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Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Jonathan Ealy named one of MBJ's 40 Under 40
Opera Memphis Venue Director Jonathan Ealy named one of Memphis Business Journal's 40 Under 40 for his work with OUTMemphis : The LGBTQIA Center for the Mid-South.
Ealy joined the staff of Opera Memphis in November of 2009. He was first introduced to opera by his late high school choral teacher, Charlotte Polk.
"My first Opera ever was an Opera Memphis production of Buoso's Ghost written by then...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, October 24, 2018
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
"With her strong, forthright soprano, Yunah Lee brought unflagging stage presence and confidence to Butterfly, demonstrating the geisha's spine, not her victimhood,"
- The Wall Street Journal
Opera Memphis opens its 2018-19 Season with Puccini's classic Madama Butterfly on Oct. 26 & 27 with internationally-acclaimed soprano Yunah Lee performing the title role of Cio-Cio-San, Madama Butterfly.
Since her first performance of ...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, October 17, 2018
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Opera Memphis' Shirley Hill named "Women to Watch"
Shirley Hill, Community Relations Associate for Opera Memphis, featured in Memphis Magazine 's "Women to Watch" spread in their October 2018 issue.
From the article:
"Shirley Hill first joined Opera Memphis in 2009 as a chorus member. This year she will be the Project Manager for the McCleave Project. The McCleave Project seeks to deepen Opera Memphis' engagement with issues of equity...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, October 3, 2018
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
"I'm a singer first, actor second, dancer never." - Philip Himebook
Say, "Hello!" to Opera Memphis Company Artist Philip Himebook. A tenor who grew up in Huntsville, AL and Atlanta, GA, and a self-proclaimed rookie in the professional opera realm, Himebook grew up surrounded by music. His parents both have degrees in Music Education, his mother's parents were symphony musicians (violin and cello), his father's father was a member of the ...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Say, "Hello!" to Stephanie Doche, one of our 2018 company artists.
Stephanie Doche (rhymes with posh), was born in France and moved to the United States with her parents when she was 4 years old. Her love for music and opera began around this time between listening to Luciano Pavarotti and Friends on the stereo and encouragement she received from her grandmother to play piano and pursue music. Doche received her first solo during a kindergarten performance, and in high...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Opera Memphis joined the Memphis Redbird's as the Lipscomb & Pitts' featured Non-profit of the game last Friday, August 17.
The Redbirds faced off against the Nashville Sounds for an exciting evening of baseball! And although the Redbirds put up a good fight, the Sounds won the game 11-8.
Opera Memphis favorite, Chelsea Miller, took the field to sing "God Bless America," while McCleave Fellowship winner Dennis Whitehead Darling threw the opening pitch at the top...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Past Opera Memphis artist, Margaret Bridge, returns to Ireland to perform as Melanto in Opera Collective Ireland's production of The Return of Ulysses by Monteverdi.
You may remember Margaret, a stunning mezzo, from Opera Memphis's 2017 production of Later the Same Evening where she appeared in the role of Elaine O'Neill. She also performed in that season's Midtown Opera Festival. She is now based out of Boston, MA but has performed all over...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, August 15, 2018
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Opera Memphis's co-commissioned opera The Falling and the Rising gains national recognition with a featured 2-page spread in Opera America's summer 2018 magazine.
Composed by Zach Redler and Memphis's own Jerre Dye, The Falling and the Rising is a new american opera conceived by "Staff Sgt. Ben Hilgert, a tenor in the Soldiers' Chorus of the U.S. Army Field Band." It explores the sacrifice, duty, and human connection experienced by...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Congratulations to our very own Christine Amon, a prize-winning finalist at the 20th Anniversary Lotte Lenya Competition!
You may remember Christine and her "sweet, powerful voice," in Opera Memphis productions like Hansel and Gretel, The Music Shop, The Mikado, The Ghosts of Crosstown, and countless others. Christine studied at the renowned Instituto Superior de Arte del Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, received her Bachelor of Music from Grand Valley State University,...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, August 1, 2018
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Opera Memphis is thrilled to share an article posted by Anchorage Opera about our very own Chelsea Miller! Her grand success should come at no surprise to Memphis audiences who have seen her remarkable talent. Congratulations, Chelsea! From all of us here at OM, we wish you the best of luck with your endeavors and can't wait to have you back on stage with us!
"We're thrilled to welcome rising young star, Chelsea Miller for HMS Pinafore - Nov 2, 3 & 4, 2018!...
