Classically (Un)Trained

The first season of Classically (Un) Trained will run from October to December 2024.

Music: Silvia Berrone

Cover art: Kateřina Krejcarová

For more information visit: https://classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com/

FORGOT TO SAY THAT EPISODES OF THE PREVIOUS PODCAST WILL BE AVAILABLE HERE: https://classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com/former-podcast-archive/

In what I hope is the last update before I launch the first season of the new podcast, in this episode I will:

1) Tell you about audience survey results (including reading out some responses about performing artists' frustrations and responding to a repeating theme which surprised me)

2) Describe the podcast to come (including some titles of episodes I'm writing)

3) Tie up some loose ends from the last podcast!

Currently the best way to stay up-to-date is the newsletter, which you can sing up for HERE.

New Website (under construction): classicallyuntrainedpodcast.com

Here is a full written presentation of the new podcast:

Classically (Un)Trained - Performing Artists (Re)Inventing Themselves in Times of Hardship and Technological Change 

Classically (Un)Trained is a companion for classically-trained performers who are on a journey to (re)invent themselves for the 21st century and (re)discover meaning in what they’ve trained so hard to master.  

…

Performing arts degrees are likened to pyramid schemes, auditions are called cattle calls, and artists who make a living from performing are the 1%. 

About the host:

Ema Katrovas is a classically-trained singer. She spent her formative years singing in regional Czech theatres. After the pandemic, she pivoted to contemporary classical music and cultural journalism, attending the Aix-en-Provence festival’s cultural journalism workshop and completing a two year Artist Diploma residency at the High Conservatory in Lyon, where she created and performed in the one-woman vocal-theatre show Diva Lazarus*. She is currently working on a doctorate at the University of Strasbourg/HEAR with a thesis called* A Poor Opera: In Search of Vocal Theatre. www.emakatrovas.com

In this quick update, I'm going to pitch you on my idea so far for an as-yet-unnamed podcast! But mainly - I need YOUR help to name and focus it.

FILL OUT THE SURVEY HERE: https://forms.gle/12SG1TbPDe4khm7G7

Sign up for the Newsletter here.

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: https://artists-on-the-verge.com/

Host of Artists on the Verge, Ema Katrovas, shares her next-day impressions after a live show she created which was two years in the making - and, more importantly, how her experiences around the budget, the technical aspects of the show, the reactions of the public, and the show's prospects for the future may hint at a new focus for the podcast.

Here are links to the YouTube and Instagram accounts where you can find some of the shorts/reels about the show which Ema published in the month leading up to the show:

(During this episode, Ema mentions Jerzy Grotowski's Poor Theatre without much explanation - you can actually learn more about that in the shorts/reels linked above.)

Welcome to another conversation from the high/low art divide between opera-singer-turned-experimental-performer Ema Katrovas and comedian-and-TV-writer-turned-novelist Nicholas Anthony. 

I was going to put the film the Sudbury Devil (whose creator I interviewed on this podcast) to rest - but then I stumbled across Susan Sontag’s essay “Notes on Camp” and I realised “camp” kind of explains EVERYTHING about how Nick and I (i.e. a comedian and an opera singer) had very different reactions to this film - namely why Nick HATED it and I didn't.

So what does “camp” have to do with certain corners of YouTube, the piece of outsider cinema called the Sudbury Devil, and how might it explain why two people might have different reactions to a particular work of art?

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:00:02 Conversation about why Nick didn’t like the Sudbury Devil 

00:34:44 Interlude and disclaimer to the creators of the film (“the opposite of love isn’t hatred, it’s indifference”) 

00:35:66 Understanding Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp” 

00:53:58 Why camp MIGHT explain Nick’s dislike of the Sudbury Devil (disclaimer: this features Ema’s hot take on camp which she may revise) 

01:08:40 So what is camp? (and final thoughts on Sudbury Devil) 

01:12:59 Outro 

My interview with Andrew Rakich on the Sudbury Devil: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/artistsontheverge/episodes/52-A-Friendly-Debate-With-Andrew-Rakich-On-His-Epic-Micro-budget-Film---The-Sudbury-Devil-e2euolq

Links:

Welcome to another conversation from the high/low art divide between opera-singer-turned-experimental-performer Ema Katrovas and comedian-and-TV-writer-turned-novelist Nicholas Anthony. 

This episode is the first half of a two-part series recorded in New York - in this case, directly at the Metropolitan Opera.

We recorded this episode sitting in our seats in the Family Circle, during both intermissions and right after the end of a performance of Zefirelli’s classic production of Puccini’s La Boheme, one of the most popular, if not the most popular, operas of the last century and, even better, one that tells the story of aspiring artists.

The cast we heard on January 8th at the Metropolitan Opera: 

Conductor: Marco Armiliato 

Mimi: Elina Stikhina

Rodolfo: Stephen Costello

Musetta: Kristina Mkhitaryan

Marcello: Adam Plachetka 

Schaunard: Rodion Pogossov

Colline: Krzysztof Bączyk

Benoit/Alcindoro: Donald Maxwell

Met Opera Chorus 

Link to the recording I used as "illustration footage": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_1OtRt0_ho

Cast of the recording (though you don't get to hear most of them):

Mimì: Mirella Freni

Conductor: Daniel Oren

💋👁👂🏼 Artists on the Verge website: https://artists-on-the-verge.com/

👀 Instagram: @artists_on_the_verge

Video version here: https://youtu.be/v1pvdmWkQ90

A spirited chat with William Deresiewicz, author of /Death of the Artist: How Creatives Struggle to Survive In the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech/. This book argues that artists have a harder time making a middle class living today than in previous generations - but is this true? And how does it effect the art and entertainment made today?

Welcome to another conversation from the high/low art divide between opera-singer-turned-experimental-performer Ema Katrovas and comedian-and-TV-writer-turned-novelist Nicholas Anthony.

For this end-of-the-year episode, Nick and Ema decided to talk about The Beatles and their influence on a few pieces of “high art”: new journalist Joan Didion’s essay “The White Album” and avant garde singer Cathy Berberian’s covers of Beatles’ songs. They also briefly talk about American composer Ned Rorem’s essay “The Music of the Beatles”. Their starting point is a 2021 documentary by Peter Jackson, Get Back.

Nick and Ema circle around the question: Were the Beatles exceptional, lucky, or both? Does one need opportunity or even fame to create one’s best work? Is trying to tell a story about the Beatles, or any other iconic artist, that answers these questions even useful? 

Music excerpts from this episode: 

Things mentioned in the episode (in order of appearance):

 Links: