Category: Commentary

Back in the early 1980’s two good ideas came to fruition: the much-needed new concert hall for Cardiff, capital city of Wales, and plans to hold within it the first “Singer of the World” competition.

Charleston, S.C. ó For over 20 years it was two operas a season here at Spoleto USA, the all-arts
festival brought to this cultural capital of the Old South by Gian Carlo Menotti in 1977.

It is every young opera singer’s dream.

On May 9th, when Santa Fe Opera finally announced that Alan Gilbert had left his post as Music
Director of that company, a long-standing rumor was made official.

Robert Gierlach wishes he could rewrite “Anna Karenina,” the Tolstoi whopper turned into an opera by librettist Colin Graham and composer David Carlson. It’s not that Gierlach, who sings Vronsky in the world premiere of the work at Florida Grand Opera on April 28, has misgivings
about the author’s artistry; he simply wishes that the story could have a happy ending.

Here are two views of Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto (HWV 17), a drama in three acts, performed at The Met on 6 April.

Based on reading the New York Times’ account of Met opera soprano Ruth Ann Swenson’s distemper with her home company in New York, published Thursday 5 April over the byline of Daniel J. Wakin, it is hard to find either motivation or reasonable expectation of reward for any of the participants in this travesty – reporter, newspaper, opera manager Peter Gelb (who comes off best), or, least of all, the distraught diva.

To his work as music director of the Los Angeles Opera James Conlon brings two commitments that some in music would find incompatible.

• Record number of singers auditioned
• Three countries competing for first time
• New sponsorship and increased prize money

Singing competitions are a mixed blessing.