Hello from Helen Heubi, a fan of the Gravenhurst Opera House since the forties. Over this latest turn of a century I had the privilege of writing reviews of shows and concerts at the Gravenhurst Opera House for local print and online newspapers - Muskoka Today, the Gravenhurst Banner, the Bracebridge Examiner and last and, in my not very humble opinion, by far the least: the late lamented Muskoka Times. Lately it occurred to me to put these reminders of a golden age together in an anthology as I reach toward my own golden 80th birthday at the end of this year. My working title is Come to the Opera House.
Meanwhile, without waiting for this book to come out in print, I can simply do a blog about the Gravenhurst Opera House, and combine three streams of show business appeal- nostalgia, published reviews and reviews to come.
Nostalgia from earliest memories of the Straw Hat Players of the forties and fifties will surely creep in, from unforgettable summers at Muldrew Lake. We used to drive, or walk, the three and a half miles of then unpaved road from Indian Landing to see our friends on stage - Araby Lockart, Don Harron and their friends. Donald and Murray Davis, Barbara Chilcott, Ted Follows and Charmion King glittered in spite of having to run around outside after exiting stage right in order to re-enter stage left.
Excerpts from previously published reviews will give glimpses of my book in the making. Many of the artists featured there have a delightful habit of returning to the more than century-old stage, now embellished with commodious backstage space for dressing rooms, offices, kitchen.
With new stardust in my eyes, I’ll be in the audience, ready to review many of the upcoming Gravenhurst Opera House events. I look forward to more and more opportunities to find different ways of saying, “Wonderful!” After a performance I used to sit staring at a blank page or computer screen and wondering how to capture the experience in words.
In reviewing a concert or show my personal mandate is to make it come alive so that anyone who had been there would enjoy it once again, perhaps from a somewhat different point of view. In addition, I aim to revisit the experience so that even people who had not been in the audience could enjoy the concert or show in their imaginations.
My mentor is none other than George Bernard Shaw, writing as Corno di Bassetto in London newspapers. Shaw always seemed to enjoy whatever show or concert he saw. He was not there to look for flaws and flaunt his own knowledge of music and theatre, as many Toronto critics seemed to be doing, as I grew up. He made the most of any show, however sublime and whatever shortcomings he may have perceived and conveyed to the reader. He was generous and fair. That has been my standard.
Maybe I have tended to be more generous than necessary in my reviews, piling on the praise, getting a bit purple in my prose. On the whole this makes perfect sense. In Muskoka then as now we live in a rich cultural environment, fortunate in seeing so many fine artists, like Jack Hutton, who will be bringing his friends to the Gravenhurst Opera House on Friday 27 August, 2010.
Helen Heubi
Now follows a review of his Hoagy Carmichael evening with the multi-talented Tracy Hoehner.
A STAR DUST EVENING AT THE GRAVENHURST OPERA HOUSE
by Helen Heubi
On Saturday night, 20 November 1999, at the Gravenhurst Opera House the sunlit voice of Tracy Hoehner and the evocative piano of Jack Hutton celebrated Canada’s only major Hoagy Carmichael Centenary concert - with help from Hoagy himself, on film and on tape.
Hoagy began the programme, playing, singing and whistling “Star Dust”, thanks to a recording in a remarkable state of preservation. “Star Dust” is reportedly the most recorded piece by an American composer. This one never took a music lesson in his life. He wrote in one autobiography that the keyboard offered all the notes for the music that he composed; it took about ten minutes to draw out the germ of a melody out of the piano.
We heard the beginnings of Carmichael’s music, in the Louisiana vein, and its evolution over a varied career. As a youth he played with his own band at the nearby university, which he later attended, graduating out of law school. Law didn’t last long for him; music pulled him back. The tune “Star Dust” came to him in a moment of doubt, answering irrevocably any questions he had about the wisdom of this decision.
We saw three clips of “To Have and Have Not”, with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Hoagy himself in the role of the bar pianist “Cricket”. Carmichael also wrote the score of the 1945 classic film.
Apparently many younger people have never heard of Hoagy Carmichael. He was a man of melody, poetical lyrics and brilliant harmonies that created a rich field for jazz and other musicians. Saturday night was high time for a Carmichael comeback, and the Opera House proved to be the place. Many of us did remember his tunes, and their words, and joined in singing “Georgia”, as well as the Academy Award song of 1951 - “Up a Lazy River”.
During the second “songbook”, after intermission, I was personally thrilled to hear “Skylark”, a Carmichael song that I stumbled across a couple of years ago in sheet music form. I’d never heard it properly sung until that evening, and Tracy and Jack did it proud. I just knew it was special. Just as a great singer called Frances Gumm knew the song “Judy” was special; it decided her to change her name to Judy Garland.
Our finale for the evening was the starlit and stellar performance of “Star Dust” by Hoehner and Hutton, with delightful Hoehner-designed lighting effects. Then, Hoagy Carmichael did an encore that had the last word. For the third time during the evening the huge backdrop screen lit up with a scene from “To Have and Have Not”, where Lauren Bacall’s character, Slim, insisted on saying goodbye to the piano-player. As Hoagy played her and Bogy out of the bar into a happy life together (in real life too, as it turned out), the screen signalled “The End”.
For us at the opera house it was not quite the last hurrah, since a hundredth birthday cake awaited a ceremonial cutting and sharing in the Trillium Court. A video was made of this historical concert, and will be presented to Hoagy Carmichael Jr., who helped Jack Hutton do research for the event celebrating his father’s birth.
Also contributing to the success of the evening were the lighting and sound team of Janice Feist and David Grassby.
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Link for official information on the Gravenhurst Opera House:
http://www.gravenhurstoperahouse.com
