Meet Maestro Wenarto

Humour

I just want to make sure everyone knows about Maestro Wenarto. He's in Seattle, and he loves to sing on camera; he has a channel on YouTube and Vimeo, and you should go spend some time over there immediately. He's made over 1800 music videos, plenty of them operatic. I wouldn't say he's got a beautiful voice, but he's got determined pipes, and I can't argue with the élan.

Does opera depend on its snobs?

Op-ed

On that old topic of opera's social relevance, I came across an article by Robert Thicknesse of The Guardian, entitled "How I fell out of love with opera". The long-time arts critic argues that the social snobbery that clouds opera will never be shed, since those social snobs are the ones funding it all to begin with. "

Valerian Ruminski, or "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"

Editorial

So as it turns out, Tamar Iveri isn't the only one with controversial opinions on alternative lifestyles. Only about 2 months ago the Georgian soprano was released from contracts in Australia due to an ultra-homophobic and hate-mongering post on her Facebook.

In Review: Love in the Age of AutoCorrect

Review

Last night I went to the opening of Loose TEA Music Theatre‘s new production, Love in the Age of AutoCorrect. It was a double bill of updated takes on Stravinsky’s Mavra and Mozart’s Bastien und Bastienne, this time entitled Andrew and Andrea. It was out on the pretty terrace of Atelier Rosemarie Umetsu, with a friendly-looking bar to create a beautiful night of outdoor theatre.

Pianists' plights and opera fights

Humour

For any of those brave pianists who dive into operatic repertoire, there’s an acute awareness of playing music that’s specifically not written for the piano. While some singers revel in how beautifully Verdi or Mozart or Strauss wrote for the voice, the pianist is, at that same moment, experiencing how poorly that same music feels under our ten fingers. It’s a simple problem, and that’s that pianists in the opera world are largely stand-ins for the orchestra.

Opera Memes, Act II

Humour

A while back, I got impatient with a bunch of opera memes that were circulating around the Internet. It has happened again, partly thanks to the Opera Memes Facebook page. Here we go, for Act II of the Opera Memes Deconstruction:

r/opera's jackpot post

Humour

There is a dude out there on the Internet who has gotten the opera bug. Great news, we all say! Good choice, sir. Even better, the budding operaphile is reaching out via r/opera, asking how to get a proper introduction to opera.

Rufus Wainwright really wants to record Prima Donna

Editorial

Rufus Wainwright is eager to make a studio recording of his first opera, Prima Donna, and the only thing stopping him is money. Rufus has yet to find a financial backer for the project, so he has turned to crowdfunding to find the cash on his own.

Carmen, Don Juan, and gender reversal: pants roles indeed

Humour

Earlier this summer I was listening to the brilliant Graham Forst (husband of the formidable Judith Forst) give a talk on the history of the Don Juan character. He was talking about how Don Juan comes from the concept of Dionysus or Bacchus, these figures of indulgences that sound so fun.

See? You do need opera to survive

Editorial

Last week, Kyra Kopenstonsky was hiking in Colorado and bumped into a mountain lion. It stalked her for about twenty minutes, after which Kyra employed a last resort: singing opera.