Podcasts about Vienna State Opera

Operaspymaster you may ask? Read on and listen to this episode. In this powerful and multifaceted episode of Unstoppable Mindset, we welcome Kay Sparling, former opera singer, PTSD survivor, and now debut novelist—as she shares her incredible life journey from international stages to the shadowy world of espionage fiction. Kay talks about the creation of her first novel, Mission Thaw, a gripping spy thriller based on her own real-life experiences volunteering with refugees in post-Cold War Europe. Kay and Michael discuss the inspiration behind her protagonist, CIA agent Caitlin Stewart, and how real-world trauma and service led Kay to use fiction as both a vehicle for healing and a call to action on the modern crisis of human trafficking. This is a conversation that transcends genres—music, espionage, activism, and resilience—all converging through the unstoppable spirit of a woman who refuses to stay silent. About the Guest: Kay Sparling was raised in the Midwest. At the age of seven, she began her professional singing career as Gretl in “The Sound of Music” and she continued to perform through high school. After graduation Kay attended University of Kansas and earned a BME in music education and a minor in Vocal Performance. She then attended graduate school in opera voice performance for one year at UMKC Conservatory of Music. She was awarded a grant to finish my graduate studies in Vienna, Austria. From there she won an apprenticeship at the Vienna State Opera. After moving to NYC to complete her second apprenticeship, Kay lived in Germany, Austria, and Italy for many years. In 1999 Kay returned to NYC and continued singing opera and became a cantor for the NYC diocese. After 9/11, she served as a cantor at many of the funeral and memorial masses for the fallen first responders. In 2003, Kay moved from NYC to the upper Midwest and started a conservatory of Music and Theatre where her voice students have been awarded numerous prestigious scholarships and won many competitions. In 2020, the pandemic shut down her conservatory, so she began training to be a legal assistant and now works in workers compensation. Back in 2013, Kay had started writing a journal as a PTSD treatment. She was encouraged to extend the material into a novel. After much training and several drafts, Mission Thaw was published in 2024. Kay is currently writing the second book in the Kaitlyn Stewart Spy Thriller Series. Ways to connect with Kay: Website: https://www.kaysparlingbooks.com X: https://x.com/MissionThaw/missionthaw/ Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/missionthaw.bsky.social Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/505674375416879 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kay-sparling-8516b638/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missionthaw/ Litsy: https://www.litsy.com/web/user/Mission%20Thaw About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/ https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:16 Well, hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of unstoppable mindset. I'm your host, Mike hingson, and our guest today is a very fascinating individual. I was just teasing her a little bit about her email address, which is operaspy master@gmail.com I'm telling you, don't cross her. That's all I gotta say. Anyway, we'll, we'll get into all of that. But I really am glad that she is with us. Kay Sparling is a fascinating woman who's had an interesting career. She's written, she's done a number of things. She's used to be an opera, gosh, all sorts of stuff. So anyway, we'll get to all of it and we'll talk about it. I don't want to give it all away. Where would the fun in that be? Kay, welcome to unstoppable mindset.   Kay Sparling ** 02:11 Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 02:13 we're glad you're here. You're from up in Wisconsin. We were going to do this a couple of weeks ago, but you had all the storms, and it stole your internet and your power away, didn't   Kay Sparling ** 02:23 it? It sure did. Yeah, that was a terrible storm we had.   Michael Hingson ** 02:28 Yeah, that's kind of no fun. I remember years ago, I was talking to somebody on the phone. We were doing a sales call, and he said, I might not be able to stay on the phone because we're having a really serious storm, and he said it is possible that the lightning could hit the phone lines, and if it does, it could come in the house. And we talked for a few minutes, and then he said, I'm going to have to hang up, because I just felt a small shock, because the lightning obviously hit the phone line, so we'll have to talk later. And and he was gone. And we did talk later, though he was okay, but still, wow, yeah, there's a lot of crazy weather going on, isn't there? And we were just talking about the, we were just talking about the Canadian wildfires. They're No fun.   Kay Sparling ** 03:15 No, no. Just everywhere is having crazy weather.   Michael Hingson ** 03:20 Well, tell us a little bit about you growing up and all that sort of stuff, and telling me about the the early K   Kay Sparling ** 03:32 Well, growing up, I grew up in a farm community in the in the central Midwest, just you know, right in the middle of the bread basket, you might say, not near where you are now. No no, no further south and in very much agriculture time, I mean skipping ahead. I remember talking to a famous opera conductor when I was an apprentice, and I made some reference, and he goes, Well, how would you know that? And I said, because I grew up on a farm. And he went, Oh, get out here. Nobody makes it, you know, to a major European opera house from a farm. And I went, Well, I did. And later, I asked my mom to send me a picture, because we had had an aerial view taken of our homestead, and it was obvious for miles, all the way around the house and the barn and all, it was just corn fields and soybeans. You know what they showed   Michael Hingson ** 04:40 Illinois, Illinois, and so you showed it to him, yeah,   Kay Sparling ** 04:44 I showed it to him, and he was like, well, doggone, you're not lying. Like, No, I wasn't kidding you. I really did.   Michael Hingson ** 04:51 It shows how good I really am. See how far I progressed.   Kay Sparling ** 04:55 Well, you know, I was one of these kids. I. At five years old, I my parents took me to see sound and music at the theater, and during the intermission. Now I'm five years old, it's pretty late for me, right? But when we're in the concession stand, I tug at my mom's skirt, and I say, Mom, that's what I want to do. And she looks at me kind of funny, and she's kind of funny, and she's kind of confused. Well, what do you want to do work in a theater? You know, a movie theater? No, no, I want to do what those kids are doing on that on the movie screen. And she was like, Well, honey, you know, that's that's really hard to get somewhere like that. So that was when I was five. And then when I was seven, she just, you know, the all the school and the church were telling her, this kid's got a great voice, and they kept giving me solos and stuff. And so when I was seven, she put me in the Sangamon County Fair Little Miss competition. And of course, my talent was singing, so I just sang away. I really can't remember what I sang, but afterwards, a fellow came up to my parents and introduced himself, and he said that he was there, he had family, not, you know, in the area, and that he had grown up there, but since then, he he was in St Louis, and he said, we are, I'm a scout, and I'm looking, I'm an entertainment Scout, and I'm actually looking for, you know, the von trop children. We're going to do a big production, and we'd love to audition your daughter. Well, we were about, think it was an hour and a half away from St Louis, so my parents are like, wow, that'd be quite a commitment. But long story short, I did it, and that started my professional career. I was the youngest Bon Troy. You know, over cradle, yeah. And so it just went from there. And, you know, it was all Broadway, of course, and I did a lot of church singing, you know, it got to be by the time I was, you know, in high school, people were hiring me for weddings, funerals, all that kind of thing. And so I was a Broadway and sacred singer. Went to college. My parents said, you can't depend on a vocal performance degree. What if things don't work out? You have to have something fall back. So I went into vocal music ed at a very, very good school for that, and also music therapy, and, you know, continue being in their shows. And when I when I graduated, continued the Broadway, and one night I was also singing a little bit of jazz in Kansas City, where I was living, someone approached me. She was a voice teacher at the conservatory there, and that conservatory had an apprenticeship with the Kansas City Lyric Opera. And she said I knew you was an undergrad. My husband works where you, where you went to school, and I have been watching you for a long time. And I wish you quit this nonsense of singing Broadway and jazz and rock and everything and get serious, you know, and try opera. So I thought she was crazy to bring that up, but it wasn't the first time it had been brought up. So I have been teaching for a year, and at the end of that school year, I announced everyone I was going to graduate school and I was going to study opera. And so   Michael Hingson ** 08:55 what were you teaching?   Kay Sparling ** 08:57 I was teaching high school choir, okay, at a very big high school, very, very good choir department.   Michael Hingson ** 09:03 Now, by the way, after doing Gretel, did you ever have any other parts as you grew older in Sound of Music?   Kay Sparling ** 09:11 Okay, that's a very cool question. I am one of the few people that I know that can say I have sang every major role in Sound of Music sometime in my life. Ah, okay, because it was so popular when I was Oh, yeah. And as I would grow older, well now you're going to sing, you know, you just kept graduating up. And then pretty soon I sang quite a few Marias. And then after I was an opera singer. During covid, I was asked to sing Mother Superior. Mother Superior. Yeah, literally, have sung, you know, in a decades long career, I've sung every role in Sound of Music.   Michael Hingson ** 09:56 Cool. Well, that's great.   10:00 Yeah, so, so, anyway, so   Michael Hingson ** 10:02 you said that you were going to go study opera,   Kay Sparling ** 10:07 and I did a graduate school, and then I got the chance to get an international grant over to Europe, and so I decided to not finish my masters at that time and go over there and finish it, and most of all, importantly, do my first apprenticeship in Europe. And so I thought that was a great opportunity. They were willing. They were going to willing to pay for everything. And I said I would be a fool to turn this down. Yeah, so off I went, and that's kind of the rest of the story. You know, got a lot of great training, left Europe for a while, moved to New York City, trained best coaches and teachers in the world at the Metropolitan Opera and then, you know, launch my career.   Michael Hingson ** 11:04 So you Wow, you, you've done a number of things, of course, going to Europe and being in Vienna and places like that. Certainly you were in the the right place.   Kay Sparling ** 11:16 Yes, yes, definitely. You know, at that time in the in the middle 80s, United States was we had some great opera houses Iran, but we had very few. And it just wasn't the culture that it was in Europe, in Europe. And so, yes, there was a lot more opportunity there, because there was such a culture established there already.   Michael Hingson ** 11:44 So you went off and you did Europe and saying opera, what were you a soprano? Or what were you that sounds like a way a little high for your voice?   Kay Sparling ** 11:59 Well, you have to remember, I'm a senior citizen now. So this is the way it worked for me, because we're talking decades from the age 27 and I quit singing at 63 so that's a very long time to sing opera. So I started out, as you know, there is a voice kind of category, and each one of those, we use a German word for that. It's called Foch, F, A, C, H, and you know, that is determined by the kind of vocal cords you have, and the kind of training and the literature you're singing, and hopefully that all meshes together if you have good coaches and a good agent and such. And I literally have seen so many different Fox lyric, lyric mezzo, then to, very shortly, lyric soprano, and then for a long time, spinto soprano, which would be the Puccini and a lot of them really popular things. And then I was, I felt I was quite lucky that my voice did have the strength and did mature into a Verdi soprano, which is a dramatic soprano, not many of those around. And so that was, that was an endeavor, but at the same time, that was a leg up. And so most of the time in my career, I sang the bigger Puccini, like, let's say Tosca, and I sang a lot of Verdi. So I was an Italian opera singer. I mostly sang in Italian, not to say that I didn't sing in German or French, but I did very little in comparison to the   Michael Hingson ** 13:56 Italian Well, there's a lot of good Italian opera out there, although mostly I don't understand it, but I don't speak Italian well.   Kay Sparling ** 14:07 The great thing about most houses now is, you know, you can just look at the back of the seat in front of you, and there's the translation, you know, yeah, that   Michael Hingson ** 14:18 doesn't work for me. Being blind, that doesn't work for you. Yeah, that's okay, though, but I like the music, yeah. So how long ago did you quit singing?   Kay Sparling ** 14:32 Um, just about, well, under, just a little under three years ago, okay?   Michael Hingson ** 14:38 And why did you quit? This was the right time,   Kay Sparling ** 14:42 senses or what I had a circumstance, I had to have throat surgery. Now it wasn't on my vocal cords, but it was on my thyroid, and unfortunately, the vocal cord nerve. They had to take out some Cyst On. My right thyroid, and then remove it too. And unfortunately, my vocal cords were damaged at that time, I would have probably be singing still now some you know, I mean, because dramatic sopranos just can go on and on and on. One of my mentors was Birgit Nielsen, famous singer from Sweden, and she was in my grandmother's generation, but she didn't, I went to work with her, and she demonstrated at 77 she could still pop out of high C. And I believe, I believe I would have been able to do that too, but you know, circumstances, you know, changed, but that's okay. Yeah, I had sung a long time, and at least I can speak. So I'm just very happy about that.   Michael Hingson ** 15:51 So when you did quit singing, what did you decide to go do? Or, or, How did, how did you progress from there?   Kay Sparling ** 16:01 Well, I had already made a transition where I had come in 2003 to the Midwest. I came back from New York City, where I lived many, many years, and I started a conservatory of music and acting, and then that kind of grew into a whole conservatory of music. So I was also a part time professor here in Wisconsin, and I taught voice, you know, one on one vocal lessons, so high school and college and graduate school, and so I had this huge studio. So when that happened, I wasn't getting to sing a whole lot, because I was much more focused on my students singing me at that point, especially the older ones, professional ones, and so, you know, I just kept teaching and and then I had started this book that I'm promoting now, and so that gave me more time to get that book finished   Michael Hingson ** 17:10 and published. What's the name of the book?   Kay Sparling ** 17:13 The book is called Mission, thaw.   Michael Hingson ** 17:16 Ah, okay, and what is it about   Kay Sparling ** 17:22 mission thaw is feminist spy thriller set at the very end of the Cold War in the late 80s, and the main protagonist is Caitlin Stewart, who it who has went over there to be an opera singer, and soon after she arrives, is intensely recruited by the CIA. They have a mission. They really, really need a prima donna Mozart soprano, which is what Caitlin was, and she had won a lot of competitions and won a grant to go over there, and so they had been vetting her in graduate school in the United States. And soon as she came to Europe, they they recruited her within a couple weeks of her being there, and she, of course, is totally blindsided by that. When they approach her, she had she she recognized that things were not exactly the way they should be, that people were following her, and she was trying to figure out who, are these people and why are they following me everywhere? Well, it ends up being young CIA agents, and so when the head chief and his, you know, the second chief, approach her, you know, she's not real happy, because she's already felt violated, like her privacy has been violated, and so she wasn't really too wonderful of listening to them and their needs. And so they just sort of apprehend her and and throw her in a car, in a tinted window Mercedes, and off they go to a park to talk to her, right? And so it's all like crazy movie to Caitlin. It's like, what is going on here? And, you know, she can tell they're all Americans, and they have dark suits on, even though it's very, very hot, and dark glasses, you know? So everything is just like a movie. And so when they approach her and tell her about what they need her to do, you know, and this would be in addition to the apprentice she is doing that, you know, she just gets up and says, I'm sorry I didn't come over and be in cloak and dagger. A, you know, ring, I'm getting out of here. And as she's walking away, the chief says, Well, what if you could help bring down the Berlin Wall? Well, now that stops her in her tracks, and she turns around. She goes, What are you kidding? I'm just a, you know, an opera apprentice from the Midwest grew up on a farm. What am I gonna do? Hit a high C and knock it down. I mean, what are you talking about?   Michael Hingson ** 20:28 Hey, Joshua, brought down the wealth of Jericho, after all. Well, yeah, some   Kay Sparling ** 20:34 later, someone tells her that, actually, but, but anyway, they say, well, sit down and we'll explain what we need you to do. And so the the initial job that Caitlin accepts and the CIA to be trained to do is what they call a high profile information gap. She has a wonderful personality. She's really pretty. She's very fashionable, so she can run with the jet set. And usually the jet set in Europe, the opera jet set is also where all the heads of states hang out, too. And at that time, the the Prime Minister was pretty much banking the Vienna State Opera where she was apprenticing. So he ends up being along with many other Western Austrian businessmen in a cartel of human trafficking. Who they are trafficking are all the the different citizens of the countries that USSR let go. You know, when you know just got to be too much. Remember how, oh yeah, we're going to let you go. Okay? And then they would just pull out. And there was no infrastructure. There was nothing. And these poor people didn't have jobs, they didn't have electricity. The Russian mafia was running in there trying to take, you know, take over. It was, it was chaos. And so these poor people were just packing up what they could to carry, and literally, sometimes walking or maybe taking a train into the first Western European country they could get to. And for a lot of them, just because the geographical area that was Austria. And so basically, the Austrians did not want these people, and they were being very unwelcoming and arresting a lot of them, and there was a lot of lot of bad behavior towards these refugees. And so the Catholic church, the Catholic Social Services, the Mennonite Relief Fund, the the UN and the Red Cross started building just tent after tent after tent on the edge of town for these people to stay at. And so the businessmen decide, well, we can traffic these people that have nothing over to the East Germans, who will promise them everything, but will give them nothing. But, you know, death camps, basically, just like in World War Two. So you have work camps, you have factories. They they don't feed these people correctly. They don't they don't give them anything that they promise to them in in the camps. And they say, Okay, be on this train at this time, this night. And then they stop somewhere in between Vienna and East Germany, in a very small train station in the middle of the Alps. And they have these large, you know, basic slave options. And unfortunately, the children in the older people get sent back to the camp because they don't need them or want them. So all the children get displaced from their families, as well as the senior citizens or anyone with a disability. And then, you know, the men and the women that can work are broken up as well, and they're sent to these, you know, they're bought by these owners of these factories and farms, and the beautiful women, of course, are sold to either an individual that's there in East German that just wants to have a sex aid, pretty much. Or even worse, they could be sold to an underground East Berlin men's club. And so terrible, terrible things happen to the women in particular, and the more that Caitlin learns. As she's being trained about what's happening, and she interviews a lot of these women, and she sees the results of what's happened, it, it, it really strengthens her and gives her courage. And that's a good thing, because as time goes through the mission, she ends up having to be much, much more than just a high profile social, you know, information gather. She ends up being a combat agent and so, but that that's in the mission as you read, that that happens gradually and so, what? What I think is really a good relationship in this story, is that the one that trains her, because this is actually both CIA and MI six are working on this, on this mission, thought and the director of the whole mission is an very seasoned mi six agent who everyone considers the best spy in the free world. And Ian Fleming himself this, this is true. Fact. Would go to this man and consult with him when he was writing a new book, to make sure you know that he was what he was saying is, Could this really happen? And that becomes that person, Clive Matthews become praying, Caitlyn, particularly when she has to start changing and, you know, defending herself. And possibly, you know,   Michael Hingson ** 26:38 so he becomes her teacher in   Kay Sparling ** 26:42 every way. Yes. So how   Michael Hingson ** 26:45 much? Gee, lots of questions. First of all, how much of the story is actually   Kay Sparling ** 26:50 true? All this story is true. The   Michael Hingson ** 26:53 whole mission is true. Yes, sir. And so how did you learn about this? What? What caused you to start to decide to write this story?   Kay Sparling ** 27:08 So some of these experiences are my own experiences. And so after I as an opera singer, decided to be a volunteer to help out these refugees. I witnessed a lot, and so many years later, I was being treated for PTSD because of what I'd witnessed there. And then a little bit later in Bosnia in the early 90s, and I was taking music therapy and art therapy, and my psychiatrist thought that it'd be a good idea if also I journaled, you know, the things that I saw. And so I started writing things, and then I turned it in, and they had a person that was an intern that was working with him, and both of them encouraged me. They said, wow, if, if there's more to say about this, you should write a book, cuz this is really, really, really good stuff. And so at one point I thought, Well, why not? I will try. So this book is exactly what happened Caitlin, you know, is a real person, and everyone in the book is real. Of course, I changed the names to protect people and their descriptions, but I, you know, I just interviewed a lot of spies that were involved. So, yes, this is a true story.   Michael Hingson ** 29:06 Did you do most of this? Then, after your singing career, were you writing while the career, while you were singing?   Kay Sparling ** 29:13 I was writing while I was still singing. Yeah, I started the book in 2015 Okay, and because, as I was taking the PTSD treatment and had to put it on the shelf several times, life got in the way. I got my my teaching career just really took off. And then I was still singing quite a bit. And then on top of it, everything kind of ceased in 2018 when my mother moved in with me and she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but Louie body Alzheimer's, which is a very, very rough time, and so I became one of her caretakers. So I quit singing, put that on hold, and I. I had to really, really bring down the number in my studio I was teaching and spend time here at home. And so I would take care of her, but then after she would go to bed, and she'd go to bed much earlier than I wanted to, that's when I write, and that's when I got the lion's share of this book written. Was during that time, it was a great escape from what I was dealing with, believe it or not, you know, even though there's some real graphic things in the book and all it wasn't, it was a nice distraction.   Michael Hingson ** 30:36 Wow, so you, you lived this, needless to say,   Kay Sparling ** 30:41 Yes, I did, and yes.   Michael Hingson ** 30:45 So you've talked a little bit about what happened to these countries after the collapse of the USSR and communism and so on, these eastern companies, companies, countries. Has it changed much over the years.   