Wolf Trap Opera

In honor of Ride Your Bike to Work Day, I offer this one-minute video on my commute :)   After only 3 months on two wheels, I am completely addicted. Sad beyond belief when I wake up to pouring rain. We’ll see if this enthusiasm lasts into the 95-degree / 90% humidity summer!

And on a more WTOC-specific note, surf on over to Wolf Trap’s From the Inside Out blog for my colleague Lee Anne’s take on Five Things You Didn’t Know About Wolf Trap Opera.

And I’m off to Charlottesville, Virginia, for a most important graduation. Have a lovely weekend!

Mozart is about to invade my life again. Giovanni staff arrive next week, and singers arrive on the 29th.

As I do research for my preshow talk (Inside the Opera with Kim Witman! Wildly exciting and scarily informative!), I’ve been reading librettist Lorenzo da Ponte’s Memoirs.  How did I get to my 8th production of this opera without knowing that the legendary Casanova (at left) was a close friend of da Ponte’s, and that he purportedly had a hand in tweaking the Giovanni libretto? More here, in my most recent Huffington Post submission.

And while we’re at it, if you’re keeping track of my activities over at HuffPo (how did I get myself into this?!?), here’s a bit of context for our choice to cast alternating Giovannis and Leporellos.

“There’s a magical time at the beginning of every career where just the right amount of accumulated knowledge coincides with an irrepressible enthusiasm for the work itself. If you’re lucky, at that point you get the chance to see how good you are at what you believe you were born to do. I am fortunate every summer to preside over many people who sit at this exciting intersection in their lives. And it happens because the Wolf Trap Foundation is committed to providing a unique experience for talented musicians who are gearing up for a career in the opera business.”

And thus began my little presentation to the Wolf Trap Foundation Board of Directors this week. Some of what I planned ended up hemoragging onto the cutting room floor as the meeting ran long, but I was able to wedge in many of my main points.

Two guests spoke on behalf of the Company, and it was supremely gratifying to hear about the WTOC from their perspectives. I realize that when one agrees to provide an endorsement or recommendation, a positive spin is part of the pact. But both former Filene Young Artist Kenneth Kellogg and former General Director Peter Russell managed to hit it out of the park.

Peter spoke to the Company’s reputation across the opera field in the U.S. – a good thing for our stakeholders to hear, as most people (and some opera lovers) in the DC area aren’t familiar at all with the WTOC. It’s great to have Peter back in the area as he embarks on the next chapter of his career as General Director of Vocal Arts DC.

And Kenneth spoke from the heart about what it feels like to come to Wolf Trap and finally be allowed (and trusted) to take responsibility and step to the foreground. In describing the sensation, he said that it felt like someone had finally freed him up and removed the leash.  (I think he just gave us our new tag line.)

The presentation ended with this little montage of photos and audio from our last three seasons. Enjoy!

See you next week, when our first summer staff members arrive! (Gulp)

Tomorrow I get the chance to speak briefly to the Wolf Trap Foundation’s Board of Directors. The WTOC is in an unusual position, in that our parent organization has an agenda that is way wider than opera. So it’s incumbent on me to find a way to draw parallels between our world and the more corporate world of the business leaders on our board, many of whom have never seen an opera.

As I prepare, I share with you my Venn diagram. (Yes, I’m a geek. And I love basic data visualization.)

It represents 3 different kinds of career development opportunities that are generally available across all industries.

The pink circle encompasses opera YAPs, for which a good equivalency may be found in high-level apprenticeships and internships in the business world. High-level professional environments, important exposure and good opportunity for observation, but a scenario in which you are a small cog in a big wheel.

Academia is in green. Terrific mentorship and quality instruction; but the instruction isn’t highly individualized, and the learning isn’t always hands-on.

Purple represents small companies without a training focus. They offer critical chances to step into the spotlight, but the infrastructure is often iffy, and the quality of resources and colleagues is variable.

We sit at the nexus of all of the best parts of these institutions – at the sweet spot where we can put together a professional infrastructure, individualized expert instruction, and the chance to take the reins yourself and develop those executive skills that will come into play all through a career.

And I’m off to finish working on my speech!

A few months ago I did an enjoyable interview with John Greenya, for the publication that’s ubiquitous in DC-area airports: Washington Flyer. The piece ended up offering a lovely view of the WTOC. It will be available till the end of June – pick up a copy when you’re on your next trip and or in DC! (Click on the image at left for a readable PDF.)

This week’s Huffington Post blog is up: The Don Juan Mirror.

I spent all of last week laid up with a respiratory flu and am having trouble getting my groove back… I promise to be back in this space next week with some actual new content!

Exactly a year ago today, we were shepherding The Inspector (Wolf Trap’s 2nd commissioned opera) toward its opening night on April 27. So it’s fitting that this weekend, John Musto & Mark Campbell’s fabulous comic opera lands in Boston, in a cast that features two Wolf Trap alums (Victoria Livengood and Jake Gardner). Get yourself some fancy shoes and get on over there!

April 20, 22m, 25, 27, 29m, 2012
Citi Performing Arts Center^SM Shubert Theatre

As of this week, yours truly has joined the ranks of the HuffPo Bloggerati. (Wish me luck!) I’ll be writing about our Giovanni production for the next couple of months, then transitioning into a summer/fall series about our annual audition tour (“talent search”) :)

Here’s the first post: From Page to Stage: Don Giovanni

I won’t duplicate those posts here, but I’ll always link to them so that you don’t need to run all over the interwebs for your WTOC blog fix.

Costume sketches and set model photos for this summer’s Giovanni.

Costume design & sketches by Vita Tzykun

Scenic design & set model photo by Erhard Rom

A new production of a quintessential opera, acknowledging its rich heritage and exploring the havoc that Giovanni could wreak in 21st century America.  A thoughtful, detailed, honest and frank look at how the hubris of Don Juan would manifest itself in our own time.

We’re holding Giovanni and Rake’s Progress design meetings in the theatre today, and all of a sudden, it really feels as if we’re off and running. We hired our creative teams just about 10 weeks ago, and 8 weeks from now, we open.

The creative team process has changed a lot in the last few years. Thanks to Dropbox, over the last few weeks our directors and designers have shared timelines, drawings, photos and research with one another in real time. It’s no substitute for all being together in the theatre, but being able to share things digitally means that everyone arrives at the design meeting with shared knowledge.

I am alternately exhilarated and bumfuzzled by spending a day with scale drawings and sketches. As someone who entered this business from the musical side, I can transpose a horn part, draft a chorus schedule and discuss a banda with ease. But blueprints make me sweat. :)

We’re terribly excited by what we saw today, and looking forward to showing you more of it. But that’ll have to wait, for there is something of critical importance to take care of first. I shall be away for a week’s vacation – no opera, no Wolf Trap, no email, no blog. Try not to miss me too much…

Rake’s Progress scenic design and set model photos by Erhard Rom