Time & Space & Music

This blog's gonna ramble a bit...

Time's been on my mind today. Not enough time to get everything done before we leave for Brevard. Not enough time to completely prepare for recreating the Tai Chi Trees in Alcina. Oh - and there's still bits of Act 2 of Traviata I don't quite know (I guess I'm confessing the same thing as Maestro Slatkin, except he was in the midst of Met performances...)

Not enough time to take some time off; so many of us feel this way nowadays.

So I thought I'd take the time to blog about TIME.

Time expands, slows down, and speeds up when music is present - either being made or being listened to. We've all experienced this phenomenon, some more than others. I've known for quite some time (pardon that one), that my sense of time was a bit, um, different. At first I was made to feel that my sense of time was extraordinary (my mom wouldn't set the oven timer for cookies, I could just call them done at 9 or 10 or 11 minutes - whatever the recipe called for.) I had a crazy sense of time, almost Vulcan.

Later while I was in college, I was made to feel that my sense of time was deficient. You see, I couldn't keep a steady beat. At all. Really!

I had terrible experiences with others - particularly other students - who made it a point to point this out. I started to feel a bit incompetent, and then I started to think something was wrong. I realized that other musicians noticed if music was moving forward - they called this "rushing". They also noticed if the beat wasn't steady - I called it "being expressive." Sometimes they made faces when this happened, as if it was either hurting them, or something was smelling kinda bad. I usually perked up because something was happening of interest...

The metronome - an instrument that has nothing to do with music making - clicks inhumanly at regular intervals to make audible the illusion that there is a beat somewhere in time. For years I tried to practice with it, tried to understand how it simply wasn't representing the time that I felt inherent in the phrases of music I was playing. I swore the metronome was dragging or rushing through piece after piece. It didn't matter if it was Bach or Ravel or Mozart or Copland. Time clicked differently in me and in my music.

Now of course, with my 47 yrs of life giving me a bit more insight, it's clear as day that frankly my sense of time is vastly superior to those others out there making music who try to follow the illusion of time, ictus, and especially tempo. Okay, superior sounds a bit - well - superior. Sorry.

Maybe "more evolved" would be a better way of saying it? Except that I think what's gone on in music lately is a devolution of time -- into a non-human, robotic sense of time clicking in even beats that neither speed up or slow down. Perhaps it's the GarageBand software, or the clicktracks on Broadway, or the computerization of music making via Sibelius or Finale. Once a composer puts something on the computer, and it's 4 minutes and 31 seconds long, it ALWAYS is 4 minutes and 31 seconds long (until a human plays it live and messes it up!)

However, Music is Art; and time flows in Art differently than in life. Isn't that part of what draws us to Art? The ebb and flow of time is unique to each great piece of art I've ever worked on - from Chopin's 2nd ballade to Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle.

Art certainly needs its Apollonian construct and structure to exist. It’s the vessel that art lives in – like Time sitting in Space. Art exists at the intersection where things vibrate – the vibration of creativity, the vibration of the string or the voice, the vibration of the emotional energy of an actor, the vibration of light & color on the stage, etc. Vibrations are key to understanding Time and Space and I think this connection to music and music making is vital and needs to be explored.

Time opens up whenever Music happens. Another way to open time (or better yet, allow it to flow freely), one needs to allow for divergent thinking to create possibilities (i.e. works of art) to explore all those great questions posed by composers, scores, libretti, collaborations, singers, pianists, conductors, etc.

Exploration takes time, but leads to Discovery and New Lands and New Horizons. Yet, it is such a vast missing component in today's world of google-the-answer-now and tell-me-how-it's-supposed-to-go.

Take the time to simply explore, next time you've got the chance to make some music or learn some music or listen to music or look at a sculpture.

And throw that metronome away!

Fear of Failing

Fear of Failing
Fear of Being Wrong
Fear of Not Being Good Enough
Fear of Getting Hurt

William Shakespeare put it well: "Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt."

