Talking of performing arts buildings, do any of you lads and lassies know what Margaret Eaton Hall at 9 McGill Street looked like? Maurice Ravel performed there when he came to town in 1928.
Ravel in Toronto
Ravel arrived in Toronto on Sunday 18 March 1928 and stayed in the city for several days. He immediately gave an interview to a local newspaper, in which he declared his intention of visiting Niagara Falls (20 March) "to get a new theme for composition". (Toronto Daily Star, 19 March 1928**). (According to Eugène Lapierre, in his biography of Calixa Lavallée (Montréal, Fides, 1966), Ravel is supposed to have exclaimed on seeing Niagara Falls, "Quel majestueux si bémol", ["What a majestic B flat."])
On 22 March Ravel gave a recital at the
Margaret Eaton Hall in Toronto, alongside the soprano Lisa Roma and Quatuor Hart House. The programme was essentially the same as one given earlier in Vancouver, except for the substitution of the Rigaudon from Le tombeau de Couperin and the String quartet. According to one reviewer there was a "capacity crowd" from whom Ravel "received a veritable ovation", in spite of his limitations as a performer. (The Globe (Toronto), 23 March 1928**).
Not everyone was as well pleased. The critic of the Evening Telegram (23 March 1918**) did not like Ravel's music or the performance. "His playing, and Miss Roma's singing, ignored the emotions entirely... Since Ravel might have been a chemist, or a surgeon or a painter, it is absurd to expect emotions in his work."
The first hour of the recital was broadcast on the radio (station CFCA of the Toronto Daily Star).
Here's a bit of information about Toronto's lively performing arts scene in those days:
http://people.uleth.ca/~scds.secd/English/Resources/AmyBowring.pdf