When I started Schmopera, I started checking out how the “pros” do this blogging thing. What were they saying, and how? Were they talking about artists, concerts, recordings? Were they spreading the word about shows to see? Were they publishing profiles and reviews of artists? Were they vouching for the arts and bringing awareness to the current events that concern artists and art-lovers? The answer was “yes”; everyone was writing about opera, who was making it happen and whether or not they were doing a good job of it.

So what was the point of my starting yet another blog about opera and music? I figured I could sprinkle some grains of salt onto the kind of rhetoric that already exists, including reviewing performances, interviewing artists and keeping an eye on the state of the arts in our current culture. There has always been a healthy amount of hostility between arts critics and the artists themselves; artists get misunderstood by critics, and critics arguably act as a liaison between the art and the audience, despite the fact that the majority of critics don’t actually do what the artists do. I have the advantage of being a current, working member of the opera industry, and also motivated to write about it, because I’m personally and professionally invested in keeping the arts in a healthy state.

So what if reviews, artist profiles, etc., could actually draw the audience into the process of creating opera? People are naturally curious, and they’re more inclined to seek out something new if they know something about it’s created, and about the people involved. Opera, like Classical music in general, has been hesitant to show audiences the unglamourous, dirty, sometimes tedious process of actually putting a performance on its feet; after all, opera is grand, and it makes sense that we’d want to show it off the final results (divas, tuxes, glitzy opera houses, etc.). But the glam-wow factor of opera doesn’t pack the same punch with the public anymore; now, audiences want to know their artists.

And that’s why I write from the inside. I was at first apprehensive about attaching my name to a new blog, fearing conflicts of interest like reviewing my own colleagues and friends. I’ve since identified myself, and it’s been a novel experience to be able to bring audiences right into the rehearsal room. I think opera folk (singers, conductors, directors, the whole lot) are incredible people who live huge, exaggerated, brave lives. I think their stories are what will surprise the general public, even more than the stories of the operas they create.