Summer has suddenly become much more exciting now that just about all plans for the upcoming opera season have at last been revealed. Unfortunately, more than a few opera freaks will enter with heavy steps. Not the least of the sad news we've been forced to swallow: James Levine ended his tenure as the Metropolitan Opera's Music Director with a concert featuring dramatic soprano Christine Goerke, whose international career he, himself, started in 1994 when he brought her to the Met's young artist development program. The performance, one of Levine's many triumphs, centered entirely around the towering music of Richard Wagner, has been released on CD. While many of us will add it to our collections so as to relive a spectacular night in operatic history, it'll be with weighty hearts that we'll replay the final number half a dozen times on the day of purchase.

Some Stuff for Buffs: Awards and New Releases

The 2016 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording has gone to Kennedy Center Honors honoree Seiji Ozawa for his 2013 recording of Maurice Ravel's one-act "lyric fantasy," The Child and the Spells, which was released internationally in August, 2015. I'm saying, "No surprise." After granting Ozawa eight nominations, it's about time the Academy handed the gold horn over to the eighty-year-old maestro. Otherwise, 2016 has thus far been a very Wagnerian year in the audio recording category, except for a CD set of Mozart's Don Giovanni. An in-house recording of Lohengrin, starring Anna Netrebko and Piotr Beczala, and two live broadcasts, one of Der Meistersinger von Nurnberg starring Jonas Kaufmann and Wolfgang Koch, and one of Tannhauser, were released last month along with the scenes from Der Ring des Nibelungen conducted by Levine. The DVD category, on the other hand, is a bit (just a bit) more varied in its selection, offering such musical treats as a recital by Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Zubin Mehta's 80th Birthday Concert, and a cluster of complete Verdi operas performed by, among others, Olga Peretyatko (Rigoletto) and Jose Curo (Otello).

The Big Opus Openings: World Premieres and the 2016 Bayreuth Ring

Pain is a part of opera's sound world, and, indeed, nothing better conveys the emotions that pain triggers nor stands as a more intricate monument dedicated to those suffering loss than a musico-dramatic opus. The Cincinnati Opera premiered composer Gregory Spears's new opera, Fellow Travellers, yesterday, performing every scene with the victims of the Orlando massacre and their loved ones in mind. The creative team behind the project have stated that this telling of the story surrounding, as novelist Thomas Mallon, author of the book on which the opera is based, says, "two government workers caught up in the homosexual purges of the early Cold War," is intended to remind audiences of the importance of at this moment remembering "members of the LGBTQ community... whose livelihoods and lives were lost due to hatred, violence, and discrimination." Performances are set to run through July 10 at the Aronoff Center.

As you may or may not have been informed, the 2016/2017 opera season marks a great first in operatic history: the international broadcast of a complete Ring of the Nibelung production mounted at the legendary Bayreuth Festival Theatre. Opera-loving patrons in the UK and Ireland will be able to, per the efforts of Sky Arts, view the complete music drama cycle over the weekend of July 30 and 31 from their living room couches. Lucky them. Lucky, lucky, LUCKY them... Once again, I'm forced to live out an event vicariously through a few of my social media friends. I hope they'll be generous with the details. Other exciting Bayreuth news includes eight premieres of new productions, one of Shostakovich's ​Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, ​one of Donizetti's ​La Favorite, ​one of Handel's ​Semiramide, ​one of Giordano's ​Andrea Chenier, ​one of Schreker's ​Die Gezeichneten, ​one of Weber's ​Oberon, and one of Menotti's ​The Consul. ​Star singers, directors, conductors, and designers to feature include tenor Jonas Kaufmann, mezzo soprano Elina Garanca, conductor Michele Mariotti, and director/puppeteer Nikolaus Habjan.

On Stars: The New and the Favorite

Placido Domingo's world-renowned opera competition, Operalia, begins July 19. The start of the competition will, for the thirteenth year, be among the most exciting moments in the opera world, as it will signal the emergence of forty fine and fresh talents on the professional scene. This most prestigious and thrilling event will be held at the Teatro Degollada in Guadalajara, Mexico.

As for some of those established in the art with which we opera freaks are hopelessly in love: The ever-growing reputation of coloratura soprano Jessica Pratt is about to receive yet another few hundred golden words (I'm confident, anyway...) as she prepares to for the first time take on the title role of a work that was among those that won Donizetti the adoration of European audiences in his lifetime, Linda di Chamoumix. Renee Fleming's concert calendar is all over the continent. Anxiously awaited performances in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and halls across the U.S. are scheduled. Juan Diego Florez is presently on tour in Europe, bringing down some of the top houses in the world, and will appear in a November performance series of the landmark Meyerbeer masterpiece, Les Huguenots.

