While I wrote a couple weeks ago about choruses singing and rehearsing with and without masks, and one case of the dire consequences of the latter, the largest performing organization in the United States, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, managed to pull off 196 performances in its 2021-2 season without cancelling any. The company’s […]
On the cover of Opera News, appearances at the Met and Carnegie hall, in a Lieder recital at the Barbican in London, with reviews in the NY Times, London Evening Standard, and many others, the soprano Lise Davidsen seems to be everywhere and to mostly rave reviews. What is all the buzz about? Lise Davidsen […]
For those studying singing at the beginner and intermediate levels, studying old (17th and 18th century) Italian arias seems to be a nearly universal recommendation. Why is this so? What are the magical properties of this repertoire? What are these arias? Where are they from? These “Old Italian” arias are from operas of the 17th […]
While a doctoral student at Indiana University, I was a voice major with minors in Opera Directing and Music History. The director of our Opera Workshop was Nicola Rossi-Lemeni, with whom I also studied voice for part of my degree. He was not only a famous bass, but a published poet and a painter; a […]