Articles Archive

On Facebook and Twitter this morning, I posted that second performances are akin to "Low Sunday" in the Catholic Church. That is to say, a letdown compared to all the festivities and poignant lead up to Easter Sunday; or in a way the opening of a new opera production. Now...in…

I am quite often asked by friends and relatives who are not in the performing arts about the process of getting a production to stage.  After all, they are the ones who only see the "final, shiny, right off the assembly line, fresh from the show-room" product that is sure…

Before having dinner with a friend last night (August 22, 2012), he handed me a copy of the August issue of Opera News. While he knows that I am not a voracious reader of most industry publications, he said "A lot of your friends are in this issue; just glance…

As the city of Cincinnati continues its incredible renaissance by reclaiming historic neighborhoods, redeveloping long neglected public lands, and renovating the most spectacular collection of Italianate architecture ever seen in the United States, one was struck this past week by the presence of thousands of visitors, and hundreds of choirs,…

When I have friends over for a meal, and the dinner plates are readied for consumption, I am often the recipient of looks of disbelief from my guests.  "This looks amazing", "My god David, this looks delicious", "Oh my god, I can't wait to start eating"...these are just of few…

The passage of time is so sneaky, we hardly note the 'tick-tick-tock' of life's clock.  Then one day we awake and realize that we have grown old(er) {see: Old in San Diego, from the August 2011 blog archive}.  Sometimes it is sad, as when we realized that our childhoods were…

When one tallies the affect and effect of 100 years' time, we can clearly say "Wow; how things have changed!" as much as we can say "Wow; some things never change!"  My grandmother turns 100 this year.  She lived through two world wars, the Great Depression, enjoyed radio--but also saw…

With each breath and step we take, a sliver of history is created: Micro-history, I like to call it.  Macro-history, however, is created via demonstrable over-arches that bend the arc of narrative...at least, and until--in the case of records--they are replaced. Such will be the case later this week when…

As an undergraduate music student at Baldwin-Wallace College (now Baldwin-Wallace University) in Northeast Ohio, we were force-fed an unrelenting amount of music by, arguably, the greatest composer to have ever lived, Johann Sebastian Bach (just don’t tell Mozart or Beethoven…and for goodness’ sake, don’t breathe a word to Wagner!).  The…

On this 23rd of March, I sit in the living room of my corner-unit residence in Chicago.  With over-sized windows that feature Gotham City views, I watch the rain come down, as well as witness the fog engulf the downtown skyline in which my own building is nestled.  I think…

As some of you know, in addition to my operatic performance career, I have spent the last five years establishing (by invitation) a small but growing vocal institute in Montgomery, Alabama; a city with which I have had a decades-long association.  As the Artistic Director of the Vann Vocal Institute…

This past weekend, a friend and I attended the other current offering at Canadian Opera Company; Kaija Saariaho's Love from Afar, based on the 12th century poetic text La Vida breve by Jaufre Rudel, with modern libretto by Amin Maalouf, and stage direction by Daniele Finzi Pasca.  As the "Hollywood-ization"--or…