back to the topic of opera...

In some upcoming posts, while summer blazes on, I'd like to reconstruct a fantasty opera season concocted earlier. I also would like to write some special posts devoted to three areas of opera of particular interest to me: Russian opera, operas by Benjamin Britten, and baroque opera. I'll say something about my personal experience with them, but I plan to focus on what has been performed by companies in the Baltimore-Washington area in recent seasons and what we might expect in upcoming seasons.

Of course, there will be some opera performed on stage around here during the summer. Opera Vivente will return to Baltimore's Artscape festival. Wolf Trap Opera has what looks like practically a whole opera season contained in one summer. I'm also waiting to see what Peabody Opera has in store for the 2008-09 season.

Other notes:

-- Director Tim Nelson is back from a parallel blogosphere and has entered a post about plans for American Opera Theater on his Yugen blog (in my blog roll).

-- My copy of the July Gramophone just arrived. The featured composer on the CD: Jiri Belohlavek discusses Dvorak!

-- I just filled up my gas tank this evening. Well, yes, gas prices aren't news to anyone, are they? I might be getting more careful about how many performances I attend or how many times I go into the city during the week. Middle of the week trips, which mean sitting in stop and go rush hour traffic to get into the city after work, were getting tiresome before the price of gas went up.

Comments

[John Bowen]

Well, Clayton, I for one am eagerly awaiting your special posts dedicated to certain facets of the operatic repertoire that interest you. OV will be providing fodder in two of those facets this coming year with Monteclair's Pyramus and Thisbe and Handel's Apollo and Dafne at Artscape representing the baroque and Albert Herring on our mainstage representing Benjamin Britten. I too love the Russian rep but the Mighty Five wasn't really known for their interest in small scale works with less than 32 principal characters and no chorus. Don't even get me started on all the supernatural events that require a lot more stage machinery than OV currently has at its disposal.