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"The Met Live in HD" Broadcasts in February Iowa Public Radio is offering discounted ticket vouchers for just $12 each! These discount vouchers are only availailable online and must be presented to the theater box office to be redeemed for a valid ticket (please allow enough time before the opera begins to complete the redemption process). Click here to order your discount vouchers. Des Moines Metro Opera and Iowa Public Radio have teamed up to host the Met's broadcasts in Iowa. We are trying to have a presence at each show at Movies 12 in Ames and at Jordan Creek Mall to share info about DMMO's live performances and IPR's classical music service. If you would like to be a volunteer host at one of the Met broadcasts, please contact McB McManus by email or at (515) 961-6221. Orfeo ed Euridice - Gluck
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 (7:00 pm CT)
Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes. Mark Morris' acclaimed production returns. This complete vision for Gluck, with choreography by Morris and costumes by Isaac Mizrahi, features the artistry of Stephanie Blythe in the male title role. The alluring Danielle de Niese is Orfeo's adored wife, Euridice, who inspires the hero to face the underworld for her sake. Music Director James Levine conducts. Conductor: James Levine; Production: Mark Morris; Stephanie Blythe, Danielle de Niese Lucia di Lammermoor - Donizetti
Saturday, February 7, 2009 (12:00 pm CT)
Wednesday, February 18, 2009 (7:00 pm CT)
Running time: 3 hours, 34 minutes. Anna Netrebko sings the title role of Donizetti's fragile heroine for the first time at the Met, with tenor Rolando Villazón in the part of her lover, Edgardo. Baritone Mariusz Kwiecien is her tyrannical brother. Mary Zimmerman's hit production is staged as a Victorian ghost story. Conductor: Marco Armiliato; Production: Mary Zimmerman; Anna Netrebko, Rolando Villazón, Mariusz Kwiecien, Ildar Abdrazakov
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Opera Appreciation Class Offered by Senior College of Greater Des Moines and DMMO There is no more exhilarating way to learn about opera than from people who are making it happen, and are passionate about the work they do! The Opera Appreciation course being offered jointly this summer by Senior College of Greater Des Moines and Des Moines Metro Opera will be led by performers and members of DMMO's staff. Registrations are being accepted now.
Each year, this popular class focuses on the productions for the current season, so there is always something fresh and interesting to carry away, whether you have been enjoying opera for years or are a complete newcomer. Last year, many students saw Verdi's A Masked Ball one evening, then heard two of the principal singers discuss the performance and their singing careers the next morning, exchanging both serious observations and amusing anecdotes.
This year's Opera Appreciation class will meet from 10 a.m. to noon on June 25, July 2 and July 16 at the Simpson College Learning Center in West Des Moines. The cost is $30, plus the optional purchase of tickets. Although Senior College classes are tailored for students age 50 and better, younger persons with an interest in opera are welcome. For more information, call (515) 244-0631 or visit www.myseniorcollege.com.
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Join us at the Downtown Marriott on February 20 for Two Exciting Wine & Food Showcase events! Come for the Maestro's Tasting, where you'll enjoy wines donated by private wine collectors and hors d'oeuvres created by the area's most acclaimed chefs in the elegant Iowa Ballroom. Tickets are $125 per person and include admission to The Grand Tasting. Or come for the Grand Tasting, where you'll have the opportunity to try tasty tidbits and sip lip-smacking samples from more than 50 food and drink purveyors including 801 Steak & Chop House, Bravo! Cucina Italiana, Café di Scala, Carefree Patisserie, Cyd's Catering, David's Milwaukee Diner, Dimitri Wine & Spirits, Edible Arrangements, El Patio & Becky Smith Catering, Frank's Pizza, Frisian Farms Cheese, Glazer's, The Grand Piano Bistro, , Great Iowa Gifts, Great Midwestern Catering, Godiva Chocolatier, Iowa Beverage Systems, Jasper Winery, John Ernest Vineyard & Winery, La Quercia, La Vida Loca Winery, Maytag Dairy Farms, Olde Main Brewing Co., Palmer's Deli and Market, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Rock Bottom Brewery, Rock River Grill, Shane's Rib Shack, Southern Hills Winery, Splash Seafood, Sweet Binney's, Tassel Ridge Winery, Vintage Wine & Spirits Co., and WineStyles of West Glen. Tickets are just $50 per person for an evening of unlimited tasting! Or get a group of 8 or more friends together for just $35 per person. Doors open at 5:30 for both events. Tickets will be available for purchase the night of the Showcase‹or you can order in advance through our website (www.desmoinesmetroopera.org) and our Box Office (515-961-6221).
