Elza van den Heever and the MET Orchestra: A stunning all-Strauss program
Learn: Opera in the City
NewsLooking to enhance your opera-going experience? The Royal Conservatory of Music offers Opera in the City, a four-week look into two of Toronto's upcoming shows, La traviata (opening at the Canadian Opera Company October 8th) and Armide, opening October 22nd with Opera Atelier.
Quick tips: the rolled R test
How-toWhat I've found is that rolled Rs in a singer's text can act as a sort of litmus test for where that singer is maintaining their resonance. As a coach, if I ask for more consonants in an Italian aria, and a rolled R seems difficult to project, the problem usually lies in the preceding vowel.
Opera nerd meets grammar freak
EditorialI look at a lot of artist biographies, concert programs, season line-ups, and other lists of opera titles, and I keep noticing a small, nerdy detail that I've finally decided to address. Can we discuss the right way to use capital letters in your opera titles?
#COC1516: the new Ensemble Studio
ReviewThe Canadian Opera Company Ensemble Studio have kicked off the 2015/16 Free Concert Series in the Richard Bradshaw Amphitheatre with their annual introductory concert, Meet the Young Artists. Eight singers and two pianists performed in what's called the "death by aria" style, each singer showing off an aria that shows what they do best.
Spotlight on: Cairan Ryan
Interview"I sing because it is a holistic musical experience. It's the only thing I can think of that comes close to complete participation of your brain, body, and what some people may call a soul. At its peak, it unites all three into a living, breathing instrument, that's always completely unique and arrestingly different. I sing to always find that unity."
via Wolf Trap Opera, Audition Season 2015: the conversation
EditorialThis is a cross-post from Wolf Trap Opera's great blog, where Kim Pensinger Witman, Wolf Trap's Senior Director of Opera & Classical Programming, talks all things auditions. The season is nigh, singers! You're working away on the great singing, but how do you tell your auditioners who you are? Read and learn.
Public practicing & pet peeves
HumourSingers, I love you all. You're brave folks, putting in literally endless hours of practice, taking all the criticism with a smile, getting up in front of bored-faced crowds to bare your souls. I always admire you guys, and never envy your jobs. But singers, let's chat about singing in undesignated areas.
So, can we hear hologram Callas soon?
HumourWhitney Houston's hologram will sing a concert next year at "a major U.S. venue" next year. Pat Houston, president of the Whitney Houston Estate and Greek billionaire Alki David, CEO of Hologram USA, are working together on this latest hologram concert venture; Whitney's image will be shown onstage "the same way that Tupac and Snoop Dogg interacted onstage at Coachella," according to David.
Talking with singers: Ambur Braid
InterviewDramatic coloratura soprano Ambur Braid has been on our interview wish-list since Schmopera's day one. Her choice repertoire consists largely of "evil, crazy royalty," where she can show off her staggering high notes and coloratura so fast you can blink and miss it.
Gems: Beauty Pageant Opera
HumourIt's rare, but I just love it when it happens: beauty pageant opera. It usually happens one of two ways for me: predictably not great, or surprisingly good. When I'm listening to the former, I'm wondering how they picked their aria, trying to hear their singing background in their sound, all very judgy things that I scold myself over almost immediately.