Kay Sparling ** 31:03 Oh, yeah, for instance, one, you know, I went to Budapest after they were freed, I guess is what usr would say. Stayed in a five star hotel, and we were lucky if we had running water and electricity at the same time. And every time you went down on the streets, all you'd see is lines, you know, I mean, just because there'd be all like, Red Cross, etc, would be there, and they'd have these big trucks they drove in every day, and it just got to be because they had nothing. If you saw a truck, you'd start running towards it and get in line. You didn't care what it was, you know, and it was. And then fights would break out because they wouldn't have enough for everyone. And then, like, you know, maybe someone's walking away with a bag of rice, and some of us knock them over the head and take, you know, and it was very hard, you know, I was a volunteer there, and it was very, very hard to see this, you know, desperation, one story that I'd like to tell, and I put it in the book. I was riding my bike, you know, on a Friday afternoon to get some groceries at the nearest supermarket where my apartment was, and at that time, they still had the European hours, so they were going to close at five o'clock, and they weren't going to open until seven or eight on Monday morning. So you had to make sure you got there to get your weekend supply. So I was on my way, and I was parking my bike, and this woman, refugee woman, runs up and she has two small children with her, and she's carrying a baby, and she's speaking to me in a language I did not know. I do speak several languages, but I don't know Slavic languages and so, but I'm getting the gist of it that she has nothing to eat, neither do her children, and so I'm patting her on the shoulder, and right when I do that, a policeman that was guarding the door of the supermarket came up to me and, like, grabbed me really hard, and told me in German that I was not To speak to them, and I was not to help them, because if you help them, they'll stay. And I said to him in German, I'm an American. I am not Austrian. I am here on a work visa, and I can do whatever the hell I want to do. Well, he didn't like that. And so I just walked away from him, and I went in the store. And so I got up everything I get. Think of the big need, you know, I never had a baby, so I was trying to kind of figure that out, yeah, and I had to figure it out in German, you know, looking at labels now. And so finally I got, I got some stuff, you know, the stuff I needed, and, and, and the stuff that I got for the family, and I checked out, and I'm pushing the cart, you know, towards them. And he runs up beside me and stops me, and he says, I am going to arrest you if you bring that. I told you not to help them. And I said, again, I don't think I'm breaking any laws. And he said, Oh yes, you are. And I said, Well, I didn't read that in the papers. I didn't see it on TV where anyone said. That you cannot help a refugee. And so we're going back and forth. And so, you know, I'm pretty strong, so I just keep pushing it towards it. Well, she's kind of running down the park, and I'm like, wait, wait, you know, because she's getting scared of this guy, you know, he has a gun, he has a nightstick. Of course, she's scared, and so, you know, I would say, No, no, it's okay, because I can't speak for language, right? And so I'm just trying to give her body language and talk. Well, finally she does stop, and I just throw I give the one sack to the little boy, and one second little girl, they just run and and then, you know, I'm talking to her and saying, you know, it's okay, it's okay. And he grabs me, and he turns me around and he spits in my face.   Michael Hingson ** 35:53 Wow. Talk about breaking the law. But anyway, go ahead.   Kay Sparling ** 36:00 Welcome to Austria in the late 80s. You have to understand their Prime Minister Kurt voltheim won on the Nazi ticket. Mm, hmm. At that very time, if you got on a bus and you saw these businessmen going to work, at least 50% of them were reading the Nazi paper. Okay, so we kind of know what, where his affiliations lie. You know, this policeman and, you know, and I was very aware, you know, of of that party being very strong. And so you have to watch yourself when, when you're a foreigner. And I was a foreigner too, just like her. And so after wiping my face, I mean, I really, really wanted to give him a kick or something, yeah, and I do, I do know martial arts, but I was like, no, no, gotta stay cool. And I just told her to run. And she did and caught up with the children, and, you know, kept running. So that was the first experience I had knowing how unwelcome these people were in Austria. Yeah, so I got involved, yeah, I got involved because I was like, this is absolutely not right.   Michael Hingson ** 37:31 And so the book is, in part, to try to bring awareness to all that. I would think   Kay Sparling ** 37:36 absolutely there are, there are bits of it are, they're pretty darn graphic, but it's all true, and it's all documented. Sometimes people about human trafficking, they think, oh, it's not in my backyard. I'm not going to think about that. Well, I live in a very small college town, around 17,000 people, and two months ago, on the front page of this small paper here in town, there were seven men that were arrested for many counts of human trafficking of underage women and prostitution. So guess what, folks, it is in your backyard. If it's in this little town, it's probably in yours too. And we have to be aware before we can do anything. So we have to open our eyes. And I hope this book opens the eyes of the reader to say, Oh, my God, I knew things were bad, but I didn't realize that torture, this kind of thing went on. Well, it does, and I the International Labor Union estimates that 21 million people are being you. You are victims of human trafficking right now, as we speak, throughout the world, that's a lot of people, a lot of people. So most likely, we've all seen some hint of that going on, it didn't register as it at the time. You know, if you're just walked out of a restaurant, and you're walking to your car that's parked on the street, and you happen to go by an alley and there's restaurants on that row, and all of a sudden you see people being kind of shoved out and put in a truck. That's probably human trafficking, you know? And you know, a lot of people don't pay attention, but like, if they stop and think that doesn't look right, and if those people look like they may be from another country, yeah. And all you have to do is call the authorities, you know, and other ways that you can help are by you know, that that you can get involved. Are, you know, donate to all the different organizations that are finding this now.   Michael Hingson ** 40:19 Was the book self published, or do you have a publisher?   Kay Sparling ** 40:25 I self published, but it's more of a hybrid publishing company that's kind of a new thing that's going on, and so I cannot learn all those different facets of publishing a book, right? It just wasn't in my, you know, skill set, and it also wasn't even interesting to me. I don't want to learn how to do graphic illustration. Okay? So what I did is I hired a hybrid company that had all these different departments that dealt with this, and I had complete artistic control, and I was able to negotiate a great deal on my net profits. So I feel that, after looking into the traditional publishing world and not being exactly pleased with it to say the least, I think that was the right business choice for me to make, and I'm very happy I did it.   Michael Hingson ** 41:46 How do you market the book then?   Kay Sparling ** 41:48 Well, that was, that was the tricky part that that publisher did have some marketing they started, but obviously now they agreed it wasn't enough. So at that point, I attended a virtual women's publishing seminar, and I really paid attention to all the companies that were presenting about marketing. And in that time, I felt one that I just was totally drawn to, and so I asked her if we could have a consultation, and we did, and the rest is history. I did hire her team and a publicist, Mickey, who you probably know, and, yeah, it's been going really great. That was the second smart thing I did, was to, you know, hire, hire a publicity.   Michael Hingson ** 42:50 Well, yeah, and marketing is one is a is a tricky thing. It's not the most complicated thing in the world, but you do have to learn it, and you have to be disciplined. So good for you, for for finding someone to help, but you obviously recognize the need to market, which is extremely important, and traditional publishers don't do nearly as much of it as they used to. Of course, there are probably a lot more authors than there used to be too. But still,   Kay Sparling ** 43:19 yeah, their their marketing has changed completely. I remember I had a roommate that became a famous author, and just thinking about when he started, you know, in the 80s, how the industry is completely changed. Mm, hmm, you know. So, yeah, it's, it's really tricky. The whole thing is very tricky. One thing that I also did is one of my graduate students needed a job, and so I've known her since, literally, I've known her since eighth grade. I have been with this student a long time, and she's done very well, but she really is a wiz at the social media. And so she made all my accounts. I think I have 12 altogether, and every time I do something like what I'm doing tonight, soon as it's released, she just puts it out there, everywhere and and I have to thank her from again that that's probably not my skill set.   Michael Hingson ** 44:37 Well, everyone has gifts, right? And the the people who I think are the most successful are the people who recognize that they have gifts. There are other people that have gifts that will augment or enhance what they do. And it's good that you find ways to collaborate. I think collaborating is such an important thing. Oh, yeah. All too many people don't. They think that they can just do it all in and then some people can. I mean, I know that there are some people who can, but a lot of people don't and can't.   Kay Sparling ** 45:12 Well, I've got other things. I've got going, you know, so maybe if I only had to do the book, everything to do with the book, that would be one thing, but I, you know, I have other things I have to have in my life. And so I think that collaboration is also fun, and I'm very good at delegating. I have been very good at delegating for a long time. When I started my school. I also started a theater company, and if you know one thing, it's a three ring circus to produce an opera or a musical, and I've done a lot of them, and yeah, I would have not survived if I didn't learn how to delegate and trust people to do their own thing. So what are you   Michael Hingson ** 45:58 doing today? What are you doing today? Besides writing?   Kay Sparling ** 46:04 Well, during covid, everything got shut down, and I didn't have an income, and I had to do something. And one of, believe it or not, one of my parents, of one of my students, is an attorney for the state of Wisconsin, and she was very worried. I mean, it looked like I might lose my house. I mean, I literally had no income. And so, you know, I was a small business person, and so she offered me very graciously to come work in the department of workers compensation in the legal Bureau at the state of Wisconsin. So I never have done anything like that in my life. I have never sat in a cubicle. I've never sat in front of a computer unless it was in its recording studio or something like that. So it was a crazy thing to have to do in my early 60s, but I'm a single woman, and I had to do it, and and I did, and it put me on solid ground, and that was one reason I couldn't finish the book, because I didn't have to worry about a live cookie. And so I am continuing to do that in so as in the day, that is what I do. I'm a legal assistant, cool.   Michael Hingson ** 47:32 And so when did mission thought get published?   Kay Sparling ** 47:38 Mission thought almost a year ago, in August of 2024 it launched, yes, okay, yeah. And it was very scary for me, you know, because my hybrid publishers up in Canada, and they were telling me, Well, you know, we're going to get you some editorial reviews and we're going to have you be interviewed. And you know, those very first things where my editor at at the publisher had told me it was one of the really a good book, and that was one of the cleanest books she ever had to edit. And so that kind of gave me some confidence. But you understand, look at my background. I I didn't go to school to be a writer. I had never studied writing. I hadn't done any writing up until now, and so to that was my first kind of sigh of relief when the editor at the publisher said it was really a good book, and then I started getting the editorial reviews, and they were all stellar, and they continue to be. And I'm, I'm still a little shocked, you know, because it takes time, I guess, for a person to switch gears and identify themselves as an author. But you know, after a year now, I'm feeling much more comfortable in my shoes about that. But at first it was, it was trying because I was scared and I was worried, you know, what people were going to think about the book, not the story, so much as how it was crafted. But it ends up, well,   Michael Hingson ** 49:15 it ends up being part of the same thing, and yeah, the very fact that they love it that that means a lot. Yeah, so is, is there more in the way of adventures from Caitlin coming up or what's happening?   Kay Sparling ** 49:30 Yeah, this is hopefully a trilogy, um of Caitlin's most important standout missions. And so the second one is set in the early 90s during the Bosnian war. And this time, she cannot use opera as a cover, because obviously in a war zone, there's no opera. And so she has to. To go undercover as either a un volunteer or Red Cross, and this time, her sidekick is not the Clive Matthews. He has actually started a special squad, combat squad that's going in because, of course, we, none of us, were really involved with that war, right? But that's what he's doing. And so, believe it or not, her, her sidekick, so to speak, is a priest that very early, goes on and sees, you know, this absolute ethnic cleansing going on, you know, massacres and and he tries to get the Catholic Church to help, and they're like, no, no, we're not touching that. And so he goes AWOL. And had been friends in Vienna with the CIA during the first book. He goes to the CIA and says, This is what's going on. I saw it with my own eyes. I want to help. And so he becomes Caitlin's sidekick, which is a very interesting relationship. You know, Caitlin, the opera singer, kind of, kind of modern girl, you know, and then you know, the kind of staunch priest. But they find a way to work together, and they have to, because they have to save each other's lives a couple times. And this is my favorite book of the three. And so basically what happens is called Mission impromptu, and I hope to have that finished at the end of this month. And the reason we call it impromptu is because her chief tells her to just get the information and get out, but her and the priest find out that there is a camp of orphaned boys that they are planning to come massacre, and so they they they basically go rogue and don't follow orders and go try to help the boys. Yeah. And then the third book, she has actually moved back to New York, and she's thinking, well, she does retire from the CIA, and it's the summer of 2001 and what happened in September of 2001 911 and so they call her right back in she literally had been retired for about three months.   Michael Hingson ** 52:35 Well, to my knowledge, I never met Caitlin, so I'm just saying Mm hmm, having been in the World Trade Center on September 11, but I don't think I met Caitlin anyway.   Kay Sparling ** 52:43 Go ahead. No, she wasn't in the towers, but no, I was in New York. And yeah, so they called her back right away. And so the third one is going to be called Mission home front, because that's been her home for a very long time. She's been living in New York.   Michael Hingson ** 53:01 Are there plans for Caitlin beyond these three books? I hope so.   Kay Sparling ** 53:08 I think it would be fun for her to retire from the CIA and then move back to the Midwest. And, you know, it turned into a complete fiction. Of course, this is not true stuff, but, you know, like kind of a cozy mystery series, right, where things happen and people can't get anyone to really investigate it, so they come to Caitlin, and then maybe her ex boss, you know, the chief that's also retired, they kind of, you know, gang up and become pi type, you know, right? I'm thinking that might be a fun thing.   Michael Hingson ** 53:46 Now, are mostly books two and three in the mission series. Are they also relatively non fiction?   53:53 Yes, okay,   Michael Hingson ** 53:57 okay, cool, yes. Well, you know, it's, it's pretty fascinating to to hear all of this and to to see it, to hear about it from you, but to see it coming together, that is, that is really pretty cool to you know, to see you experiencing have the book, has mission thought been converted by any chance to audio? Is it available on Audible or   Kay Sparling ** 54:21 anywhere it has not but it is in my plans. It's there's a little bit of choice I have to make do. I use my publisher and hire one of their readers you know to do it, someone you know, that's in equity, that type of thing. Or you know, my publicity, or people are also saying, well, because you're an actor, and, you know, all these accents, it might be nice for you to do to read your own book. Well, the problem is time, you know, just the time to do it, because I'm so busy promoting the book right now. And really. Right writing the second one that you know, I just don't know if I'm going to be able to pull that off, but I have my own records, recording studio in my voice studio downstairs, but it's just and I have all the equipment I have engineers. It's just a matter of me being able to take the time to practice and to get that done. So it's probably going to be, I'll just use their, one of their people, but yes, yeah, it's coming. It's coming. Well, it's,   Michael Hingson ** 55:29 it's tough. I know when we published last year, live like a guide dog, and the publisher, we did it through a traditional publisher, they worked with dreamscape to create an audio version. And I actually auditioned remotely several authors and chose one. But it is hard to really find someone to read the book the way you want it read, because you know what it's like, and so there is merit to you taking the time to read it. But still, as you said, there are a lot of things going on,   Kay Sparling ** 56:09 yeah, and I have read, you know, certain portions of the book, because some podcasts that I've been on asked me to do that, and I and I practiced and that, it went very well. And of course, when people hear that, they're like, Oh, you're the one that has to do this. You know Caitlin. You can speak her, you know her attitudes and all. And then you also know how to throw all those different accents out there, because there's going to be, like, several, there's Dutch, there's German, there's Scottish, high British and Austrian. I mean, yeah, yeah, Austrians speak different than Germans. Mm, hmm,   Michael Hingson ** 56:53 yeah, it's it's a challenge, but it's still something worth considering, because you're going to bring a dimension to it that no one else really can because you wrote it and you really know what you want them to sound like, Yeah, but it's a it's a process. I and I appreciate that, but you've got lots going on, and you have to have an income. I know for me, we started live like a guide dog my latest book when the pandemic began, because I realized that although I had talked about getting out of the World Trade Center and doing so without exhibiting fear, didn't mean that it wasn't there, but I realized that I had learned to control fear, because I learned a lot that I was able to put to use on the Day of the emergency. And so the result of that was that, in fact, the mindset kicked in and I was able to function, but I never taught anyone how to do that. And so the intent of live like a guide dog was to be a way that people could learn how to control fear and not let fear overwhelm or, as I put it, blind them, but rather use fear as a very powerful tool to help you focus and do the things that you really need to do. But it's a choice. People have to learn that they can make that choice and they can control it, which is kind of what really brought the book to to mind. And the result was that we then, then did it. And so it came out last August as well.   Kay Sparling ** 58:27 Oh, well, if you read my book, you'll see Caitlin developing the same skills you were just talking about. She has to overcome fear all the time, because she's never been in these situations before, and yet she has to survive, you know?   Michael Hingson ** 58:44 Yeah, well, and the reality is that most of us take too many things for granted and don't really learn. But if you learn, for example, if there's an emergency, do you know where to go in the case of an emergency? Do you know how to evacuate, not by reading the signs? Do you know? And that's the difference, the people who know have a mindset that will help them be a lot more likely to be able to survive, because they know what all the options are, and if there's a way to get out, they know what they are, rather than relying on signs, which may or may not even be available to you if you're in a smoke filled environment, for example, yeah,   Kay Sparling ** 59:22 yeah, you should know ahead of time. Yeah, you know, I know the state where I work. I I mostly work at home. I'm able to do that, but we do have to go in once a week, and we just changed floors. They've been doing a lot of remodeling, and that was the first thing, you know, the supervisor wanted us to do was walk through all the way for a tornado, fire, etc, and so we did that, you know, and that's smart, because then you're like, you say you're not trying to look at a chart as you're running or whatever,   Michael Hingson ** 59:56 and you may need to do it more than once to make sure you really know it. I know for me. I spent a lot of time walking around the World Trade Center. In fact, I didn't even use my guide dog. I used a cane, because with a cane, I'll find things that the dog would just automatically go around or ignore, like kiosks and other things. But I want to know where all that stuff is, because I want to know what all the shops are down on the first floor. Well, now that that is the case anymore, but it was at the time there was a shopping mall and knowing where everything was, but also knowing where different offices were, knowing who was in which offices, and then knowing the really important things that most people don't know about, like where the Estee Lauder second store was on the 46th floor of tower two. You know, you got to have the important things for wives, and so I learned what that was. Well, it was, it was, those are important things, but you'll learn a lot, and it's real knowledge. Someone, a recent podcast episode that they were on, said something very interesting, and that is that we're always getting information, but information isn't knowing it. Knowledge is really internalizing the information and making it part of our psyche and really getting us to the point where we truly know it and can put it to use. And that is so true. It isn't just getting information. Well, that's great. I know that now, well, no, you don't necessarily know it now, until you internalize it, until you truly make it part of your knowledge. And I think that's something that a lot of people miss. Well, this has been a lot of fun. If people want to reach out to you, is there a way they can do that?   Kay Sparling ** 1:01:40 Yeah, the best thing is my book website, K, Sparling books.com spelled and it would K, a, y, s, p, as in Paul, A, R, L, I N, G, B, O, O, K, s.com.com, okay, and you can email me through there. And all the media that I've been on is in the media section. The editorial reviews are there. There's another thing that my student heats up for me is the website. It's it's really developed. And so lots of information about the book and about me on on there. And one thing I want to mention is, just because of my background and all the all the people that you know, I know, a friend of mine is a composer, and he wrote a song, a theme song, because we do hope that someday we can sell this, you know, yeah, to for movie and, or, you know, Netflix, or something like that. And so he wrote a theme song and theme music. And I just think that's fun. And then I wanted my students saying, saying it. And then, you know, it's with a rock band, but it's, it's very James Bond, the kind of with a little opera, you know, involved too. But, you know, not a lot of authors can say that on their website, they have a theme song for their books.   Michael Hingson ** 1:03:16 And where is   Kay Sparling ** 1:03:18 it? It would be under, it's going to be about the author. And there's a nice one of my other students is a graphic artist. She She did a graphic a scene of Caitlin with her ball gown, and she's got her foot up on a stool, and she's putting her pistol in her thigh holster, in I think, you know, it's kind of like a cartoon, and it quotes Caitlin saying, I bet you I'm going to be the only bell at the ball with this accessory pistol. And then right underneath that, that song, you can click it and hear it. We also are on YouTube mission. Thought does have its own YouTube channel, so you can find it there as well.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:05 So well, I want to thank you for being here and for telling us all the stories and especially about mission. I hope people will get it and read it, and I look forward to it coming out in audio at some point. Yes, I'll be lazy and wait for that, I I like to to get books with human readers. You know, I can get the print book and I can play it with a synthetic voice, but I, I really prefer human voices. And I know a lot of people who do AI has not progressed to the point where it really can pull that off.   Kay Sparling ** 1:04:38 Well, no, it cannot. Yeah, I totally agree with you there.   Michael Hingson ** 1:04:42 So Well, thank you for being here, and I want to thank all of you for listening and watching us today. This has been fun. And as some of you know, if you listen to many of these podcasts, we have a rule on the podcast, you can't come on unless you're going to have fun. So we did have fun. We. You have fun? Yeah. See, there you go. I was gonna ask if you had fun. Of course, yes. So thank you all for listening. Love to hear from you. Love to hear what your thoughts are about today's episode. Feel free to email me at Michael H, i@accessibe.com that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I at accessibe, A, C, E, S, S, i, b, e.com, also, please give us a five star rating. We appreciate it. K, I'll appreciate it. And when this goes up, when you hear it, we really value those ratings and reviews very highly. If you know anyone else who ought to be a guest and KU as well, love to hear from you. Please introduce us. Kay, you'll have to introduce us to Caitlin, but But seriously, we always are looking for more guests. So if anyone knows of anyone who ought to come on and tell a story, we'd love to hear from you. But again, Kay, I want to thank you one last time. This has been great, and we really appreciate you being here.   Kay Sparling ** 1:05:59 Well, thank you for having me.   Michael Hingson ** 1:06:04 You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.

