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While preparing this aria for a concert next month, I was reflecting on the idea of freedom. We all, in some way or another, long for freedom—from a person, situation, or even our own thoughts. In “Stridono lassù,” Nedda is desperate to escape her oppressive situation...
As a young American soprano studying opera in the early 2000s, Renée Fleming was my hero. Who am I kidding, she still is. She has the most beautiful tone quality, consummate technique, and an air of ease that makes the whole thing seem effortless. Of course now, as a...
I sang very briefly with a jazz quartet in college, and while I love jazz and enjoy the challenge of improvisation, I’ve always been terrified of scat. When our group decided to jam on “All of Me,” I relied my opera singer skill of memorization to recall the amazing...
“Le spectre de la rose” from Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights) is both delicate and grand, one of those songs that really sticks with you. The ghost of a rose, plucked and worn by a woman at a ball, appears at her bedside. The rose fills her room with its...
Steve brought “Soneto a Córdoba” to me as a possibility for our Lorca program (since de Falla was one of Lorca’s mentors), and despite never having been, I was instantly transported to southern Spain. This song is an ode to Córdoba, a town in Andalusia where the poet...