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
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Dizzy 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 MoreAnd That’s How I Roll
In honor of Ride Your Bike to Work Day, I offer this one-minute video on my commute :) After only 3 months on two wheels, I am completely addicted. Sad beyond belief when I wake up to pouring rain. We’ll see if this enthusiasm lasts into the 95-degree / 90% humidity summer! And on a
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 MoreBut I Love Lima Beans…
A few months ago I did an enjoyable interview with John Greenya, for the publication that’s ubiquitous in DC-area airports: Washington Flyer. The piece ended up offering a lovely view of the WTOC. It will be available till the end of June – pick up a copy when you’re on your next trip and or
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 MoreThe Inspector Takes Boston!
Exactly a year ago today, we were shepherding The Inspector (Wolf Trap’s 2nd commissioned opera) toward its opening night on April 27. So it’s fitting that this weekend, John Musto & Mark Campbell’s fabulous comic opera lands in Boston, in a cast that features two Wolf Trap alums (Victoria Livengood and Jake Gardner). Get yourself
Read MoreHuffington Post’s Newest Blogger
As of this week, yours truly has joined the ranks of the HuffPo Bloggerati. (Wish me luck!) I’ll be writing about our Giovanni production for the next couple of months, then transitioning into a summer/fall series about our annual audition tour (“talent search”) :) Here’s the first post: From Page to Stage: Don Giovanni I won’t duplicate those
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