Changes afoot at Toronto's History Museums?
Plus, a contemporary opera which lives in the past, and a BBC audio series about a literary cancellation
The headline may be a tad optimistic - after all, this city just experienced a Remembrance Day service during which both a land acknowledgement and a slavery acknowledgement were recited - but based on the signals on my Toronto History Museums radar, dare I notice a slight change of tone?
The last newsletter recently landed in my inbox, promoting seasonal events across the city’s museums, and the copy seems to have calmed down somewhat. There are still courses in African cooking at Montgomery’s Inn and henna workshops in Scarborough, but most of the rest is actually somewhat congruous with the location and time of the year. The word Christmas is still avoided, but ‘traditional wreath making’ and ‘seasonal celebration’ activities are back.
And whaddup with the canary in the coalmine, Spadina Museum? There are ‘holiday lamplight tours’ with the main house lights off planned for every weekend in December. I’ll take it. And will report back.
There was an event at Scarborough Museum in late November around Barbara Dickson’s 2015 book Bomb Girls: Trading Aprons for Ammo, about the women who worked at a fuse-fueling munitions factory in Scarborough during WW2. Actually related to Scarborough and actually tied to events in Canadian history. It’s the kind of talk that the city’s museums should be having as a matter of course. Is this a one-off or will the whole culture apparatus begin to do its job again?
The city’s museums now also have a shop. A shop! Which you can browse online! Welcome to 2010, museums! It’s so exciting. There you can find some goofy Torontoniana and Canadiana, and a lot of books. Keep going, Shop.
An opera truly not for our time
Multiple versions of the same press release landed in my inbox the other day, announcing a new operatic work which was co-commissioned by the local Tapestry Opera with Opera Philadelphia, to be co-presented by Luminato and the COC next year. That’s great, I thought; let’s have a look. Aha, both the composer and the librettist are women; good, good. Let’s see.