When critics are jerks

Op-ed

Der Rosenkavalier opened at Glyndebourne on May 17th, and the opening night reviews ticked off some opera fans. Ordinarily, one would be happy that a bunch of critics can't stop talking about Irish mezzo Tara Erraught's performance of Octavian.

How many fairies, exactly?

Op-ed

Alright, so Opera on the Avalon has a sense of humour. They put up a billboard to advertise Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, one of two shows the program will present this summer in St. John's, Newfoundland. The billboard, I thought, was funny. The slogan for Midsummer was, "Filled with more fairies than St. John's on Pride Day." Snort.

How I acted my way into an opera career

Op-ed

I remember when I first told my parents I wanted to be an actor. I had just performed in our school district’s Speech and Drama Festival and scored a near perfect mark for my portrayal of the Big Bad Wolf (of “Three Little Pigs” fame) telling the true account of what happened with those mischievous swine.

On the ego

Op-ed

I want people to like me.  I got into singing because I want people to like me. Yup. Of course, I didn’t think of it like that at the time; wanting people to like you is not necessarily an attractive quality.  Later, when I really thought about what it means to be a performer, I decided that I didn’t actually want it to be about me.

Opera: don't judge it by its people

Op-ed

There is this stereotype of "theatre folk." They come to rehearsal enveloped in pashmina, they identify themselves with their choice of uniquely quirky glasses-frames, and they wear the kind of clothing that begs the honest question, "Did you make that tunic yourself?"

The Case for Music Education

Op-ed

So, in 1993 there was a study published in Nature by Francis Rauscher to try and measure the effect of classical music on spatial skills in children. The study found that 10 minutes of Mozart improved the spatial reasoning skills of college students and rats, and 10 minutes of piano or singing lessons did the same for preschoolers.

Young Pups and Puccini

Op-ed

George Carlin said on playing the blues, "I'll tell you a little secret about the blues: it's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played."

Humility and Hadrian

Op-ed

"That is what, most of all, is shrinking audiences for contemporary music: not any particular musicians, stylistic approaches, or programming, but rather a pernicious idea that contemporary music can only succeed if it bets against itself, and pretends that losing was really winning all along."

Another Opera Apologist (Part 3)

Op-ed

Terence Corcoran, in his grossly closed-minded article inspired by the COC’s 2013 production of La clemenza di Tito, found himself so distraught by the sight of two women kissing (that head-turning product of opera's "pants role" tradition) that he suggested we throw out all of opera with the bathwater.