Another interesting way of looking at Failure: "We learn wisdom from failure much more than success. We often discover what we will do, by finding out what we will not do." -- Samuel Smiles

And a whole bunch more:
"Never let the fear of striking out get in your way." -- George Herman "Babe" Ruth

"Failure teaches success." -- Japanese Saying

"He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

"One who fears failure limits his activities. Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again." -- Henry Ford

And my favorite:
"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?" -- Vincent van Gogh

I know that I would not be HERE if I had listened to my inner doubting Thomas. I certainly would not be HERE if I had listened to a number of false gods along the way. By false gods, I mean people who should have been real mentors or real teachers and instead were people who tried to project their own worries and doubts and fears onto me (and others). However, at the time they seemed "godly". I always had those inner bells that would go off whenever someone tried to make me feel small or fearful. Others should listen to these bells more often.

By HERE I mean where I am NOW:
1) an associate professor at the Schulich School of Music of McGill University in Montreal Quebec running one of the best opera training programs in the world.
2) the associate director of Janiec Opera Company of Brevard Music Center in North Carolina
3) a stage director who has produced or directed over 24 operas in the last four years
4) a conductor who has waved his hands in operas as diverse as Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea, Dallapiccola's Il Prigioniero, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle, and Britten's Albert Herring.
5) a respected coach of both opera and musical theatre repertoire who loves both equally!
6) someone who's worked in the business for over half his life and is blessed by friends all over the world.
7) a man married to the most amazingly beautiful woman (who I think is a "Voice Whisperer"), who's also the mother of my amazing sons.
8) a student of religion and philosophy who has the opportunity to try to connect the dots.
9) a pianist who still has a couple of concertos in his fingers, and can still play certain songs from Godspell from memory (yes, it's an accomplishment to hold onto rep from 1982!)
10) someone who recognizes that young people nowadays seem to be FILLED WITH FEAR.

Why am I sensing this fear now more than ever?
Is this just another manifestation of the post 9/11 syndrome that seems to have beset much of the younger generation?
Is it a manifestation of the new generation of mentors and teachers who have decided to teach fear of failure over encouraging their singers to achieve success by allowing failure to happen as a natural part of the process of learning?

How should I try to help?
Do I push an "attempt" onto an obviously fearful student knowing that it'll be a great thing for them to either accomplish or fail?
Do I acquiesce and hope that they'll gain some confidence a little later on - even though I know that opportunities are fleeting and happen so rarely because there are simply too many singers running around who'll take those opportunities away from the fearful?

I'm not sure of the answers - or even if those are the right questions to ponder.

However, I am sure of the fact that those quotes above are TRUE.

I'll end this odd blog of questions and quotes with the following:
Question: Why is it that some see opera as Dangerous?"
Quote: "Opera is Long. Life is Short." -- L.A. Opera tee-shirt

Givers and Takers

This past Friday to Sunday was a huge weekend.
Just the facts first, then the good stuff:
Friday 3:45am - I awoke and got the the Wichita airport to fly to DC
Friday later that morning - The Royal Wedding was watched by billions
Friday later that afternoon - Staging Die Drei Pintos in a private home with a concert hall
Friday 7pm - Wichita Grand Opera's production of my "La Fille du Regiment" opens
Saturday - The Washington Chorus' Dress Rehearsal of "Mostly Mahler" at the Kennedy Center
Saturday night - Correspondent's Dinner where Trump got roasted by Pres. Obama and Seth Meyers!
Sunday morning - PJH walks all around DC and ends at Smithsonian gift shop buying gifts
Sunday afternoon - "Regiment" matinee in Wichita & "Mostly Mahler" in DC
Sunday evening - party and after dinner w/ Wachner, Meara Conway, and VERY interesting patrons
Sunday 11ish - Obama gets Osama
Sunday after midnight (okay, that's Monday) - I head six blocks from my hotel to catch the tens of thousands gathering at the White House to celebrate (yes, I use that word on purpose and agree with the sentiment for any occasion marking a mass murderer's death.)

BIG Weekend, anyway you look at it!
However, why title this blog "Givers and Takers"?

Mostly because I spent the last weekend in DC with an organization that I would describe as being run by Givers, after leaving an organization in Kansas run by Takers. I wanted to write about the difference between the two.

I've worked in this "business" for over 25 years now. There are many ways to look at people. One is that there are two kinds of people and then compare and contrast. One such configuration might be "Correct" and "Effective". That's another blog...
Today's blog is on two other kinds of people: GIVERS and TAKERS.

