Inside Opera

Cincinnati Opera
  • 5.0 (9)
  • PERFORMING ARTS
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Journey backstage with Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director Evans Mirageas and other special guests to discuss everything opera. In this podcast, you'll learn about the life and work of everyone from seasoned stage directors to rising contemporary composers and more!

  1. 09/02/2020

    Robin Guarino: Directing as Activism

    Birgit Nillson was a 20th-century Swedish dramatic soprano famous for her renditions of the works of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss. Rudolph Bing was an Austrian opera impresario (producer) who worked around the world. He notably served as the General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. The first (old) Metropolitan Opera House in New York was located on Broadway but was demolished in 1967. The current (new) Metropolitan Opera House is located in Lincoln Center in the Upper West Side. La fanciulla del West (1910) is an opera by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg (Hamburg College for Music and Theatre) is a large public university of music in Hamburg, Germany. Rolf Liebermann was a Swiss composer and music administrator who served as the Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Paris Opera. Judith Blegen is an American operatic soprano. La voix humaine (1959) is a one-act opera by 20th-century French composer Francis Poulenc. In July 1980, a 30-year-old violinist named Helen Mintiks was murdered during the intermission of a performance at the Metropolitan Opera. Read more here. Guarino refers to “Jimmy,” or James Levine, a Cincinnati-born opera conductor who became the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera. He was notably terminated from this position in 2018 over sexual assault allegations that he denies. John Dexter was an English theatre, opera, and film director. Guarino mentions his production of French composer Francis Poulenc’s opera Dialogues des Carmélites (1956). Franco Zeffirelli was an Italian director and producer of opera, films, and television. Many of his opera productions are still in use today around the world. Margarete Wallmann was a German ballerina, choreographer, set designer, and opera director. Rhoda Levine is an American opera director, choreographer, and professor. Francesca Zambello is an American opera and theatre director who currently serves as director of the Glimmerglass Festival and Washington National Opera. Ricky Ian Gordon is a contemporary American composer. Fiora Contino was an American opera conductor and teacher. Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a 20th-century French opera director and scenic designer. Dawn Upshaw is an American operatic soprano. Robert Wilson is an American experimental theatre director and playwright. The 19th-century Viennese composer W.A. Mozart frequently collaborated with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, such as for their opera The Marriage of Figaro (1786). Blind Injustice was an opera by composer *** and librettist *** which premiered at Cincinnati Opera in 2019. Patricia (“Patty”) K. Beggs was the General Director of Cincinnati Opera from 1997 to 2019. Opera Fusion: New Works (OF:NW) is a partnership between Cincinnati Opera and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music focused on fostering contemporary American opera. In 2011, Doubt by composer Douglas J Cuomo and librettist John Patrick Shirley became the first project workshopped by OF:NW. The opera premiered at Minnesota Opera in 2013. Fellow Travelers by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Gregory Pierce is another opera that participated in OF:NW in 2013. Cincinnati Opera premiered the work in 2015. Hear Fellow Travelers composer Gregory Spears talk about the work on a previous episode of Inside Opera. Castor and Patience by composer Gregory Spears and librettist Tracy K. Smith participated in OF:NW in 2019. Cincinnati Opera will premiere the work as part of its 2021 Summer Festival. Hear Castor and Patience composer Gregory Spears talk about the work on a previous episode of Inside Opera. Rachel Maddow is an American television program host and political commentator, known for the nightly Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Joni Mitchell is a critically acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter. Bob Dylan is a Nobel Prize-winning American singer-songwriter.

