“Opera's Place in Society:  Going or Gone?” - In Conversation with Conrad L. Osborne & Will Crutchfield

Thursday, September 24, 7pm - 8:30pm EDT

IN CONVERSATION SERIES
Members - FREE
Non-Members - $35

Join the American master of opera critics, Conrad L. Osborne, and Teatro Nuovo’s General and Artistic Director, Will Crutchfield, for a lively discussion about the future of opera in our current society.

This discussion will take place over Zoom. Participants are invited to send questions in before to be considered for discussion during the live conversation.

After the Guest Speaker discussion, attendees will be invited to speak more informally amongst themselves, Crutchfield and Osborne about the topic.

Meet Our GUEST SPEAKERS

The American master of opera critics, Mr. Osborne’s career is of course legendary, as an opera critic, teacher, singer, actor, performing arts consultant, and acclaimed author. His first published writings in 1959 were articles and performance reviews for Opera News, and recordings reviews for High Fidelity. Over the years since then, he has written for Musical America, Musical Newsletter, Opus, Keynote and the Sunday New York Times. For several years, he was also the New York music critic for London’s Financial Times, filing a couple of columns per month during the season. The summation of this lifetime of accumulated knowledge, experience and critical exposure to thousands of recorded and live performances, may be found in Osborne’s masterwork, Opera as Opera, The State of the Art (Proposito Press, NY, NY 2018). According to the publisher, the author argues that we cannot solve the [current] problem unless we recognize and define it, and that we cannot hope to envision the artform’s future unless we first come to terms with its past. Osborne examines all elements of recent operatic practice as revealed in performance.

Mr. Crutchfield is General and Artistic Director of Teatro Nuovo, the acclaimed young organization devoted to cutting-edge interpretation of classic Italian opera. 

He has divided his opera career between conducting, musicology, and education. As Director of Opera for the Caramoor International Music Festival from 1997 to 2017, he has conducted over 30 operas with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and major soloists. He also served as Music Director with the Opera de Colombia (Bogota) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Polish National Opera (Warsaw), and has made guest appearances with many theaters around the world.

For Ricordi and the Fondazione Rossini he prepared the critical edition of Aureliano in Palmira, also conducting the production at Pesaro that won first place as “Best Rediscovered Work” in the 2015 International Opera Awards. In the same year he was named a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation in recognition of his operatic work, and in 2017 he was named as one of Musical America’s thirty “Movers and Shapers” for his leadership in innovative training and performance.

“The Long-Term Effect of the Microphone on the Human Voice” - In Conversation with Will Crutchfield, Moderated by Henry Fogel

Thursday, May 7, 7pm - 8:30pm EDT

IN CONVERSATION SERIES
Members - FREE
Non-Members - $35

Join Teatro Nuovo’s General and Artistic Director Will Crutchfield for a lively discussion moderated by WFMT’s Henry Fogel about how the microphone has affected the vocal arts over the years.

This discussion will take place over Zoom. Participants are invited to send questions in before to be considered for discussion during the live conversation.

After the Guest Speaker discussion, attendees will be invited to speak more informally amongst themselves, Crutchfield and Fogel about the topic.

Meet Our GUEST SPEAKERS

Mr. Crutchfield is General and Artistic Director of Teatro Nuovo, the acclaimed young organization devoted to cutting-edge interpretation of classic Italian opera. 

He has divided his opera career between conducting, musicology, and education. As Director of Opera for the Caramoor International Music Festival from 1997 to 2017, he has conducted over 30 operas with the Orchestra of St. Luke’s and major soloists. He also served as Music Director with the Opera de Colombia (Bogota) and Principal Guest Conductor of the Polish National Opera (Warsaw), and has made guest appearances with many theaters around the world.

For Ricordi and the Fondazione Rossini he prepared the critical edition of Aureliano in Palmira, also conducting the production at Pesaro that won first place as “Best Rediscovered Work” in the 2015 International Opera Awards. In the same year he was named a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation in recognition of his operatic work, and in 2017 he was named as one of Musical America’s thirty “Movers and Shapers” for his leadership in innovative training and performance.

“They Contained Multitudes” - In Conversation with Peter Russell

Thursday, April 16, 7pm - 8:30pm EDT

IN CONVERSATION SERIES
Members - FREE
Non-Members - $35

Join Vocal Arts Artistic Director and Washington Concert Opera’s Co-Founder, Peter Russell for a lively discussion about artists like Marilyn Horne, Regina Resnik, Placido Domingo and Ramon Vinay who reinvented themselves multiple times over the course of long careers, changing vocal categories as well as personae.

This discussion will take place over Zoom. Participants are invited to send questions in before to be considered for discussion during the live conversation.

After the Guest Speaker discussion, attendees will be invited to speak more informally amongst themselves and Russell about the topic.

Meet Our GUEST SPEAKERS

Mr. Russell is the Artistic Director of Vocal Arts DC in Washington D.C., assuming the artistic and administrative leadership of the organization in March 2012. 

He previously served in executive roles as General Director of Opera Colorado in Denver, Director of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, and as General Director of Wolf Trap Opera Company in Virginia.

