Cange’s Corner Articles

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…

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…

If one ever wonders what happens when a bunch of opera singers meet well dressed donors under a themed evening of glamor, drinks, dinner/dancing, and a cabaret performance where anything BUT opera is performed; they need go no further than the Lyric Opera of Chicago to find out.  Once a…

On this cold, foggy, but rainy Toronto Tuesday, in the midst of a winter that won't make up its mind; the Greater Toronto Area ("The GTA" to us regulars...ha, ha...not really a regular...but I just couldn't resist) had the opportunity to shed a few pounds over their lunch hour.  That…

During a recent industry related conversation, one of opera's most informed insiders intimated to me that Canadian Opera Company (COC) would, "in five years' time, become the most interesting (opera) house in North America."  While it is not likely for me to question the authority of this source, I found…

For so many of us in the classical vocal arts, one of the prime directives that we give ourselves early on is to strive to become a soloist, or principal artist, in the industry.  It is a long, hard, scary, and extremely lonely road.  Once achieved--if achieved, comes a whole…

THAT IS THE QUESTION!!!! When I performed in the 1970 Broadway musical Applause, (in 1985) at the Brunswick Music Theater in Brunswick, Maine; I must admit that I never would have imagined that I would ever script a commentary on just such a subject.  But as the lyrics to the…

Throughout my career, I have counseled the general opera-going public to never confuse the real-life person with their on-stage persona, regardless of the character they are playing.  The swarthy, always in control characters that Clark Gable played on the silver screen, gave way to an insecure, boyish, real-life personage who…

For those so interested, the final San Francisco Opera Radio Broadcast of Siegfried will be Sunday, November 6 at 11:00 p.m. (EST), 10:00 p.m. (CST), and 8:00 p.m. (PST) on KDFC 90.3, San Francisco.  Below is the link that will take you the "Listen Live" page for the live-stream internet…

As I sit today (Saturday October 15) and listen to the 32nd annual Operathon on 98.7 WFMT here in Chicago (in between studying my Russian for our upcoming production of Boris Godunov), I am compelled to outline in writing something that I articulated earlier today in my "on-air" appearance. Why…