First-class musicians take opera to strange places

The trio is comprised of crackerjack musicians: trumpet/piano wonder Guy Few, accordionist Joseph Petric and trombonist Eric Vaillancourt, who cut a swath onstage dressed in dramatic black leather and chains. The weekend show kicked off an eight-concert (mostly) Saskatchewan tour co-produced with Prairie Debut, with Bellows and Brass marking their first appearance with VC since 1998.

When you think grand opera, chances are that you usually don't imagine sock puppets. However, the trio may possibly have created a new art form with The Perfect Cake, a clever, tongue-in-cheek parody that features operatic snippets from Puccini, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss. Montreal-born composer/arranger (and founding member of B & B) Alain Trudel has worked magic with the score, carefully knitting together its story of young widow Angelique who takes down evil Dr. Wholesome via his eating a poisonous torte. The tale of love and revenge -- sock-puppet style -- ends tragically with the stage littered with brassy corpses in true over-the-top operatic fashion.

What's unique about the half-hour, three-act opera is that nobody actually sings. The characters are represented by stretched hose over the bells of four trumpets and trombones to create faces, with the horns becoming extensions of the musicians' bodies. The musical excerpts reflect the emotional arc of the story, with Petric adding light narration and "orchestral" accompaniment. The audience is coaxed to boo and hiss as they would at a spaghetti western. It's all good, zany fun where you could easily get caught in the tomfoolery and forget these guys are all serious players.

As a reputed showman, Few dazzled the crowd by alternating between two character trumpets, switching effortlessly between the instruments without (literally) skipping a beat. He even played piano and trumpet simultaneously, with his left hand providing accompaniment while blowing the horn with his right. As a fine musician, though, his delicate aria D'amor Sull'ali Rosee Vanne, Sospir Dolemte (Il Trovatore) really took the cake, exquisitely coating the solo with filigree trills, flourishes and tasteful runs that showed why he's considered one of Canada's top virtuoso trumpeters.

Everyone loves a tango -- especially in January -- with Roman Pelinski's Tangoral and Neurotango, an exhilarating highlight made complete with Few's ripping glissandi from the keyboard. The evening also included Arthur Pryor's Thoughts of Love, where Vaillancourt seemed to pull out every trick in his bag, from treacherous lip slurs to rumbling multiphonics, before an encore of Astor Piazzolla's Oblivion ended the show with a rhythmic bang.

holly.harris@shaw.ca

ConcertReview

Bellows and Brass

. January 17

. Eckhardt-Gramatté Hall

. Attendance: 138

3 1/2 out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 19, 2009 D2