Announcing our Opera in the Park 2009 singers:Lisa Daltirus, sopranoWe're thrilled to have such a stellar line-up! Check back over the next few weeks as I post videos and information on each guest artist.
Jennifer Holloway, mezzo-soprano
Adam Diegel, tenor
Timothy Kuhn, baritone
Most high-end perfumers spend months designing a signature scent they hope will stay on the market forever.Christophe Laudamiel, who wants to turn fragrance into high art, has labored for two years on 23 scents that will last for just half an hour.
Mr. Laudamiel, a French fragrance designer who has created perfumes for Clinique, Estée Lauder, Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors, is collaborating on a "scent opera," a new performance art that pairs music with a carefully orchestrated sequence of smells, some pleasant and some real stinkers. The opera, titled "Green Aria," will test the boundaries of scent art when it opens at the Guggenheim Museum in New York May 31.
If you missed Faust last weekend or are raring to hear the Madison Opera performance again, you're in luck: tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. Wisconsin Public Radio will broadcast last Friday night's performance of Faust in Overture Hall. Tune in to WERN 88.7 or visit the WPR website to stream the broadcast online. Enjoy the intermission features with host Stephanie Elkins, as she chats with our Marguerite Jill Gardner and Maestro Laurent Campellone.Opera was, in effect, born twice. Its first coming was during the last decade of the sixteenth century, when humanist musicians and poets at the court of the Medici, in Florence, began to present a new kind of sung drama. The inaugural operas had impeccably high-minded subjects—Daphne changing into a laurel tree, Orpheus descending into Hades with his lyre—and were hyper-elegant in execution. Then, in 1637, a travelling troupe set off a fad for opera in the republic of Venice, and the art underwent a mutation. The season took place during Carnival, the time of dissolution and self-reinvention. Melodrama, bawdy humor, and disorienting collisions of high and low permeated the form. Mythological subjects took on a modern edge; castrato singers flamboyantly re-imagined classical heroes; star divas enacted scenes of madness and lament. A paying public showed lusty approval. For the rest of the century, up to five theatres operated in Venice at the same time, drawing an audience that included not only the patrician class but also courtesans, tourists, and a smattering of ordinary people. Opera acquired the intricate mixture of elements—élitist, populist, dignified, demented—which defines the genre to this day.Read the full article--"Unsung: Recovering the operas of Francesco Cavalli"--in The New Yorker.
Just back from a fantastic student matinee of Faust at the Overture Center. We had over 800 students from all over Wisconsin and they seemed completely involved in the opera, laughing at Mephisto's antics, cheering Faust's high-Cs, ooo-ing and ahh-ing the sets, and struck silent by Marguerite's demise and redemption in the final scenes. More pictures tomorrow!
In addition to loads of musical and historical details presented by Naplan at Opera Up Close, we learned of Maestro Campellone's first experience with Faust. He was 6 years old, and his Italian grandfather felt it was time for young Laurent's first opera, so they went to Faust. After Mephistopheles's entrance, however, 6 year-old Laurent was scared out of his mind and "went crazy." He said (sarcastically) that it was his grandfather's "greatest shame" to have to leave the theater early. We also learned that our tenor David Lomeli started off as football player and engineering student in Mexico. After the athletic department at his university could only offer a half-scholarship, he heard that the cultural department was offering more money and so auditioned for West Side Story. Though he had the voice, the director was unfortunately not looking for a football player-sized Tony, but as fate would have it, a new opera department was in the works and David was offered the scholarship for a tenor. So, as he said, he gave up the sports life and became an opera singer for the money.
General Director Allan Naplan brought Opera Up Close: The Faust Preview to the Capitol Lakes Retirement Community yesterday afternoon along with mezzo-soprano Marie Lenormand, baritone Scott Johnson and accompanist Scott Gendel. The audience was treated to excerpts from Faust by our wonderful singers and learned all about the history and music of Gounod and his opera. Enjoy the pictures! Opera Up Close takes place this weekend on Sunday, May 10 from 4-6 p.m. at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. General admission $20; students get in for free!
Tomorrow at 12:30 p.m., tune in to Wisconsin Public Radio WERN 88.7 to listen to a broadcast of Madison Opera's Madama Butterfly, recorded live on Friday, November 21, 2008. If the ovation in Overture Hall that night was any indication, this was a performance to remember, so tune in to recapture the magic of Puccini as sung by Maria Kanyova, Arnold Rawls, Grant Youngblood, and Heather Johnson with the Madison Opera Chorus and Madison Symphony Orchestra under Maestro Leonardo Vordoni. If you're not in Wisconsin, listen online here (use whichever link from the left column works best for your computer).
