Downtown Lion King

 Last week I realized that The Lion King musical that had been showing at the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto was closing at the end of August.  It opened in November 2024, and it's been advertised on TV, in the papers, on the internet, on the buses and the subway, everywhere and I really wanted to see it. And everyone who has seen it, loved it.

But tickets were expensive and so it just didn't happen. But I found a last minute ticket on a single seat so off I went.

First, drive and park at the nearby GO station. (GO is Government of Ontario.) Then the GO train to downtown. Then the subway to the stop near the theatre. Then a 6 minute walk.

I had a great seat, 3rd row of dress circle, right in the middle. The Lion King is a breathtaking experience with stunning visuals, innovative puppets that are actually worn by the actors. The animals are so real! Elaborate costumes and wonderful special effects.

The opening number "The Circle of Life" was so emotional I found tears running down my face. I had to have a quick look around just in case anyone saw me being so silly.... but I think everyone reacted in the same way.

The story is fairly simple, and has a theme of identity and responsibility. Of course there are the good guys and the bad guy, and some very funny comedic parts.  Wonderful music, powerful performances, colourful visuals, I'm so glad I went, I would not have missed it for the world!

The Lion King was absolutely the best show I have EVER seen in a theatre!

A couple of shots of King Street... where the theatre is. I don't very often get downtown so I got a bit excited with all the big buildings!

 

Listen to the Music

Open House and a free concert at the Cathedral Bluffs Symphony Orchestra. All the familiar orchestral hit parade pieces.... Beethoven's Fifth, excerpts from Swan Lake, some Strauss waltzes, Pomp and Circumstance of course, Offenbach's "Can-Can", lots of foot tapping themes.  Finishing up with a rousing chorus of "O Canada", Elbows Up!

As well as the familiar classical music, North Atlantic Drift played some Celtic selections. Dan Macdonald on fiddle, Brian Taheny on guitar and banjo, Ross Griffiths on Uilleann pipes. The concert hall was full, I was there with Older Son and 17 year old grandson.

It was a Petting Zoo for instruments! Grandson tried out the drum kit, I investigated lots of different percussion rhythm instruments, and we both had a go on the trombone, it sounded pretty awful! I'm sure the trombone player's ears were hurting. There were lots of instruments to try; violin, cello, clarinet, trumpet, oboe, French horn.  This all took place at the Chinese Canadian Cultural Centre so some Chinese instruments were available too.

An enjoyable afternoon. Thank you CBSO.

The Big Bad City

I hardly ever get to go to big bad Downtown Toronto any more, and I certainly NEVER drive there. I can take a bus or train very cheaply and with far less mental stress.  But it's good to have a wander around the city once in a while.... so that's what I did when I went to see SIX - The Musical.  Too bad it was such a grey day.

SIX

 SIX... The Musical.  You would think that it would be difficult task to compose a musical entertainment about King Henry VIII's six wives. After all, it was a sad story for most of them. Divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. It was a short musical as musicals go.... only 80 minutes with no intermission... but the six wives sang and danced and were absolutely marvellous and full of delicious energy for the whole show.  I loved it!

The Royal Alexandra Theatre, commonly known as the Royal Alex, is an historic performing arts theatre located at 260 King Street West, in the downtown Toronto Entertainment District. There are 1,244 seats across three levels. Built in 1907, it's the oldest continuously operating legitimate theatre in North America.

Raptors Win!

I'm not normally a basketball fan, but everyone (well, let's just say an awful lot of people) in Canada has been swept up in the ride of the Toronto Raptors basketball team, the only NBA basketball team in Canada.
The Raps are on top of the basketball world today, defeating the mighty back-to-back champion  Golden State Warriors 114-110 in game 6 of the best of seven. And they did it in the Warrior's home arena in California.