    1h 2m

  2. 08/24/2020

    Gregory Spears: Modern Masterpieces

    The American Opera Project is an opera company in Brooklyn, New York dedicated to developing new operatic and musical theatre works. Fugues are a musical composition technique in which a melody is blended with other melodies, usually in complex ways. German Baroque composer J.S. Bach is notable for having written many collections of fugues. Early in his life, Spears studied music theory and composition with prolific American composer and educator Adolphus Hailstork. Pietà (Pity) is a statue by Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti currently housed in St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. Anton Webern was an Austrian avant-garde composer of the early 20th century. Tracy K. Smith is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet and former Poet Laureate of the U.S. Charles Jarden was the former General Director of The American Opera Project. Troubadours were composers and singers of lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (12th to 14th centuries). The Requiem in D Minor is an unfinished work by W.A. Mozart who passed away before it was completed. Plainchant (sometimes called “Gregorian chant”) is a liturgical musical style used historically in the Western Church (and now mainly in the Catholic Church) for singing texts to a congregation. In this style, the text is sung on one unaccompanied melody. Hot yoga is a modern yoga-inspired exercise where typical yoga sequences are performed under hot and humid conditions. Joan Panetti is a pianist, composer, and Professor of Music at the Yale School of Music. Ta-Nehesi Coates is an American author and essayist who generally focuses on the subject of race relations in the United States. One of his best-known essays is The Case for Reparations. Seeing the Body is a book by poet and photographer Rachel Eliza Griffiths. Revolutions is a podcast which explores political revolutions throughout history. The Criterion Collection is an American video distribution company focusing on “important classic and contemporary films.” Stevie Wonder is a 25 Grammy Award-winning American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer known for tracks such as his 1970 “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and his 1972 “Superstition.” Brian Eno is an English musician and visual artist known for his ambient musical style and collaborations to rock, pop, and electronic music as well. Arthur Russell was an American avant-garde cellist and composer. Liz Wright is an American jazz and gospel singer.

    1h 8m

  3. 08/17/2020

    Isabel Leonard: Constructing a Character

    The Damnation of Faust (La damnation de Faust) is a work by 19th-century French composer Hector Berlioz for four solo voices, chorus, children’s chorus, and orchestra based on German Romantic poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Faust. Santiago del Estero is a province and city in northern Argentina. Lima is the capital and largest city of Peru. Carlos Gardel was a French Argentine singer notable for his tango compositions and hundreds of recordings of tango pieces. Loons are aquatic birds found in North America and northern Eurasia. The Peruvian panpipe (Andean panpipe or siku) is a traditional flute-like instrument associated with music from the Qullasuyu region of the Andean Mountains of South America. Ella Fitzgerald was one of the best-known American jazz singers of the 20th century. Frank Sinatra was an American singer and actor who is one of the best-selling musicians of all time. Fred Astaire was an American dancer, singer, actor, and choreographer most noted for work in film and television. Gene Kelly was an American actor, dancer, and director known for his lead roles in Singin’ in the Rain and An American in Paris. Located near Lincoln Center in New York City, LaGuardia High School is a public magnet high school focusing in the visual and performing arts. Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano and music pedagogue. Matthew Epstein is a prominent artistic advisor and artist manager within the opera community. Der Rosenkavalier is a frequently performed comic opera by German composer Richard Strauss. A pants role (or trouser role) is a character which is performed by a woman in traditionally masculine clothing. Some examples of these roles include Cherubino from W.A. Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro and Count Ottavio from Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. Dorabella is a principle soprano role from W.A. Mozart’s comic opera Così fan tutte. Marnie is an opera by contemporary American composer Nico Muhly based on Winston Graham’s 1961 novel by the same name. Notably, Alfred Hitchcock directed a film adaptation of the same novel. Leonard performed the title role in the U.S. premiere of the operatic adaptation at the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. Coal Mountain is an opera by contemporary American composer Jennifer Higdon surrounding the American Civil War. The Fach system is a method of categorizing singers’ voices into specific “types.” Not all musicians agree with every aspect of the system, however it is a commonly used tool for understanding the range, weight, and color of a singer’s voice. Rosina is a principle soprano role in Gioachino Rossini’s comic opera The Barber of Seville. Leonard will perform this role in Cincinnati Opera’s 2021 Summer Festival. Edith Bers was a member of the voice faculty at The Julliard School. White Fragility is a book by Robin DiAngelo about systemic racism in the United States. Trevor Noah is a South African comedian and political commentator known for being the current host of the satirical The Daily Show. The Hardy Boys is a series of mystery novels for children written under the name Franklin W. Dixon. Schitt’s Creek is an acclaimed Canadian television sitcom.

