé who turns out to be real, a Count who pretends to be an estate manager, Maritza’s housekeeper Manja (Lori Mak) who is also a fortune teller and predicts happy events. She does a lovely job singing the opening aria “Luck is a golden dream” and joins the ensemble but does not get any other solos. The main characters have friends and companions and there is Prince Popolescu (Sebastien Belcourt)  who is after Maritza and Princess Bozena (Meghan Simon), Tassilo’s aunt. 

                                                        Holly Chaplin as Countess Maritza.. 
                                                                Photo: Gary Beechey

Kalman was a master of melodies and lively arias, duets and choruses. The protagonists are paired for their duets and foretell the outcome of the operetta which is never in doubt. Maritza’s estate is in Hungary and Tassilo sings “Vienna Mine” which is where the operetta had its debut. Lisa and Tassilo sing about their “Childhood memories,” Lisa and Zsupan sing “When I start dreaming” and Maritza and Tassilo really turn on the romantic heat in “Be mine, my love be mine.” It’s a minor point that can easily be avoided but do tell the dancers that they are waltzing and not stomping on grapes to produce wine. Smaller steps and pretend you are floating.

Clemenger plays Zsupan as a bit of a duffus but he can’t be an idiot because we need good husband material, He has to marry a poor woman or else he will lose his fortune. Good work by Clemenger.

Rumble and Chaplin give solid performances as their relationship goes from boss and servant to “Waltz our worries away” to “Be mine my love, be mine.”

Conductor Derek Bate did heroic work with his band of ten musicians lined up across the apron of the stage.

Three were a couple of minor issues like the inelegant waltzes and some of the minor characters who had  a hard time pronouncing English.

The costumes by Thunder Thighs were plentiful and beautiful and some of the props came from the Stratford Festival were very good and helpful.

I end my review as always with comments about Guillermo Silva-Marin. He is the director and lighting designer of the production and the General Director of Toronto Operetta Theatre. To put it succinctly, no Silva-Marin, no operetta in Toronto. That is a compliment to him and a slap in the face of Toronto. He does everything on a shoestring budget in a small theatre, with a tiny “orchestra.”  It is shameful that Toronto cannot fund the opposite of what he is getting and produce first-rate operettas in a better venue. The production got only three performances and that is surely a hindrance to just about every aspect of operetta in Toronto.

Let’s tip our hat or applaud him for what he offers to Toronto.     
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Countess Maritza by Imre Kalman in a new English version by Nigel Douglas was performed  on 29, December 2024 and on January 3 and 4, 2025 at the Jane Mallett, Theatre, St. Lawrence Centre for the Arts, 27 Front Street East, Toronto, Ontario. Tel:  (416) 366-7723. www.torontooperetta.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor, Culture of The Greek Press