Opera Boston RIP

http://www.boston.com/Boston/culturedesk/2011/12/opera-boston-closing/MDom3aXpy6Qt79t98MFCmI/index.html

;_;

That stinks!

I hadn't done anything with then in almost 3 years but this still blows

Good thing my wife's outreach group split off from them earlier this year

this fucking sucks and is sad

Straight up suckage. Some friends went to "The Nose" and said it was stellar.

Apparently the boring opera company had a banner fundraising year.

But of course! Comfort pap for the masses.

It's really terrible, they debuted an opera earlier this year that won a Pulitzer and now... gone

This is a terrible shame.

http://cache.boston.com/resize/bonzai-fba/Globe_Photo/2008/10/18/1224305504_4452/539w.jpg

A pic from my last show with them (Der Freischütz)

This is terrible. They were actually a client of the company I work for (an arts fundraising group).

!

wow that's awful and sad!

Sorry. Nice pic.

I wonder if classical music has any future in America. The larger orchestras merely play the same things over and over, and audiences complain if they're forced to hear anything more recent than Mahler. If there is any future, it's probably in chamber music.

there certainly is a lot of money and energy being put into developing younger audiences for symphonies and operas.

Some favorite memories:

- dropping the H-bomb on a director who tried to belittle my wife for asking an entirely valid question regarding his incoherent direction
- being one of six guys in the Mahagonny ensemble and singing the baritone part in two super short ensemble quartets
- doing the first production of Nixon in China in Boston since Sellars
- playing a black Bavarian in two separate productions as well as a black Chinese man and a black Sri Lankan
- getting cut from the dance scenes that really, really sucked
- dry-humping a cast member on stage in Mahagonny
- getting hooked into the Boston classical singer scene and meeting a ton of amazing, wonderful, scary-talented people
- getting a shout-out in a review for my acting chops as an ensemble member (!)
- so many hilarious rehearsal memories, including my wife bouncing a box off of soneone's head and someone else getting blamed for it

More stories! those are good.

- there was another chorister whose real name I can't remember who we called El DeBarge who Seemed like a fairly innocent, polite dude until he propositioned another chorister in the foulest manner imaginable; I can't remember exactly what he said but it might have involved felching...?
- my girl BQuintilliani TEARING UP the stage in Luisa Miller and Lucrezia Borgia
- La Clemenza di Tito and the ladder, and how it perplexed and befuddled the director who put it onstage in the first place
- INTERMISSION TAVERN
- getting called in at the last minute to sing the last chorus of The Crucible from backstage, thus getting to do the production without having to go through the rehearsals or having to wear a costume
- the infamous men's chorus in Ernani that no one knew until halfway through tech week
- singing the three secretary parts from Nixon In China to the secretaries with two other male choristers
- having an awesome City Opera mezzo totally crush out on me
- talking WoW with one of the Frieschütz principles
- finding out one of the Mahagonny principles is Har Mar Superstar's brother-in-law and another went to grad school with a very good friend of mine from undergrad

Felching!?! Damn.

Would have loved to see Mahagonny .

Google "opera Boston Mahagonny" for some awesome pics (didn't want to link them because many are from the choreographer's website and I am respecting her copyright)

Those photos are great! Really exciting staging and choreography (at least, based on the stills)

It was pretty bad-ass, and as I said upthread the ensemble only had 6 guys in it which was super exciting; it was almost like we were a joint comprimario role

I still regret turning down The Nose

I regret not getting my ass to Boston to see some of these when I could have easily done so.

lol is this an actual thread on ilx, btw i can see dan in that pic, rip boston

- dropping the H-bomb on a director
So you were in Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic?

lol

Just looked at that choreography page- amazing.

I gotta ask- did you sing Mahagonny in German? Habt Ihr gelernt das Cocktail-ABC?

- INTERMISSION TAVERN

also a highlight of my never-created thread "my six-year emerson college undergrad career RIP"

We did Mahagonny in English, which was Interesting because our scores had one English translation but for some songs we were doing another translation. It was madness and awesome.

Must admit I'm a little disappointed, but would still have gone to see.

tbh i would have preferred doing it in German too but there's a good amount of dialog that would have been tedious to do.

Oh yeah, didn't think about that.

:(