The Conversation: Steven Page and Johannes Debus on making music—both popular and avant garde
The Conversation: Steven Page and Johannes Debus on making music—both popular and avant garde
The place: the Cameron House on Queen West | The people: singer-songwriter Steven Page and COC music director Johannes Debus | The subject: playing the hits versus sowing your musical oats
Steven Page has charted new musical waters since leaving the Barenaked Ladies following his notorious drug bust in 2008. He’s been performing and recording with the adventurous classical musicians of the Art of Time Ensemble, composing music for Stratford productions (including Cymbeline, opening in May) as well as for film (including Kevin Tierney’s French Immersion) and performing as a solo act with a hand-picked backing band, as he does this month at the Winter Garden. Johannes Debus, the youngest music director in the Canadian Opera Company’s history, is big on keeping things fresh, too, and often collaborates with auteurs like Robert Carsens and Atom Egoyan on audacious reimaginings of old favourites. This month, he conducts Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman, a rare opera classic that hasn’t been done to death.
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- I’ve seen some of the big operas at the Met, and even though they were spectacular, they felt stuck in time. I don’t need to see a production my parents could’ve seen when they were my age. <br /> <br /> Totally. You wonder what the performers are doing onstage, because the production isn’t expressing anything new. Why is Carmen just standing there singing?
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
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- I’m sure part of your audience demands innovation and another part wants the classics done in <br /> a classic way.<br /> <br /> We’ve had some challenging productions that people were not <em>d’accord</em> with—<em>Aïda</em> and <em>Rigoletto,</em> for example—but over the years, you develop <br /> an audience that trusts you.
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
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- My audience doesn’t fully trust me. They like things that I’ve done in the past but are still unsure about where I’m going.
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
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- I still play Barenaked Ladies songs. I know what they mean to people, and I can’t divorce myself from that. But I like to renovate those songs a bit, and then mix them with something new. It’s like in that Tragically Hip song “Courage,” where Gord Downie sings, “Quickly, follow the unknown with something more familiar.” That’s the mantra when you’re putting together a set list.<br /> <br /> A large part of our programming comes down to budget. If we do <em>Tosca,</em> we know we’ll have 10 full houses, so then we can afford to perform something less familiar, like <em>Love From Afar.</em>
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
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- Then again, even if we could afford to, I wouldn’t want to program only new pieces. I remember listening to <em>La Bohème</em> for the first time in a small room with my girlfriend. During that final scene, you can’t help crying. When I think about that initiation, while I’m sitting in an opera house and hearing <em>La Bohème</em> now, the connection has a certain beauty.
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
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- When I was singing in a choir as a teenager, one of the pieces we did was “Old Joe Has Gone Fishing” from <em>Peter Grimes.</em> To me, it was just a folk song. But when I went to see <em>Peter Grimes</em> at the Hummingbird and that scene happened, I lost it, because it’s such an intense opera. I was like, “There’s that crying at the opera thing.”
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
- The Conversation: A Fine Balance
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Concert
Steven Page
April 13
Winter Garden Theatre
Steven Page
April 13
Winter Garden Theatre
Opera
The Tales of Hoffman
April 10 to May 14
Four Seasons Centre
The Tales of Hoffman
April 10 to May 14
Four Seasons Centre
 as well as for film (including Kevin Tierney’s French Immersion) and performing as a solo act with a hand-picked backing band, as he does this month at the Winter Garden. Johannes Debus, the youngest music director in the Canadian Opera Company’s history, is big on keeping things fresh, too, and often collaborates with auteurs like Robert Carsens and Atom Egoyan on audacious reimaginings of old favourites. This month, he conducts Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman, a rare opera classic that hasn’t been done to death.
Follow the conversation »
[gallery columns="6" exclude="131605"]
Concert
Steven Page
April 13
Winter Garden Theatre
Opera
The Tales of Hoffman
April 10 to May 14
Four Seasons Centre){kind=link}