Kay Sparling is an international opera and sacred singer. Nowretired, she lives in the Upper Midwest with her feline writingbuddy, the invincible Paducah. When not teaching voice lessonsor writing, Kay enjoys gardening, hiking, adventure travelling, andcooking for family and friends.More information about Kay can be found at: Kay Sparling – AuthorNear the end of the Cold War, Kaitlyn Stewart lands anapprenticeship at the Vienna State Opera. Soon after arriving,she is recruited by the CIA as the only female high profileoperative in Mission: THAW. Both CIA and MI6 are in a raceagainst time to uncover a human trafficking cartel set up byfascist Western politicians who are in business with the EastGermans and KGB. They are exploiting refugees from theformer satellite countries of the USSR. Mission: THAW mustinfiltrate the cartel in order to shut down the trafficking anddestroy the slave labor in East Germany. If the GDR economyfails, the Berlin Wall will come down. Covering as an opera singer, Kaitlyn infiltrates theinner circle of the KGB and neo-Nazis, only to find out that they have a much moredeadly, lucrative plan in the making: blueprints for a dirty bomb. MI6 agent CliveMatthews, who is considered the best secret agent in the free world, skillfully guidesKaitlyn through the crazy maze of the mission. Based on fact.Amazon.com: Mission Thaw: A Kaitlyn Stewart Spy Thriller: 9781779419071: Sparling, Kay: Books

