Dear Editor: I read with great interest (and delight) the good article “Be A Green Singer” by Lisa Houston [January, 2008]. Her points are timely and important, and it’s exciting to see other singers integrating their singing lives with a more global, as well as an environmentally conscious, vision. It’s also fascinating to read the inside stories [on] what subjects (besides singing) they’re passionate [about]! So often, we know such a small part of a singer’s background.
I came from a grass-roots background and share a bit of Lisa’s enthusiasm about things “green.” I grew up in Oregon, where my father, Richard “Dick” Smith, was a consulting forester. He was the first one to start the practice of sustained-yield forest management in Oregon, in the early 1950s.
We depend on trees for our very existence. No trees, no opera, no air for “us” singers. . . . I share my own conservation cause everywhere I perform, with whomever is willing to lend an ear.
—Linda Lane Smith, New York, N.Y.
Errata:
In the article, “Fatherly Roles in Opera,” in the March issue, Jeffrey Halili’s name was misspelled in the caption on p. 18. Also, Halili attended the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia, not the America Vocal Academy, as stated in the article. CS regrets the errors.
