It has been a while between posts but there are a few good reasons for this. First would be the holidays. Here's hoping they were great for all of you. The second would be our scenes program. It was a wonderful success! Congratulations to all of you who performed so well. The third would be that we have been working up the first of our monthly email newsletters called PROGRAM - notes. Most of you should have received it this week. The goal of this newsletter is to share with our core community of supporters what makes us proud, passionate, and curious. If you did not receive this email but would like to, join our email list!
The initial PROGRAM-notes features two articles. The first is commentary from Ken Cazan about how we should view the infamous Don Giovanni - DON GIOVANNI: HERO? ANTI HERO? It is great reading. Part of what I like about Ken's approach to his work is that he is committed to making even the most traditional of operatic repertoire relevant to 21st century audiences. Despite the beauty of Mozart's music and the care Da Ponte takes to endear us to the infamous "rake," there is no denying that Don Giovanni would be considered at least a player, if not much worse, in modern American society.
The other article is an email interview with perhaps the most successful of our recent graduates Angela Meade - Alumni Spotlight: Angela Meade. Angela, who left USC in 2005 after three years of graduate studies, has had an amazing 3 1/2 years since. The highlight was her debut with the Met last spring as Elvira in Verdi's Ernani. I found her responses to my questions genuine, informative, and sweet. I'm not sure how many of you know Angela, but it was a real pleasure to have her in our program. It is also good to see that nice gals don't have to finish last. As a bonus, Angela provided us with some truly fabulous pictures from her Ernani appearance. I have to admit I had a full blown, take my breath away, opera production geek experience over the beauty (and expense) of the costumes and sets in the Met's production. Oh to have the Met's budget.Finally, we really want to make PROGRAM-notes something you all want to read. We have a pretty good sense that the Alumni Spotlights and opinion articles by Ken and Brent will be reasonably popular, But what else would you all like to read about? Tell us! Send email to opera@thornton.usc.edu with your ideas and suggestions. If you have an idea for something you would like to contribute to either the email newsletter or this blog let us know as well. We want to make both of them valuable online resources for all of you, our core community of supporters.
(Damien Elwood has been the USC Thornton Opera Program Manager since 2004)
