San Diego Opera Podcast

Tenor Allan Glassman sings all the big lyric Italian roles, roles like Otello and Canio. He comes to San Diego to sing a role often given to 'character' tenors, that of King Herod in Strauss's Salome. What a difference a voice makes! In a role that is often more 'spoken' than sung, Glassman makes a very good point of actually singing the role and stressing its lyrical potential. Enjoy this interivew with Geisel Director of Education and Outreach, Nicolas Reveles.

Bass-baritone Greer Grimsley usually comes to town toting the role of a villain: Pizarro in Fidelio, Telramund in Lohengrin, Scarpia in Tosca, and last season, Mephistopheles in Faust. He returns this season as the one 'good guy', the shining light in Salome, Jochanaan (John the Baptist). In this interview with Nicolas Reveles, our Director of Education and Outreach, he talks about the role, the opera and his career. Enjoy!

Today we welcome back one of our favorite sopranos, Lise Lindstrom, who had such a great success last season as Turandot. In this interview with Nicolas Reveles, the Geisel Director of Education and Outreach, she talks about her career, her recent debut at La Scala as the "ice princess" in Puccini's opera, and about the role of Salome. Enjoy!

Continuing with our series on the historical/cultural contexts for our 2012 operas, Nicolas Reveles talks about Donizetti's brilliant comedy Don Pasquale, giving you an idea how old Italian theatrical traditions informed the plot and its characters, as well as how lots of current Hollywood and television properties still revere those old traditions. Enjoy!

Continuing with our series (placing our 4 operas in historical and cultural context), here is a look at The Barber of Seville and its roots in the Italian commedia dell'arte tradition. Now that sounds pretty esoteric, right? But no, it has a lot to do with the plot and characters in the Rossini opera and, when you come to think about it, has a lot to do with what passes as nightly entertainment on our multitudinous television networks! (Think situation comedies!) Nicolas Reveles explains it all to you! Enjoy.

Our series continues, putting the four opera productions of 2012 into a historical and cultural context. For the Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer opera Moby-Dick, the context is obvious: 19th century whaling and its influence on the writing of Herman Melville's epic novel which was first published in 1851. Let Nicolas Reveles, the Geisel Director of Education and Outreach, explain it all to you!

Beginning this week, we'll put all four of our opera productions for 2012 in context of both the eras in which they were originally produced as well as in context of the time and place of their stories. Salome, for instance, is set in first-century Galilee, but the opera has much more to say about the time during which it was written, at the turn of the 20th century. Nicolas Reveles, the Geisel Director of Education and Outreach for San Diego Opera, explains it all to you!

Dr. Nick explains it all to you: like most German operas written after the extraordinary career of Richard Wagner, Strauss used a leitmotiv system to unify his opera Salome. It's easy to follow and can be quite fun once you get your ears tuned to them. Watch listen and enjoy!

Think about it...different operas demand different beginnings. Composers from Handel to Heggie have come up with myriad ways to open their operas...with overtures, preludes or, quite frankly, almost nothing at all! San Diego Opera's 2012 Season offers an object lesson on this subject and shows that the variety of solutions is always fascinating. Watch and listen to Nicolas Reveles, the Education and Outreach Director of San Diego Opera, talk about these "opening statements".

Why go to the opera? Especially in this time of economic hardship, we want our entertainmet dollars to go a long way and opera is no exception: we who are passionate about it have no problem spending money on it. But we don't want to (nor are all of us capable) spend an arm and a leg on it. Watch Nicolas Reveles, the Geisel Director of Education and Outreach grapple with this issue and suggest ways to make it less expensive for true opera lovers!