I hope this article and, indeed, the 2016/2017 opera season, find you in high spirits, my fellow opera crazies! Check in next week for a feature on some strange and interesting themes on which operas have been composed. Updates on the goings on of the season will be posted weekly along with all other features.  Until next time, happy operatic insanity!

"I felt that a really great work of music was a stronger and more essential contradiction of the spirit of Buchenwald and Auschwitz than words could be."- Wilhelm Furtwangler

Call them what you will, be you an optimist or a pessimist, but hard times are hard times. Say what comes to mind, but there's no more straightforward a way to put it, nor can a more eloquent sentiment better explain. Certainly we know hardship now, and that most intimately. All over the Internet is recycled in meme or Tweet form the fact that life is a cycle of miserable actions with miserable consequences, and with so many downs it can seem just about impossible for a survivor of the days to stay up. Happiness is the ultimate ideal for many, but it's just another emotion that pulsates in brief moments of our lives, dilating and shrinking as gratification comes and goes.

Some say this is why music was written in the first place, to show each of its listeners the tunnel to escape from suffering, societal complexities, and even time itself. Perhaps Debussy's "Clair de Lune" can escort any one of us to a place where silver light always shines and the hours halt, yet what is the purpose of such violence as we find and enjoy in Beethoven's "Appassionata" sonata? Why do Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto and Gorecki's "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" resonate with as many classical first-timers as Debussy's most popular piano piece, and speaking of the "Light of the Moon," what do the escapist sounds actually mean for those of us who can appreciate them, whether we know or not?

​Almost entirely reduced to powder and water upon my first listening of Rachmaninov's great "Adagio Sostenuto-Piu Animatos," the second movement of his Piano Concerto No. 2, more specifically the arpeggios of the cadenza near the end, I was pushed a little closer to an understanding of something I'd struggled for some time to find as I battled depression, the vile emotional shadow-creature all too familiar to many. What I heard bloom in the notes didn't come to my ear accidentally. The composer sandwiched the sublime slow piece between two pounding sound creations that spin in their own sorrowful kinds of dances, immersing a listener in overwhelming, albeit delicious, gloom. Having tumbled down the figurative manhole, himself, Rachmaninov had found a helping hand before starting work on this, his first widely acknowledged masterpiece, in physician Nikolai Dahl, whose treatment plan included hypnosis. What Dahl helped Rachmaninov to recover was not joy. Certainly there would be no "Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini" or "Variations on a Theme of Corelli" if such an evanescent thing was all he'd gotten out of therapy. Should his creative energy have been sourced in enthusiasm, it would've run out about a decade later, when he was forced from his home country and the way of life with which he'd grown comfortable to the United States, where he'd encounter the same problem he faced upon completing his First Symphony, one of several sources of his former depression: a spectrum of audience reactions to his music that ranged from negative to indifferent. However, he completed the "Rhapsody" and the "Corelli" pieces nonetheless, thus giving his listeners a glimpse into what the "Adagio Sostenuto" builds up to before the final movement of the Second Concerto strikes the ear, the best that he could write in thanks to Dahl for providing him with what he needed most to continue on working, to continue on living: hope.

Hope in what? Henryk Gorecki gave clues to the answer in the second and third movements of his Third Symphony, "The Symphony of Sorrowful Songs." On the twenty-sixth of September, 1944, Helena Wanda Blazusiakowna, about whom little more than her age and name is known today, was locked in the basement of the Zadopane headquarters of the Gestapo, in cell number 3. In the second movement of the symphony, Gorecki captures the mood of a prayer Helena etched into one of the walls, which translates, roughly, "No, mother. Do not weep. Chaste Queen of Heaven, you support me always. Hail Mary." The height of the Third Reich's power was a time of world despair, despair that Helena didn't share even as she physically deteriorated in an atrium of the Second World War. Where did she place the hope she found? In a possibility. She had accepted the fact that the chances were quite against her survival, and we certainly don't know if she lived to be released when the Gestapo was dissolved a year later, but wouldn't Heaven take her in and cradle her mother with assurances both of her peace and absolution in death? This was her thought, and whatever became of her, it carried her through. The same can be said about the Mother of the final movement, who laments over her son's death and the fact that she is unable to find him to bury him, but finds light in faith as she prays that he come to know peace among "God's little songbirds."

