See ya Seattle!

Wow - it sure doesn't feel like six days since I last wrote. I have had the opportunity to meet some amazing people in the last couple days, both in Seattle and already here in LA after being here only about 12 hours!

I must say a very special thank you at this point to all the members of The Opera Insider. We've surpassed our goal of 500 before launch by quite a bit, and are still growing. Recently we added Colombia and Finland to our list of countries represented as well, which takes us to a whopping 28 countries. We are just a bit proud of that.

My last day in Seattle, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Eleanor Stallcop-Horrox, a spinto soprano living in Seattle. She's one of those people you meet and has you smiling for the entire time you're with her no matter what she's talking about. Here's a clip of her singing "Fruehling" from Strauss's "Four last songs" in Seattle on March 24th, 2010.

She hasn't had it easy over the years, but she's still singing her heart out, making her own opportunities, and has beautiful things to say about opera in general.

This morning in LA I met another fantastic woman in the opera world: stage director Stephanie Vlahos. She talked a lot about "concept operas," a topic that is of great interest to our readers, I know. "It cannot be done if not done organically," she said, which I thought was just exactly and precisely the right way to look at it. She is working hard to break through the traditional views that people have of opera and make it more relevant in a contemporary setting... but ONLY, she says, if the primary forces that drive the opera are ones that we can understand today. If the characters, the situations, the settings are applicable to concepts, conflicts, and situations we see on a day-to-day basis in our lives, then it will work to transport/transform these operas onto the modern-day stage.

She made an interesting observation as well about the predominance of males in the opera world, at least at the higher levels of management. I was happy to notice then, directly after I met with her, a focus session at the Opera America conference that is specifically for Women in Opera. Too bad you had to be invited specially... they never mentioned it as an option so I'll be very curious to hear what is discussed!!