The 'Quiet Luxury' of haute-contre Cyrille Dubois
Check out: Liederwölfe
InterviewI met Liederwölfe Opera Collective co-founders and delightful ladies Francesca Perez and Lindsay Michael at the Banff Opera Colloquium this summer, where they wowed Canada's opera biggies with their proposal for Opera Peep Show. The premise is delicious: a ticket gets you into a hotel bar, where you can hear a few opera samples. From there, listeners can get keys to various rooms in the hotel, each featuring previews and excerpts from various other companies.
Interviewing the Greats: Virginia Zeani
InterviewIt is no wonder that opera collectors call Romanian soprano Virginia Zeani "l’Assoluta." In May 1948, Zeani made her stage début in Bologna, singing Violetta in La traviata; she went on as a last minute replacement, never having sung with orchestra and with no rehearsals. In her career, she would go on to sing 648 times.
If you could accessorize with opera...
HumourAccessories designer Diana Broussard is introducing a new resin handbag this November. This doesn't seem like a topic worthy of an opera blog, but stay with me. The handbag comes equipped with an LCD screen, and wearers can play video and audio of their choice, whatever goes best with your outfit, I suppose.
Vote for a note: crowdsourced songwriting?
EditorialWhat do you get when you ask a crowd what a song should sound like? CrowdSound.net is currently completing a melody, generated one note at a time by people on the Internet. Users can vote for each subsequent note in a melody, choosing from a list of diatonic pitches.
Back to school opera: a practical glossary
EditorialThe summer winds down, and school and other seasonal activities (like opera!) are soon back in session. In anticipation of a brand new season of opera-going, I figured a practical crash-course was in order.
4 Opera scenes that should have happened
HumourAbove: Suzuki gets real with Cio-Cio San, just like we all wished she would (Not actually.) Ever watch an opera and think, "I wonder if those two characters would be friends"? Seems odd, maybe; I've always done it with TV and film characters, and when I got into opera, the trend continued. Like, I used to think about whether or not the Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow would all be friends if Dorothy weren't in the picture. Or in The Little Mermaid, what it would be like for Eric to hang out with Sebastian.
In review: Dissociative Me
ReviewI walked into RED Nightclub to catch LooseTea Music Theatre's latest offering, "Dissociative Me". A new transladaptation of Gounod's Faust, in which we find the devious relationship with the malevolent spirit Mephistopheles has evolved into a dissociative personality disorder, where he inhabits the other part of John Faustus's psyche.
Mark Morris: "Clarity."
InterviewAmerican choreographer, dancer, director and conductor Mark Morris is one of those people that's difficult to introduce. He has worked with the likes of Peter Sellars, Yo-Yo Ma, and Mikhail Baryshnikov, and has a firm hand in dance and opera today. His company, the Mark Morris Dance Group, is a tight group of dancers, designers, and musicians, and they travel across the globe, presenting an average of 90 shows a year.
In review: Obeah Opera
ReviewFriday, August 7th, 2015. This is the day I finally understood why the human race began singing and dancing in the first place. I don't know how or why it started, but I was reminded of how blessed we are by its presence in our lives.
Schmopera takes a breather
NewsA quick heads-up, readers: for the month of August, Schmopera will be changing pace. We'll go from our usual peppy allegro to more of an larghetto, as we take, #waitforit, a vacation!