The Indie Opera Podcast

Indie Opera Podcast's regular suspects sit down for a engaging conversation with author, Vivien Schweitzer about her delightfully informative book, A Mad Love: an Introduction to Opera, her varied career as a journalist and critic and her return to live performance as an accompanist.

We listen to samples of the work of the 2019 Opera Discovery Grants for Female Composers

We are joined by the brilliant Nico Muhly, composer of "Marnie" based on the Alfred Hitchcock film which was performed at the English National Opera and at the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. We talk about his experience writing for singers and orchestras, and filming a scene in Venice on a Vaporetto for Mozart in the Jungle with Monica Bellucci.

Jeanine and Tazewell talk about their collaboration and the genesis BLUE, a story about police violence and it’s affect on one family, the opera takes its influence from current events as well as Tazewell’s own experiences as a black man in the world today.

We also hear about Jeanine's collaboration with David Henry Hwang on their “play with a musical” Soft Power that ran in Los Angeles and San Francisco last year, and Tazewell's new show Jubilee about the Fisk Jubilee Singers which will have its premiere at Arena Stage at the Mead Center for American Theater in Washington D.C.

Mezzo Siena Licht Miller and countertenor Tim Meade From Opera Philadelphia's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, by Benjamin Britten

Mark brings his humor, brilliance and insight to set's us straight on our website, dramaturgs, creating characters we can care about and building stories that matter. It was a real joy to have him on our show.

Chuck Sachs interviews Anna Christy who plays Titania in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream at Opera Philadelphia

Jillian Flexner, composer, basoonist and co-founder and Director of the Fresh Squeezed Opera Company and Huang Ruo, Composer, Pianist and Vocalist join us to talk about Huang Ruo’s “Bound” and we take a long look at the representation of women in Opera.

Melanie Milton, Festival Producer for The Protoype Festival joins Chuck Sachs to talk about how the Festival has changed now that it has it's own independent leadership.

Chuck Sachs interviews Singer and Writer Joseph Keckler who's Train With No Midnight, is running at HERE Dorothy B. Williams Theatre as part of the Prototype Festival 2019.