    1h 11m

  4. 08/10/2020

    Marie-France Lefebvre: Working with the Coach

    Conductor Mark Gibson, the current Director of Orchestral Studies at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM), invited Lefebvre to participate in a CCM summer program in Luca, Italy. Gustav Meier was a Swiss conductor and professor of orchestral conducting at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. Elisabeth Schwartzkopf was a German-born soprano and is considered one of the top singers of the 20th century. In her performing career, she specialized in German-language art song (lieder) and Viennese operetta; later in life, she became an international renowned voice teacher. Nana Mouskouri is a popular Greek singer whose extensive discography includes over 200 albums in at least twelve different languages. English-Italian conductor Annuzio Mantovani led his own orchestra (the Mantovani Orchestra) in the mid-20th century and became famous in the “light music” style. Mario Bernardi was a Canadian conductor and pianist. Dale Bartlett was a Canadian pianist, educator, and collaborative pianist. Vladimir Horowitz was a renowned Russian-born classical pianist who spent most of his life in the U.S. “Il mio tesoro” is a famous tenor aria from W.A. Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni. Beverly Sills was one of the most notable sopranos of the 20th century and, after retiring from singing, became the General Manager of the New York City Opera and later the Metropolitan Opera. Renée Fleming is an actively performing American operatic soprano and the current Creative Consultant at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Franco Zeffirelli was an Italian director and producer of opera, films, and television. Many of his opera productions are still in use today around the world. Yannick Nézet-Séguin is a Canadian conductor and pianist. Currently, he is the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera, Philadelphia Orchestra, and Orchestre Métropolitain in Montréal. Hungarian pianist Franz Liszt set three sonnets by Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch to music in the collection “Tre sonetti di Petrarch” (“Three Petrarch Sonnets”). The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a performing arts center based in Brooklyn, New York. Françoise Frenkel’s memoir A Bookshop in Berlin follows her escape from the rise of fascism in Germany and, later, her evasion from Nazi occupation in war-torn France. Grey’s Anatomy is an American medical drama television series. Kanopy is an online film streaming service specializing in classic, independent, and foreign films. Duolingo is a Google-owned mobile application and website for studying foreign languages. WhatsApp is a Facebook-owned mobile application for messaging and calling over the Internet. Lefebvre enjoys eating at restaurant Red Feather Kitchen in Cincinnati. Nico Castel was a tenor and notable language and diction coach. Oscar Peterson was a famous Canadian jazz pianist and composer.

