Top Opera News

Top Opera News

New Blood for Chicago

Last thursday it was officially announced that Anthony Freud, a barrister long turned arts administrator, will fill the much coveted position of General Director for the Lyric Opera of Chicago left open by William Mason.  For more information, please read the special coverage in the Chicago Tribune and the Sun Times.

This shift in musical chairs, quite literally, now begs the question who will take over Houston Grand Opera?  It would seem from Anthony Freud having recently extended his contract and the shock and disappointment expressed in Houston, that little was known of his decision until it was made.  According to BroadwayWorld, the succession planning is now being put together.  So, which head-hunter will have the pleasure of the executive search?  Only time will tell.

The Windy City is also expecting another newcomer in the opera world as Brian Dickie, General Director of the Chicago Opera Theatre is stepping down.  Applicants for this position will now have additional thoughts to consider after the LOC's announcement.  Rest assured though, Chicago is seeing new blood and the arts community will see the changes from this.

Recommendations for Opera Europa's London Conference from the Young Delegates

Above: Young Delegate Camille Audouard presenting with Bernard Foccroulle 

for the closing presentations.  Photo courtesy of Zsuzsanna Balogh.

        Following their involvement in the Opera Europa spring conference in Rotterdam, young delegates gathered as the Opera Think Tank to put forward ideas for the next European Opera Forum. The young delegate program is a new initiative by Opera Europa to involve young professionals in the crucial debates that take place within the conference. Below are some of the recommendations for the 2011 London conference.
        1. Conference format
The Young Delegates particularly enjoyed this conference and their involvement from the start in the debates. The fact that there was a significantly lower number of participants in total (less than 200) also helped in terms of more focused discussions and smaller groups of people interacting in a more intimate way throughout the weekend.
        The new format is in itself a strong improvement, as it allows the group to be involved at every stage. We thought it was important to get together before the start of the conference, to break the ice, get to know / reconnect with each other and make sure the briefing for the weekend is clear. The initial dinner on Friday is also a plus – it sort of forces everyone to get a jump on the following day’s sessions and it facilitates exchanges. Being distributed throughout the different sessions allows for deeper and more organic discussions on at least one topic, which is great. We also tremendously enjoyed being given the opportunity to be deputy moderators, even if it diverted the focus a bit from imagining more precise topics for the London forum.

Day 3 of Opera America's 2010 Conference by Guest Bloger Kala Maxym

       Dreams of hanging out by the pool with a nice cool lemonade vanished as I woke up to the third day of the Opera America conference. It's amazing how exhausting meeting people can be - in a good way, of course.
       The day started out for me with a one-on-one meeting with Georgianna Paul, Opera Specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Sadly scheduling had not gotten it quite right again so I had to wait around a bit, but the meeting was worth waiting for. Although The Opera Insider cannot at this time qualify for grants, she was very pleased to hear about our project and mentioned that of course it is always useful for her to know what's going on in the world, what's new and innovative, so that she can communicate that to her members. I then headed off to a Holistic Singer Training roundtable with Ann Baltz and several of her staff members from Opera Works, a two- or four-week intensive training for singers held yearly during the summer.

Day 2 of Opera America's 2010 Conference by Guest Bloger Kala Maxym

     The second day of the conference started out on an un-operatic note for me. My sister was graduating residency that morning and the ceremony was being live-streamed from Seattle. I set up to watch it, paying a whopping $10 for the internet only to realize that it wasn't going to work at all. But given that I was already going to be late to the first session, I decided to rest up a bit for the remaining event that day.

     The first session I attended today was given by David McIntosh of DSMcIntosh. I remembered the guy from last year, and was so thrilled when I realized it was the same man who'd had me in stitches in Houston. He gave a phenomenal talk on "Finding a Better Business Model." To be honest none of the ideas were that new or really that innovative, but he presented them in such a way that you had to think again about whether you had actually been taking the best advantage of the products and customers you had at your fingertips. Of course "products" and "customers" (in most cases, this meant audience members of course) are not really relevant as such to our mission at The Opera Insider, but of course it all relates to us in that the "customers" we hope will be our members, engaging in discussion over the state of opera in America and around the world today.

Guest Bloger Kayla Maxym of the Opera Insider Covers Day 1 of the Opera America 2010 Conference in L.A.

     This is only my second Opera America conference, but I'm already a fan. This year is a lot bigger than last year, at least double or maybe even triple the number of attendees as last year in Houston.

     The day started off yesterday, actually, with the welcome reception which took place at the LA Opera House in a beautiful room overlooking the main plaza. Everyone gathered, schmoozing began almost immediately, wine and champagne flowed freely, and oh yeah, Placido Domingo showed up. "Truly the artist who needs no introduction," Opera America CEO and President Marc Scorca said of him, Domingo, who has been in the opera world for about half a century now in various capacities, encouraged all those present to use these days to "discuss" and come up with new ways of thinking and talking about opera. Marc Stern, Chairman and CEO of LA Opera noted that opera fans are the craziest bunch of fans ever... except the Lakers! We at The Opera Insider certainly believe, and hope, that to be true.