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Posted by
Jillian Barron
at
Wednesday, July 25, 2018
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
I'm still a new kid on the Opera block. When I joined the Opera Memphis team as the Marketing and Outreach Associate in October, I knew...well...that I liked opera. But any of the fine points? Nope. While I've certainly learned a lot more about the operas themselves, what I've most enjoyed is learning about this whole world of auditions, costume shops, and weird tax nuance. Here are my favorite new learnings from thus far in my opera administrative career!
1. The Met Auditions...
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Posted by
Tierney Bamrick
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Thursday, November 19, 2015
By Alison Moritz, Director of The Magic Flute
“The fates lead him who will; him who won’t they drag.”
- Joseph Campbell
The Hero’s Journey, as examined by mythologist Joseph Campbell, includes twelve classic stages. They include a call to adventure, the refusal of the call, meeting with a mentor, tests, an ordeal, a reward, the road back, and resurrection. There are countless examples from literature and popular culture that adhere to the pattern of a classic hero’s...
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at Thursday, November 19, 2015
Thursday, November 19, 2015
By Music Dir ector Ben Makino
(All production images courtesy of Joey Miller , 2015)
In this post, I thought I’d show some of the considerations that contribute to an interpretation of The Magic Flute by looking at two of its arias: The Queen of the Night’s Act I aria ( O zittre nicht ) and Pamina’s Act II aria ( Ach, ich fühl’s ).
I would like to mention before starting that a work like The Magic Flute has accumulated an enormous volume of analysis over the past...
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at Thursday, November 19, 2015
Thursday, November 12, 2015
By Alison Moritz, Director of The Magic Flute
Tuesday, November 10
Today is our last day of rehearsals in the Clark Opera Memphis Center. The scenery has arrived at the Germantown Performing Arts Center, so we’re beginning to incorporate many of the props that arrived with the set. For weeks, I’ve been particularly curious about the “remote controlled parrot” on the props list.
This sounds like a pretty fun prop, right? I had assumed it would be a sort of helicopter parrot...
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at Thursday, November 12, 2015
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
By Music Director Ben Makino I first read this a few months ago, and it was originally going to be the heart of a different post, but seeing as we’re in the midst of staging The Magic Flute , one of the most popular and studied pieces in the repertoire, it seems particularly appropriate now. It is from the introduction to Dennis Washburn’s new translation of The Tale of Genji , which I impulse-purchased in early August. While I unfortunately haven’t gotten into this translation of the Tale...
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at Tuesday, November 10, 2015
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
I have a terrible habit of being awed by talented people.
People who’ve honed their skills, poured their hearts into their craft, and
continue to do so for the benefit of their communities just leave me a little dazzled. Witnessing the embodiment of such passion blows me away, instantly transforming me from a chatterbox into a shy wallflower. So when the cast of The Magic Flute arrived on Monday, I found myself a little
shy. After all, they've sung all over the world in incredible...
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Posted by
Aubree Penney
at
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Monday, November 2, 2015
By Alison Moritz, Director of The Magic Flute .
The schedul e for this production of The Magic Flute has been a bit unusual. We began rehearsals last Thursday, and staged the entire opera with chorus, children, and supernumeraries only. Here’s a peek into our process so fa r:
Thursday, October 29
The day begins with me finding much needed coffee at Bluff City Coffee, just a block from where I’m staying. (My neighborhood is great! Just look...
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at Monday, November 2, 2015
Friday, October 30, 2015
Our newest team member Aubree Penney talks about her first day at Opera Memphis in the first of a series of posts about life in the offices at Opera Memphis. “Try Musetta,” Sarah, the Director of Operations, told
me as I tried various passwords for the computer on my first day.
“Oh darn, how do I spell Musetta…is that the guy who wrote
the waltz? Wait, does he have something to do with opera?” I thought to myself
as I stumbled through the spelling in hopes of landing on the magic password.
...
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Posted by
Aubree Penney
at
Friday, October 30, 2015
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
By Alison Moritz, Director of The Magic Flute .
For the past six weeks, the neighborhood of Belltown in Seattle has been my temporary home while I worked on a production of Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers at the Seattle Opera. This placard is placed above the doorway of a nearby hostel, and it seems like a fitting beginning to this behind-the-scenes series of Opera Memphis’ The Magic Flute .
In 2007, I first encountered the wit and wisdom of Opera Memphis General...
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at Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
By Music Director Ben Makino Get a sneak peek into Ben's summer in this latter half of his two part post, How I Spent My Summer Vacation . Missed the first part? Check it out here .
In between all of these small and large projects
I managed to get some reading done, perhaps most notably the recent Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan
Swafford. After reading Robert Gutman’s Mozart:
A Cultural Biography a year ago, I wanted to dedicate more time to learning
about the...
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at Friday, October 23, 2015