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'This Morning' forever Daily Arts Alert ... by Cathleen Bond Monday, Feb. 12 I've been following the development of CBC's websites for the past five years with great interest, wondering how Canada's national broadcaster has been handling the integration of multimedia in its highly bureaucratic organizational flowchart. In fact, if you look at the cbc.ca homepage, it does indeed resemble a flowchart, with news at the top, and all its other priorities listed below: business, sports, weather, entertainment, kids, etc. Within this hierarchy, it's very difficult to find content that's worthwhile and meaningful, beyond the day's headlines on the main homepage ... but I've got a tip for you.
The site is the handiwork of one Tessa Sproule, who, at 19, was one the youngest producers ever hired at CBC. She went on to a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic University, and took the New Media Design Programme at the Canadian Film Centre's Bell h@bitat. Three years ago she launched cbc.ca's subsite, Infoculture, and then created The Great Canadian Story Engine. Both were massive projects that had little backing from the CBC bureaucracy, but she managed to pull them off with few resources and a lot of overtime.
On a more personal note about life at the CBC. I've just gotten the go ahead to work with CBC's new media department developing a pilot for an interactive web mystery. Mother has big plans for her face in the cyber frontier and the project (can't spill any beans yet - suffice it to say it's a bit like Buck Rogers meets Blade Runner in the land of William Gibson's Count Zero). Better Late Than Never: I've been meaning to write up a small item on the COC's production of Hans Werner Henze's superb opera Venus and Adonis. I've been attending the COC regularly for nearly 10 years and this production ranks in the top five of the shows I've seen. (The others include The Flying Dutchman, Oedipus Rex, Les Dialogues des Carmelites and of course the double feature Bluebeard's Castle and Erwartung.) Oh gee, that makes it six, but who's counting?
Next comes the interesting stuff. We flash to a time in the future, or in the past (depending on your point of view) where the details that led up to Adonis' death are acted out. Henze uses the device of a play within a play to move the story along. A chorus (madrigalists), dressed only in black sing, informing us of the action which is being danced out on the stage. Venus and Mars wear red. Adonis wears the colours of the earth and sky - blue shirt with brown slacks. The colour coding and costumes are fabulously evocative and incredibly effect. The trio dance the pain and the joy of youth, love and jealousy. Then just to sweeten the pot, er plot, and another trio of Venus, Adonis and Mars are introduced. Only these three are middle-aged opera singers who sing out the tragedy as their youthful counterparts dance the same narrative to its ultimate conclusion. The staging was minimalist and completely effective. The lighting fantastic and the dancing was completely otherworldly. The only complaint I'd utter is a bit of disappointment with the tenor (Alan Woodrow) and (Timothy Noble) the bass who sang for Adonis and Mars. But Robert Glumbek who danced as Mars? He was the most superbly divine creature I've seen command a stage in ages. Venus and Adonis is a fascinating night of theatre/opera and dance. If it comes back be sure to pick up a ticket.
Fine Tuning: On Richardson's Roundup today, the beginning of a four-part dramatization of one of Canada's most popular novels, Away, by Jane Urquhart. Published to great national and international acclaim in 1997, this is a lyrical story of myth, the retelling of a Celtic legend, centering on a woman in a small coastal village who is taken "away" by something from the sea. On Richardson's Roundup at 2:06 (2:36 NT) on CBC Radio One.
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 Updated each weekday by Cathleen Bond ... bookmark this page and come back for the latest news, reviews and gossip on the Canadian arts scene. RECENT FEATURES: More from our year-end review: >> Public Art >> Film >> Digital >> Visual Art >> Literature >> Dance >> Architecture >> Music and Opera >> TV or not TV
>> Bruce Mau: Big designs in LifeStyle >> Robert Service: Musical tribute to a Canadian hero >> Circle of Trees: Art and nature come full circle >> Atwood: The critics and The Blind Assassin >> Public Art: Who decides what art will fill our civic spaces and expand our imagination? >> Digital Art: Clickable Cancon, a quick tour of the latest in digital art. >>
Cancon Quiz >> Iron Road: The Arts & Culture forum follows the creation of a new Canadian opera >> Interview: Carole McDowell tells us how she and artist Helen Lucas made the transition from gallery walls to the www gallery. >> Public Library in Peril How should libraries be transformed to meet future needs of Canadians? >> Culture
at the Crossroads >> Web
Wizard
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This Morning, CBC's flagship radio show, has in the past few months,
developed a really hot website. It's the first of any CBC arts program to develop
a site that has (a) regular updates, (b) a good visual style on the page and
(c) audio supplement for users who have Real Audio installed (c) works as a standalone site.
Now she seems to have focused her efforts on one show -- one darn good show
-- and the results are showing on the website. I spent a good 90 minutes
recently, clicking around the site and catching up on segments I'd missed
because I'm too busy in the mornings to listen to Shelagh Rogers for three
hours every day. Nice, clean layout led me to an arts section filled with interviews with puppeteer
Ronnie Burkett, film director Clement Virgo, and musician Jane Siberry. The
website archives some of the show's best segments, and has a separate page
for the highlights from the Sunday edition of the program. There's also a link to a This Morning discussion forum, where the chatterers are furiously typing out their thoughts on host Shelagh ... the abuse that poor woman takes! Dive in and defend her. Check it out for
yourself:
Venus and Adonis begins with a prologue that sets up the action for the
rest of the show. Venus has become enchanted with the mortal Adonis. Mars too
is fascinated by the gorgeous boy and jealous of Venus' attachment to the
youth. At the end of the prologue, Adonis is killed and, as in the myth,
transformed into the flower anemone.
Twenty clicks through Canadian culture: Test your memory, from Anne
of Green Gables to Shift.