Enigma, Opéra de Montréal, Théâtre Maisonneuve, 9 April 2024

Performing from inside a cube appears to be the hottest theatrical trend right now.

The pianist Alexandra Stréliski began her sold-out two-night Place des Arts residency from a grand piano positioned within a giant box in January; Les limites infinies de la peau, a new work by the Montreal choreographer Caroline Laurin-Beaucage, was staged at Ateliers Belleville on April 11^th and 12^th from inside a pair of transparent boxes; and Enigma, the latest collaboration between the French composer Patrick Burgan and Franco-Belgian playwright Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt — a tense operatic psychodrama ironically centring upon a bizarre love triangle — unfolded at Théâtre Maisonneuve this week from a pulsing neon block that was meant to be intimate, but came off more claustrophobic.

There is something unsettlingly suffocating about witnessing performers trapped inside boxes, calling to mind the illusionist Harry Houdini’s great feats of escape from water torture cells. Of course, the box we least want to imagine being trapped in is a coffin, the final enclosure that will eventually, inevitably, imprison every last one of us for all eternity.

Still, in my opinion, the greatest stunt ever mounted which deployed a box for dramatic effect took place 40 years ago at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, when the late-night talk show host David Letterman — who turned 77 on April 12^th — donned a suit made of Alka Seltzer and submerged himself in a plexiglass dunk tank.

Although there was ostensibly plenty of queasiness in the studio, the relief it provided was purely comic.

Alberto Porro, Tre di Bastoni, MFA Gallery, Concordia University, 10-12 April 2024

Seeking shelter from the rain, I stumbled on Thursday afternoon into the VA Building where, two decades ago, I began my undergraduate studies in cinema.

I was pleased to see that students haven’t changed much, still brimming with enthusiasm, groups of nascent artists hurriedly hanging their works between smoke breaks.

There was no Instagram in 2004, only Friendster. We chatted face-to-face, not via text. But reliving the past is not in the cards.

Simon S. Belleau, Répliques, Fonderie Darling, until 26 May 2024

If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction; For it increaseth. Thou huntest me as a fierce lion: and again thou shewest thyself marvellous upon me. Thou renewest thy witnesses against me; changes and war are against me.

—Job 10:15-17

“We’re gonna do it anyway / Even if it doesn’t pay.”

—Gillian Welch, “Everything is Free.”

Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony no. 3 with Kent Nagano, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Maison Symphonique, 12 April 2024

Maestro Nagano’s return to Maison Symphonique was heroic indeed, the Orchestra firing on all cylinders, performing Stravinsky and Beethoven flawlessly.

However, the audience marred an otherwise magical evening, phone notifications dinging, people hooting and hollering between each movement, talking and gawking amongst themselves as if they were at home watching Netflix and not at the symphony.

My companion, a concert pianist herself, at one point leaned into me and said, “They’re much more civilized at Bourgie Hall.” I kept my mouth shut, not mentioning the sordid scene I’d witnessed there last June.

Total Solar Eclipse, 8 April 2024

A few months ago, I watched a documentary about The Beatles, who somehow went from a Merseyside Skiffle band — rather niche back in those days — to the biggest Rock & Roll group in music history.

We always want to know the secrets to such meteoric successes, and one modest hint squeaked out in this behind-the-scenes clip: an acronym which must have served as a sort of axiom for the Fab Four: D.I.N. — or “Do It Now.”

I must admit that I wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the total solar eclipse, which occurred coincidentally in Montreal on the afternoon of April 8^th. All the preparations and the lengths to which some people went to be in the path of totality, travelling across borders and over time zones, seemed a bit excessive to me. Why get so excited for a natural phenomenon that would last only a few minutes, I wondered?

That particular day, I had just finished conducting an interview with a brilliant musician and composer, who will be performing in Montreal for the Suoni per il Popolo festival, (watch this space), when it occurred to me that all I had to do was walk outside and I could catch an uncomplicated glimpse of something rather rare and special. So, I grabbed my iPhone and headed to a secret little spot I know not too far from my apartment in the Old Port.

I arrived mere minutes before the moon was about to take its position outshining the sun. Whilst it was packed everywhere else, providentially, only a handful of kids and some old Quebecois stoners, drinking cans of PBR and riding around on their reduced mobility scooters, were at this specific place.

At the exact instant of totality, someone played Pink Floyd’s “Breathe,” and I found myself overwhelmed with emotion at the aptness of this entire scene. Throngs of people gathered along the quays began cheering and tears spontaneously formed in my eyes as I realized that this event, if only briefly, had the power to unite everyone who had witnessed it. And all I needed to do was to walk a few blocks and take it all in.

If you have the chance to do something now, do it now. Strike up a conversation with that famous artist. Walk outside and gaze at a solar eclipse. Damn the torpedoes. Seize the day.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when everything that matters aligns perfectly, clicking into place like a jigsaw puzzle, and the universe in its vastness reveals itself in its own infinite beauty and endless possibility.

And then it’s done.

As quickly as it starts, it also ends. Life goes by pretty fast, so D.I.N.◼︎

_{Cover image: Simon S. Belleau, See me with your ears, 2024, Archival pigment prints, recycled posters.}