Jonas Kaufmann: Dark And Light Voice
Tenor Riccardo Massi On His Quick Rise & Favorite Composer
While most opera singers study opera and simply concentrate on it throughout their college years, Massi had a unique journey while he was developing his voice. He was stuntman on many Hollywood productions including the Academy Award nominee “Gangs Of New York” by Martin Scorsese and the HBO hit series “Rome.”
“I was involved in martial arts including Karate and Judo and free fighting. And one of my big passions has always been medieval weapons. So when I moved to Rome I found this teacher and he was also working in Cine Città which is the Italian Hollywood,” he revealed in an interview with OperaWire. “During that time period, a lot of Hollywood productions were in Rome. So they needed guys to perform stunts and I started to train with my teacher and we started to do this job.”
(via)
Behold The Nano Guitar
In 1997, the Cornell Chronicle announced: “The world’s smallest guitar — carved out of crystalline silicon and no larger than a single cell — has been made at Cornell University to demonstrate a new technology that could have a variety of uses in fiber optics, displays, sensors and electronics.”
Invented by Dustin W. Carr, the so-called “nanoguitar” measured 10 micrometers long–roughly the size of your average red blood cell. And it had six strings, each “about 50 nanometers wide, the width of about 100 atoms.”
According to The Guardian, the vintage 1997 nanoguitar was actually never played.
(via)
The Handa Opera On Sydney Harbor
A major event on the Sydney calendar for six years now, the Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour, in partnership with Destination NSW, will stage Puccini’s La Bohème, from March 23-April 22, 2018). Andy Morton, who directed this year’s Carmen, will also direct this new production. With a stage floating in the harbor, and fireworks galore bursting over the opera house and Sydney skyline, the event is a huge crowd pleaser. Mostly in pop-up style, top food and drink establishments serve their finest flavors as well.
(via)
Leonard Slatkin’s 10 Forgotten American Masterpieces
The following is a list of ten pieces, each received well at the time of composition but fortune has not been so kind to over the years.
1. Donald Erb – The Seventh Trumpet
2. Jacob Druckman – Lamia
3. William Schuman – Symphony No. 8
4. Walter Piston – Symphony No. 6
5. Carl Ruggles – Sun Treader
6. George Crumb – Echoes of Time and the River
7. Roger Sessions – Symphony No. 2
8. Alan Hovhaness – Mysterious Mountain
9. George Rochberg – String Quartet No. 3
10. Morton Gould – Suite from Fall River Legend
(via)
89 Essential Songs from The Summer of Love
The Summer of Love was not just a season of great music and the zenith of the flower child, but the culmination of a movement that started back on a chillier Bay Area day, on January 14, 1967.
Today, we have a playlist of 89 songs to commemorate the 50th anniversary of that historic summer.
(via)
Q&A With The Cast of Hamilton