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 the words of Ronald Reagan […]

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 host of new problems attached […]

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 title song ring in my […]

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 had to marry up and […]

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 broadcast.  Please take a listen […]

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 donate to the Lyric Opera […]

Saturday October 1, 2011 will most certainly be remembered for many things in the annals of Chicago operatic history:  It will have marked only the third time that the Lyric Opera of Chicago has mounted a production of The Tales of Hoffmann in some 35 years; it also marked the beginning of a new era […]

When I was stopped on the streets of Chicago on an unusually chilly early September Tuesday, and was asked to participate in the inaugural segment of something entitled “Bringing America Back” for ABC World News, how could I refuse?!  I was told I would be a featured guest that very evening (Sept. 6); so with […]

When I first heard the characters Mama Morton and Velma Kelly sing the duet “What Ever Happened to Class” from the Kander/Ebb/Fosse musical Chicago, my derriere became a size or two smaller from laughing so hard.  Even though the characters are from the days of Prohibition, their social commentary about men, women, and the ‘youth […]

There have been many ‘soldier portrayals/characters’ in the annals of the operatic forum; from the comic, blustering Belcore in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore, all the way to a cross between Gomer Pyle and Forrest Gump in the character of Josef Schweik in Kurka’s rather contemporary opera The Good Soldier Schweik, that dates as recently as the […]