4artists

4artists

Friday, May 11, 2012

Featured Singer: Mary Langston

Mary has been active with Opera Manhattan for two seasons now, and also joined us when we went to the Hamptons last August to entertain grief-stricken kids at Camp Good Grief.  She shares this with us:
My experience with Opera Manhattan has been really wonderful. This season, in particular, has been a huge growth period for me. Last December I was cast as the Dew Fairy/Sandman in Hansel and Gretel, and found rehearsal and the production to be time very well spent. I wasn’t called any more than necessary and had a blast performing. It was a great “interactive” opera experience. Currently rehearsing as Monica in The Medium, I am finding this experience to be as enriching as the last. This is my first lead role, and I am ecstatic. Rehearsals are not every evening, which for me is fantastic as I am a server at a high-volume restaurant, and they are at decent times on weekends. All in all, things are well organized and very pleasant. I look forward to the future with Opera Manhattan.

See Mary and her wonderful colleagues in Opera Manhattan's Opera Festival, May 17-21.  

Get your tickets here!

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Featured Singer: Elana Gleason


Today's featured singer is the lovely Elana Gleason!
"I have had the honor of being cast in both Suor Angelica and The Medium this spring. Tackling the vastly different roles of Suor Genovieffa and Monica have been a great challenge for me in both my singing and my acting. What makes it not only possible but both fun and rewarding is the constant encouragement I receive from the Opera Manhattan faculty. What also impresses me about Opera Manhattan is how efficient they are. Not only are rehearsals challenging, fun, and thought-provoking, but they are run so the singers time is well utilized. As a busy singer in New York who both works and performs full-time, the value of an efficiently-run rehearsal is immense. I have never sat through a rehearsal with this company and felt as though I was wasting my time, and there is a lot to be said for that."
See Elana and her wonderful colleagues in Opera Manhattan's Opera Festival, May 17-21.  

Get your tickets here!

Monday, May 7, 2012

Opera Manhattan's Featured Singer

Today's featured singer is Anna Petrie, who will be featured in two of Opera Manhattan's Opera Festival one-act operas.  She has this to say:
Working with Opera Manhattan has been a wonderful experience! I find myself supported by wonderful colleagues and an artistic administrative staff ready to assist in any way that they can. I have had the privilege of working with both Sarah Fraser and John Schenkel as stage directors in Suor Angelica and The Medium respectively. It is a fabulous thing to see their vision of each production come to life and a great opportunity for myself to grow and learn as an artist - something I constantly strive for.

Come hear Anna and a host of other talented young singers at our Opera Festival, May 17-21, at the Theatre at St. Clements, 423 W. 46th St.  You can buy tickets here.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

OMRT's Lloyd Arriola makes his Carnegie Hall Debut

OMRT's audiences will remember Lloyd Arriola as the amazing pianist who lead our production of La Boheme and Julius Cesar last season.  He's not only an opera conductor, but an accomplished pianist as well.  We asked him to sit down for an interview and this is what he had to say.



OMRT:  Tell us about your Carnegie Hall debut.
LA:  My Carnegie Hall debut. It's the little hall, of course, but no matter. I do hope you can come. Right now, there are 124 people coming. Come on, only 129 to go to sell out the house!
Oh, yes, and I am playing some Liszt, for his 200th birthday. He don't look a day over 193. Also music by Ervin Nyiregyhazi (try saying that five times fast) and Harrison Gross, a very talented young composer.
 
OMRT:  Hometown.
LA:  San Franciso

OMRT:  How did you first become interested in playing piano? 
LA:  All four of my siblings played when I was very small.

OMRT:  Where/with whom did you study? 
LA:  First with a work friend of my mom's, then with a former child prodigy who was a great teacher but a drunk.

OMRT:  What is your favorite opera and why? 
LA:  ELEKTRA-- so thrilling, and so very twisted, and yet noble in a bizarre way.

OMRT:  What is your dream gig?
LA:  Playing and conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in music of Brahms and Reger.

OMRT:  If you could have dinner with any composer, who would you choose and why? 
LA:  I would eat with Stravinsky.  What a HOOT that would be.

OMRT:  Do you have any pre-performance rituals or superstitions? 
LA:  NOPE

OMRT:  What has been your most unusual performance to date and why?
LA:  Playing a gig with a cabaret singer from Albania where the act before us was a deaf guy singing "This is the Moment" from Jeckyll and Hyde.

OMRT:  If you were tone-deaf, what would your dream job be?
LA:  CHARACTER ACTOR

OMRT:  What is playing on your iPod (or record player) right now?
LA:  Mack and Mabel by Jerry Herman.  Lovely show.

OMRT:  NYC is the cultural center of the music industry, where is your favorite musical or non-musical place to be?
LA:  BERLIN

OMRT:  How do you measure your success?
LA:  Joy in making music the way I'd live my life if I could do it without making money.  To me, that is a life well-lived.