A listing of the outstanding GIVERS in my live:
Berniel Hanson, my piano teacher who gave me Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Chopin & Ravel
Robert Larsen, my musical father who gave me my musical education
R. H. Fanders, the man who gave me Humanism
Joanne Baker, a sweetheart of a piano teacher, who gave me confidence and my memory
Marlena Malas, a great voice teacher and woman, who gave me open doors
Hal France, a conductor, who walked me through an open door
Christopher Keene, who gave me a great compliment during the longest rehearsal of my life
Donald Palumbo, who gave me opera, a work ethic, and Verdi
Michael Ching, who gave me my professional conducting debut
Norma and Alistar Paton, who gave my wife and I a home and amazing food in Tulsa
Allan Naplan, who helped give me Ithaca and subsequently my first son
Stewart Robertson, who gave me Glimmerglass
Karen Tiller, who gave me a Bluebeard's Castle and subsequently my second son
Nicholas Russell, who gave me (and continues to give others) loyalty
My Ithaca students, who gave me the joy of teaching and reinvigorated my joy of musical theatre
Andrew Bisantz, who gave me friendship during dark times
David Gately, who gave my family the joyous mountains of North Carolina
Meg, Lara, Aidan, and Philippe who awarded me Excellence in Teaching - my proudest achievement
My McGill students, who continue to give me challenges and allow my artistic freedom to blossom
My McGill colleagues who enthusiastically embrace my craziness: Julian, Hank, and Abe, et al
And of course, my family, who give me constant love

A short and abstract listing of TAKERS I've met:
The bitchy NYC coaches at DMMO in the mid 1980s, who tried to take my pride in my mentor
A fat, yet small-minded assistant conductor of a Boris, who told me I played without rhythm
A crazed pianist at The Juilliard School who tried to make me feel small and unimportant
A certain famous stage director who tried to take my confidence, but took others' instead
A general director who took from everyone and blamed everyone for his 1 million dollar deficit
Small minded folks who hold what they know close to themselves and forget to share it
Bureaucrats who take people's precious time in order to fill out forms in order to get forms

That frenzied couple in tornado alley, who I've seen fill young singers' heads with promises of things to come in order to use their time and talents; who point out everyone's short comings and blame everyone around them for any and all problems, instead of working to solve said problems.

But especially, there was that very special Urantian Taker who seemed to be such a Giver until, almost too late, I realized he was the opposite of Good (as Sondheim put it "Nice is different than Good!)

As a good friend once said: "Some people never realize that the reason they seem so ugly on the outside is because they are so ugly on the inside."

I've developed a "Taker Radar" over the years, and feel that I'm usually correct 9 times out of 10. It's something about a person's inability to smile beyond the first smile they put on; coupled with the second sentence out of their mouth usually being something along the lines of "You know, so and so doesn't know what they're doing, but I do".

Nice is SO different than Good. I know that now. It's a valuable thing to know, fyi.

End of Opera McGill 2010-2011 Wrap-Up

So -- I feel bad.

I'm not in Montreal right now and many of my students are leaving town early, way before graduation (which is at the end of May... no comment...) and when we'd usually be doing a year-end party I'm not there and neither are many of my students once I get back to Montreal.
So I thought I'd do a public wrap-up on my blog.

It goes without saying that this year was simply EXCELLENT. A student said it was a "hat trick" (which is a hockey reference I don't understand) or as they actually put it "Patrick's HatTrick". I guess it has something to do with all THREE productions being huge successes, artistically, pedagogically, and critically.

We produced Hänsel und Gretel in November, 2010. It was an extremely cute production and in case you hadn't heard, the sets were projections of Montreal elementary students' artwork of the house, the forest, the angels, the gingerbread house, etc.

In January came our production of Puccini's La Bohème, a massive undertaking with a double cast, 40 member chorus, 12 member children's chorus, and the full orchestration ONSTAGE behind the singers. All was coordinated by Julian Wachner, the conductor, via video screens. It was also recorded by Grammy award winning sound engineers and captured on High Definition video by 6 cameras in the audience and behind the scenes. There's even a documentary that's being put together on "The Making Of La Boheme". All of the footage is currently being edited and the sound is being mixed (they dropped 30 some mics into the space and in the set). We're expecting all to be completed by the start of the school year in August. I can't even begin to express how proud I was of the whole show. As one of our patrons put it "This is the best thing I've seen in Montreal in a LONG while and I'm talking ANYWHERE in Montreal"!