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Win a Week of Luxury in New York City! You could be living like a Rockefeller and enjoying autumn in New York! In a special fundraising drive, DMMO is raffling off chances to stay in a luxurious, two bedroom penthouse at the St. Regis Hotel in the heart of midtown Manhattan, just blocks from Central Park, Broadway and more. The Prize: A week's stay (October 26 through November 1, 2009) in the penthouse at the St. Regis New York, dinner and a show with Dr. Robert Larsen, and an invitation to attend Des Moines Metro Opera's New York auditions. The St. Regis penthouse is a large, two bedrom suite with an additional pull-out in the living room area and includes 24-hour butler service. (Transportation to and from New York not included. For tax purposes, the total prize value is $27,500.) The Dates: The raffle will run from February 18 until all 250 tickets are sold. The drawing will be held on June 20, 2009, at the Der Freischütz opening night gala. You need not be present to win. The Cost: Raffle tickets are just $100 each and are available by calling (515) 961-6221 or going to www.desmoinesmetroopera.org after February 18.
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Getting To Know You: John Michael Moore
by McB McManus John Michael Moore is a Simpson College graduate and an alumnus of DMMO's Apprentice Artist Program. He has been seen on our stage as Prince Yamadori in Madama Butterfly, Henry Cuffe in Gloriana and Papageno in The Magic Flute. The talented young baritone returns this summer to sing the role of Figaro in The Barber of Seville. You've been in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera for two seasons now. How exciting! Tell us about that program and what it has meant to your career?
The program is a bridge between graduate study and professional life. The purpose is to use the Met's vast resources both in personnel and finance to enhance the musicality and overall scope of an artist's palette. The young artists are provided with coaching five days a week with Met staff, tickets to most of the shows (along with special seating at each dress rehearsal), vocal lessons twice a week, opportunities for main stage roles, and funds to study overseas in each of our three years in the program. I believe the program will help to get me in the doors for auditions, but I don't think it will impact my career in a significant way unless I apply the lessons and techniques offered during my tenure in the program. We are able to audition for many companies that come specially to the Met to hear us. That is the biggest perk, but certainly no guarantee of outside engagement. The program is best at showing your true strengths and most importantly your weaknesses as an artist. It is a challenge to manage the professional and personal development.
Even people who aren't familiar with opera can hum along with "Largo al factotum." How are you preparing to sing the role of the most famous barber in the world?
I am preparing the Italian first. That is the biggest challenge as an American who hasn't mastered the foreign languages we're pressed to sing. Then I go on to learn the music. After the music is learned, I try to manipulate the language so that it suits my voice and so that I can properly portray the subtleties of the character. It is one thing to wow the crowd with "Largo al factotum" as your entrance aria and another to keep them engaged in that excitement for the rest of the opera. Figaro is a facilitator.
He may not be the funniest person on stage, but he allows much of the humor to happen. One must harmonize character, voice and fatigue in order to pull off any role, but especially Figaro. I think the entrance aria is a masterpiece and deserves the fame it has received. I think a great Figaro will sing the aria well, but give more to the little parts throughout the rest of the opera.
Your career is taking off very quickly! You were an apprentice here at DMMO after graduating from Simpson just three years ago and you've gone on to sing our Papageno, take part in The Met's Young Artist Program and perform at the the Welsh National Opera, among others. How do you keep it in perspective?
I'm an Iowan and that keeps me grounded. I'm fortunate to have many people who don't let me take myself, or my successes too seriously. I have learned that this is a very difficult profession. We have the responsibility as artists to pull people into a different world than the one they left when they entered the theater. And hopefully when they leave, they have enjoyed the experience! That responsibility is sobering and will humble any person who takes it seriously. I have not succeeded, I have only had success. Those are subjective realities and I just hope to be the best artist in service to the art form, the music, and the audience. We're all in it together!
If you weren't an opera singer, what would you want to do? Why?