OMRT:  If returning to OMRT, what was your favorite previous experience?
LA:  La Boheme.  What a privilege to work with such singers!

OMRT:  How did you become a part of OMRT?
LA:  Sheer luck. I got a call to play for audtions.

OMRT:  What did you do on your summer "vacation"?
LA:  Conducted Dido and Aeneas in San Francisco.

OMRT:  When and how did you decide to move to NYC?
LA:  1994, to start a Masters Degree in Piano at Julliard

OMRT:  What do you like about living in NYC?
LA:  The crazed people and the pace.

OMRT:  What is the last theatrical performance you attended?
LA:  Paul at Tarsus, at Gospel Town Theater in Post, TX.  What an experience.
 OMRT:  What's you best backstage story or the craziest thing that has happened to you while performing?
LA:  Playing a production of Jesus Christ Superstar with the Jesus missing DURING the overture.  Then the singer popped onstage the second he got called to the stage.

OMRT:  How do you approach preparing to perform?  And how is it different to prepare a new work vs. a more traditional piece?
LA:  All I do is plug away and uncover secrets as fast as I can after a quick first look at the score....or, procrastination!

OMRT:   How do you convince friends and family who have never seen a classical performance to give it a try?
LA:  See me play or ELSE!

OMRT:  Do you sing in the shower?
LA:  No bloody way.

OMRT:  How many jobs do you have?  Or how many hours do you work in a week?
LA:  Schoolteacher and conductor.

OMRT:  How many hours are you in rehearsal on top of that?
LA:  Uncountable!

OMRT:  How much do you rehearse each day?
LA:  Depends.

OMRT:  What is something you can do that others can't?
LA:  Flip my eyelids for a full minute to scare my niece!

OMRT:  What is the first opera you ever saw?
LA:  Madama Butterfly on TV; Faust in San Francisco

OMRT:  What is your pop culture guilty pleasure?
LA:  South Park

OMRT:  Words of wisdom for aspiring artists?
LA:  Gird your loins!

OMRT:  What is your super power?
LA:  Ahem.

OMRT:  Why do you love music?
LA:  The way it can let you inside a person's mind without speech -- through music.  That is why I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!! Like Nietszche-- for me life without music would be a mistake.

Lloyd's concert in honor of Franz Liszt's 200th birthday is tomorrow, Sunday November 20th at 7:30pm.

Weill Recital Hall
at Carnegie Hall
57th Street east of 7th Avenue
New York, NY

Tickets available here.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

3rd Annual Fall Fundraising Raffle sponsored by The Richard Tucker Music Foundation

It's that time of year again...

You know, when the Richard Tucker Music Foundation bestows instant fame and international star power upon one exceptional emerging artist in the opera world.

Angela Meade, this year's Tucker Award winner, made her Metropolitan Opera debut at the age of 30 never having sung a professional performance before.  She had been covering the lead soprano who became ill at the last minute.  Stepping onto the stage (photo at left) to sing Elvira in Verdi's "Ernani," Ms. Meade's career was born overnight.


The Richard Tucker Music Foundation has graciously sponsored the Opera Manhattan Annual Fall Fundraising Raffle for the third year in a row by donating the Grand Prize - two (2) tickets to the Tucker Gala valued at $1,000.

Opera Stars making appearances at the event include:  Stephanie Blythe, Marcello Giordani, Maria Guleghina, Yonghoon Lee, Željko Lučić, René Pape, Marina Poplavskaya, Bryn Terfel and Dolora Zajick.  They are joined by Maestro Emmanuel Villaume conducting members of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and the New York Choral Society.  Don't miss your chance to witness this amazing night of music!

Raffle entries are $10 each and with special deals if you buy more.  For your chance to attend the opera world's biggest and most glamorous event, enter the raffle by visiting our website at www.OperaManhattan.com/raffle.


**Special thanks to The Richard Tucker Music Foundation for their support of Opera Manhattan's 2011-12 season.**

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Stephen Schwartz Autographed - Our Piano?

Well, when you get someone like Broadway composing sensation Stephen Schwartz to give you an autograph, you can't really hand him a napkin to sign.  Right?

So, to help auction off a 7' Baldwin grand piano in support of Opera Manhattan's mission to develop emerging artists in NYC, he took Sharpee to piano and wrote a little ditty.





To date, other autographs collected include:

World renowned conductor Maestro Anton Coppola, who, at the brisk young age of 94, took a nice long stroll through 12 blocks of NYC just to lend his name and be the first to sign.


Just below him, adding her amazing support and voice to the project is the Metropolitan Opera star for 41 seasons (1950-1991), Soprano Lucine Amara.


Additional stars adding their names to the cause include:

Bulgarian Tenor Boiko Zvetanov
Baritone Daniel Sutin
American Tenor John Easterlin


More autographs are needed for this project.  Email us here if you would like to join The Piano Project.