Wagnerian in the perfect projection of his bass bark, full of life and eager to perform like many Italian tenors, and nearly human in his understanding of the humans around him, Count was an amazing dog. A Labradoodle (half Labrador and half poodle) he was above all sweet. I have had more than a dozen dogs in my life, and never has there been one so consistently sweet. Throughout his nine and … [Read more...]

In its 425 years of existence opera has played a part in many political events--The Marriage of Figaro, though very much neutralized from its French source, caused some anguish in Vienna, Verdi composed his first fifteen or so operas advocating an end to Austrian rule in Italy, and Berg's Wozzeck dramatized the plight of the impoverished, undernourished and invisible humans ground underfoot by … [Read more...]

The news that Darren Keith Woods was summarily fired after a sixteen-year extraordinarily successful career as General Director of Fort Worth Opera added to some odd news from Vienna a short time ago seems inexplicable. Woods became General Director of a regional company in Texas at the turn of the present century that had made little impact on the national opera scene, overshadowed as it was … [Read more...]

Connecting opera to current, particularly American political events usually doesn’t work, and even more unlikely when the connection can be made, to an opera by Richard Wagner. Donald Trump has changed all that; in only ten days or so as President he has indicated a rather amazing parallel to the hero or at least to the title character in Rienzi, Wagner’s first and now quite rarely performed … [Read more...]

In the last decade on several occasions subscribers to Seattle Opera, of which I was the General Director, commented to me that they enjoyed opera, wanted others to experience it, but that it would be so much more popular if I would make it considerably shorter. The suggested time was somewhere less than two hours, including a generous intermission. And the operas that were mentioned to be trimmed … [Read more...]

Anyone who has watched any of the Republican candidates' debates, particularly the recent ones,  has to have been amazed at the extreme statements, the antipathy, the crassness, and the violence of the tone, not to mention what the four remaining candidates want to do as President. American politics has always been rough, but even in the late nineteenth century, when strong words were the norm, … [Read more...]

Any regular Seattle Opera attendee might remember hearing several slightly tenorial shouts of Bravo! after an aria or at the end of a performance, a sound that carried over even the most tumultuous applause. It came from standing room and from a very discriminating opera lover who passed away on November 21. For most of the last fifteen years Dr. Winfield Hutton (or Winfield Dr. Hutton as he … [Read more...]

  Doris Yarick Cross for more than thirty years has directed Yale Opera, a division of the Yale School of Music. She and her husband, Richard Cross, serve as the voice teachers for the program, a mammoth task. Such major artists as Matthew Polenzani, Patrick Carfizzi, Tamara Mumford, and Christian Van Horn have graduated from the program, which in every school year has fifteen artists, chosen … [Read more...]

On a ten-day visit to the City of Light I had the opportunity to attend two operas and one superb music rehearsal of three very different works. First came at the Opera de Bastille Laurent Pelly's production of Donizetti’s Elisir d’Amore. Chantal Thomas designed the charming sets, and Joel Adams the contemporary costumes; the production was a revival. Unusual for any theater in Europe, the … [Read more...]