Right now, I see myself as a politician. Maybe it's in the atmosphere, but we've been inundated with politics and government more now, than ever before. Politics appeals to the artist and humanitarian in me. Politics is a performing art first. You don't get into the job without a good audition. I have the skills to be a performer and a heart and mind geared towards justice. I think it would be a fitting alternative to opera if I were ever to move on. What is your dream role?
There is something about Billy Budd that I haven't quite come to grips with, but that inspires not only the artist in me, but the person. The opera is about tragedy, innocence, injustice, and is the most accurate description of the folly of man (the gender, not the species), that I have ever read. It paints a wonderful picture of the male and I think it has much potential in my professional life. Pelléas is also in that vein. Maybe the greatest role for my voice type ever written and also the hardest. It would be a great triumph to learn and inhabit Pelléas.
What is your favorite opera? Favorite composer?
My favorite opera is La Bohème. I don't want it to be, but it just is. My favorite composer is Franz Schubert. He tells the story of life in music better than any composer I have heard. His lieder are my greatest challenge and joy as a singer.
What is on your iPod right now (in addition to Opera)?
Dave Matthews Band takes up the bulk of my listening space. I have Il Barbiere on it for practical usage. I love to listen to Beethoven and Mozart concertos. I had the great honor to sing at the Marlboro Festival last year where Mitsuko Uchida and Richard Goode are the co-artistic directors. I fell in love with them as people and, of course, with their virtuosity on the piano, so much of my classical lit. is made up of their recordings. It varies, as most things do with electronic media. Always evolving.
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The Met's National Council Auditions
by Michael Egel The Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (MONCA) is a national program designed to discover promising young opera singers and assist in the development of their careers. The auditions are held annually in fifteen Regions of the United States and Canada. There are forty-five Districts within these Regions, each providing an opportunity for talented singers to enter the Auditions Program at the local level. The Auditions are administered by National Council members and volunteers in each region. I have been fortunate this year to have been asked to judge Met auditions in New Orleans, Cincinnati and Seattle during the last few months and I find it a tremendously rewarding experience. Each competition, whether District or Regional, is adjudicated by a three person panel of judges selected from a roster of Metropolitan Opera approved judges. These judges are invited by the local chairperson and they donate their time and expertise in the evaluation effort at each level. In addition to getting the opportunity to hear wonderful singers (many of whom are DMMO alums) I have been able to meet colleagues from other companies and hear potential singers for our own Apprentice Artist Program. The purpose of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions is to:
1. To discover exceptional young talent.
2. To provide a venue for young opera singers from all over the country and at all different levels of experience to be heard by a representative of the Metropolitan Opera and to assist those with the greatest potential in their development.
3. To search for new talent for the Metropolitan Opera and the Met's Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. Winners of the District auditions advance to their Regional audition where they compete to win a trip to New York to participate in the National Semi-Finals, a competition held on the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. Approximately ten of the Semi-Finalists will be selected as National Finalists, and will compete the following Sunday in a public concert, the Grand Finals Concert, accompanied by the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. The concert is broadcast nationwide on the Metropolitan Opera Radio Network. It is a particular joy for me when one of the singers that I helped to move forward in earlier stages of the competition is heard in the national finals. Such was the case for me in 2007 when I heard tenor Alek Shrader in Denver before he was selected to appear in the finals concert in New York. Many of the world's foremost singers, among them Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Thomas Hampson, Ben Heppner, Jessye Norman, Samuel Ramey, Frederica von Stade, Deborah Voigt and Dolora Zajick have received awards from the National Council. Several DMMO artists have had significant success in the Met Auditions, including John Osborn and John Michael Moore who will both be featured in this summer's production of The Barber of Seville. While not everyone who enters a District competition will advance to the winners' concert in New York or even to a Regional competition, one of the most important services the MONCA program provides to the opera industry comes in the form of the impressive monetary prizes offered to young singers to encourage their artistic development and to help defray the expenses associated with their training. In today's economic climate, funding for the arts, especially for the training of young opera singers, becomes ever more precious and the Met Auditions offer a wonderful service to the future of the art form. Iowa audiences will be able to hear this year's concert broadcast on Iowa Public Radio's Classical Service. Stay tuned to OPERAzzi for the broadcast date and time.
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