This March we collaborated yet again with Hank Knox and his Early Music program at McGill (his orchestra plays on period instruments - gut strings even - and period tuning) to produce Handel's little-known Imeneo. To say that it was beautiful is an understatement, and to say that it was elegant and emotionally riveting is also an understatement. Frankly, it was an artistic release that I've been waiting to have happen both from me as a director but also from a student cast - all of whom really went down the rabbit hole with their director and created a really special production that could have been a success at a Glimmerglass or C.O.T. or frankly anywhere. Special Bonus: I got to wear a mohawk for about three weeks and scare the locals, befuddle some of my colleagues, and be the "cool" professor on campus. It might come back... Just Sayin'!

SO -- Some Thank Yous:
A huge massive thank you to my assistants in the Opera McGill office: Veronique Coutu, Garry McLinn, and Lucas van Lierop. There is just no way for anyone to know the myriad of tasks that they are responsible for - from programs to supertitles, from communication with students and faculty to dealing with ticket requests from audience members - they are indefatigable! I certainly couldn't have done it without them. Veronique graduates with her Masters degree this year and I'm going to miss her at McGill. She was an amazing Nancy in the first production I directed at McGill, she gave a beautiful performance of Knoxville Summer on a recital a few years back that I played, was wonderful as Anne Trulove last year, sang brilliantly with Frederica von Stade down at Brevard in June, and brought audience members to tears during her death scene in Boheme. She received her bachelors and masters degrees from McGill and if I had more students who sang with her musicality, vulnerability, and passion, I'd be a lucky professor! Thanks Vero for everything!!

Also a special thank you to the team who worked on and are continuing to work on the Boheme DVD: Shelley Stein-Sacks, Michelle Hugill, George Messenberg, Richard King, Martha DeFrancisco, and their team of cracker-jack students in sound recording! Thanks to Liz Wirth for her tireless support of Opera McGill, Schulich School of Music, and McGill University. Thanks to Ewa and Harold Scheer who run the Austrian Ball for continuing their support as well. A big thank you to my comrades in arms: Julian Wachner and Hank Knox. They are the BEST colleagues a guy could have, both are terrific conductors and both are great GUYS to hang around!

There's no way to thank my team of designers - Serge Filiatrault on lights, Vincent Lefevre on sets, and Ginette Grenier on costumes. I am a very, VERY lucky director and each of them has taught me sooooooooooo much about being a better person. They are REALLY talented and Ginette is simply a genius!

Finally, Thank You to ARIA UMEZAWA! She's been my assistant director for half a dozen plus shows at McGill, plus she spent last summer at Brevard doing the same AND creating the daily schedule. She'll someday be famous I'm sure and I'll be applauding her productions. Aria is smart, has an aesthetic all of her own that I admire, and is deeply committed to making ART. I'm really going to miss her!!

Speaking of missing, I'm going to miss Jana and Philippe A LOT! Together, they've been in almost every show I've done at McGill - that's 15 shows, fyi. I've been really lucky to have such talented students over these past four years and Jana and Philippe really represent the best of my McGill students. Good luck to both of you!

And now... for a few End of Year Opera McGill awards (or the "OM"s as we call them):
Nominations!
For Best use of a Prop:
Jordan de Souza throwing the broom in H&G from the pit
Gordon Bintner eating the chicken with his mouth open in Boheme
Myriam Leblanc breaking the sword in Imeneo
Garry McLinn and Kevin Myers dealing with the bow and arrow in Imeneo

For Best use of Hair:
Lawrence Shirkie as Schubert in H&G
Rebecca Woodmass and Estelì Gomez getting dragged by their hair in Imeneo
Patrick Hansen's mohawk before and after Imeneo performances
The Imeneo faux hawks
Philippe Sly's fake facial hair in La Boheme

Best Onstage Moment:
The Water Cistern breaking and spilling a bathtub of water all over Pollack's floor in Imeneo
The opening of Act Two in Boheme
The end of Act One in Imeneo
The Mosh Pit during the kids matinee in Hansel und Gretel

Feel free to leave your own nominations in the comments!
I'm off to finish staging act one of Donizetti's La Fille du Regiment for Wichita Grand Opera.