A co-founder of Washington Concert Opera, he is also a frequent guest lecturer on opera, and has frequently adjudicated vocal competitions, including for the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and the Washington International Competition.

The Tenor Voice and the 20th Century": A Classical Constant meets Techno-Cultural Variables (with Will Crutchfield & Henry Fogel)

Thursday, November 6, 7pm - 8:30pm EST

GUEST SPEAKER SERIES
WEBINAR
Members - FREE
Non-Members - $35

Join Will Crutchfield, artistic director of Teatro Nuovo, and Henry Fogel, former dean of the Chicago College of Performing Arts, for a lively conversation exploring “The Tenor Voice and the 20th Century: A Classical Constant meets Techno-Cultural Variables.”

This discussion will take place over Zoom. Participants are invited to send questions in before to be considered for discussion during the live conversation.

After the Guest Speaker discussion, attendees will be invited to Zoom break out sessions to debate among themselves. Crutchfield and Fogel will drop into each room for interaction with the attendees.

Meet Our GUEST SPEAKERS

Will Crutchfield is an American conductor, musicologist, and vocal coach. He is the founding Artistic and General Director of Teatro Nuovo, a company that presented its inaugural season in the summer of 2018 at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall as the successor to the twenty years of opera at the Caramoor International Music Festival led by Crutchfield. He also has been a frequent guest conductor at the Polish National Opera and has led opera performances at the Canadian Opera Company, Washington National Opera, and Minnesota Opera. From 1999 through 2005, he served as Music Director of the Opera de Colombia in Bogotá. He was recently named one of Musical America's 2017 "Movers and Shapers," the publication's list of the top 30 industry professionals of the year.

For Ricordi and the Fondazione Rossini he prepared the critical edition of Aureliano in Palmira, also conducting the production at Pesaro that won first place as “Best Rediscovered Work” in the 2015 International Opera Awards. In the same year he was named a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation in recognition of his operatic work, and in 2017 he was named as one of Musical America’s thirty “Movers and Shapers” for his leadership in innovative training and performance. In 2020 he was featured in The New York Times for his first-ever reconstruction of Beethoven’s sketches for the lost tenor aria from the 1805 opera Leonore. His other reconstructions include Donizetti’s unfinished Symphony in E Minor, the only known full-scale concert symphony by a major Italian composer of the 19th century.

He has contributed articles on historical performance practice to the New Grove Dictionaries of Music and numerous scholarly journals, and is currently completing a book on the same subject for Oxford University Press.

Henry Fogel was appointed Dean of the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University beginning in July, 2009, a school at which he has taught since 2002. In addition, he continues to provide a limited amount of consulting for musical organizations, working as a part of the Catherine French Group, and has been an artistic consultant for the Sao Paulo Symphony in Brazil since 2008. From 2003-2008 Mr. Fogel was President and CEO of the League of American Orchestras, an organization that serves almost 1,000 symphony orchestras. From 1985-2003, Mr. Fogel was President of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Under his distinguished leadership the Orchestra’s endowment increased from $19 million to over $160 million, and he oversaw the 5 million renovation of Orchestra Hall. During Mr. Fogel’s term the CSO dramatically strengthened its community engagement and educational programs. Mr. Fogel also served as Executive Director of the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, D.C., Orchestra Manager of the New York Philharmonic, as well as  Program Director and Vice-President of WONO, a full-time classical music commercial radio station in Syracuse, New York. Mr. Fogel has received honorary doctorate degrees from Roosevelt University, Northwestern University, the Curtis Institute, Columbia College in Chicago, and a Cultural Leadership Citation from Yale University for his service to the cultural life of the nation. In June, 2009, he received the highest honor in the symphony orchestra field, the League of American Orchestras’ Gold Baton Award. Mr. Fogel has also served as a narrator with a number of orchestras, and has recorded a speaking role in the opera Tony Caruso’s Last Broadcast on the Naxos label. He has produced internationally syndicated radio programs for Chicago’s Fine Arts Station WFMT, including currently Collectors’ Corner, which is derived from his extension personal collection of over 20,000 classical recordings.

Thursday, September 18, 7pm - 8:30pm EST

GUEST SPEAKER SERIES
WEBINAR
Members - FREE
Non-Members - $35

Join former Washington Post chief classical music critic Anne Midgette and composer, veteran music critic and passionate opera lover Greg Sandow for a lively conversation about the myth of “park and bark.” In the 21st century, audiences have been led to believe that we’ve seen a renaissance of acting in opera, and that singers of the past tended to stand still on stage and simply power out their music: the so-called “park and bark.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Midgette and Sandow offer a look at the true history of “singing actors,” acting singers, and how opera singers have long moved people with their acting through their bodies as well as their voices. 

This discussion will take place over Zoom. Participants are invited to send questions in before to be considered for discussion during the live conversation.

After our guest discussion, attendees will be invited to Zoom break out sessions to debate among themselves. Midgette and Sandow will drop into each room for interaction with the attendees.