The possibility in which one places hope can mean the difference between productivity and idleness, a sense of purpose or a sense of worthlessness, inner turmoil and solace, sometimes even life and death. For Rachmaninov, the possibility was success and expansion as an artist and an emotional being. Beethoven's hope was in the possibility of finding purpose, understanding, and love, on which he didn't give up completely after several unsuccessful romantic, familial, and friendly relationships. In the end, it was God and what friends remained loyal to him who he accepted as the unconditional representatives of all these very ideas. Such works as the "Appassionata" sonata illustrate his search for total acceptance of his deafness and what it represented for him, the deterioration of his physical life and his uniqueness among his peers, acceptance which led to the composition of the great and, considering his circumstances, seemingly ironic "Ode to Joy." For Wilhelm Furtwangler, the legendary conductor quoted above, the purpose was the preservation of the Germany he knew before Hitler, a Germany he believed could be saved with music. Whether one considers any of the possibilities in which these invested themselves and worked to realize miniscule, even naive, the survival of their hope is undeniable.

All of this raises the question: Which possibilities deserve the most attention? Attempting to answer it concretely would be, perhaps, somewhat arrogant. However, that which each of us can do in the name of human decency, connection, or awareness is nothing short of vital. For some, this can mean writing a book, composing a symphony, making a movie, starting a blog, or asking a barista how her weekend was with a willingness to hear the real answer and respond appropriately. Others choose to post Mahatma Gandhi quotes to their Facebook walls over memes insulting ghost followers. To quote Aesop: "No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted." This includes such an escapist contribution to the arts as "Clair de Lune."

The strongest of hopes wear their power brightly, but even those that begin as dim rays in the dark can grow. Be it God, the completion of your inner self, the discovery of your individual purpose, the creation of something beautiful, the change of another's perspective on life for the better, or something else, find your possibility. There are few weapons with which we as humans are provided to combat the difficulties of this world, but the drive to do something, however small, to improve the quality of the lives around us in some way, is our greatest. Stay hopeful, my amazing friends.

When opera freaks ask any music lovers who've tried opera but not explored the art beyond their first arias, scenes, or ensembles why they've moved on, usually the answer is the same: "'getting into it' was hard." Some classical enthusiasts would say the words are encrypted with a very big problem, but I'm one of a few who believe that there's not really an issue, just a need for a reminder: One's continued association with any genre doesn't depend on the piece or song in said genre that one hears initially. After dozens of conversations with friends and family on the subject, some analysis of my own experience, and a little research, I've come to understand that first impressions actually mean only "so much" in music. Based on the knowledge of one's preferences in the areas of rhythm, intensity, emotion, and accessibility, one can land a favorite song, etc., sourced from any theory and written in any style, if willing to experiment a bit.

Start with Your Ideal Date

As all my readers know, I wasn't always a classics man. The sounds of Laura Branigan, The Backstreet Boys, *NSYNC, and UB40 wooed me in my childhood and preteen years. My affair with the New Age stylings of Enya began during my early teens. Anyway, I got around, eventually figuring out exactly what I liked and how I liked it. I became partial to an experience which featured catchy rhythm, ear-consuming atmosphere, a little smooth romance, and some action on the darker chords. When I finally began shopping classical, I therefore looked for consumer reviews that contained words like "rich," "toe-tapping," "expressive," "romantic," and "memorable," whatever be the titles in question. If you're new to opera, this is an excellent first step.

Find Your Chill Zone

Inevitably, I carved out a cozy place where all of my personal tastes were constantly indulged, and I figured out exactly how to fit opera in once I'd heard the pure vocals of Joan Sutherland, Montserrat Caballe, and Gundula Janowitz, not to mention Vivaldi's, Mozart's, Gluck's, and Donizetti's ever-skipping, if sometimes just a touch (the right touch) gritty, tunes. For you heavy metal lovers, something like Prokofiev's ​The Fiery Angel or Shostakovich's ​Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk(Vishnevskaya's and hubby's, Rostropovich's, electric storm of a recording having my highest recommendation) might be more preferable lounge-chair or ice bath listening. Whatever may comprise it, a zone is a must-have.

Take Your First Burn

Once you've covered the first two steps, it's time to take a chance. Dive into strange waters, run through a bushfire, battle a Betta. Maybe for you this means closing your eyes tightly and taking in the first few bars of Wagner's ​Der Ring des Nibelungen or biting down on your wrist as you absorb the first Act of Berg's​ Lulu. Maybe you're finally prepared to start rubbing your leg with a sheet of sandpaper and try that flowery Mozart aria you've been avoiding. Whatever the case, venture out. You might surprise yourself with what you end up enjoying. Once upon a time, my favorite opera was Mozart's ​The Magic Flute. Now, I can't imagine Mussorgsky's ​Boris Godunov in second place on my "Top Ten Rockin' Awesome Blood Landscapes" list.

