Talking with composers: David T. Little

Interview

"As the composer, I try to see both the forest and the trees - to feel the small details and the small moments while making sure the text is right, the high notes are being approached in just the right way, and I'm also monitoring the large-scale form while keeping the pacing moving. It's multi-tasking at an intense level."

5 ways being a background actor helps your singing

How-to

Background acting (AKA working as an "extra" on a television or film set), with few barriers to entry and mostly single-day commitments, could be a good way to fill gaps between gigs. Approach it constructively and you can hone your craft while earning a (mostly) quick buck.

Maria by Callas: "Destiny is destiny. There is no way out."

Review

It's funny how easy it is, as a woman in 2018, to look at someone like Maria Callas and decide that she is unquestionably forward-thinking, a strong feminist who worked endlessly for her success. And then she says that being a wife and mother is "the main vocation for a woman."

Pass the tissues: a beautiful new Bohème in Chicago

Review

Director Richard Jones deserves fervent applause for his three-dimensional realization of this show. Characters and set-pieces alike moved and reacted with cinematic deliberateness. Rising conductor Domingo Hindoyan makes his Lyric debut in this production. The LOC orchestra responded with a lush blanket of sound, emanating from the pit and supporting the singers.

Kept women & a snapshot of life in La Rondine

Review

The choice of making La Rondine and Verdi's La Traviata the book ends to the season is interesting. It is interesting to look at two "kept women" who fall in love with the young and impetus tenor, retire to the countryside, and then after a while have to part ways out of shame of their past and in the name of honor. Magda goes back to her old life and Ruggero is left heart broken. Magda had a choice, and ultimately Violetta does not.

Summer Opera Nights in Palm Beach

Review

With PBO's Young Artists away for the summer, the September 28 event starred South Florida mainstays: bass-baritone Neil Nelson – a familiar face from past PBO productions – and soprano Robyn Marie Lamp. The duo were joined by PBO rehearsal pianist and coach Cassie Makeeff, who heroically made the most of an electric keyboard.

Eugene Onegin, or the time Tatyana dodged a bullet

Review

It's hard to get a sense of whether Tchaikovsky means us to see Onegin as an anti-hero, a villain, or some pitiful shell of a man (like Patrick Bateman's less murderous brother, Sean). By the skin of her teeth, Tatyana comes out of their whole uncomfortable relationship unscathed, but not without some doubt; she rightly turns Onegin down in the final scene, but it's frustrating that she only does so because she's married to someone else.

Die Fledermaus adaptation delivers effervescent performance

Review

The standout performer of the evening, however, was soprano Laura Brandt as Eisenstein's wife, Rose. Brandt's spinning, confident voice pervaded this production from beginning to end with richness and depth. And in the tradition of a true leading lady, Brandt's chemistry with each of her castmates - from her husband to her ex-lover to her maid and beyond - is naturally seamless with each interaction. Hers was truly a tour-de-force performance.

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 adapts a medium more adept at adapting

Review

For an opera, the score doesn't have much singing. Mr. Eddy's part is the most unique, full of guttural throat clicks, pops, screams, and burps. At one point he babbles like a tape on fast forward, an unexpectedly thrilling effect live. The character comes off more comic than scary, but who cares with such entertaining music.