Kawhi Leonard - MVP.       pic from CBC

Toronto Raptors have won the first NBA Championship outside the USA.
I watched the game at YoungerSon's house. It was a definite nailbiter at the end.... will they, or won't they? But yes, they did, and we cheered and jumped up and down with the rest of Canada.
Although the game was in California, more than 20,000 jubilant basketball fans watched the game on the big screens at "Jurassic Park" in downtown Toronto, and celebrated the win with confetti and fireworks. Celebrations went on well into the night. Game watching parties were held all over Canada, even in my small town where fans gathered at the local theatre to watch.
I think there's probably a definite lack of productivity at work in Toronto today.

Pic from CBC.

Go Raptors Go!

Come From Away

Have you heard about the musical production Come From Away? It's the story of the more than 7,000 passengers and airline personnel and some travelling animals on 38 wide-body planes that were stranded at the small town of Gander in Newfoundland in the days after the 9/11 tragedy in 2001. You can read about how all the travellers were taken care of by the good people of Gander and the surrounding small towns here.

Ten years after 9/11 in 2011, there was a reunion of the passengers, airline personnel and the townspeople in Gander, and an idea was born. Canadian writing team Irene Sankoff and David Hein created the musical Come From Away to tell the incredible story of how a small town of 10,000 souls selflessly fed, housed, clothed, and generally cared for more than 7,000 bewildered and frightened travellers from all over the world who didn't know what was happening or what to think.

Tickets for this popular musical are hard to get, and also pretty expensive, but last January I got together with some friends and we bought tickets for April..... and earlier this week we saw the show. We went downtown on the GO bus and train (I hate parking in Toronto so public transport is the best option), enjoyed a yummy dinner at Marche, then headed to the Royal Alexandra Theatre on King Street.

We got to our theatre seats, and immediately I recognized a woman who I worked with more than 15 years ago.... she was sitting in the row right in front of me! Small world, right?

The opening set of Come From Away. No photos during the performance, of course. The chairs that you see are mostly used as chairs, but can magically become school buses, planes, cars, beds, a lookout over a beautiful view, seating for a party, stage for a musician. And each actor can become many different characters depending on what hat or jacket he's wearing. The show runs 100 minutes with no intermission. There were side-splitting hilarious moments, and heart-breaking moments too. A wonderful show, I enjoyed it so much. It was worth waiting for.
If you have a chance to get your hands on a ticket.... it's a must-see show!

Big Fish, Little Fish

A trip to Ripley's Aquarium of Canada is always fun. I was there with the family a couple of years ago, here, and this time I met with some English friends who were on vacation and joined them in being a tourist for the day.
The Aquarium opened in October 2013. It's right downtown in Toronto, located at the foot of the CN Tower. Lots of big numbers here: 16,000 marine animals; 135,000 square feet; 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million litres) of water; 17 habitats; more than 100 different species of fish; the world's most extensive jellyfish exhibit.

It was the perfect day to see the fish. No huge crowds to battle as the children are still in school. It will be a different story next week during March Break.

Some More Chihuly

A few more pictures from the Royal Ontario Museum's Chihuly Exhibit.

Persian Ceiling  This is one of the most popular works. Brightly coloured "persian" shapes are arranged in layers on a ceiling of glass, and lit from above. When Chihuly was asked why he called these shapes "persian" he said he just liked the name. But the Museum removed the quote from it's signage, and to see why, click here.

The whole room glows with colour forming dramatic textured reflections on the walls. Apparently the SoHo Metropolitan Hotel in Toronto has a ceiling like this in the front entrance, but on a smaller scale. I'll have to check it out when I'm in the neighbourhood. 

The best way to see the colours of the Persian Ceiling is to lie on the strategically provided upholstered cushions. This family was enjoying bathing in a pool of light, pointing out all the tiny details..

Fire Orange Baskets  A depiction of Northwest Coast Indian baskets showing the shapes in the circular woven baskets created by effects of gravity and time.

These glass baskets are the largest ever produced.

Persian Trellis  More of those "persian" shapes. The glass is blown to form herringbone patterns, and each individual piece has a slightly different colour combination, with a teeny weeny stripe of contrasting glass on the rim. I want one!!!!

Perhaps you would like to take home a souvenir of your visit to the Chihuly exhibit? These modest little trinkets were displayed for sale, carefully watched over by a Museum employee,  and in fact one had been purchased just a few minutes before I took this photo. 