I maintain that there's something for everyone in the world of opera, but no music lover can begin his or her search across its vast fields and mountains for that which is ideal without a sense of adventure and some cat-killing curiosity. To all you opera newbies out there, I hope this article has been of some help to that end. Until next time, happy hunting!

​Image: Maria Artigas- Els setze jutges (1996)

One of the questions I've been asked by friends and family regarding opera is, "How do you go about listening to it?" This question comes of the idea that opera can only be enjoyed by people who have some unique insight on the form. In a way, I think the illusion of inaccessibility that screens the art is the fault of fans like myself who, more frequently than not, find themselves in conversational traps comprised of technical terms and dogmatism. We just don't always know when to stop yammering and get to the psychologically broad but very concisely-worded heart of the 'why' that relates to our love for the music. If you're new to opera and you don't know (fat chance), it's very simple: Opera is a grand web of sounds  that have to be sung, played, and heard by the emotions. Understanding of the music comes of one's ability to generate images, produce memories, and to catch frequencies that generate strong feelings.

The Stories Can Help

A lot of first-timers are told that the stories are the places to look for the "how to feel" and "what to think" as one listens through an opera. When it comes to Baroque (Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Handel), Classical (Mozart, Salieri), Bel Canto (Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti), and early Romantic (Meyerbeer, Von Weber) opera, this sometimes rings true, if only to an extent. The sounds of darker emotions in many works of these periods are much subtler than those in works from the mid to late Romantic Era (Verdi, Wagner, Puccini) and beyond. It's a good idea to know the story of Mozart's The Magic Flute, for example, if you don't want to be thrown off the scent of the rage contained in the leaps and deceptively bright colors of "Der Holle Rache," the second aria sung by The Queen of the Night. I, myself, thought it was some kind of happy dance until I sat down to watch Diana Damrau's rendition on Blue Ray with English subtitles. She didn't seem too thrilled as she shoved a knife into Dorothea Roschmann's hand, screaming "Kill the son-of-an-alchemist who's threatened to expose me for the creature from the black abyss of bad motherhood that I am... or be disowned!"

Settling into the Atmosphere

Opera isn't exactly the kind of music that makes you want to get up and dance, not unless you're a ballet soloist and your opera of choice is Massenet's Thais (although I sometimes get up and spin around during the first Act of I Capuleti e i Montecchi... It's not weird, okay?). Opera was designed by a few guys during the Renaissance to generate a tradition of emotional stimulation by music that would evolve over time into my most powerful addiction. When a guy, a girl, or a ten-year-old sits in a seat at the War Memorial Opera House or presses 'Play' on a number from Don Carlo, he, she, or the little Oliver Twist had better be ready for psycho-emo salsa. The beautiful is meant to affect us in a deeper sense than the fun. Then again, if you do it right, listening to the greatest stuff ever composed can be more than fun... It can be absolutely electrifying.

In Conclusione

Which brings me to my final point. While there's nothing like live music, as everybody knows, we all have ear buds and MP3 players for a reason. Music is an art form molded by sound. I know; like, duh, right? Even a lot of opera fans seem to forget this, though. One doesn't need to see sets and costumes in order to enjoy an awesome opera. All it takes is a spark, really. A chord or even a single note can trigger a memory or inspire an image that generates emotional sensations. These sensations are what a listener has to hold onto as he or she continues through an aria, a scene, or, even, an entire opera. Without them, there's no such thing as a fulfilling operatic experience. Give in. If you need to cry, you'll cry. If you need to laugh........ just hope you've gotten your hands on a few performance tickets or a few bucks for a recording of Verdi's Falstaff or Rossini's Il Barbiere di Siviglia. Whatever you need to 'let out,' you'll find something to assist with the release. Sure, it sounds a little dramatic, but drama is, after all, in my site's domain name.

The art of listening to opera... Yeah, after all this, I'm perfectly prepared to make everything sound more complicated than it has to be... is one of the most rewarding arts to master. It's really all about opening up. If you can learn to open your entire being to the sound of what composer Arvo Part calls "the most perfect instrument" accompanied by orchestra, you're bound to be spellbound.

Image- Hartwig HKD: Zen Walk

Opera isn't usually the first choice of anyone looking for a musical good time, and it's not the exposition of its every fan's story. Some of even the most passionate of classical lovers, such as myself, began their journeys across the sound universe with Cher and others who continue to keep rhythm on pop culture's head. Indeed, the collective presence of microphone-oriented genres is so overwhelming in the now that the size of what fraction of Earth's population regularly demonstrates interest in the orchestral and unamplified raises such questions as these: How is such music as opera's still alive? Why do performance tickets draw between fifty and four hundred dollars out of a fan's pocket multiple times a year? Is one required to maintain a warped state of consciousness to enjoy it?