Dr. Louise Mahler discusses the intersection of performance and communication, emphasising how to incorporate confidence-building techniques into everyday business practices. She talks about how your voice, tone, and body language can influence customer trust and experience, and how confidence isn't just a mindset - it's a skill that must be practiced. She also delves into how communication has evolved and why it's essential to train and develop these skills.About Dr. Louise Mahler:After moving from the Vienna State Opera back to Australia, Louise observed a ‘missing ingredient' in corporate leadership and completed an award - winning PhD around the unsung wisdom of the mind-body-voice connection she named Vocal Intelligence. Her highly participative sessions mean you leave knowing, understanding and even embodying the change. In 2006 Louise was the recipient of RMIT's award for innovation in PhD research and in 2023, she was awarded the title of Adjunct Professor and an official member of Forbes Coaches Council.Louise's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisemahler/Website: http://www.louisemahler.com.au/ About The PCOA: The PCO Association is the leading body representing the interests of Professional Conference Organisers and Event Managers in Australia and New Zealand.The Association's objectives are to increase the standard of professionalism of its members and promote a better understanding of the roles, functions and contributions of Professional Conference Organisers and Event Managers and other practitioners in the conference and event sector.Website: www.pco.asn.auAbout Connected Event Group: At Connected Event Group we offer innovation and creativity in audio-visual services and event production, employing technical solutions that help people and businesses communicate with each other. We've been translating event technologies for our clients for over two decades specialising in AV equipment and service, technical event production management and broadcasting, across a range of industries. We're experts in making the impossible possible.Website: www.connectedeventgroup.comAbout Libbie Ray: Libbie Ray is the Director of Connected Event Group and the President of the Entrepreneurs Organisation Sydney. Libbie's 20 years of experience across marketing, events, technology, and broadcast production provides a well-rounded approach to the new world of events. Libbie's passionate about sharing her knowledge and insights and works with Skills IQ and TAFE to assist in the development of the training and education framework for her sector. Libbie's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/libbie-ray/ Send us a text

Alma Deutscher, often described as a modern-day Mozart, was a prodigy whose early accomplishments include composing a piano sonata at age six, a short opera at seven, a violin concerto at nine, and her first full-length opera at ten. At twelve, she was profiled on 60 Minutes, and in 2021 began conducting studies in Vienna with Johannes Wildner. Now 20, Alma has just written her first ballet score—a collaboration with Lincoln Jones, founder and director of American Contemporary Ballet (ACB) in Los Angeles. Lincoln joined me on the podcast just over two years ago, offering unique insights into the complexities of running a dance company and the profound art of dance itself. In this episode, Lincoln and Alma discuss their new ballet, The Euterpides, inspired by Euterpe, the ancient Greek Muse of Music. This piece follows the Muse's goddess daughters as they descend to dance with a mortal, exploring the age-old connection between inspiration and craft. We recorded this conversation on Memorial Day to get it out ahead of the ballet's world premiere, which runs June 5–28 in Los Angeles. If you're local (or can make the trip!), you'll also hear about an audience support campaign, offering a rare chance for the public to get involved in bringing this ballet to life. GUEST BIO Alma Deutscher has composed a number of acclaimed orchestral works, including a full-length opera, by the age of 10. Her music has been performed at Carnegie Hall and the Vienna State Opera. She's earned the admiration of classical music luminaries like Zubin Mehta, who called her “one of the greatest musical talents of today.” Lincoln Jones is the founder, director, and principal choreographer of the American Contemporary Ballet in Los Angeles. Their collaboration, The Euterpides, premieres on June 5. Want to hear the whole conversation? Upgrade your subscription here. HOUSEKEEPING

CATHERINE FILLOUX (BOOK) is an award-winning playwright who has been writing about human rights and social justice for twenty-five years.  Filloux is the librettist for three produced operas, NEW ARRIVALS (Houston Grand Opera, composer John Glover), WHERE ELEPHANTS WEEP (Chenla Theatre, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, composer Him Sophy) and THE FLOATING BOX (Asia Society, New York City, composer Jason Kao Hwang).  WHERE ELEPHANTS WEEP was also broadcast on national television in Cambodia, and THE FLOATING BOX was a Critic's Choice in Opera News and is released by New World Records.  Catherine is the co-librettist with composer Olga Neuwirth for the opera ORLANDO, which premiered at Vienna State Opera. In development:  Thresh's L'ORIENT (composer Kamala Sankaram, choreographer Preeti Vasudevan); MARY SHELLEY (composer Gerald Cohen, dramaturg Cori Ellison, Black Tea Music).  Her plays have been produced around the U.S. and internationally.  She has been honored with the 2019 Barry Lopez Visiting Writer in Ethics and Community Fellowship; the 2017 Otto René Castillo Award for Political Theatre; and the 2015 Planet Activist Award.  JIMMY ROBERTS  (MUSIC & LYRICS) composed the music for I LOVE YOU, YOU'RE PERFECT, NOW CHANGE, second longest running Off Broadway musical in New York theater history. Written with playwright Joe DiPietro, I LOVE YOU received both the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle nominations as Best Musical. It has since played in fifty states, twenty-five countries around the world, and is a major motion picture in Hong Kong. His second Off Broadway musical, THE THING ABOUT MEN, won the 2003 New York Outer Critics Circle award for Best Musical. Jimmy's songs were featured in two other Off Broadway shows: A…MY NAME IS STILL ALICE and PETS! His children's musical, THE VELVETEEN RABBIT, toured the United States for well over a decade. Jimmy is also a sought-after performer. In entertaining programs that combine classical and popular music, he has appeared at Merkin Concert Hall, the Time Warner Center, the 92nd Street Y, Steinway Hall, and the National Arts Club. A graduate of the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with noted pianist, Constance Keene, Jimmy Roberts is also a poet, whose work has appeared often in the New York Times Metropolitan Diary, as well as TROLLEY, the journal of the NYS Writers Institute. JOHN DAGGETT (BOOK & ADD'L LYRICS) is a differently-abled actor who has starred Off-Broadway in the critically acclaimed plays LEMKIN'S HOUSE, TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON, and LOVE LEMMINGS.  Other New York credits include: ROME, PORTRAIT OF A PRESIDENT, AN ARTIST'S LIFE, THE WITCHES TRIPTYCH, and his one-man show FLYING BY THE SEAT OF MY PANTS (Theatre Row).  Regional: Guthrie, Merrimack Rep, Jewish Repertory Theatre, Portland Stage, Roxy Theatre, Odyssey Theater, Kavinoky Theatre and H.T.Y.  Numerous roles for Pennsylvania Shakespeare, Orlando Shakespeare, Shakespeare in Delaware Park, Lake Tahoe Shakespeare and Sherwood Shakespeare.  John served as a member of the Government Relations Committee of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Welcome to the Big Dipper What defines home, family, and identity? Joan Wilkes confronts these questions when she must sell The Big Dipper Inn, near Niagara Falls in upstate New York, known for its music and African American heritage. She's all set to sign the contract when a blizzard lands a group of Amish folks and a busload of men in dresses on her doorstep. For three days and nights, they wait out the storm. Cultures clash, romance crackles, and Joan struggles for answers, as a houseful of strangers becomes an unexpected community.

Really Interesting Women - the PodcastEpisode 137Dr Louise MahlerDr Louise Mahler is one of the world's leading keynote speakers. She has been voted. amongst the top experts in both Body Language and Communication globally.  ...and it started following a decade singing Opera in Europe, including a soloist contract at the Vienna State Opera. From that, Louise began an exploration of performance as it applies to the business context. Louise is a highly sought-after media figure and commentator and is regularly interviewed on Sunrise, The Today Show, SBS, the ABC, and radio stations across Australia. You may recognise her from that and from analysing politicians during the last federal election and Royals such as Prince Harry and Meghan. Her analysis of the Johnny Depp and Amber Herd trial attracted over 2 million views on YouTube. But beyond that public image, she also helps leaders and teams to elevate their body language and voice.  She was awarded the Professional Speakers Association's Keynote Speaker of the Year for 2021 and the Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement helping Women in Business. Head to the link in my bio to listen to our conversation.    Dr Loise Mahler's latest book is Gravitas: Timeless Skills to Communicate with Confidence and Build Trusthttps://www.amazon.com.au/Gravitas-Timeless-Skills-Communicate-Confidence/dp/1394237332Visit instagram @reallyinterestingwomen for further interviews and posts of interesting women in history. Follow the link to leave a review....and tell your friendshttps://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/really-interesting-women/id1526764849

This week on the podcast is part two of our interview with renowned lyric tenor, Matthew Polenzani. He performs regularly with the Metropolitan Opera and appears in opera houses around the world such as the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, and Teatro Real in Madrid. Matthew is continuously in demand for concert engagements with the world's most influential conductors, and with premiere ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the Munich Philharmonic.​Join us for this mini-master class in career development for any aspiring musician! https://matthewpolenzani.com/

Today we release part one of our interview with renowned lyric tenor, Matthew Polenzani. He performs regularly with the Metropolitan Opera and appears in opera houses around the world such as the Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, and Teatro Real in Madrid.  Matthew is continuously in demand for concert engagements with the world's most influential conductors, and with premiere ensembles such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, and the Munich Philharmonic.Join us for this mini-master class in career development for any aspiring musician!  https://matthewpolenzani.com/

Hello Everyone, Welcome back to another episode with myself Isabella. Today we are speaking with amazing principal dancer Denys Cherevychko. He is a beautiful dancer most notably with Vienna State Opera and Ballet however he is also a wonderful touring dancer, working in my galas and guesting worldwide. What struck me is his wonderful mindset. Despite being thrown into many parts, many roles, his mindset has stayed solid and trusting of himself. Being a Principal dancer goes far beyond the steps, there needs to be a certain head on your shoulders to be able to achieve your fullest potential as a dancer and artist. This was a very valuable conversation and I hope you enjoy it! ------ Thank you for Listening! ---------- Follow me on instagram   / balletwithisabella   Let us know if you have struggled with this and find it difficult to be honest with your teacher. Enjoy! ---------- Follow on instagram @balletwithisabella Enjoy! Like and subscribe! ---------------------------------- Take my 8 week absolute beginner course! - become a soloist member. https://balletwithisabella.com/plan/a... 14 day free trial to the BWI platform https://balletwithisabella.com/select... Online classes + courses + plans Live ballet classes online Memberships to enhance you training Live classes and more! Start today! https://balletwithisabella.com * Listen to my podcast to enhance your mindset as a dancer! become more confident, with higher self esteem and self belief. Join thousands of listeners! https://open.spotify.com/show/72hZ7nn... * Follow me on Instagram @balletwithisabella * Follow me on TIKTOK www.tiktok.com/@balletwithisabella Join the BWI Community! Your secret weapon to excellence balletwithisabella.com About Me Hello everyone! my names Isabella. I am the first British graduate of the Vaganova ballet academy in Saint Petersburg Russia. I was a soloist working with the Mikhailovsky Ballet and Eifman ballet. Now I live in London as a full time coach and BWI founder teaching worldwide with my intensives and online platform, Here, on my channel I am sharing my passion with you all about the Vaganova technique amongst many other things related to ballet we all love. It's a hard industry so I am here to help with my insights and knowledge to make it a little easier for you all, as well as to hopefully entertain you with my content. Thank you for Listening!