Meet Our GUEST SPEAKERS

Anne Midgette was the classical music critic of The Washington Post for 12 years, from 2008 through 2019. Before that, she was for seven years a regular contributor of classical music and theater reviews to The New York Times. She has also written about music, the visual arts, dance, theater and film for The Wall Street Journal, Opera News, The Los Angeles Times, Town & Country, and many other publications, reviewing and interviewing everyone from Spike Lee through Marina Abramovic to Luciano Pavarotti. At the Post, she oversaw every aspect of classical music coverage, offset her music writing with occasional visual art reviews, expanded the reach of the beat on social media as The Classical Beat, and ultimately became known for her work on #MeToo in classical music, an issue on which she has continued to focus. 

A graduate of Yale University, where she majored in Classical Civilization, she lived in Germany for 11 years, writing for a range of publications about music, the visual arts, theater, dance and film; editing a monthly magazine; working as a translator; and writing several travel guidebooks. 

She is co-author of The King and I, a candid and controversial book written with Luciano Pavarotti’s former manager, Herbert Breslin, about his 36 years working with the temperamental tenor (Doubleday, 2004); and of My Nine Lives, the memoir of the pianist Leon Fleisher, who reinvented himself after losing the use of two fingers on his right hand, only to regain their use some 30 years later (Doubleday, 2010). She is currently working on a historical novel about the woman who built pianos for Beethoven. 

Greg Sandow grew up in New York, fell in love with opera when he was nine, and with rock & roll at 11. Studied singing in high school and college, thought he’d be a singer, but switched to composing, and got a master’s degree in composition from the Yale School of Music. Also sang opera there, undeterred by reviews that said his strength was his acting. His biggest role was Alberich, in a concert performance of Das Rheingold. 

In his professional life, he’s been a critic, one of the few with a national reputation in both classical music and pop. He’s also taught graduate courses at Juilliard, at the Eastman School of Music, and at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins. 

One of his courses has been on classical music’s future; the other has been on how to speak and write about music. The future of classical music became his specialty, something he wrote about, spoke about in the US and abroad, and worked on as a consultant, among other things doing projects with major symphony orchestras. 

This past spring, he came to a turning point. While doing other things, his composing interest has ebbed and flowed, bringing success whenever he’s focused on it. But this year he produced a concert and recording of his three string quartets, a project that brought him such happiness that he thought composing from now on should be his focus, along with writing on subjects he cares most deeply about. 

And so he stopped teaching, with some regret, since he’s loved working with his students. But it was time. He’s composing a string trio, for performances in Philadelphia and London this fall, and the subjects he’ll write about are, as before, the future of classical music, but also bel canto opera, one of his great musical loves.

Classical music has a difficult future, he thinks, because it’s grown distant from our culture, and interest in it has fallen sharply. It needs to reinvent itself, reconnect with the wider world, and restore the creativity and freedom musicians had in past centuries. 

Could bel canto opera help with this? Singers in that era reinvented the music they sang, improvising changes to make it fit their voices and their feeling for the drama. Bringing that back might give classical music a shot of adrenaline, and make it newly alive.

REBROADCAST:
Saturday, May 17, 12pm - 1:30pm EST

GUEST SPEAKER SERIES
WEBINAR
Members - FREE
Non-Members - $17.50 (for rebroadcast)

Join OperaWire’s Co-Founders and brothers David and Francisco Salazar as they debate their favorite Jussi Björling recordings.

This discussion will take place over Zoom. Participants are invited to send questions in before to be considered for discussion during the live conversation.

After the Salazars discuss, attendees will be invited to Zoom break out sessions to debate among themselves. The Salazars will drop into each room for interaction with the guests.

Meet Our GUEST SPEAKERS

David Salazar is the Editor-in-Chief for OperaWire and is one of its co-creators. He is in charge of managing the team, organizing coverage, and editing content in addition to writing reviews and interviews. He also heads the weekly Opera Meets Film articles and Opera Quizzes.

Prior to creating OperaWire, David worked as a entertainment reporter for Latin Post where he interviewed major opera stars and was also chief opera critic for the publication.

Additionally, he also had the opportunity of interviewing numerous Oscar nominees, Golden Globe winners and film industry giants such as Guillermo del Toro, Oscar Isaac, and John Leguizamo among others.

David holds a Masters in Media Management from Fordham University. During his time at Fordham, he studied abroad at the Jagiellonian University in Poland. He also holds a dual bachelor’s from Hofstra University in Film Production and Journalism. He is also a violinist who performed as concertmaster with several youth and university organizations at major venues around New York, including Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie Hall, among others.

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Francisco Salazar is OperaWire’s lead publisher and co-creator. His focus is on daily news articles and interviews, as well as managing OperaWire’s social media channels.

Prior to co-founding OperaWire, Francisco Salazar was a reporter for Latin Post where he had the privilege of interviewing numerous opera stars including Anita Rachvelshvili and Ailyn Perez.

He also worked as an entertainment reporter where he covered the New York and Tribeca Film Festivals and interviewed many celebrities including Antonio Banderas, Edgar Ramirez and Benedict Cumberbatch. He also freelanced for Remezcla.

Francisco has an MS in Media Management from The New School and a BA in Film Production from Hofstra University.

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