I flipped on the radio last week just in time to hear a performance of the “Catalog Aria” from Don Giovanni. You know it – it’s a very popular aria, beloved of young baritones, in which Leporello counts up all the women who his boss, the Don, has seduced during his...

For the last few months I’ve been reading Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession, an absolutely terrific book that Ian Bostridge has written about Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle.  Bostridge, as you know, is a British tenor who has delivered...

I hope you will help me answer the question that is the title of this post. I’m looking for answers, not providing them.Nearly 30 years ago, I conducted a survey for The New York Opera Newsletter when I was the editor of that paper for professional singers. The...

Joyce DiDonato by Pari Dukovic. Used with permissionWhat can you say about the publicity photo that photographer Pari Dukovic took of Joyce DiDonato? You can say it is iconoclastic, fascinating, engaging, glamorous, and funny.  But there is a lot more to it...

So much has been written about the titanic tenor Jon Vickers since he died a few weeks ago. What can I possibly add to everything that has been said about him?I’m not sure that I can add any new insights about this monumental artist, except to offer some personal...

“ If you wish to see truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. The struggle of what you like and what you dislike is the disease of the mind.” - Hsin Shin Ming, “The Great Way”A few days ago I sat down to write a post about Richard Wagner. I planned to...