Spoleto Festival Presents Ballad Opera
One of the featured presentations of the 2010 Spoleto Festival USA will be Flora, originally entitled Flora or Hob in the Well, which was first presented to Charleston, South Carolina, audiences in 1735. It may have been the first opera presented in the English colonies, although French and Spanish colonial audiences had operatic performances long before that.
Ballad opera is a form of musical theater that combines a comic or sentimental play with specially written song lyrics accompanied by commonly heard tunes of the time. Thus, no composer is listed. For Flora, the original eighteenth-century tunes have been re-orchestrated by the show’s conductor, Neely Bruce. The ballad opera plays during the festival’s season, which runs from late May into mid June.
www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/jan/03/our-first-opera/living/
www.spoletousa.org
London’s Newest Fad Is Pub Opera
At the Cock Tavern in London there is an upstairs room that doubles as a small opera house. OperaUpClose’s production of La bohème played there through February for a modest charge that dwarfed the price of a ticket to the same work at Covent Garden.
While it is true that the accompaniment at the pub was a mere piano and the excellent singers are not yet well known, this group may have been a little closer to the actual bohemians than artists of the Royal Opera. Adam Spreadbury-Maher, artistic director of Cock Tavern Theatre, believes that pub productions can bring new audiences to opera.
entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/opera/article6966749.ece
Pop Stars Learn Opera on British Television
Three of the United Kingdom’s popular music singers, Darius Campbell, Kym Marsh, and Alex James, are among eight pop stars (including American Jimmy Osmond) being tutored in opera by Rolando Villazón, Katherine Jenkins, and Andrea Bocelli for a new reality TV show, reports the Telegraph. They are to learn arias only and will not be asked to interpret the characters who sing them. While critics of the “Pop Star to Opera Star” program maintain that only Villazón has any significant operatic stage experience, it may increase some viewers interest in opera.
www.classicfm.co.uk/music/pop-star-opera-star/
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/6931912/Pop-Star-to-Opera-Star-TV-wont-make-any-pigs-ear-the-next-Domingo.html
Lake Flooding Threatens Puccini Villa
Volunteers had to move the furnishings, paintings, and documents from the lower floor to the upper reaches of what was once Giacomo Puccini’s home, according to the British newspaper Times Online. The villa and museum at Torre del Lago is on the shore of Lake Massaciuccoli which has been overflowing its normal boundaries because of torrential rains that fell between Christmas and the beginning of 2010. Italian Civil Protection Agency workers have helped the situation greatly by securing the lake shore and pumping excess water out of the area.
The composer’s granddaughter, Simonetta Puccini, said that her grandfather loved the lake and that it had inspired some of his immortal melodies. She added that she will remain in the villa until all possibility of flooding has passed.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6973427.ece
Embellished Biography Proves to Be Object Lesson
Sharon Daniels, a prominent vocal instructor and head of the Opera Institute at Boston University, has no need of a padded biography but, unfortunately, her curriculum vitae was until recently presented online with a few mistakes.
The Boston Globe recently researched her vitae and found out exactly what she sang and where. The way the information was presented, a reader could have inferred that she sang larger roles with more important companies than was actually the case. Daniels says the errors were made when the material was condensed for the university’s website.
Daniels contends she wasn’t aware of what her online bio stated. BU’s dean of the College of Fine Arts, Walt Meissner, notes that “There is some negligence here. Some faculty are rather sloppy about reviewing their bios online. It’s really the university bragging about who their faculty are.” He adds that the faculty felt that Daniels’ bio errors were not “intentional on her part or egregious in a way that made it relevant to her reappointment or relevant to reprimand her.”
www.boston.com/ae/theater_arts/articles/2009/12/18/bu_website_embellished_biography_of_opera_director/
Rest in Peace, Mary Curtis-Verna
Opera singer and teacher Mary Curtis-Verna passed away at the age of 88 in her Seattle home last December, according to the New York Times. As a young singer she made a name for herself in Europe. In the early 1950s, she also sang at the San Francisco and New York City Operas. In 1957, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore and appeared with that company for the next decade. She was most well known for her ability to step in at the last moment for an ailing star.
Curtis-Verna taught at the University of Washington for more than 20 years and retired as professor of music emeritus. Her voice can still be heard on the following Cetra recordings: Don Giovanni, Un ballo in maschera, and Aida.
www.nytimes.com/2009/12/22/arts/music/22verna.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Curtis_Verna
Results of Arts Participation Survey
The National Endowment for the Arts has released the results of a 2008 survey which notes a decline in attendance at theaters and museums, according to the Los Angeles Times. Rather than an assessment of interest in the arts, however, these statistics may instead indicate a fundamental change in audience participation from attendance at live events to use of electronic media. Audiences at movie theaters and sporting events have decreased considerably more than those attending arts events.
The NEA survey finds that 34.6 percent of adults in the United States were present at a play, concert, opera, or dance program each year between 2002 and 2008. That is the lowest percentage in more than two decades. The only areas that showed growth were musical theatre and non-ballet dance. One possible conclusion is that the way people connect with the arts is changing. More than 41 percent of adults now read about the arts on their computers and over 21 percent watch performances online.
www.nea.gov/news/news09/SPPA-highlights.html