    1h 4m

  5. 08/03/2020

    Talise Trevigne: Baseball Mom and Opera Star

    Marie Kondo, an organizing consultant and author most famous for her Netflix series Tidying Up with Marie Kondo, uses a methodical approach to help people clean and organize their spaces. She is most known for asking people if an item “sparks joy” in their life. Martha Graham was a choreographer and American modern dancer whose technique is still taught around the world. Soprano Adele Addison was an early voice teacher for Trevigne at the Manhattan School of Music. Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Ned Rorem occasionally observed Trevigne’s lessons with Adele Addison. Tenor George Shirley and mezzo-soprano Hilda Harris were other early mentors for Trevigne. Choral conductor Robert Shaw is notable for bringing black vocalists, like soprano Adele Addison and tenor Seth McCoy, to the spotlight from the 1940s through the 1970s. During her senior year of high school, Trevigne sang the soprano solo in one of Gabriel Fauré’s most notable works Requiem. James Gandre, the former Dean of Admissions at the Manhattan School of Music, is now the President of the School. Early in her career, Trevigne sang under notable American conductor Julius Rudel. Adele Addison gave Trevigne original manuscripts of the French composer, conductor, and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. George Szell, the former Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra once famously noted: “The Cleveland Orchestra plays seven concerts a week, and admits the public to the final two. We do some of our best playing in rehearsals.” Trevigne has worked closely with contemporary American composer Jake Heggie. She starred as Pip in Heggie’s operatic rendition of Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby-Dick. A sitzprobe (German for “seated rehearsal”) is an opera or musical theatre rehearsal in which the vocalists sing with the orchestra—usually for the first time. concert:nova is a contemporary music ensemble based in Cincinnati, Ohio. Trevigne will perform the role of Patience in Cincinnati Opera’s world premiere production of Castor and Patience in the summer of 2021. Trevigne frequently watches the English television dramas Grantchester and Father Brown. Trevigne finds the following mobile applications useful: Gamechanger (for keeping tabs on her son’s baseball games), Beachbody (for exercising), and Stash (for investing). Trevigne enjoys eating at Conscious Kitchen in Cincinnati because they accommodate her alkaline vegan diet—a diet which does not allow any animal products, processed foods, coffee, and most grains. Outside of classical music, Trevigne listens to hip-hop (she mentions the artist Drake) and country music.

    1h 7m

  6. 07/27/2020

    David Effron: Cincinnati's Own Conducting Legend

    Cincinnati Opera, at the time known as Cincinnati Summer Opera, performed at the Cincinnati Zoo for its first 51 seasons (1920-1972). Effron recalls a memory of seeing Giacomo Puccini’s grand opera La bohème with Licia Albanese at the Cincinnati Zoo. Italian-born American conductor Fausto Cleva was the Musical Director of the Cincinnati Summer Opera from 1934 until 1963. He was also Effron’s “first hero.” Sigmund Effron, David Effron’s father, was the concertmaster of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1946 to 1973. George Szell, Music Director and Conductor of the The Cleveland Orchestra, tried to recruit Sigmund Effron to join his symphony. After a performance of Charles Gonoud’s Faust at Cincinnati Summer Opera, American tenor Eugene Conley honored Sigmund Effron by allowing him to bow by himself (a “solo bow”) due to the skill with which he played the work’s notable violin solo. Sigmund Effron studied with Robert Perutz, a renowned Polish violinist who was based in Cincinnati. James Levine is a conductor and accompanist from Cincinnati. He served as the Music Director of the Metropolitan Opera until he was notably terminated in 2018 over sexual assault allegations that he denies. Josef Blatt was a professor of conducting at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. Famed conductor Tibor Kozma allowed David Effron to conduct operas during his graduate study at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. Effron tells the story of one unfortunate performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto at New York City Opera featuring soprano Gianna Rolandi, mezzo-soprano Jane Shalos, baritone Richard Fredricks, and an unnamed tenor. A Hochschule is an institution of higher education within German-speaking countries. Effron served as the assistant to German conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch at Cologne Opera. Hugh Thompson and Tito Capobianco were both notable opera directors, though Thompson was better known as a lyric baritone with 238 performances at the Metropolitan Opera. Beverly Sills, Plácido Domingo, and Norman Treigle all performed in a production of Jacques Offenbach’s The Tales of Hoffman at New York City Opera. Hamilton: An American Musical is a Pulitzer Prize-winning musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda about the life, career, and death of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton. Musically, it pulls from genres as varied as hip hop, R&B, pop, soul, and traditional show tunes. Benita Valente is a renowned American soprano from California. WhatsApp is a mobile application popularly used for text messaging and calling in countries outside of the US.

