LPOI Program Opens Tonight

July 31, 2009 - Just a reminder that the Little Patuxent Opera Institute at Howard Community College where I've been working with a group of talented young artists has its opening performance this evening. The first half is operatic scenes ranging from Monteverdi to Britten and the second half is Puccini's conventual potboiler Suor Angelica. Click here for more info.

Summertime and the Livin' Ain't Easy

July 11, 2009 - As the child of two educators, summer was always a season when things slowed down dramatically, lots of time was spent doing nothing, and deadlines were something that didn't exist again until September (or at the earliest late August). Well, as an adult running a non-profit arts organization, summer is in some ways more hectic and demanding than the producing season. This is the time when the bulk of the planning happens. Casts are assembled and contracts are sent, bios and ads are gathered for the season program (this is often incredibly time consuming due to singers being all over the place in summer festivals, young artist programs, etc.), grants are written and submitted, rehearsal schedules developed and tweaked. The list goes on and on.

This summer, I've added another component to my already busy summer: The Little Patuxent Opera Institute, a fledgling training program for young singers based at Howard Community College. The group of 8 young women participating in the institute are putting on a program consisting of operatic scenes ranging from Claudio Monteverdi to Benjamin Britten on the first half and a fully-staged production of Puccini's Suor Angelica on the second half (the cast for this is being fleshed out by professional singers in the area). They are receiving what is often referred to as a "baptism by fire", having to cope with a huge range of styles in three different languages while polishing their technique and learning how to create character, move fluidly on stage, and convey emotion with their voices. Kudos to them all for their hard work and progress so far. If you want to know more about the institute, click here.

Also, next week I dive into rehearsals for our Artscape offering. More akin to our cabaret offerings, I Hear America Singing, interweaves readings from American history with music ranging from folk tunes to spirituals to Tin Pan Alley in a moving celebration of the American spirit. Click here for more info.

So if your summer schedule permits, come check out either The Little Patuxent Opera Institute, Artscape, or both. See you at the opera!

Life after Little Patuxent Opera Institute

Thursday, August 2, 2007 - Well this past weekend marked the final performances of the maiden voyage of the Little Patuxent Opera Institute. I have to say that every single one of the participants not only rose to the occasion but exceeded expectations. In the context of what is essentially an academic program, the most important thing is that everyone make progress towards becoming a better singing actor. It's not that everyone gets to a completely polished, ready for the real world ratrace of auditions and callbacks, etc, but rather that each person (no matter how inexperienced they were at the beginning of the process) has gained skills, learned things about themselves, unlocked inhibitions, increased confidence, and progressed towards their goal of becoming professional singers. All the students of LPOI experienced this growth, and I'm very happy and grateful to have been a part of the that growth. I look forward to working with next year's crop of students.

On the OV front, we have now opened sales on individual tickets (as opposed to just season subscriptions), set the dates for the autumn round of auditions for the 2008-09 season, and have begun the first parts of our marketing campaign for our 10th season by securing ad space in the Fall Arts Guide of the Baltimore Sun, the inaugural issue of Opera America's new magazine, and by entering our season into various datelines and databases including the Peabody Magazine, and Operabase.com. In conjunction with this marketing campaign, we've been very fortunate to have secured a Marketing Consultant through the Baltimore Community Foundation in order to maximize the long-range impact of this very significant season in our history. The board and I are very excited about implementing the suggestions of this expert.

The designers for Alcina are hard at work crystallizing and finalizing the initial sketches that they brought to our design meeting a few weeks ago. The schematics for the set will go to the carpenter (Fisher Theatrical) at the end of this week for pricing estimates and hopefully will not require much revision so that construction can begin in plenty of time for our October 6, 2007 load-in date. More on that as details become available.

That's about it for now. I encourage all you opera lovers to get your tickets for Alcina, and all you singers to send in your materials for auditions. It's a very exciting time for Opera Vivente, and we want to share that excitement with as many people as possible. So spread the word and as always - See you at the opera!

John Bowen