Rockin' Imeneo

Opera McGill's production of Imeneo closed Sunday March 27th. It was a terrific production, one that I'm extremely proud to have directed. The student casts were remarkable, Hank Knox and his orchestra gave inspired performances from the pit, Ginette's costumes were oh-so lovely, Vincent's sets (taken from Alcina and Lucretia productions) were just exactly perfect, and Serge's lighting connected it all together, even Gingras loved the show:

http://www.cyberpresse.ca/arts/musique/musique-classique/201103/26/01-4383458-imeneo-de-handel-une-reussite.php

We had terrific ticket sales for Friday and Saturday nights - lots of patrons, new audience members, and students. Our matinee on Sunday didn't sell as well as I'd hoped. I was also disappointed in the student turnout - which seems to always be less than what one might expect for many Schulich concerts and events. I don't get that.

At all.

I would think that if someone was spending money on an education in music that they would not be content to just see one performance, they would want to see them all. I certainly did when I was in school. I went to every recital (that was required at Simpson) and every concert given by the ensembles and faculty. I was a piano major who gave two one hour recitals (both would've been considered masters level literature here), played over two dozen other senior voice recitals for fellow voice students, sang in the madrigal and choir (and did the requisite tours), plus played in, sang in, worked set crew, and occassionally danced in 10 productions during my undergrad years. When I was done, I was REALLY educated in music. I had played all the major song cycles by Schumann, Britten and Barber in recitals, had competed in piano concerto competitions, placed third in NATS as a baritone, worked 4 summers at Des Moines Metro Opera, and ended my years at Simpson making my professional operatic singing debut as the Emperor Altoum in DMMO's 1988 production of Turandot.

I also partied as a frat boy (Kappa Theta Psi - oldest local fraternity west of the Mississippi), met and dated my future wife, spent endless days hanging with friends, read the complete works of Shakespeare for a class I took for fun, reveled in a history of the culinary arts mini-course, played hundreds of voice lessons for three great voice teachers (for FREE), and graduated with honors.

Occasionally I get the "you're so talented" or "you're just brilliant" remark, or worse yet the "you're an overachiever". Actually not, I was educated in music during my undergrad years to be a total musician, not a specialist. Yes, my languages sucked (and still do) and some of those recitals were not the best, but I performed music that I loved, listened to music that I did not know, and grew a thousand fold as a singer, pianist, conductor, coach, and person.

I got my 10,000 hours in during my bachelors degree. That's why I'm a success today. Get out there and EXPERIENCE and LEARN and WORK HARD 'cause before you know it, the time is gone.

Oh, and I also learned to pour great drinks while tending bar at faculty receptions! It's an important skill that comes in handy to this day!

I'll get off my soap box now... It's time to stage some Donizetti for Wichita Grand Opera!

Imeneo and Subtext

Continuing in my year of working on 12 operas in 12 months (yikes!), next up is Handel's IMENEO.

Not iDOmeneo -- that's by Mozart. The sad joke I've repeated too many times now is that we actually are doing Idomeneo, just with all the parts in the key of C being cut out... get it? key of C? Yeah -- funny the first time, barely.

Imeneo first came to my attention the year before Glimmerglass was set to produce it. Of course I said, "you mean Idomeneo, right?" and got the look from Nicholas Russell that I now give others... It was a lovely cast - John Tessier, Amanda Pabyan, Michael Maniaci - but I have to admit to not liking the production all that much. With the exception of the brilliant choice to have a bunch of an act set at a dinner table, Alden's other choices were a bit stark.

The score is simply beautiful and the story is, well, simply simple: Clomiri loves Imeneo, Imeneo wants to marry Rosmene, Rosmene is engaged to Tirinto. Got it? Rosmene, after faking a nervous breakdown, decides to bow to the will of Argenio (Clomiri's father) and do the honorable thing by marrying Imeneo - the hero who saved Rosmene and a bunch of other ladies from pirates. Yes, PIRATES! To Be Ungrateful or Unfaithful? That is her question. It ends with Rosmene, Tirinto, and Clomiri all quite Unhappy.

The production design had a caveat attached to it: use as little money as possible. After the expense of La Boheme (the most expensive Opera McGill production to date), we had to explore ways to create Imeneo with less than we might normally spend. What to do now that our audiences have come to expect a certain level of production values?