Hi everyone and welcome back to the podcast! Welcome to SERIES 7! for this weeks episode, I am joined by Shane Wuerthner, probably better known as Athletistry on Instagram. We talk about his journey through professional ballet training, audition season and his experience of turning down a contract at the Royal Danish Ballet, and how this led him to go on to dancer soloist roles at Vienna State Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and Queensland Ballet, where he retired to settle down in Australia. During lockdown Shane started personal training, which led him to where he is today, the creator of ‘Athletistry' and online service for dancers to improve their range and quality of movement. You can find Shane here; IG: @athletistry TikTok: @balletstrong YT: Ballet Strong I hope you enjoy the episode Romy xx

SynopsisOn today's date in 1946, the octogenarian German composer Richard Strauss conducted the final rehearsal of his latest work, Metamorphosen, a study for 23 strings. Paul Sacher, the Swiss conductor and music patron, had commissioned the work and conducted the public premiere later that day in Zurich.Strauss had begun work on the piece on March 13, 1945, one day after the Vienna State Opera house had been bombed by the Allies. When the Nazis had come to power in 1933, Strauss was at first fêted as the greatest living German composer, but he soon fell out of favor. While his music was not banned, official Nazi support for Strauss eventually fell away, and the fact that Strauss' beloved daughter-in-law was Jewish meant increasing anxiety about her fate and that of his grandchildren as the Nazi's race laws tightened their noose.In a postwar memorandum, Strauss wrote, “The most terrible period of human history has come to an end, the 12-year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2,000 years of cultural evolution met its doom and irreplaceable monuments of architecture and works of art were destroyed.”Music Played in Today's ProgramRichard Strauss (1864-1949) Metamorphosen; Vienna Philharmonic; Simon Rattle, cond. EMI 56580

Opera Australia is staging a new production of Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen at the Queensland Performing Arts Center in Brisbane from December 1st to 21st. Over eighty musicians will be heard in the orchestra, as well as over a hundred voices. “Powerful and soulful stage presence” – “Magnificent, lush voice” – “Exciting high notes” – “An enormously talented, young dramatic soprano”. These are just a few reviews of the rich biography of Anna-Louise Cole. She was born in Melbourne. Her musical talent earned her many prizes and took her to the Vienna State Opera, among other places. Anna-Louise Cole will be heard as Brünnhilde in Richard Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen. - Opera Australia bringt vom 1. bis zum 21. Dezember eine Neuinszenierung von Wagners Ring des Nibelungen im Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane auf die Bühne. Über achtzig Musiker werden im Orchester zu hören sein, sowie über einhundert Stimmen. “Kraftvolle und gefühlvolle Bühnenpräsenz“ – „Herrliche, üppige Stimme“ – „Spannende hohe Töne“ – „Eine enorm talentierte, junge dramatische Sopranistin“. Das sind nur ein paar auserlesene Rosinen aus der reichen Biografie von Anna-Louise Cole. Sie ist in Melbourne geboren. Ihr musikalisches Talent brachte ihr viele Preise ein und führte sie unter anderem auch nach Wien in die Staatsoper. Anna-Louise Cole wird als Brünnhilde in Richard Wagners Ring des Nibelungen zu hören sein.

Marco Armiliato is a veteran conductor from Italy. He has spent most of his career in opera, and in Italian opera in particular. He is a regular at the Met, the Vienna State Opera, and other important venues. Last month, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival, and he was a guest in the series of […]

Marco Armiliato is a veteran conductor from Italy. He has spent most of his career in opera, and in Italian opera in particular. He is a regular at the Met, the Vienna State Opera, and other important venues. Last month, he conducted at the Salzburg Festival, and he was a guest in the series of conversations hosted by the Salzburg Festival Society. Jay does the questioning. In the course of their talk, Armiliato says that Luciano Pavarotti, the late tenor, was full of sunshine. Just the same is true of Maestro Armiliato. He is one of the most beloved people in all of music—for reasons that will be obvious when you listen to him.

In this guest episode, The Occupational Philosophers chat with Dr Louise Mahler.  Dr Louise is the polymath's polymath and is recognised as a Top 30 Global Guru in both Body Language and Communication. She was an Opera singer for 10 years with the Vienna State Opera.  Louise's qualifications include B.Econ; B. Mus; Post Grad Dip Music; L.Mus.A; Master of Applied Science in Organisational Change and a Master Practitioner in Neuro-Linguistic Programming.  She has completed an award-winning PhD around the unsung wisdom of the mind-body-voice connection she named Vocal Intelligence. She is a sought-after commentator discussing leadership, body language and effective presentation on television, radio and in the media. Her recent interviews with Channel 7 where she analyses the body language of Harry and Meghan Sussex have over 2 million views. Louise's clients include Fortune 500 clients around the globe.  Louise was voted Keynotes Speaker of the Year in 2021 by the Professional Speakers Association and is the author of "Resonate: for people who need to be heard"  She is the virtuoso of the voice, the high priestess of hot air and the femme fatale of unfailing attraction.  In this episode we explore:  The importance of breathing out (not just in)  Why we all need to channel ancient Rome and have way more Grrrrrrrravitas  Why communication should not just be a linear give and receive  Why we need to stop making excuses for communication (including being left-handed)  How we need to embrace Move, Move, Move  How wit and levity are wingmen for all types of communication  Why it's important to be an active listener, not just a passive listener The importance of saying ‘yes, please!' more often More about Louise https://louisemahler.com.au/   Say Hello www.occupationalphilosophers.com Their day jobs JOHN: https://www.bowlandconsulting.com/ SIMON: www.simonbanks.com.au SIMON SHOWREEL: https://youtu.be/YZQdJI6qGvg   Take the Innovation Scorecard! https://empoweringinnovation.scoreapp.com/   Take creativity & innovation to the next level Answer 25 questions and we'll send you a personalised report to benchmark the  level of creativity and innovation in your organisation It just takes a few minutes takes just a few minutes It's completely free Receive customised results instantly    

With his last-minute stand-in in the acclaimed new production of Salome at the Berlin State Opera, Thomas Guggeis caused a sensation internationally.  As Staatskapellmeister of the Staatsoper Berlin since 2020/21 has conducted, or is due to conduct, Falstaff, Lohengrin, Samson et Dalila, Hansel and Gretel, Don Giovanni, Jenufa, The Merry Wives of Windsor and Elektra.  His debut at the Vienna State Opera were Salome and Die tote Stadt.  He will soon give symphony concerts around the world, including with members of the Berliner Philharmoniker.From 2018-2020, as Kapellmeister at the Stuttgart State Opera, he had already performed works such as La Bohème, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Madama Butterfly, Der Prinz von Homburg and Der Freischütz.

SynopsisOn today's date in 1877, the Vienna Philharmonic performed for the first time in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, during a three-day music festival that included works by Mozart and others, including two living composers of that day, a 44-year old fellow named Brahms and a 64-year old named Wagner.The Philharmonic would return to Salzburg six more times for mini-festivals through 1910, some led by composer-conductors like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler.In 1925, an annual “Salzburg Festival” was established, with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera as the main musical participants. The Second World War disrupted the Festival in the 1940s, but soon after it reestablished itself among the most prestigious of international musical happenings. Traditionally, a familiar brass fanfare opens each Salzburg Festival radio broadcast, but probably few music lovers know the name of its composer. It was written by Joseph Messner, who wrote over 700 works. He was born in 1893 in the Austrian Tyrol and died in 1969 in a village near Salzburg, where he had served as church organist, conductor and composer for decades, leading many Festival concerts featuring sacred music by Mozart and others.Music Played in Today's ProgramWolfgang Mozart (1756 - 1791) Menuetto and Trio, fr Haffner Symphony Vienna PhilharmonicRafael Kubelik, conductor. Seraphim 68531Joseph Messner (1893 - 1969) Salzburg Festival Fanfare Salzburg Mozarteum Orch;Ivor Bolton, conductor. Oehmns CD 734

We all know dancers are athletes of the arts and we are grateful to discuss this with the amazing Shane Wuerthner! Having danced for several years with Vienna State Opera, San Francisco Ballet, and Queensland Ballet, this ballet principal shifted his focus to strengthening dancers & artists  world wide though his company Athletistry Ballet Club. This is the perfect episode for any dancer struggling with certain technical abilities and curious how to overcome these obstacles through conditioning. Be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and refer a friend!SOCIALS:Shane Wuerthner - @athletistryUs! - @insidedancepodcastAlex - @alexyonkTaylor - @tbradchoreoSupport the show

My guest, 25-year-old Yamen Saadi, started his position as concertmaster at the Vienna State Opera and Philharmonic in October 2022. We recorded this episode during his very first project with the orchestra. We talk about how to prepare for auditions, how to practice for performances and perform under stress, and how young musicians can find performance and recording opportunities. This podcast is created by inclassics, a web development agency for musicians. We have developed a website builder with many useful features for musicians. Visit us at https://inclassics.com to learn more.

In this episode of The Jane Anderson Show, we are honored today to have one of the 30 top-voted Communication Gurus globally. Our speaker, Dr. Louise Mahler is Australia's 2021 Keynote Speaker of the Year and a media and internet sensation. You may wonder how expertise in presence and influence began with an economics degree majoring in statistics! It could be an interim decade singing opera in Europe and a soloist's contract at the Vienna State Opera, but it was a master's in organizational psychology and a ‘Ph.D. in Business' that brought her highly practical theories on Interpersonal Leadership Communication together. Louise is ‘on-call' for top global CEOs and a guest presenter for leaders and leadership teams worldwide, coaching federal politicians, heads of international business, and rising corporate talent when the need to give a voice and be influential arises. A winner of an International Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement for helping Women in Business, Louise makes regular TV appearances, giving Hughesy a run for his money on “Hughesy I have a problem” and is a regular on the Channel 7 Morning Show. She has a series of videos with the Australian Financial Review as well as being a constant feature for comment on the radio. Her book ‘Resonate' with Penguin Random House is for ‘people who need to be heard', so we are in the right place today. Louise has sung in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Norwegian, and Czech - and she will hopefully be presenting today in English. Her work has had a transformative effect on many people's lives, and she is here now to impact ours... She is the Virtuoso of the VoiceThe High Priestess of hot air andThe Femme Fatale of unfailing attraction Let's take the time to listen to Dr. Louise Mahler today... You can find Dr. Louise on LinkedIn or https://louisemahler.com.au/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

[@ 2 min] It's our new segment ‘View from the Pit', when we roll up our sleeves and get down and dirty with the best grinders in the business: instrumentalists playing in opera house orchestra pits. We chat with Metropolitan Opera Principal Trumpet David Krauss about the Triumphal March from “Aida”, and about his own podcast “Speaking Soundly”... [@ 24 min] Then, in ‘Chalk Talk'… It's our recap of the 2022 International Opera Awards: who triumphed last week at the ceremony in Madrid…? [@ 39 min] Plus, in the ‘Two Minute Drill'… Can you imagine the Vienna State Opera without a music director? The house's general director Bogdan Roscic can… We're back with an all-new show next week when we pick the winner of the 2022 Men's World Cup with our patented Opera Prediction™ method… Join us! SHOW NOTES www.artfulnarrativesmedia.com/speaking-soundly-podcast CONNECT WITH US operaboxscore.com facebook.com/obschi1 @operaboxscore IG operaboxscore

Synopsis In 1965, Leonard Bernstein took a sabbatical year from his duties as music director of the New York Philharmonic. In 1964, the busy Mr. Bernstein had just finished conducting Verdi's opera “Falstaff” at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and in 1966, would make his debut at the Vienna State Opera, conducting the same work. But he reserved 1965 to concentrate on composing. “In the course of that year,” recalled Bernstein, “I had the luxury to do nothing but experiment. And part of my experimentation was to try to write some pieces that, shall we say, were less old-fashioned. I wrote a lot of music, 12-tone music and avant-garde music of various kinds, and a lot of it was very good, but I threw it all away. What I came out with at the end of the year was a piece called ‘Chichester Psalms,' which is simple and tonal and as pure B-flat as any piece you can think of… because that was what I honestly wished to write.” Bernstein conducted the premiere performance at Lincoln Center with the Camerata Singers and the New York Philharmonic on July 15th, 1965, and later in the month, traveled to Chichester Cathedral in England, which had commissioned the work in the first place, for the British premiere of his “Chichester Psalms.” Music Played in Today's Program Giuseppe Verdi (1913-1901) – Act III excerpt, from Falstaff (soloists; Vienna Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) CBS/Sony 42535 Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) – Chichester Psalms (Camerata Singers; New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, cond.) CBS/Sony 47162

A globe trotting ballet dancer, Suzan Sittig has travelled a lot in her pursuit of a ballet career. From being born and spending her early years in South Africa where she was first exposed to dancing before moving to the UK where she grew up and where she she took her ballet career to the next level as a student at the Royal Ballet School in London. Now as a Classical Ballet Dancer in the Vienna State Opera is a fully fledged professional dancer. She comes with a lot of experience and knowledge of the pros and cons of a dancing career and has a very refreshing view on the mental health implications of a career in the arts while also some great advice for any aspiring dancers from her years in the industry. As a sporting discipline that doesn't get the headlines like your popular sports such as football, rugby etc. this is a really fantastic insight from a less publicised sport but one that is intriguing to learn more about. This is a conversation that is worth a listen for everyone, not just dance enthusiasts! Links: Suzan's Blog - https://suzanwithaz.com/ Suzan's Instagram - @not.a.bunhead Check out our website and follow us on social media for more tips and advice: Website - motuslearning.com Instagram - @motuslearning Facebook - @MotusLearning1 Twitter - @MotusL And as always; Mind Yourself :) ! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/motus-learning/message

