Great God Gold

Yesterday, the news that there is a shortage of Rosco gold paint. Go figure. Just in time for the painting of our Volpone set, which is a not-so-subtle metaphor for uh... gold.


And today, these photos from the shop - the building of the rake (the stage floor that's angled toward the audience) and construction of the Volpone walls (which contain a very large number of windows that open a la Hee-Haw... or was it Laugh-In?)

Notes from the Continent

This, via Nick's blog. A former Wolf-Trapper, Nick is reporting on his career.

"Yesterday I did a short interview with a young woman who is filming a student documentary on American opera singers in Europe. One of the questions she asked me was: what have I learned from my work? I told her that among the many things that I have discovered, I have learned that the world is not black and white, but contains mostly various shades of grey, and that I feel good about myself when I maintain my integrity and honesty."

We should all discover such things in our work.


The Music of the Future

As we rehearse our 3-year-old opera, I was enchanted to find this in my InBox (from Composers Datebook) - a reminder that all music was once "new."

"The work on first hearing is generally unintelligible and not enjoyable . . . Musical people as a rule have not yet got 'educated' by the music of the future up to the point where they may enjoy passages bereft of all tonality, by meanderings through doors of modulation, around corners of accidentals, and through mazes of chromatics that lead nowhere unless it be to the realm of giddiness." (The work in question: Brahms' Serenade #1 at its first U.S. performance in 1882.)