We decided to go with the adage "what's old is new again". McGill University is trying to begin to think Green, and I've been storing up bits and pieces of sets from other productions over the past four years - so why not use them? Boston Lyric Opera did this last season by using a Conklin set designed for one opera at Glimmerglass and re-thinking it for another opera at BLO. We're going to do something slightly different. The plan is to use the rice paper drops from Alcina to define the space, the sculpted head of Lucretia hung as a "moon", and costumes/props from both Thésée and The Rape of Lucretia to create the period.

My stage direction for this production will be focusing on character subtext and how those ideas motivate the da capo ornaments. Easier said than done... An abstract I wrote for a conference on design was titled "Subtextual Leitmotifs in Operatic Design". Although the paper got sidelined because I was in the midst of doing ten operas during 2010, the ideas in the paper are ever-present in my mind when working with opera singers. (I first explored these a few years back during Opera McGill's Alcina production).

How does a director and the cast discover the subtext? What IS subtext? Lots of people think it's about sex, like when Mozart orchestrates horns to play during Fiordiligi's "Per pieta" aria in the 2nd act of Cosi fan tutte. It's more than that, a lot more.

It's a process of really digging into the actual TEXT, an archeological dig into the character's Environment, their Relationships with the others onstage, their Objectives and Obstacles in each scene, aria, and the overall picture, their Tactics (usually given by the composer - i.e. tempo, key, dynamics, vocal registers), and what's at Stake for each character at any given moment. Those are all very rational ideas to explore. Subtext connects those ideas in two ways: directed internally, they mix in with the emotions and magnify them in so many ways; directed externally, they can hit others onstage and those in the audience with a vivid picture of a character's inner thoughts and emotions. All of us Think one thing, Say another, and Do something else when dealing with our loved ones, our friends, our co-workers, and the strangers on the subway. How do we know what Othello is thinking? He either has to tell us in his text, or we see into his thoughts because of the difference in what he says and what he does onstage. How he says it is also important...

Just a few thoughts about what we'll be concentrating on during March. Of course, we'll also be concentrating on the music, the ornaments, and the voices! Each year Opera McGill presents a baroque opera in collaboration with the Early Music Program at McGill - in period tuning and with period instrumentation. EACH year -- the only academic program in North America to do so, at least to my knowledge. Don't miss it: March 25, 26, & 27 (matinee), 2011 in Pollack Hall in downtown Montreal.

Boheme Reflections

Opera McGill's production of La Boheme is now history. History is the right word for the four performances - as in all four of our performances were sold out!

It was a beautiful production - from the sets and costumes and lights to the wonderful performances by the both casts, the chorus and the orchestra. Julian Wachner gave beautifully crafted and moving musical direction and in all humility, I did a good job with this one from a staging perspective.

I loved the 2nd act - it was certainly a challenge to do it without a curtain to raise and have the entire chorus onstage ready to go for the first choral "AH!" It was also a joy to stage the 1st and 3rd acts back in November and December and then see them evolve a month later - what a GREAT idea!

I loved my bookends that ran throughout the show - Rodolfo starting the 1st and 4th acts with his feet on the table facing upstage; the parade down the center aisle at the top of the 2nd act which ended with a parade up the center aisle as the act ended; the first image of the show being a lit candle and then the last image being Colline blowing out the candle; Mimi's death taking place spatially on the spot where she and Rodolfo had first sat and expressed their private thoughts during their 1st act arias; plus there was the whole Vincent/Ginette set/costume color palette of Mimi in Pink and Musetta in Green being reflected on the walls of the garrett. The lighting cues were all timed beautifully and boy did the strings sound amazing!

I am very proud of this production and will hold it in my heart and memory for a long while! It's hard to let go. For some of the cast members, this was their last Opera McGill production. Some of these students started out with me during my first year here at McGill: singing in Albert Herring, some singing in the chorus of Cosi fan tutte or playing trees in Alcina and now there they were on the stage singing principal roles!

Boheme was the 14th opera I've produced, directed, or played in my 3 and 1/2 years here. That's a lot. I'm doing 12 operas in 2011 alone. I'm thinking that's too much and wonder how long I can keep going like this. It's worrisome to me, and to my family. Finding balance is now my focus - which leads me to Imeneo.

My production of Imeneo will try to answer a question that I think is at the heart of the piece:
What happens when people are thrown out of balance?
A hero becomes the villain, a rational woman becomes crazed, a poet loses his muse, a man loses his vision, and the unloved get desperate...

Imeneo opens March 25, 2011