It's been a while

Hello Dear Friends of The Opera Insider!

We've decided that as we head into the final push to launch our site, we'd turn this into the space where you can find out more about what The Opera Insider will provide you, where you can read a few "teasers" of our upcoming features, and leave comments and feedback for us as we make the site fun and interactive for all.

As you may know, the ideas for The Opera Insider started bubbling away many moons ago... from the time Carol and I spent at the Les Azuriales Opera Festival in the south of France. Here's a little taste of our feature on Sarah Holford and her remarkable festival, a veritable treat for all five senses!!

"Perched majestically atop the peak of the peninsula of St. Jean Cap Ferrat, the Villa Ephrussi de Rothschild boasts spectacular vistas and dominates the landscape in rose-colored elegance. Fountains sway to Tchaikovsky and waltz to Strauss as visitors feast upon breathtaking views of the Mediterranean’s azure waters dotted with yachts and rimmed with luxurious homes and inhale the luxurious fragrance of blooming flowers. In an area of almost unrivaled beauty and grace, the villa (which, by the way, was never really inhabited by its original owners) is the home of Les Azuriales Opera Festival, which takes place for two weeks during the month of August. The festival presents three to four operas per season and also boasts the highly selective and ever more well-respected Linda Fenwick Young Artists Program and Young Singers Competition.

The festival's director, Sarah Holford, has been involved in the arts in some way for most of her life. She participated in productions as a young girl, and even seriously considered going to acting school. However, a (some would say wise) decision that she didn’t want to starve made her look for an “insurance policy” and so she went to law school instead. She married Mark, had two sons, and yet felt unfulfilled in her work. “I wasn’t the best,” she said, “so I didn’t want to do it.” Even then acknowledging the absurdity of those feelings, she nevertheless changed gears and attended business school where, during the course of her studies, she discovered that what she really wanted to do was work in the business of the arts. After learning that it was the organizational structure of companies that really fascinated her, it wasn’t long before she began to create and build those structures around a new concept. Any good business starts with a good idea, but to make that idea grow and flourish, she learned in business school, “you have to find the right market for it.”

Anyone who knows Sarah knows that her combination of intelligence, wit, dedication, and good connections (with more than a dash of perseverance) will tend to get good results. Having made countless trips to Glyndebourne and Garsington as a young adult, Sarah notes that she “saw a distinct gap in the market for a festival where you weren’t required to turn up in Wellington boots and evening dress and freeze to death!” While still in business school, she met her co-founder, Jacqueline Jones, a skilled and talented New Zealand soprano and the two women co-founded the festival in 1997 together with Marie-Laure Vigoureux and local resident, Dominique Lelandais, who currently serves as the Festival’s Vice-President.

Les Azuriales is unique in its ability to bridge the gap between those behind and those in front of the proverbial red velvet curtain (though in the Villa it’s more like an enormous marble pillar!) What is so especially wonderful about the space where the operas are performed is its warmth and intimacy. Whether performing or sitting in the audience (it seats a maximum of 200), you can see the faces of everyone else present. Rather than foster any semblance of awkwardness, however, it creates instead a sense of closeness and unity that is only made richer at the end of the evening when patron and performer are encouraged to sit down together, share a meal, and exchange conversation. The post-performance dinners, though originally introduced purely for purposes of convenience (it’s not easy to find restaurants that stay open until 11pm in St. Jean!), have now become a signature feature of the festival.

Patrons also return yearly to be among the first to see and hear opera’s newest talent. Approximately ten young singers (though there is no age limit) from around the globe gather for a week to make music together, take Masterclasses with world-renowned mezzo-soprano Sally Burgess, and hopefully win the First Prize or the prize for the Best Performance of the Evening in the Les Azuriales Opera Young Singers Competition. Launched in 2003, the competition was initially conceived as a festival for young artists, but it soon developed into more of a training program for singers to bridge the gap between being a student and a professional. “They need help during that period,” Sarah explains, “not just financial support, but in terms of contacts, someone to take a genuine interest in them, to get them on the radar and give them a slight advantage.” And what an advantage it can be! Two of their competitors have already gone on to become Young Artists at the Royal Opera House, while others have gone on to attend prestigious Young Artist Programs in the U.S. and the UK. Others have even taken the next step onto the professional stage.

Asked about the future of Les Azuriales, Sarah wholeheartedly declares she plans to keep the festival going, although she acknowledges that doing so without her at the helm would be difficult, since “you have to be able to handle the French, navigate the political waters, and keep the funding up, all at the same time” she explains.

If your find yourself in France in August, or if you are looking for a summer vacation destination with everything you could possibly want, especially including opera, do consider a trip to St. Jean Cap Ferrat to see Les Azuriales. We know you won’t be sorry you did!"