Vodavil and TSO Goes Late Night

Reviewed by Paula Citron

Luminato Festival
Vodavil
Starring Mike Caveney, Tina Lenert, Ardan James, The Great Tomsoni and Company and Gaëtan Bloom
Winter Garden Theatre, Jun. 17 and 18, 2011
TSO Goes Late Night: Mahler 5
Toronto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Oundjian
Roy Thomson Hall
Jun. 18, 2011

The Luminato Festival ended with two very different events.

Vodavil featured five magic acts at the Winter Garden, and harkened back to the good old days of variety theatre. The audience seemed to know the artists, so was it a Las Vegas crowd? At any rate, they came for a good time and that’s what they got. Each magic act had its own mind-blowing shtick and most of the performers were also comedians.

Following that show, I had a half an hour to get myself over to Roy Thomson Hall for Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. This is the second year for this sold out TSO late night show followed by a lobby party. There were lots of young people and non-symphony types there, so it’s a huge hit. As always, maestro Oundjian served the composer with a beautifully detailed rendering.

Incidentally, a tall and handsome new concertmaster seems to have arrived on the scene but his name wasn’t mentioned. The orchestra gave him a big applause.