Too bad I didn't have any spare change with me, as I quite fancied this lovely bowl of sunshine sitting on my mantlepiece. But I would have had to take it home on the bus..... and it might have been broken....

Chihuly

Well, one of my 2017 thoughts was to blog more, and, of course, I haven't so far! Total failure. Boo.
However, last week I spent an afternoon at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) in Toronto, to catch the final week of the Chihuly Exhibition.
Dale Chihuly is an American glass sculptor, and his huge colourful creations are considered unique in the field of blown glass.
Is it art? He no longer blows the glass himself. His pieces are created by a team of master glassblowers and assistants under his direction in a huge studio workshop, and he has had exhibitions and large scale installations in many cities around the world, often showing similar forms and shapes. It's definitely an industry of excess.
Not everyone thinks that Chihuly glass belongs in the museum. The Toronto Star definitely agrees.
However, the pieces on display were memorable, full of light and colour and form. I couldn't help myself clicking the camera over and over.

Float Boat

Ikebana Boat

Icicle Chandeliers and Towers. Hundreds of pieces of blown glass are assembled around sturdy steel frameworks, and lit from external sources.  All displayed on a black perspex floor to enhance the reflections.

Laguna Torcello. Stroll around this intricate garden of glass and enjoy the flowers and organic shapes. This installation includes floats, reeds, crystals, and white belugas.

It looks like an underwater scene.

On looking closely, there are sea urchins, octopus, fish, crabs, seashells, seaweed.... on a lagoon island in Venice, one of  the sculptors favourite places.

Sapphire Neon Tumbleweeds 2016.  Featuring large bundles of linear factory made tubes that were heated and bent to curvilinear shapes, these Tumbleweeds resemble plant forms or even diagrams of atoms. 

Jerusalem Cylinders.  Pre-formed glass elements in the shape of sharp edged crystals are fused to cylindrical vessels, evoking the massive stones making up the walls of the Citadel in Jerusalem.

Red Reeds on Logs.  Glass reeds are presented on Ontario birch logs. Some of the reeds are 3 metres long, the glassblowers achieving this by pulling the hot molten glass downwards from a mechanical lift.

Spiked crystal tower of stalactites and stalagmites.

How do you move an installation like this from one city to another? Carefully, that's how.
This exhibition contains thousands of pieces of glass, each one fitted in it's individual cushioned heavy gauge cardboard container, and then loaded onto six 52' transport trucks filled from floor to roof.
More pictures to come.....

T.O.

It's known as T.O. Short for Toronto, Ontario. The Big Bad City.

I was in Toronto recently, visiting the Art Gallery of Ontario to view the current exhibition "Mystical Landscapes". Paintings by Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edvard Munch, Paul Gaugin, James McNeil Whistler, Emily Carr, many more. Wonderful exhibition! Paintings by 37 artists from 14 countries, exploring the mystical experiences of a spiritual path to faith.
On the way, I stopped at Nathan Phillips Square in front of City Hall to admire the TORONTO sign. It was first put up for the Commonwealth Games held in Toronto in the summer of 2015, and was so popular that it's still there.

And I stopped on my way back too.... it lights up at night. And the colours are always changing.

After an exhausting afternoon admiring the works of Monet and Van Gogh and their painter friends, I was close to starving.... so there's nothing better than a bacon and cheese sausage on a bun, smothered with lots of onions and pickles and hot sauce from one of the street vendors on Queen Street. I sat on a bench and munched my sausage and watched the people climbing all over the TORONTO sign.

Then I caught the train home!

Doing the Wave

This is the Simcoe WaveDeck at the foot of Simcoe Street on the Toronto waterfront. Unique wooden wave decks are being constructed along the edge of Lake Ontario between Bathurst Street and Parliament Street.
The Simcoe WaveDeck opened in June 2009. The design has a dramatic 2.6 metre high curve and metal railings to prevent injuries.

These are new public spaces that vary in shape, articulation and design to reflect the constant movement of Lake Ontario.