Making opera at WTOC is a continual dance between process and product. The same could be said of life in any opera company, but here it’s more central than most other places. We focus on the process because our mission is to develop and promote the skills and artistry of our young professional singers. We
Read MorePosts Categorized: 2012 Season
A Guest from (the other) Vienna
Above: Robert Koerner & Jean-Paul Fouchécourt (Opéra de Lyon), Thomas Lausmann (Wiener Staatsopera) and Philip Broeking (Komische Oper Berlin) talk with WTOC artists and staff about auditioning and working in Europe. They discussed how Fest contracts are and aren’t similar to YAPs in the United States, how the singer/manager business relationship is different in Europe, and how
Read MoreFirst Week on the Job
Most new jobs or internships move slowly at first, to give the newbie a chance to get his feed on the ground. But if you’re reporting for work as a Wolf Trap Opera Studio Artist, it’s a different story… During their first 6 days at Wolf Trap, these 20-somethings have already: Strutted their stuff in
Read MoreInstant Family
If you come to a show at The Barns (or almost any other opera house, frankly), you could be forgiven for thinking that the people who put together and perform the show you’re seeing have been working together for a while. Months, for sure. Years, perhaps. What isn’t often realized by audiences is that the
Read MoreDizzy with Delegation!
It’s a most wonderful time of the year. Artists and staff bring new energy into the building, the weather is still temperate enough to be tolerable, and season projects are all in their uncomplicated full-of-potential infancy. But May is delicious mostly because of delegation. In the blink of an eye, a 2.5-member team is doubled
Read MoreCasanova
Mozart is about to invade my life again. Giovanni staff arrive next week, and singers arrive on the 29th. As I do research for my preshow talk (Inside the Opera with Kim Witman! Wildly exciting and scarily informative!), I’ve been reading librettist Lorenzo da Ponte’s Memoirs. How did I get to my 8th production of
Read MoreWTOC: We Take the Leash Off
“There’s a magical time at the beginning of every career where just the right amount of accumulated knowledge coincides with an irrepressible enthusiasm for the work itself. If you’re lucky, at that point you get the chance to see how good you are at what you believe you were born to do. I am fortunate
Read MoreAt the Intersection
Tomorrow I get the chance to speak briefly to the Wolf Trap Foundation’s Board of Directors. The WTOC is in an unusual position, in that our parent organization has an agenda that is way wider than opera. So it’s incumbent on me to find a way to draw parallels between our world and the more
Read MoreThe Don Juan Mirror
This week’s Huffington Post blog is up: The Don Juan Mirror. I spent all of last week laid up with a respiratory flu and am having trouble getting my groove back… I promise to be back in this space next week with some actual new content!
Read MoreThis Just In
Costume sketches and set model photos for this summer’s Giovanni. A new production of a quintessential opera, acknowledging its rich heritage and exploring the havoc that Giovanni could wreak in 21st century America. A thoughtful, detailed, honest and frank look at how the hubris of Don Juan would manifest itself in our own
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