Episode 92In episode 92 – Chris answers a listener's question around the topical subject of why P&O Ferries may look similar but are in fact not connected to P&O Cruises (UK or Australia). P&O Cruises is part of the Carnival Corporation, whilst P&O Ferries falls under a Dubai-based company DP World. And of course, we round out the show with the latest cruise news… and what a week it has been in cruise news.Image Credit: Pride of Dover, P&O Ferries, DP WorldSupport the showListen, Like, Subscribe & Review on your favourite podcast directory.Share the podcast with someone you think will enjoy the showBuy Me A Coffee – This podcast is only possible thanks to our supporters, simply buying a coffee keeps us on air. It is just like shouting your mate a coffee, and we consider our listeners close mates. https://bit.ly/2T2FYGXSustainable Fashion – choose a TBCP design or design your own… all using organic cotton, green energy and zero plastic https://bit.ly/32G7RdhSupport Chris in his walk from Cape to Cape: All donations support zero2hero empowering young people to deal with mental health.  https://donate.mycause.com.au/cause/263123?donateToMember=156839Cruise NewsAustralian Cruise Ban to officially end on 17 Apr 22. P&O Cruises Australia Sets Course to Resume Cruising in May with New 2022 ProgramP&O Cruises Australia has flagged a return to cruising at the end of May, with the launch of a new 2022 program of sailings from Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Melbourne.The move follows the Federal Government's decision to lift the cruise ban from April 17 – a major development and the first critical step to enable cruising and its contribution to the national economy to resume after the two-year suspension of operations.Under the new program, Australian cruising will now resume when Pacific Explorer sails from Sydney on May 31 on a four-night roundtrip cruise to Brisbane, where the ship is scheduled to make the first call at the city's new cruise terminal on June 2. Pacific Explorer will then sail from Sydney on a series of Queensland and South Pacific cruises until late October, replacing Pacific Adventure's scheduled program. While most cruise itineraries will remain unaltered by the change of ships, a 10-night cruise to Vanuatu departing June 1 has been replaced with three shorter domestic cruises.Pacific Adventure will now begin her maiden season of cruises from Sydney on October 22, when Pacific Explorer will sail to Adelaide for a new mini-season of four cruises. Pacific Explorer will redeploy to Melbourne in November for three months, before returning to Adelaide in February 2023 for a longer season of nine cruises.Meanwhile, the Brisbane debut of Pacific Encounter has been rescheduled from June 4 to August 20, 2022, prompting the cancellation of 15 cruises.Princess Announces Restart Plans in Australia – Coral Princess to Sail from QueenslandPrincess Cruises today announced its planned resumption of cruising in Australia, with Coral Princess set to debut in Brisbane on June 16 for her inaugural season Down Under.In a move worth an estimated $60 million dollars to the Queensland economy, the 2000-guest ship will be homeported in Brisbane for 11 new departures ranging from 3-12 nights between June and August before returning for another 10 cruises this summer from November.The MedallionClass ship will make 48 calls to the State's ports this year, including her first visits to Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, Cairns and Port Douglas.Meanwhile Coral Princess' sister ships, Grand Princess and Majestic Princess, will make a further six calls to Queensland ports as part of their scheduled Australian season sailing from Sydney and Melbourne.Highlights of the new winter program include:Six short getaway cruises from Brisbane and Sydney – perfect seacations for those with busy schedules.Five 7-day Queensland roundtrip cruises from Brisbane, sailing to Cairns, Port Douglas, and Airlie Beach (for the Whitsundays).A new 7-day New South Wales Coast roundtrip from Brisbane, with a maiden call to Eden (Sapphire Coast), Sydney, and Newcastle.A new 12-day Queensland and New South Wales voyage, sailing roundtrip from Brisbane.A new 12-day Queensland and the Conflict Islands voyage, roundtrip Sydney or Brisbane, crossing the Coral Sea to visit the stunning and remote Conflict Islands in Papua New Guinea.The winter program will be open for sale from 9am AEDT on 24 March, 2022Two Quantum Class Ships to Call Australia Home Royal Caribbean International will make its long-awaited return to Australia with two Quantum class ships sailing from Brisbane and Sydney from Oct 2022.The milestone is more than two years in the making, with both Ovation of the Seas (pictured) and Quantum of the Seas to offer a range of adventures.This season, cruisers will be able to take in the sights from North Star – the highest viewing deck on a cruise ship; or the RipCord by iFLY skydiving experience. Travellers can also catch a wave on the FlowRider surf simulator, or take to new heights on the RCI rock climbing wall.Holland America Line Speeds Up Embarkation Process with mBark Facial Recognition and VeriFLY Vaccine Verification ProgramHolland America Line is enhancing the preboarding guest experience and making embarkation easier by adding the use of mBark facial recognition and the VeriFLY vaccine verification program in all U.S., Canadian and European homeportsmBark is a mobile system that enables guests to check in for their cruise in less than 10 seconds, while the VeriFLY digital wallet for COVID-19 credentials offers a proven solution for proof of vaccination and test results.With mBark facial recognition, guests who load their photo and all necessary pretravel information to Holland America Line's website prior to embarkation will be able to use the touchless system. Following a quick face scan, guests can move through the check-in process in about 10 seconds, significantly reducing embarkation time. SKO Systems, based in London, England, designed and implemented mBark for Holland America Line.VeriFLY gives guests the option to upload the required information to the app, including proof of vaccination and test results, providing a way to go through the screening process prior to arrival at the terminal. Once registration is complete, guests simply need to show the VeriFLY QR code or “pass” (digital or printed) to the check-in agent. VeriFLY has a successful record of serving dozens of airlines, cruise lines, hotels and a variety of industries. The VeriFLY app is available for download at Google Play and the Apple App Store.Global pop superstar Katy Perry names Godmother of Norwegian PrimaNorwegian Cruise Line (NCL), the innovator in global cruise travel, announced today that world famous pop icon and “American Idol” judge Katy Perry will serve as the godmother to its record-breaking and innovative newest ship, Norwegian Prima, debuting August 2022.As godmother, Perry will not only fulfil the longstanding maritime tradition of blessing and officially naming Norwegian Prima, the first of six vessels in the Prima Class, but she will perform during the christening ceremony before Norwegian Prima sets sail on its inaugural voyages from Reykjavík, Iceland, where the vessel will be the first major cruise ship christened in the Icelandic capital.A vital and familiar element of any ship launch and dating back centuries, the highly regarded tradition of appointing a ship's godmother is a fundamental nautical custom during which the selected godmother officiates a ceremonial breaking of a champagne bottle on the ship's bow to bid the vessel and its traveller's good fortune.“My most favorite way to vacation with my family is on the water. Every morning that you wake up, you get to experience an incredible new view,” said Katy Perry “I love that I get to christen her with my good vibrations, and I'm so excited for this new, beautiful, high-end, high-tech ship to take the seas, and provide once-in-a-lifetime vacations for so many families.”Launching August 2022, Norwegian Prima will offer inaugural voyages to Northern Europe from Southampton, England; Amsterdam; and Reykjavík, Iceland beginning 12 August.; Bermuda sailings from New York City beginning 6 October. and Caribbean itineraries from Galveston, Texas and Miami beginning 27 October.  To commemorate this exciting partnership and celebrating other entertainment headliners that will be featured on Norwegian Prima, NCL has put together a celebratory Spotify playlist.MSC Grandiosa now dedicated to the Norwegian Fjords for Summer 2022MSC Cruises' has announced that MSC Grandiosa will now be fully dedicated to the Norwegian Fjords for the entire Northern Hemisphere summer 2022 season. This sees one of MSC Cruises' most modern and environmentally advanced ships offering stand-out seven-night itineraries in one of the most stunning regions in Northern Europe. As a result, MSC Cruises will offer an unparalleled choice of itineraries to guests wanting to discover this unique part of the world this Northern Hemisphere summer, as MSC Preziosa and MSC Poesia also offer additional seven-night options next to MSC Grandiosa across the Norwegian Fjords regionMSC Grandiosa will perform spectacular seven-night itineraries from Kiel, Germany calling at the colourful capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen. The ship then heads north to Norway, calling at the breath-taking village of Hellesylt while experiencing the splendour of Sunnylvsfjord, sail through Aurlandsfjord on the way to the panoramic port town of Alesund and stunning Flam village.MSC Cruises had previously confirmed that the Line would suspend calls to St Petersburg, Russia and as such, MSC Grandiosa will now be fully dedicated to the Fjords region while MSC Poesia and MSC Preziosa will still call in the Baltics but with St Petersburg replaced with other popular destinations in the region like Stockholm, Tallinn and Visby.Cunard's London Theatre at Sea voyage to be Headlined by Olivier Award Winning Actress Sharon D. Clarke MBELuxury cruise line Cunard will stage its first London Theatre at Sea with the Olivier Awards voyage, curated by Society of London Theatre's Chief Executive, Julian Bird, this May.Sailing from New York to London on board flagship Queen Mary 2, the exclusive voyage will feature performances from some of the theatre world's finest talent, including Oliver Award for Best Actress winner, Sharon D. Clarke MBE, Olivier Award for Best Actor winner Matt Henry MBE, film, theatre and television actress and producer, Susie McKenna and Conductor and Orchestrator Larry Blank.The seven-night crossing, which departs New York on May 15, 2022, will be supported with a roster of workshops, talks and Q&As from industry insiders.Guests will be able to take part in acting masterclasses with performers and learn the tricks of the trade from luminaries such as Andreane Neofitou, the costume designer behind Les Misérables and Miss Saigon.For the first time, Cunard will be introducing an “Oliviers Gala Evening,” which will feature entertainment from headliners throughout the evening, as well as a never-seen-before show, “Olivier Awards in Concert” that has been created for this voyage by Society of London Theatre's Julian Bird. The concert will take place in the Royal Court Theatre and pay homage to the Olivier Awards' last 45 years in a dazzling one-off production with cast and orchestra.Global Adventurer, Mountaineer & Polar-Explorer, Alison Levine name Godmother of Seabourn Venture. Seabourn, the ultra-luxury expedition experience, is delighted to announce that global adventurer, mountaineer and polar-explorer Alison Levine will serve as Godmother of Seabourn Venture, the first of the line's two new ultra-luxury purpose-built expedition vessels. Levine will be on board and in the spotlight for the traditional naming and christening of the ship, which is set to launch in July 2022.Levine is an idyllic choice for Godmother of Seabourn Venture, which is being built to seek out adventure and natural wonders around the world. A native of Phoenix, she served as team captain of the first American Women's Everest Expedition in 2002, and in 2010 completed her bid for the Explorer's Grand Slam which includes climbing the Seven Summits – the highest peak on each continent – as well as skiing to the North and South Poles.Levine has also seen success in the business world. She earned her MBA from Duke University and worked in the pharmaceutical industry as well as on Wall Street with Goldman Sachs. After turns as deputy finance director for Arnold Schwarzenegger's successful bid to become Governor of California and as an adjunct professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences & Leadership at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, she went on to become one of the world's most in-demand leadership consultants and keynote speakers. She is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “On the Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments”, which chronicles the lessons she learned on her various expeditions. In 2019 she received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, an award she shares with seven U.S. Presidents and numerous Nobel Prize winners.Levine has also shared her experiences, insights and tales of adventure with guests of Seabourn through Seabourn Conversations, the line's popular onboard enrichment program, aboard Seabourn Sojourn in December 2019. It was her first-ever cruise – a trip she never thought she would do – but she admits she is hooked and looks forward to more travels by ship in the future. Seabourn Venture and its sister expedition ship, Seabourn Pursuit, will feature 132 luxurious oceanfront veranda suites and take travelers to some of the most awe-inspiring places in the world, some of which are only accessed by ship. Viking Expands European River Fleet with Naming of Eight New Ships and Marks Beginning of 2022 River SeasonViking welcomed eight new river ships to its award-winning fleet during a celebration in Paris. Of the eight new Viking Longships®, four ships – Viking Fjorgyn, Viking Kari, Viking Radgrid and Viking Skaga – are built specifically to navigate the Seine River and bring guests to the heart of Paris with an exclusive docking location at Port de Grenelle, just a short walk from the Eiffel Tower. The four additional ships – Viking Egdir, Viking Gersemi, Viking Gymir and Viking Hervor – will sail Viking's popular itineraries on the Rhine, Main and Danube rivers.The naming of the new river ships comes as Viking continues its 25th anniversary and a year of multiple milestones. In January 2022, the company launched Viking Expeditions and its first Polar Class vessel, the Viking Octantis®. By the end of the year, Viking will have also welcomed a second identical expedition ship, as well as two new identical ocean ships, new purpose-built vessels for the Nile and Mekong rivers and new Mississippi River voyages.Viking Naming CeremonyIn keeping with maritime tradition that dates back thousands of years, Viking invited eight distinguished cultural partners and important members of the company's extended family to serve as ceremonial godmothers of the new ships. The honored godmothers include:Alma Deutscher, Godmother of Viking Gymir – A musical phenomenon, Alma captivates the classical world with her talents as a violinist, pianist, composer and conductor, and at just 17 years old was hailed as the “new Mozart” at an early age. She recently appeared on an episode of Viking's award-winning enrichment channel, Viking.TV (Anne Diamond Welcomes Back Composer and Musician Alma Deutscher), where she discussed her upcoming concert series, which will be exclusive for Viking guests on select river voyages visiting Vienna.Helen Deutscher, Godmother of Viking Egdir – A violinist, pianist and vocalist, Helen is an accomplished musician who honed her musical and performance skills at the Music Gymnasium in Vienna and as a member of the Vienna State Opera's children's chorus; she has also performed in several productions of her sister Miss Alma Deutscher's opera, Cinderella. Helen and Alma recently appeared together on an episode of Viking.TV (Anne Diamond Interviews Classical Musicians, Alma & Helen Deutscher) where they discussed their remarkable lives and many musical milestones.Dr. Janie Deutscher, Godmother of Viking Radgrid – An author and educator, Dr. Deutscher is also an accomplished musician and earned an organ scholarship to Oxford University where she later taught medieval literature; in recent years, she has concentrated on homeschooling and supporting the musical ambitions of her two daughters, Alma and Helen, godmothers of Viking Gymir and Viking Egdir, respectfully.Brenda Hunsberger, Godmother of Viking Hervor – For more than four decades, Ms. Hunsberger, Senior Vice President of Travel Services with AAA Club Alliance, has worked in the industry as an accomplished travel agent; she believes in the power of travel to transform perspectives and change lives.Karryn Christopher, Godmother of Viking Gersemi – Ms. Christopher is Executive Vice President of Preferred Partnerships & Marketing for Signature Travel Network, a member-owned travel cooperative established in 1956, where she has led the transformation of the company's sales and marketing division.Ghislaine Wood, Godmother of Viking Fjorgyn – As the Deputy Director of the University of East Anglia's Sainsbury Centre, one of the most important public university art galleries in Great Britain, Ms. Wood carefully curates exhibitions, including the upcoming “Visions of Ancient Egypt,” which was developed in partnership with Viking; opening in September 2022, the exhibit will honor the 100th anniversary of the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb. Ms. Wood discussed her work at the Sainsbury Centre in a recent episode of Viking.TV (Explore Alaskan Objects at the Sainsbury Centre with Ghislaine Wood), including the origins of their Alaska collection which examines how indigenous Alaskan communities developed technologies and tools to adapt to their environment.Muriel Wilson, Godmother of Viking Skaga – As the Director of Event Strategy & Sponsorships for Virtuoso, Ltd., Ms. Wilson has been a distinguished staff member of the global network of agencies for more than 40 years and leverages her deep knowledge of the industry to develop quality hospitality and travel experiences for Virtuoso's travel advisors and preferred partners.Kari Garmann, Godmother of Viking Kari – Former member of The Parliament of Norway and Oslo City Council, Ms. Garmann has made valuable contributions to Norway in the areas of government, business and banking throughout her career.The naming event was executed by connecting the new ships via satellite across two European cities: Paris and Amsterdam. The Viking Fjorgyn, Viking Kari, Viking Radgrid and Viking Skaga were docked in Paris at the Port de Grenelle, where they were named by their godmothers. The other four ships – Viking Egdir, Viking Gersemi, Viking Gymir and Viking Hervor – were docked in Amsterdam and named by their godmothers, who also joined the celebration in Paris. In keeping with another maritime tradition, a bottle of Gammel Opland aquavit was broken on the bow of each new shipMSC Group breaks ground in Miami for North Americas largest cruise terminal New $350 million terminal to provide seamless guest experience for up to 36,000 passengers a dayTerminal will be capable to host three latest-generation ships simultaneouslyMSC Cruises to deploy some of its most environmentally advanced vessels in MiamiThe Cruise Division of MSC Group broke ground on 10 March for its new $350 million mega cruise terminal in Miami which when it opens will be North America's largest.The four-storey building with four embarkation decks will be able to accommodate up to 36,000 passenger movements a day, and feature enough berthing space to serve three latest generation ships simultaneously.The project will allow MSC Cruises to further its presence in the North American market and attract more international travellers for holidays at sea in the Caribbean.  The Cruise Division of MSC Group and Italian ship builder Fincantieri announced a partnership in July 2021 whereby Fincantieri Infrastructure would construct the state-of-the-art facility which will feature a striking design by award-winning global architecture firm Arquitectonica.The new terminal will be able to accommodate MSC Cruises' largest and most environmentally advanced cruise ships, including its current flagship, MSC Seashore, and the line's future liquified natural gas-(LNG) powered World Class ships.  Most ships at berth at the new Miami terminal will be able to plug in to the local power grid, in line with PortMiami's plans to enable shore power connectivity.And more...Join the show:If you have a cruise tip, burning question or want to record a cruise review get in touch with us via the website https://thebigcruisepodcast.com/join-the-show/ Guests: Chris Frame: https://bit.ly/3a4aBCg   Chris's Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisFrameOfficialPeter Kollar: https://www.cruising.org.au/Home Listen & Subscribe: Amazon Podcasts: https://amzn.to/3w40cDcApple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2XvD7tF Audible: https://adbl.co/3nDvuNgCastbox: https://bit.ly/2xkGBEI Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/2RuY04u I heart Radio:  https://ihr.fm/3mVIEUASpotify: https://spoti.fi/3caCwl8 Stitcher: https://bit.ly/2JWE8Tz Pocket casts: https://bit.ly/2JY4J2M Tune in: https://bit.ly/2V0Jrrs Podcast Addict: https://bit.ly/2BF6LnE Hosted on Acast. 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Constantine Costi is a director, writer and the co-artistic director of Red Line Productions at the Old Fitz working across opera, film, and theatre. He was named one of the 21 hottest creatives of 2021 by The Australian.Most recently Constantine directed Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour La Traviata for Opera Australia, as well as Verdi's Requiem for Ensemble Apex and Phoenix Central Park, and is currently preparing a Kurt Weill Double Bill for The Old Fitz Theatre of Mahagonny Songspiel and The Seven Deadly Sins.In 2020 he directed the feature film A Delicate Fire for Pinchgut Opera based on the madrigals of Barbara Strozzi, wrote the libretto of a new Australian opera Cassandra for Victorian Opera by composer Simon Bruckard, directed Monochromatic; a video series of piano portraits for Phoenix Central Park, and directed an online Don Giovanni production for the Shanghai Opera with Maestro Xu Zhong.Constantine has also directed Karakorum starring David Wenham (Australian Brandenburg Orchestra); the award-winning production of Bittersweet Obsessions, and Messiah which played to standing ovations and sell-out seasons in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane; Puccini's Suor Angelica (Opera Projects Sydney); and Il Tabarro at Alfie's Sydney.Constantine has directed revivals of Harry Kupfer's Otello (OA), Il Viaggio a Reims (Dutch National Opera, OA and Royal Danish Opera), Sir David Mc Vicar's Vienna State Opera production of Falstaff(National Centre of Performing Arts, Beijing); and La Traviata (OA).He also assistant directed productions of Ring Cycle (Chen Shi-Zheng) and Wozzeck (Salzburg Festival, OA, Canadian Opera Company, Metropolitan Opera); Hunde Gottes (Schauspielhaus Vienna); and The Marriage of Figaro (OA). Constantine has also worked with director Chen Shi-Zheng as assistant director of Puccini's Turandot (OA, Handa Opera on Sydney Harbour), as well as co-directing Werther with director Elijah Moshinsky (OA).Other work includes directing and co-creating the world premiere of jazz musical The Overcoat (Belvoir's 25A); co-writing the immersive theatre experience Visiting Hours (Vivid Festival); and directing The Space Between the Fuel and the Fire (NIDA).Constantine is the recipient of The Berlin New Music Opera Award with The Opera Foundation for Young Australians where he worked with Komische Oper Berlin's directing team on the premiere of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin directed by Barrie Kosky.Other directing credits include: The Hypochondriac, The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet (NIDA); Young Artist's Program Showcase (Opera Australia); Thomas Arne's The Sailor's Return (Nagambie Lakes Opera Festival); The Master and Margarita after Bulgakov (Aboriginal Centre of the Performing Arts); Accidental Death of an Anarchist by Dario Fo (Zenith Theatre); and The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer (George Georgiou Inc). Constantine has previously been a member of the Belvoir Artists' Workshop and was affiliate director with Griffin Theatre.Constantine's screen credits include: music videos, I Know What You're Hiding (Hedge Fund) and Into My Arms (Bloods) for Triple J Unearthed; and the short films Ferguson & Daisy & Ursula, andDonny.The STAGES podcast is available to access and subscribe from Whooshkaa, Spotify and Apple podcasts. Or from wherever you access your favourite podcasts. A conversation with creatives about craft and career. Recipient of Best New Podcast at 2019 Australian Podcast Awards. Follow socials on instagram (stagespodcast) and facebook (Stages).www.stagespodcast.com.au

