Carmen, Don Juan, and gender reversal: pants roles indeed

Humour

Earlier this summer I was listening to the brilliant Graham Forst (husband of the formidable Judith Forst) give a talk on the history of the Don Juan character. He was talking about how Don Juan comes from the concept of Dionysus or Bacchus, these figures of indulgences that sound so fun.

See? You do need opera to survive

Editorial

Last week, Kyra Kopenstonsky was hiking in Colorado and bumped into a mountain lion. It stalked her for about twenty minutes, after which Kyra employed a last resort: singing opera.

FachMe.com: a new fun game

Humour

If you're into opera, you do that charming/annoying thing where you hear someone sing and come up with your own, brilliant list of what else that person should sing. "Her Susanna is so pretty. She'd be an awesome Lulu." Or, "Ooh, a high C!

Appreciating Opera: A Learned Skill

Editorial

The Royal Conservatory of Music is offering a cool new way to help you get to know some of the shows you can see around Toronto this fall. Opera in the City is a new Music Appreciation Class at the RCM, and it focuses on Handel's Alcina (opening at Opera Atelier October 23rd), Verdi's Falstaff, and Puccini's Madama Butterfly (both at the Canadian Opera Companybeginning in October).

6 TV shows that should be operas

If you're an opera dork like me, you often see operatic potential wherever you go. Today's it's in TV. The Breaking Bad opera has already had its premiere, and it even includes the "Bitch Aria", sung by none other than Jesse Pinkman. Have a listen here. And really, to make a great opera, one would just need all the same dramatic elements that one needs for great books, and for great TV. Here we go, spoilers and all:

Alaina's AutoCorrect

Interview

Alaina Viau is the Artistic Director of LooseTEA Music Theatre. She's hard at work with the creative team of LooseTEA's upcoming double-bill, Love in the Age of AutoCorrect. The double-bill includes present-day adaptations of Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne and Stravinsky's Mavra.

Opera in Summer

Op-ed

We're nearing the end of Summer Program Season, people. As a veteran of SPs myself, I always wonder about the young folks that went to OperaNUOVA or COSI or COAA/AEDO or the Halifax Summer Opera Festival or St. Andrews-by-the-Sea or any of those Canadian summer staples.

Curiosity and the Met

Op-ed

Human curiosity should be to opera companies what human insecurity is to the beauty product industry. We all want to snoop, take behind-the-scenes tours, figure out how that magician created that cool illusion. Hell, even I often prefer to watch a show from backstage. It's special, and unique.

Mutiny at the Met?

Op-ed

If you're reading this, you're probably already aware that the Metropolitan Opera is in trouble. This Thursday, the contracts of 15 unions are set to expire, and the negotiations between the unions and the Met's general manager, Peter Gelb, seem to be going nowhere good.

Everything I know about the piano, I learned from singers

Op-ed

Well, maybe not everything, but my title isn't tongue-in-cheek. I'm aware of the stereotypical opinions about singers that are held by instrumentalists within the classical music scenes; I won't say they're not there for a reason, but there's opportunity for learning between these seemingly polar points of origin in music. Now, singers and pianists work closely together within the opera industry; but when you really think about it, it's an odd pairing.