I’m going to present some data about the US economy. I’m going to let them speak for themselves, as much as possible. This is because almost everybody believes what they believe because they believe it, rather than as the result of sober analysis. So I’ll present the data along with a few questions about them….
The popular press has picked up on a story about cosmic rays and cardiovascular disease in astronauts who landed on the moon. The Voice of America has a particularly breathless account of a study, Apollo Lunar Astronauts Show Higher Cardiovascular Disease Mortality: Possible Deep Space Radiation Effects on the Vascular Endothelium, published in the online…
Korean tenor Keon Woo Kim shared the first place award at Operalia’s 2016 competition. Founded by Placido Domingo in 1993 to launch the careers of outstanding young singer, the event is still under the guidance of Domingo. The other first place award went to French soprano Elsa Dreisig. Born in 1985, Kim is a graduate of the…
The Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival opened its 2016 on Sunday July 17 with three works. First was the semi-obligatory nod to a living composer, in this instance the festival’s music director – Mark Neikrug. He played the piano accompanying clarinetist Todd Levy his Kaleidoscope for Clarinet & Piano. Neikrug wrote Kaleidoscope in 1980. Levy is the…
The Santa Fe Opera presented its first ever performance of Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette last night in a new production directed by Stephen Lawless. And it was a knockout, a home run, a hole in one. This opera depends almost entirely on its two title characters and they delivered. A sensitive conductor is also essential….
Puccini never wrote anything like the first act of La Fanciulla Del West. Its melodic weave which moves from orchestra to voice and back again owes a lot to Debussy, though its author is clearly Puccini. To an audience familiar with his previous four operas, this type of operatic writing was off putting and confusing which…
Antonio Paoli (1871-1946) was a Puerto Rican tenor; he was the first opera singer from the island to achieve international renown. The son of a Venezuelan mother and Corsican father, orphaned at 12, he moved to Spain with his sister where he began vocal studies. He continued these studies in Italy and made his formal…
Leonard Warren (1911-60) was the greatest baritone I ever heard. In the major Verdi parts no one else was close. He had everything. A voice of immense size, incomparable high notes, and a velvet control over his great instrument. He made his career at the Met, appearing at that great house 657 times between 1938 and…