1. Bipolar Rules!

In answer to that last one: Pretty much. Though opera is often dismissed as overdone in every way, its Everest-level highs and Hades-level lows (more literal than any non-fan might think) are precisely what make it satisfying to the "right brain" in the most complete way, which is to say that one simply cannot enjoy a performance if one keeps a grip on a sense of reality and psychological balance all the way through. Hence, I write directly to any opera newbies who may be reading this: Embrace the irrational and extreme. If you've started to identify with Lewis Black or just about any given Metallica song, you shouldn't have any problem with either. Why do it? Because (if I haven't written it directly enough) "letting it all go" with Puccini and Strauss can give you a much clearer view of your emotional self. Besides, haven't you ever wanted to hear the world from a manic depressive's audial perspective?

2. Guys, Goths, and Grunge Enthusiasts Present

Be ye not deterred by the evening gowns and diamonds of the Met Opera galas that you read about in celebrity gossip articles, dear newbie (straight to you, again). Maybe Mozart's music is, indeed, elegant and refined. Maybe Handel's shimmers like a champagne flute. However, you have to know that the atmosphere of Wolfgang Amadeus and the fruits of George Frideric help to make the key element of the Romantic Era and our modern Age, a searing something that all hard-rockers and man-cave dwellers hold dear, pop. Power is that to which I refer, power that some operatic works have in such abundance that they need not be juxtaposed with any of their quieter friends for their intensity to be noticed. The receipt for any recording of "Gotterdammerung" or "Boris Godunov," for instance, could rightly be accompanied by a list of mixed drinks and beers recommended for easier listening. As for the other two G's of the subheading: The composers of the late 1800s and early 1900s have got you covered. An evening of "Otello" or "Tristan und Isolde" calls for antidepressants and a day of recuperation, and "Macbeth" and "Elektra" will make you want to run out and grab some more black lipstick and eyeliner. I suggest peroxetine and any brand that's waterproof.

3. We "Get" You

If you like shaking hands with passionate people, you'll love meeting opera fans. We're all a little insane, which is to say that less than fifteen minutes after having laughed, cried, and self-mutilated our way through a three-hour emotional canyon (i.e., "Tosca") we start itching to do it again. There's nothing sweeter to us than a weekend of onstage screaming, plotting, and massacring  (thumbs up to the "Nibelung" lovers), anguish being our game. This is to say that we're always looking for the best "release," so you're in good company if you're bumming or need to decompress. Any one of us would be glad to turn on the stereo or the Blue-Ray player, open a bottle of wine or a bag of chocolate nuggets, and sit with you supportively while your brain chemicals duke it out with each other in a match refereed by Giuseppe Verdi.

4. Learning is Cool

Opera makes you smarter. The more you get into it, the more you learn. For instance, I didn't know until a few years ago that a "vorspiel" is a "prelude." I didn't know the difference between "pianissimo" (super soft singing) and "fortissimo" (super loud singing). I didn't know that a person could be a masochist and a sadist at the same time. By the time you've made it to the two-hundred-mile marker on your operatic journey, you'll be surprised at how much German, Italian, French, and Russian you know. You may not be able to speak the languages in their entirety, but you'll be fluent in Verdi, Tchaikovsky, Bizet, and Wagner.

5. The Mystery of the Human Condition...

Is a wide open pasture to an opera fan! Composers have explored scores of philosophies and ideas throughout the years, some of which I've already mentioned in "Five Operas That Changed the World." Granted, you won't find every secret to life by watching "La Boheme" or "Il Trovatore," but you'll learn about how complicated people can be and why you should never ask your daughter to burn a baby. The music illustrates the inner emotional struggle that is sparked by any decision, whether it be to abandon oneself to love or to swear vengeance on a high-power playboy for his misdeeds against a certain feminine loved one. In short, if you're looking for the hidden meaning behind the jargon of Dr. Phil viewers, you might want to give opera a try.

Perhaps now, dear newbie, you wonder a little less at the fact that opera has been around since Jacopo Peri penned "Dafne" more than four hundred years ago. If so, I welcome you heartily to the operatic solar system of the sound universe. May your journey home to Cher be long and scenic. Happy listening, always!

Image: Don Escamillo (Carmen) @ Opera by Candlelight, protected by the creative commons here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/