Seattle Opera Podcast

CARMEN is probably the most popular opera ever composed. Alas, this masterpiece was the final work of Georges Bizet, who died a few weeks after its dismal world premiere. Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean discusses Bizet's genius and career with Assistant Conductor Phil Kelsey, who also contributes musical examples at the piano. Dean and Kelsey consider THE PEARL FISHERS, LA JOLIE FILLE DE PERTH, DJAMILEH, Bizet's "Chanson d'Avril," and CARMEN, plus operas by Bizet's contemporaries, including LAKMÉ by Léo Délibes and SAMSON ET DALILAH by Camille Saint-Saëns. An extended quote from the Memoirs of Céleste Venard, aka La Mogador, is read by Ginger Costa-Jackson.

Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean introduces the mezzo and contralto voices. With their rich, creamy, dark sounds these lower-voiced ladies play opera's most luscious babes, as well as boys, old women, jealous wives, vengeful goddesses, and loving mothers. Featuring musical examples including Seattle Opera favorites Michelle DeYoung, Helene Schneidermann, Sarah Mattox, Rosemary Alvino, Daniela Sindram, Kate Lindsey, Graciela Araya, Laura Polvarelli, Luretta Bybee, Maria Zifchak, Sarah Larsen, Margaret Gawrysiak, Rosalind Plowright, Marvellee Cariaga, Joyce Castle, Stephanie Blythe, Elena Gabouri, Florence Quivar, Ewa Podles, Sheila Nadler, and Geraldine Decker.

While The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs was astonishing Seattleites at McCaw Hall, 72 young people involved with Seattle Opera's Youth Opera Project performed Odyssey, a new opera for young people, next door. High schoolers Emily Amesquita (Odysseus), Kaitlyn Ochs (the Siren), and Joshua Cummings (Poseidon) discuss both new operas, the one they were in and the one they attended. The passion these bright young people feel for opera suggests an exciting future for this art form.

Grammy-nominated composer Mason Bates is also a bona fide DJ. As DJ Masonic, he brings classical music and electronica together on the dance floor at clubs like San Francisco's Mezzanine. As a composer, he brings the sounds of electronica to classical music in places like the Kennedy Center (where he's composer-in-residence). And so it's fitting that Bates' first opera is about famed Apple tech guru, Steve Jobs. But even for someone as comfortable in multiple musical worlds as Mason Bates, can it really work to tell a decidedly 21st century story using a 400-year-old medium? Turns out, yes. In this special crossover podcast (with Dacia Clay of Classical Classroom), Bates explains why Jobs' story and opera go together like iPhones and jelly. Wait...

There's more to it than jeans and a black mock-turtleneck! Seattle Opera's Costume Director, Susan Davis, discusses how Seattle Opera's artists bring to life Paul Carey's costume designs for The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs with Jonathan Dean. Learn all about quick changes, seam allowance, concealing microphones in wigs, and how 'contemporary' operas can also be 'historical.'

Hear from librettist Mark Campbell, director Kevin Newbury, and star baritone John Moore as Seattle Opera's The (R)evolution of Steve Jobs heads into McCaw Hall for Tech Week. Campbell tells the story of how filling out an online email form led him to a serendipitous meeting with a student of the real Kōbun Chino Otogawa, and Newbury and Moore discuss their work on this exciting opera so far.

Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean introduces the baritone voice, a sound which celebrates the beauty and power of masculinity. In opera, baritones play clowns and kings, urban sophisticates and unlettered innocents; good, bad, and every shade of grey. They win our hearts, melt our hearts, and break our hearts. Featuring musical examples with sweet lyric baritones, proud heroic baritones, snarly dramatic baritones, and many other varieties, including Seattle Opera favorites John Moore, Dale Duesing, Alfonso Antoniozzi, Mariusz Kwiecien, Gordon Hawkins, Richard Stilwell, Will Liverman, David Adam Moore, Vladimir Chernov, Morgan Smith, Christopher Maltman, Julian Patrick, Malcolm Rivers, Andrew Garland, Richard Paul Fink, and Brett Polegato.

Verdi's Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and La traviata transformed the art form of opera and have been ultra-popular for over 150 years. Seattle Opera's Maestro Carlo Montanaro, Assistant Conductor Philip A. Kelsey, General Director Aidan Lang, and Music Librarian Emily Cabaniss discuss with Jonathan Dean Verdi the great composer, great Italian, and great human. Plus, Montanaro shares his perspective from the podium on the magic that makes for a great night of opera.

Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean introduces several different types of tenor, from the agile-voiced, graceful and elegant tenori di grazia, to the heroic and powerful tenori di forza, and all points in between. Includes musical examples featuring many favorite Seattle Opera tenors: Antonello Palombi, Edgardo Rocha, Laurence Brownlee, William Burden, Matthew Polenzani, Ben Heppner, James McCracken, Stefan Vinke, Francesco Demuro, Joseph Calleja, Alasdair Elliott, Peter Kazaras, Marcello Giordani, Neil Shicoff, Russell Thomas, Franco Corelli, and Vinson Cole.

"Men die and governments change, but the songs of La bohème will live forever," wrote Thomas Alva Edison to Giacomo Puccini. Seattle Opera Dramaturg Jonathan Dean introduces La bohème, with musical examples from Seattle Opera's archival recordings of La bohème: from 2007, with Rosario La Spina (Rodolfo) and Nuccia Focile (Mimì), conducted by Vjekoslav Sutej; and from 2013, with Andrew Garland (Schaunard), Arthur Woodley (Colline), Michael Fabiano (Rodolfo), Keith Phares (Marcello), and Jennifer Black (Mimì), conducted by Carlo Montanaro.