Penderecki in Memoriam Podcast is produced and hosted by Max Horowitz, Crossover Media. Created by Anna Perzanowska and Klaudia Ofwona Draber, and presented by Polish Cultural Institute New York. Penderecki in Memoriam Podcast unveils a multifaceted portrait of Krzysztof Penderecki, with commentary from musicians, colleagues, radio programmers, and writers who lend insight and memories of Poland's greatest modern composer. This podcast is part of Penderecki in Memoriam Worldwide project, honoring the life and legacy of the great composer. Thank you to project partners DUX, NAXOS, Ludwig van Beethoven Association, and Schott EAM for sharing Krzysztof Penderecki's music with the world. Jurek Dybał is the General Director and Chief Conductor of The Orchestra of the Royal Capital City of Krakow Sinfonietta Cracovia, an acclaimed conductor and a musician of the famous Vienna Philharmonic. His charismatic personality has been valued by the audience of many European music venues, in which he has made an appearances with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, Radio Symphonie Orchester Wien, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, L'Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, Wiener KammerOrchester, Wiener Concert-Verein, Concerto Köln, Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, Kuopio Symphony Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia Orchestra, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Polish Radio Orchestra, Silesian Chamber Orchestra, Wrocław's Leopoldinum and National Forum of Music Symphony Orchestra as well as Philharmonic Orchestras in Poznań, Krakow, Łódź and Gdańsk. As a conductor he collaborated with such eminent soloists as Gidon Kremer, Martin Grubinger, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Xavier de Maistre, Cameron Carpeneter, Lawrence Power, Erwin Schrott, Tomasz Konieczny, and singers of the Vienna State Opera among others. Jurek Dybał is a founder and a director of the Krzysztof Penderecki International MusicFestival – Level 320 held in the historical hall of Guido mine in Zabrze. The artist premiered there a number of Pendereckis works. His recordings can be found on the albums by Sony Classical and Warner Classics among others. Tracks: Penderecki Sinfonietta No. 1 & 2https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572212 (https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572212) Sinfonietta No. 3 youtube Polish Requiem https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557386-87 (https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.557386-87) Credohttps://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572032 (https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572032) 3 Pieces in Old Style; No. 3https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572212 (https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.572212) Concertino per tromba e orchestra youtube UBU REX youtube

Adam Plachetka is one of the country's most in-demand opera singers. He is the only Czech to have sung at the Met in New York before the age of 30, has been a member of the Vienna State Opera for over a decade and has appeared at many of the globe's other great venues.

Clive Gillinson became Executive and Artistic Director of Carnegie Hall in July 2005, having been appointed the previous season. He is responsible for developing the artistic concepts for Carnegie Hall presentations in its three halls—the celebrated Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage (cap. 2804), innovative Zankel Hall (cap. 600), and intimate Weill Recital Hall (cap. 268)— representing up to 170 performances each season, ranging from orchestral concerts, chamber music, solo recitals, to jazz, world, and popular music. He oversees the management of all aspects of the world-renowned venue, including strategic and artistic planning, resource development, education, finance, and administration and operations for the Weill Music Institute, which taps the resources of Carnegie Hall to bring music education and social impact programs to more than 800,000 people in the New York City metropolitan region, across the United States, and around the world each year. Since his arrival in New York, Mr. Gillinson has worked to build upon the quality, creativity, diversity, and extraordinary history for which Carnegie Hall is known worldwide. Under his leadership, Carnegie Hall has embarked upon many bold new directions in its concert and education programming, including augmenting and integrating current offerings to create large-scale multi-cultural citywide festivals. Partnering with many of the greatest cultural institutions in the City, the festivals use the full range of Hall's artistic and educational resources to take audiences on journeys of discovery that extend beyond single performances and concert series to encompass theater, literature, dance, the visual arts, talks, and film. Carnegie Hall's first major international festival, Berlin in Lights, was presented in November 2007, exploring the vibrant city that is Berlin today. It was followed by two city-wide festivals examining the dynamic culture and distinctive history of American culture—Bernstein: The Best of All Possible Worlds in fall 2008 and Honor! A Celebration of the African American Cultural Legacy in spring 2009. Ancient Paths, Modern Voices, exploring Chinese music and culture took place in fall 2009. These were followed by JapanNYC, an ambitious two-part festival in December 2010 and spring 2011; Voices from Latin America in November/December 2012; Vienna: City of Dreams featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Vienna State Opera in February/March 2014; Ubuntu: Music and Arts of South Africa in October/November 2014; La Serenissima: Music and Arts from the Venetian Republic in February 2017; The 60's: The Years that Changed America in January-March 2018; and Migrations: The Making of America in March-April 2019. Voices of Hope, Carnegie Hall's first-ever digital festival, will take place in April 2021. Mr. Gillinson served as Chairman of the Association of British Orchestras; was one of the founding Trustees of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts; and was founding Chairman of the Management Committee of the Clore Leadership Programme. He was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in the 1999 New Year Honours List and received the 2004 Making Music Sir Charles Grove Prize for his outstanding contribution to British music. Mr. Gillinson was appointed Knight Bachelor in the Queen's Birthday Honours List 2005, the only orchestra manager ever to be honored with a Knighthood. Brought to you by the British Consulate General, New York. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

In this podcast, we talk about healthy boundaries, the heart axis, being taught to ground ourselves, the effects of dance and how we talk ourselves into softness.Studying the body's ability to heal itself, Marie Sophie has worked with dancers of the Vienna State Opera, the State Ballet Berlin and National Sodre Montevideo after healing from a knee injury that stopped her from pursuing her own ballet career. She is fascinated with women's health, touch, and the ways music and dance are a healing therapy. As the creator of Voice of the Womb, Sophie is helping people reconnect with themselves to experience vibrant life-energy.Marie Sophie has a background in physical therapy, osteopathic medicine, public health, Gyrotonics, Tibetan energy work and Yin Tao in addition to her dance experience.Sign up for Bonnie's sexy Sunday poetry prompts HEREConnect with Bonnie: Instagram, Email (hello@bonnieweeks.com), WebsiteConnect with : @mariesophiekiepe, @voiceofthewomb, WebsiteThe music for this episode is Threads by The Light Meeting. You can listen to more of their music at www.thelightmeeting.com.Photo: Jess KeatingPodcast Producer: Marcus Strange

Soprano Angel Blue makes her Santa Fe Opera debut in concert Saturday, August 7, 2021.  Jane caught a spare moment with Angel upon her arrival in Santa Fe to learn more about who she is on stage, off stage, and in the practice room. Angel also shares strong opinions and guidance for young singers, who may fall into the comparison trap with “the greats” who've come before them. Angel's Bio:  Angel Blue has emerged in recent seasons as one of the most important sopranos before the public today. On September 23, 2019 she opened the Metropolitan Opera's 2019/2020 season as Bess in a new production of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. These performances followed her internationally praised French Opera debut and role debut as Floria Tosca at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in July of 2019. She has also been praised for performances in many other theaters, such as the Vienna State Opera, Semperoper Dresden, San Francisco Opera, Seattle Opera, Theater an der Wien, Oper Frankfurt, and San Diego Opera. In the current season, Ms. Blue will appear in concert at the Carmel Bach Festival and in galas in St. Petersburg and Santa Fe, with fall performances of Fire Shut Up in My Bones and Porgy and Bess at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Mentioned in this Episode: HiHo Kids meet an opera singer video   CREDITS Destination Santa Fe Opera is a Santa Fe Opera podcast, produced and edited by Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios. Mixed by: Edwin R. Ruiz Hosted by: Jane Trembley Featuring: Angel Blue, American soprano *** Learn more about the Santa Fe Opera and plan your visit at http://www.santafeopera.org. We'd love for you to join us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok @santafeopera.

