Wherefore art thou, opera?

Op-ed

It becomes an important responsibility of artists to comment on the topics of the day, no matter how messy or fraught. It can no longer stand for us present a particular historic piece of theatre art "as-is" and to satisfy ourselves with platitudes about how "that's how it was written, it's just of its time".

Summer Nights at the Opera: an observation

Op-ed

With no lines or a prescribed opening time the Summer HD Festival has been a welcoming presence since its inception. Entering off Broadway, people first encounter a table with volunteers from the Metropolitan Opera Guild, providing information about the Guild's programs and benefits of membership as well as complementary issues of its publication, Opera News.

Leaning into the discomfort

Op-ed

We each go through life with our own subjective experience of the world around us: a personal story as unique and beautiful as a fingerprint, but with implicit bias and limitation. Art allows us the opportunity to reach out to one another, to find connections and disparities, to compare notes on different ways of seeing the world.

Opera in the age of Netflix

Op-ed

What if there was a more direct way to accomplish this goal? What would that look like? To all the opera companies, self-producers, recitalists, and alike, let me offer the following suggestions.

Anxiety, Art, and Purpose

Op-ed

I know a lot of my friends and colleagues struggle with performance anxiety, and I wanted to share my thoughts here in the hopes that it might help someone else who is struggling, and open up a dialogue about anxiety and art, which I think for many of us go hand in hand.

Don Giovanni in 2018: in search of a "concept"

Op-ed

And, let's be honest, we've all seen these productions, in which even basic narrative details of a piece are obscured, confused, ignored or senselessly "deconstructed" with sometimes baffling outcomes.

Theatre company responsible for Canadian singer's death goes bankrupt

Op-ed

It's the question that crosses any touring performer's mind when the stage manager misses a stop sign or forgets to check their blind spot. You grip the armrests and wonder, "what if we crashed?" A year ago today, the members of one Canadian production found out.

The real reason to bring teens to the opera

Op-ed

This is a decent list of reasons to bring your teen to the opera. It's fair to add that opera is not the only place to learn these things; the list above is an argument for getting teens excited about reading, going to museums, and yes, watching well-written film and television.

"Sex is one of the perks of conducting."

Op-ed

I pose a theory, though: things are changing. I'm a woman in the industry who has worked with a number of conductors; I'm either extremely lucky, wholly unattractive, or it's true that conductors in the 21st century are, like men in all industries, getting on board with the idea of respecting their colleagues (and keeping their sex lives outside of the rehearsal room).

More operatic roles for women: a pledge

Op-ed

Opera plots have traditionally required dramatic, pot-boiling plots, often inspired by history. And murder, mayhem, and power have certainly been male dominated. But moving forward, successful lyric theater stories need not always be centered on these kinds of themes.