The Passion of Opera

Update: After hitting 3,000 views/month the blog rocketed up to 4,000. I wanted to reflect that on this post!! Keep it coming! New posts soon after we move in on Thursday! What with the 20,000 lifetime views and now this post, it may seem like I'm now only writing about the past success of this blog. That's definitely not the case. The new house has finally closed and I should be moved in within a week. Then I can get back to reviewing some DVDs, etc., as promised in the last post. Come September, it's off to London! Still, exciting to see 3,000 views/month over the course of the past month!

I am very pleased to see to see that the blog has surpassed 20,000 lifetime views and sits as of this moment at 20,005. I am looking forward to continuing to post into the future. It's been up and down at points with my school commitments and sometimes a lack of things about which to write. Still, the reviews of operas in Vienna, the profiles of versatile singers, and recent reviews in Virginia have definitely been highlights. Looking forward I will be putting up a review of Leonardo [not da] Vinci's Artaserse , performed in Köln by an all-star cast of countertenors and other male vocalists,  as well as hopefully reviewing a few other DVDs or broadcasts by the end of September. Once I arrive in London I will definitely be reviewing opera performances that I see at the ROH. I am definitely committed for the future! In the meantime, I will leave you with this performance of 10,000 people singing Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Symphony #9  in Japan as a reaction the 201

This recent interview (29 July 2013) given by Thomas Hampson to Sarah Montague on BBC HARDtalk has been making the rounds on social media. Check here for the full interview (~25 minutes long). The intention of this isn't to weigh in too heavily but more just to get it out there since it's a high profile televised interview relating to opera. It's interesting regardless of how one feels about Thomas Hampson as a person or performer, or the BBC, Sarah Montague, or HARDtalk as media. It does feel as though Montague came into the interview with an agenda, whether of her own making or of the the BBC producers looking for attention. That said, in a way that gave Hampson something good to push back against. As opera lovers, performers, etc. we do have to face the fact that opera can be expensive to put on and attend, that there is a challenge bringing new, especially younger viewers in, and that it is incredibly under-attended as a whole. Without raising the debate of &quo