Managing the unexpected

Op-ed

Risk-proof your life. That’s what the personal finance experts will tell you. Well, experts... The prospect of ‘risk-proofing’ an artist's life seems pretty dang daunting. Do you guys ever feel like there’s nothing in this business that you can actually control?

The number one financial thing I wish everyone would know

Op-ed

I love personal finance. I love the budgets, the savings, the maddening complexity of an obscure tax rule. Maybe I’m still in a 'honeymoon' phase because that love is still pretty new to me. It was only a few years ago when money was a huge stress for me: I avoided thinking about it, I avoided talking about it, I just plain didn’t pay it any mind at all.

Opera Lyra and the Five Stages of Grief

Op-ed

There has been a distraught and saddened buzz in the opera community ever since Opera Lyra announced an immediate halt of its 2015-2016 season due to severe budget shortfalls. As the opera world absorbs this difficult hit, reactions on social media are evolving in line with the five stages of grief.

Bocelli & Grande: could be an opera duo, except they're really, really not

Op-ed

So, Andrea Bocelli has "graced" us (and probably a BILLION wedding receptions hence) with a new duet called "E Piú ti Penso", and although it is kinda sorta pretty, it's totally rubbing me the wrong way. It has all the proper ingredients: string ensemble, a video shot through a soft-filtered lens, a pretty pop princess, and it's written by Ennio Morricone. MORRICONE!!!

Opera orchestras: robots, or out of the loop?

Op-ed

I've written before about the emotional rollercoaster caused by the arrival of the orchestra. In short: you, the singer/pianist/director/passionate stage manager, have spent weeks in music and staging rehearsals for a particular show, and you've no doubt grown close to the piece, and all your favourite moments in this particular production. For pianists, the way they play the score is informed by what they see being built up onstage; if it's an interesting rehearsal process, I'll probably play the score differently at the end of it than at the beginning, because I'll know more things about this story now.

Story webs & the original Romeo & Juliet

Op-ed

No piece of art is created in a vacuum. Any time I've worked on an opera, I've always loved learning of the connections between the story, and its ancestry in literature and history. Greek mythology, Shakespeare, the Bible, Egyptian history, the atomic bomb...

Conductors: what else do they tell us?

Op-ed

When George Martin and The Beatles made Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967, they made history by using the recording studio itself as a sort of "instrument." Songs like "A Day in the Life", or even "With a Little Help from My Friends" aren't easy to reproduce on a live stage, and the album isn't meant to be a preserved concert in the same way that Please Please Me is.

New Opera: More Singer Input Needed

Op-ed

Historical memory in opera production is very short. It is probably a shorthand that is not intended to insult, but as time passes we forget the directors, designers, singers and producers of an opera. Even the librettists can get left behind. It is a shame and creates the perception that composers are all Wagnerian control freaks whose work arrives perfectly formed.

Plácido Domingo, Verdi baritones, and the ripple effect

Op-ed

The complaint is: legendary tenor Plácido Domingo has retired his notorious Don José, Cavaradossi, and Otello, and has started taking on baritone roles (Oreste in Iphigénie en Tauride, and the title roles in Simon Boccanegra and Rigoletto). The argument is that his singing these roles takes away a potential gig from a hard-working, vocally appropriate Verdi baritone.

Idealism & questions about unions

Op-ed

I'll never be quoted as saying that artists deserve to be paid less than they already do. They work incredibly hard in a specialized set of skills. I think it's important, though, to be self-aware in an industry that's ubiquitously almost out of money. Will the unions be the first to adapt to a contemporary opera economy, or should contemporary artists be the ones to take the bold steps for the sake of the industry (perhaps martyring themselves along the way)?