2010 Opera Europa Conference May 29th Review

     Amongst the calamity of Rotterdam's eclectic architecture, in a city that is void of an actual opera house, a curious thing is happening.  Opera Europa, the European trade association for the opera industry, is holding its annual conference.  Here, over 150 delegates representing some of Europe's finest institutions have met to discuss the future of opera.  These individuals have much to discuss considering the fallout of the recession, the recent gain the dollar has had against the euro, and the undeniable fact that these and other factors clearly spell future budget cuts for most of Europe's cultural organizations.
     The conference commenced with a rather unstructured debate about the "artistic developments in opera and music theater today."  Guests included composer Michel van der Aa, Holland Festival's Pierre Audi, writer and journalist Ellen Segeren, Veenfabriek composer Paul Koek, Birmingham Opera Company's Graham Vick, and it was moderated by Opera Europa's Nicholas Payne and Lex Mohlmeijer.
     One of the particularly fascinating and hotly discussed topics of this panel revolved around developing racial diversity in the audience. The topic was breached when Mr. Vick asked all those in the audience who considered themselves minorities to please stand up—no one stood up.

Royal Opera Announces First 3D Filming of Opera!

     The Royal Opera has announced today that it intends to film Francesca Zambello’s production of Carmen in 3D. Filming will take place next month and will be distributed in autumn. ROH will be opening the filming sessions to the public with a discounted ticket price.

A Strike for All in Bologna!

     Last night at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna the Teatre opened free to the public for a protest concert. This is a markedly different approach to the union strikes and walkouts that have plagued Italy in the past week. The protest is aimed at a recent decree that puts new stipulations on hiring practices, operating procedures, and many other issues for the newly transformed "Lyrical Symphonic Foundations." Most of the outrage has been directed at Italy's Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi who read and approved the decree for legislation. However, due to recent conflicts between the unions and the theater's superintendent Marco Tutino was also under attack during the protest with banners bearing such slogans as "Tutino out of Bologna," "Tutino go" and "Tutino and Bondi out of Italian culture."

Italian Opera Unions Protest Against Decree

     The major Italian opera unions CGIL, CISL, UIL and Fials are currently striking against the Reform of Lyrical Foundations signed by Italian head of state Giorgio Napolitano. This reform is a continued effort by the government to restructure and privatize Italian opera houses.
     The involved unions have stated, “the decree improperly affects… the survival of opera houses, attacking and distorting the stability of crucial organic rules of theater operation, and calls into question the right of existence of opera companies.” The theatres set to strike include the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, Maggio Musicale of Florence, Teatro Communale of Bologna, La Scala of Milan, San Carlo of Naples, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro Verdi of Trieste, Petruzzelli Theater in Bari, and many others. The frustration of these strikes are targeted at Sandro Bondi, Italy’s Minister of Cultural Heritage who read and approved the bill.
     He states, “the strikes by unions announced the cancellation of many major events, although a meeting with social partners was already fixed for Thursday, May 6 and despite the willingness expressed by me in parliament to take account of proposals and suggestions and improvements that will come from parliamentarians and political forces, reveal a lack of respect for the public and an irresponsible attitude in the face of problems that no one can casually ignore."

#operaplot RETURNS!

It is with great anticipation that the all of opera nerddom awaits the opening of this years #operaplot twitter competition. This competition began last year as the brain-child of Marcia Adair, known to her tweeps as missmussel. The goal of every entry is to summarize an entire opera and include “#operaplot” in the space of 140 characters, the length of a tweet. The coveted prizes of the competition range from free opera tickets to entire opera trip packages.
    Last years competition rocked the opera marketing world as a “gee, I wish I would have thought of that” idea. The winning contestant was selected by the lyric soprano Danielle De Niese. The winner, Stephen Llewellyn of Portland, gave his prize package at the Opera Ball of the Washington National Opera to Priscilla Barrow, an inner city music teacher who had a fairytale evening.
    This year’s competition will open tomorrow at 9am EST and end Monday April 30th at the stroke of 12 EST. The competition will be judged by German tenor Jonas Kaufman, who has a daunting task ahead of him considering how last year some contestants began to incorporate haiku, limericks and even attempted to compress the entire Ring cycle in the span of a tweet. This years coveted prize has been provided by Dublin’s Opera Theater Company, who is offering two tickets to their Marriage of Firago, three nights stay at a hotel, and up to 1000€ towards flights.
    #operaplot Competition Guidelines
- Anyone can enter. Contestants must have a Twitter account.
- The idea is to summarize the plot of an opera in 140 characters, (the Twitter maximum) or less.
- Each tweet must carry the #operaplot tag, so everyone can follow along.
- Contestants can enter up to 10 times.
- 5 winners will be chosen by Jonas. They will each get to choose a prize out of the pool in a randomly selected order.  
 For more information please contact http://theomniscientmussel.com/

New Possibilities for Opera in Malta

Video by Mark Zammit Cordina of the Times of Malta
For original article click here

New Sources for the Opera World

Great developments in the cyber opera world are a rare occurrence indeed.  An even rarer occurrence is the development of two great resources in the span of one month.

 James Newman of the A Liberal’s Libretto reported yesterday on his blog that OperaNews.com of the Metropolitan Opera Guild has just premiered their new website.  The site features a user-friendly design and the first official Opera News blog.  Along with the website design launch on April 16th, Opera news has also launched a twitter feed, OPERANEWS.  Although a twitter hatchling, the opera world looks forward to their tweets with much enthusiasm. For Opera News these moves represent a great step forward towards a more user-interactive interface and a further commitment to digital media.

 Broadwayworld.com has also released a new sub-site called TalkOperaWorld.com, although it still operates under Broadway World’s domain.  This site is a great resource for opera news feeds and links, although RSS feeds have not yet been posted for readers.  There is no word yet as to if they will be switching over to the TalkOperaWorld.com domain or if they will be establishing a separate opera twitter account from their current broadwayworld account.