    1h 12m

  7. 07/06/2020

    Vita Tzykun: On Design

    Tzykun designed the set for Cincinnati Opera’s world premiere of Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears in 2016. That production was directed by Kevin Newberry. Dramaturgy is the research involved to better understand a theatrical work before it is produced. While dramaturgy may be practiced by a professional dramaturg, often directors, designers, and performers participate in their own research to better inform their artistic decisions. Tzykun designed a production of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey, 1828), a set of German art songs for voice and piano. The singer in this production was baritone David Adam Moore, Tzykun’s partner. The two are set to record a film version of this production at Austin Opera in the coming weeks. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Tzykun had designed the world premiere production of Edward Tulane at Minnesota Opera. Moore was performing in Jake Heggie’s Dead Man Walking at the Hungarian State Opera at this time. However, like many live performing arts, these productions were cancelled in order to promote social distancing and reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Tzykun and Moore founded an New York City-based art collective called GLMMR. Tzykun will design the set for Cincinnati Opera’s 2021 premiere of Castor and Patience. Tzykun often reads Israeli author and “macro-historian” Yuval Noah Harari who wrote Sapiens, Homo Deus, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Recently, Tzykun has watched the television miniseries Unorthodox on Netflix which revolves around a Hasidic Jewish community in New York City. She listens to the podcast Artificial Intelligence by Lex Fridman about the connections between technology and humanity. Tzykun notes that the following non-Classical artists are influential to her: film composer Nina Rota, Brazilian folk artist Cesária Évora, American singer-songwriter Erykah Badu, American hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill, Swedish electronic group iamamiwhoami, Canadian pop artist Grimes, Icelandic art pop artist Björk, and Early Music composers Claudio Monteverdi, Hildegard von Bingen, and Johannes Ockeghem.

    1h 2m

  8. 06/12/2020

    Daniela Candillari: Across the Musical Globe

    The Prototype Festival is a contemporary opera festival in New York City The New Opera Showcase is a contemporary opera showcase sponsored by Opera America and Trinity Wall Street Cathedral Candillari studied piano in Graz, Austria Olivier Messiaen is a 20th-century French composer Candillari’s grandmother performed the titular role in Georges Bizet’s Carmen at the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad, former Yugoslavia. Candillari was also born in this city, which is the second-largest city in present-day Serbia. La Traviata is a grand opera by Giuseppe Verdi Candillari studied jazz at Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN A Hochschule is an institution of higher education within German-speaking countries At age six, she became “obsessed” with the operetta Die Csárdásfürstin by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán Franz Lehár’s operetta The Merry Widow takes place in the fictional state of Pontevedro, a thinly veiled reference to the real-life principality of Montenegro. David Baker was the Director of Jazz Studies at Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music Evans references a concert he saw at Symphony Hall Boston with jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton & Handel and Hayden Society Carnegie Hall (New York) and Wigmore Hall (London) are two well-known classical music venues Candillari became the Head Coach at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor, Slovenia Così fan tutte is an opera buffa (a kind of comedic opera) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Recitative is a musical style primarily used in baroque and classical vocal music (namely opera and oratorio) that highlights narrative storytelling. Candillari’s husband, Nick Schwartz, is the bass trombonist of the New York City Ballet. Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák and was programmed as part of Cincinnati Opera’s 2020 season. Evans also references his Symphony No. 7 which was inspired by composer Johannes Brahms. Contemporary opera Fellow Travelers by Gregory Spears references the music of French troubadours of the Middle Ages Musical Composition: Craft and Art is a book by Alan Belkin Mind Over Finger is a podcast about music performance. W1A is a British comedy TV show Arthur Rubinstein once famously noted, “Don’t practice too much.” Seth MacFarlane, the creator of the adult animated TV series Family Guy, is also a jazz singer.

    58 min
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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

Journey backstage with Harry T. Wilks Artistic Director Evans Mirageas and other special guests to discuss everything opera. In this podcast, you'll learn about the life and work of everyone from seasoned stage directors to rising contemporary composers and more!

Information

  • Creator
    Cincinnati Opera
  • Years Active
    2017 - 2020
  • Episodes
    31
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2017
  • Show Website
    Inside Opera