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Wagner's "Orphans"

May 20, 2013  •  Wall Street Journal

Wednesday is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Richard Wagner. Festivities have been in full swing for some time, with no end in sight. Jonas Kaufmann starred in the Metropolitan Opera's new "Parsifal" in February. The Bayreuth Festival has a new "Ring des Nibelungen"lined up for July. In April, Nicholas Spice, publisher of the London Review of Books, posed the question "Is Wagner bad for us?," answering no in 7,500 brilliant words. (May I mention my pre-emptive "Random Walk Through the Ring," posted at the rate of a tweet a day throughout 2012 @ring366?) Birthday candles blazing this week should rival the finale of "Götterdämmerung."

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A Big Man Still Dreams of the Big Times
From Tonga via the NFL, Ta'u Pupu'a moves into opera

May 17, 2013  •  The New York Times

Honolulu — "The Blind Side" meets "The Great Caruso."

In the spring of 2007, Kiri Te Kanawa, the Maori-descended diva from New Zealand, had been churning out autographs in the Met Opera Shop at Lincoln Center for more than an hour when a slip of paper was placed before her bearing a name she recognized as Polynesian. She looked up and beheld Ta'u Pupu'a (TAH-ooh Pu-PU-ah), a towering 6-foot-5, from the microscopic island kingdom of Tonga, and briefly a defensive end in the N.F.L. until a broken arch put him out of the game. Remembering his successes as a soloist in the high school choir, he was now pursuing a career in opera.

"Do you live here?" Ms. Te Kanawa began.

"Yes," Mr. Pupu'a replied.

"What do you do?

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His Ukulele Is On Fire
Cultural Conversation with Jake Shimabukuro

May 10, 2013  •  Wall Street Journal

Maui, Hawaii.

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The Solti Legacy

May 2013  •  Opera News

Late in life, Georg Solti (1912–97) harbored no illusions about his brand. "Always people want to characterize me as fiery, temperamental," he told me in Salzburg in the summer of 1992. "Now they say I have a lighter touch. I'm an all-around musician. I've played the piano, done opera, the symphonic literature, everything! Only a doctor should be a specialist, only a surgeon! Not even an internist. But always people try to put a stamp on me. I defend myself, but it always happens."

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review of On DVD - Daniel Catán's Il Postino

April 2013  •  Opera News

What is the sound of two hands clapping? Bad news, as Plácido Domingo must have known the moment he finished his first big sing in Il Postino. Adapted from Michael Radford's international hit film of 1994, the late Daniel Catán's fifth and final work for the stage has charms but minimal impact. The musical idiom is second-generation Puccini, seldom memorable. On the PBS broadcast from the premiere run at Los Angeles Opera, filmed in October 2011 and now released on home video, a single magnanimous patron breaks the silence after that aria with tentative applause, but no one follows suit. It's painful.

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Books by Matthew Gurewitsch