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.

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)

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!

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

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 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.

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

I’m not playing along officially (I shrink from competition, and I’m a little too busy in my day job to make a respectable showing…), but it is exciting to gather the blogging community and have many writers focus on the same topics. (There’s lots of sidebar discussion about whether or not this venture is useful/legit/functional, but I don’t think it matters, really.  Any attempt to get the national conversation going is a good one.)

This week’s question: “New York City has long been considered the cultural capital of America. Is it still? If not, where?”

From an operatic perspective, New York is certainly a case study as well as a capital.

No one can touch the Met (for better or worse) and its budget of $325,000,000. (Yes, 325 million. Just had to see those zeroes.) Anyone who’s that far ahead of the rest of the pack financially is going to dominate the conversation, force setting of trends, and do things that no one else can afford to.

On the other end of the financial spectrum are the wonderful small companies where so many singers learn their trades – and these range from places doing shoestring traditional productions to companies on the cutting edge of 21st-century repertoire and aesthetics. And of course, most famously caught between a rock and a hard place that Odysseus wouldn’t envy is beloved New York City Opera – destined to play out the story of the precarious sliver where art and finance intersect in this new age.

Capital: a city regarded as being of special eminence in some field of activity. Yes, NYC still has special eminence due to quantity. Of companies, of money, of patrons. So it must be a capital.

Does it represent the best of what our industry has to offer? On a good night, yes. Does it hold a monopoly, or even an unchallenged advantage? No. Probably less so than all through the last century. And to say so doesn’t diminish what’s happening there; I just believe that there are other cities who host companies that excel in ways that have eluded New York. Do any of them usurp the throne yet? Probably not.

Check out the entrants (I haven’t read them yet but will), vote, and discuss!