Hailed by the New York Times as a soprano of “gleaming sound, free and easy high notes, agile coloratura runs and lyrical grace,” Jessica Pratt is considered one of today's foremost interpreters of some of bel canto's most challenging repertoire.Since her European debut in 2007 as Lucia di Lammermoor, Ms Pratt's schedule has included performances at opera theatres and festivals such as the Teatro alla Scala of Milan, Zurich Opera, Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna State Opera and the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, working with conductors such as Daniel Oren, Nello Santi, Kent Nagano, Sir Colin Davis, Christian Thielemann, Donato Renzetti, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Rizzi, Antonino Fogliani, Wayne Marshall and David Parry.The 2012/13 season brought several acclaimed debuts at Festival Verdi in Parma, including Gilda to Leo Nucci's Rigoletto, at Deutsche Oper Berlin as Lucia, at Vlaamse Opera in New Year's Eve Concert, at Teatro de la Maestranza in Sevilla (Gilda, once more next to Leo Nucci), in the role of Matilde in Guillaume Tell next to Juan Diego Florez interpreting Arnold in Lima, Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi in Reims, in the role of Lisinga in Demetrio e Polibio of Rossini in Neaples, and in the role of the protagonist in Giovanna d'Arco at Festival della Valle d'Itria in Martina Franca.In the 2013/14 season Ms Pratt could be heard in new productions of Lucia di Lammermoor at La Scala and in Amsterdam, as Amina in La sonnambula in Bari, Gilda in Padova, in the season opening of La Fenice as Inès in Meyerbeer's L'Africaine, as Musetta in La Bohème in Salerno, in her role debut as Violetta in La Traviata in Melbourne, as Zenobia in Aureliano in Palmira at the Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival as well as in recitals in Tokyo and Florence with Vincenzo Scalera.In 2014/15 the soprano made her role debuts as Cleopatra in Handel's Giulio Cesare at the Teatro Regio in Turin and as Amenaide in Rossini's Tancredi at the Opéra de Lausanne. Other performances included Donna Anna in Don Giovanni and Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice; Elvira in I Puritani in Florence and in Melbourne; Lucia di Lammermoor at the Rome Opera House and at the Festival Granda in Lima; her role and festival debut as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Arena di Verona, where she could also be heard as soprano soloist in Carmina Burana; the soprano solo in Rossini's Messa di Gloria alongside Juan Diego Florez and La morte di Didone at the Rossini Opera Festival; as well asconcerts in Milan, Bonn, and London.Performances of the 2015/16 season included Jessica Pratt's returns to Florence, Turin and Melbourne as Lucia di Lammermoor, her debuts at the Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona as Desdemona in Rossini's Otello, at the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia Valencia in Mozart's Davidde penitente and at the ABAO Bilbao as Amina in La sonnambula, her role debuts as Semiramide at the Opéra de Marseille and later at the Washington Concert Opera and as Linda di Chamounix at the Rome Opera House; and concerts in Oviedo and Moscow.More recently, Semiramide and Rosmonda d'Inghilterra at the Florence Opera House, a concert with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Rosmonda d'Inghilterra at the Donizetti Festival Bergamo, her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House New York as Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute, and Rigoletto in Oviedo.The STAGES podcast is available from Apple podcasts, Spotify and Whooshkaa. Also where you find your favourite podcasts. www.stagespodcast.com.au

Jason and Kaitlyn began their journeys in different ways, from a family that was open to following an artistic path, to another that was more resistant to it. However, via routes from lighting design to training as an architect, their paths collided in the world of projection design, and they eventually founded PXT Studio, building bespoke designs and making the seemingly impossible possible. When Jason first met the opera director Yuval Sharon, it was the start a unique relationship that would draw Jason and Kaitlyn into the world of opera, where they have been delighting and astonishing audiences ever since.  They have created work from The Industry in LA, to the Vienna State Opera, to Oper Frankfurt, Carnegie Hall, and on Broadway among many other venues. Collectively they have won two Los Angeles Ovation Awards, three LADCC awards, as well as having their work showcased at the Prague Quadrennial on three separate occasions... And at the end of the day, the parents were definitely won round. Find out more about Jason & Kaitlyn & their work at PXT Studio here Read about the opera director Yuval Sharon here Read about The Industry here Scroll down to the hurricane scene we talk about & watch it here

Our sponsor - Houghton Hornswww.houghtonhorns.comUse code "THATSNOTSPIT" at checkout to receive 50 dollars off the participation fee for the July "Body, Mind, Spirit" workshop hosted by Jeremy Wilson and Karen Cubides. Applies to the purchase of a gift card for someone else as well.www.bodymindspiritworkshops.comTrombonist Jeremy Wilson is acclaimed for the versatility and lyricism of his playing as well as his insight and commitment as a teacher. Currently Associate Professor of Trombone at Vanderbilt University's Blair School of Music, Wilson is something of a legend in trombone circles. On his first-ever audition attempt at the age of 25, he won a prestigious position with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and its sister organization, the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. Just out of college, he honed his performance skills in Vienna as a member of one of the most renowned musical organizations in the world before returning to his home state to start a new chapter as an educator, soloist, and chamber musician. He developed the BODY MIND SPIRIT Method over the course of several years as a response to the patterns of learning, music-making, practice, and behavior he observed in his work as an educator, both at Vanderbilt and across the globe.  His YouTube videos on the subject have been viewed by thousands, and have helped musicians both young and old rediscover a passion for the music-making process, access their years of practice when in high-pressure performance situations, and perform works with stylistic integrity and expression.Support the show (https://thatsnotspit.com/support/)

Our guest today was trained as a classical ballet dancer up to the age of 19. Born in Uruguay he moved to Vienna, Austria with his parents as a young child. Encouraged by his father, he took up classical dance training at the Vienna State Opera ballet school. Fully immersed into the prospect of becoming a professional stage artist, it slowly dawned on him that he would rather become a commercial airline pilot. And that's what he did. So how did he manage that shift and has the dance education been helpful for his training as a pilot? Find out in my new episode of the Me in Ten Years Podcast and please welcome Andrés Ferraz-Leite! Find out more about career change for professional dancers at https://meintenyears.com

The singers Jan Kiepura and Marta Eggerth were a musical dream couple and superstars in the early days of recorded sound and music film. Their younger son, Marjan Kiepura, and his wife Jane Knox-Kiepura tell us about their careers before and after American exile, from serenading fans outside the Vienna State Opera to performing Franz Lehár's “The Merry Widow” in Polish for audiences in Chicago.Show Notes: *2:33 – Marta's musical beginnings in Budapest *5:04 – the secret to maintaining a nine-decade career *7:15 – [musical excerpt: “Neopolitan Duet” from Lehár's “Der Zarewitsch”] – waltzing offstage on Broadway *12:31 – making the transition from Europe to the U.S. Musical excerpts from provided courtesy of Marjan Kiepura and Jane Knox-Kiepura. To hear more, visit our website https://www.insideoutmedia.digital/conversations  Intro and outro composed and performed by Miguel Kertsman

On today’s date in 1946, the octogenarian German composer Richard Strauss conducted the final rehearsal of his latest work, a study for 23 strings entitled “Metamorphosen.” Paul Sacher, the Swiss conductor and music patron, had commissioned “Metamorphosen,” and conducted the public premiere later that day in Zurich. Strauss had begun work on this piece on March 13, 1945, one day after the Vienna State Opera house had been bombed by the Allies. When the Nazis had come to power in 1933, Strauss was at first fêted as the greatest living German composer, but he soon fell out of favor. While his music was not banned, official Nazi support for Strauss eventually fell away, and the fact that Strauss’ beloved daughter-in-law was Jewish meant increasingly anxiety about her fate and that of the Strauss grandchildren as the Nazi’s race laws tightened their noose. In a post-war memorandum Strauss wrote, “The most terrible period of human history has come to an end, the 12-year reign of bestiality, ignorance, and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany’s 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom and irreplaceable monuments of architecture and works of art were destroyed.”

On today’s date in 1946, the octogenarian German composer Richard Strauss conducted the final rehearsal of his latest work, a study for 23 strings entitled “Metamorphosen.” Paul Sacher, the Swiss conductor and music patron, had commissioned “Metamorphosen,” and conducted the public premiere later that day in Zurich. Strauss had begun work on this piece on March 13, 1945, one day after the Vienna State Opera house had been bombed by the Allies. When the Nazis had come to power in 1933, Strauss was at first fêted as the greatest living German composer, but he soon fell out of favor. While his music was not banned, official Nazi support for Strauss eventually fell away, and the fact that Strauss’ beloved daughter-in-law was Jewish meant increasingly anxiety about her fate and that of the Strauss grandchildren as the Nazi’s race laws tightened their noose. In a post-war memorandum Strauss wrote, “The most terrible period of human history has come to an end, the 12-year reign of bestiality, ignorance, and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany’s 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom and irreplaceable monuments of architecture and works of art were destroyed.”

This week, Stefano Flavoni sits down with Michael Morgan, music director of the Oakland Symphony for the past thirty years, to discuss his perspectives on the classical music industry, both as the protege of some of the greatest musicians of all time (including Georg Solti, Leonard Bernstein, and Seiji Ozawa) and as one of the most prominent living African-American musicians. Maestro Morgan has appeared with some of the most prominent music institutions, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, New York City Opera, San Francisco Symphony, Vienna State Opera, and more. He is also the face and brain behind San Francisco Symphony's "Currents" series, which examines the cultural diversity and artistic sound worlds of the Bay Area and United States at large.

Tony Award winning lighting designer Ken Billington discusses how he has managed his personal finances during more than sixty years of designing on Broadway and running a design studio. Ken has designed more than 100 Broadway shows, has been nominated for 9 Tony Awards for Best Lighting Design, and won for the musical Chicago. Ken spent 25 years as the principle lighting designer for Radio City Music hall, lighting their Christmas and Easter Spectaculars. He founded KB Associates, Inc. an international design and production firm that has created hundreds of theatrical shows, television specials, architectural environments. From nightclubs in Japan, to theme parks, to the Vienna State Opera, to Disneyland’s Fantasmic, his lighting has been seen across the world and has earned him a spot in the Theatre Hall of Fame.  Ken's Design Studio - KB Associates, Inc:http://kenbillington.com/ Ken's IBDB.com Page:https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/ken-billington-24677 Ken's Wikipedia Page:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Billington FINRA Fund Analyzer:https://tools.finra.org/fund_analyzer/Fidelity - Ticker - FXAIXSchwab - Ticker - SWPPXVanguard - Ticker - VFINXState Street - Ticker - SVSPXT. Rowe Price - Ticker - PREIX  Thyseen-Bornemisza Museum - across the street from the Prado in Madrid, Spain:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thyssen-Bornemisza_Museum USA 829 - United Scenic Artists Pension Fund Plan (designers and stagehands):http://usa829funds.benserconj.com/ Actors Equity Association - Pension Fund Plan:https://www.actorsequity.org/join/WhyJoin/pension/ Links From the Patron Only Episode: Shirley Prendergast (part of Ken's class, first African American woman admitted to United Scenic Artists - USA 829):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Prendergast Kathy Perkins (guest on our podcast, second African American woman admitted to the United Scenic Artists - USA 829):https://www.artisticfinance.com/episode/HwXnrcTOYRUBQ3SZ664T Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark (Broadway's $75 million flop):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Turn_Off_the_Dark Tharon Musser (Ken assisted, Pioneer of American Lighting Design):https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tharon_Musser Interview by Ethan Steimel Become a patron at:www.patreon.com/artisticfinance www.artisticfinance.comwww.patreon.com/artisticfinanceinstagram.com/artisticfinancetwitter.com/ethansteimelfacebook.com/artisticfinanceyoutube.com/artisticfinance

Your voice, your body language and your mindset create the unconscious messages that undermine your presence. Dr Mahler trains these to deliver confident messages instead. She will give you the authentic manner of a leader who commands respect whether you are negotiating an eight-figure sale, presiding over a boardroom meeting, pitching for new business, being interviewed or trying to inspire the crowd from a stage. Dr Louise Mahler, is one of the most original thinkers in business communication today. Louise began her further education studies with an economics degree majoring in statistics, it's an interesting journey of how she has now become an expert in presence and influence! Louise spent a decade singing opera in Europe with some of the greatest divas of our time or a soloist's contract at the Vienna State Opera, but it was a Masters in Organizational Psychology and a ‘PhD in Business' that brought it all together. Louise has established The Mahler Method which is a complete program of building presence and influence that changes lives. Her work has had a transformative effect on many people's lives. Dr Mahler's extensive knowledge is supported by cutting-edge processes that identify and resolve your personal stumbling blocks. She will then guide you through the process of developing the professional style that identifies you as a force to be reckoned with. That tells people you are here to lead. Louise is a guest presenter for leaders and leadership-teams worldwide and coaches federal politicians, heads of international business and rising corporate talent when the need to give voice arises. Louise makes regular TV appearances, has a series of videos with the Australian Financial Review and is a constant feature for comment on radio and has published a book ‘Resonate' with Penguin Random House is for ‘people who need to be heard' CONNECT WITH LOUISE: https://louisemahler.com.au/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisemahler/ https://www.facebook.com/DrLouiseMahler

As of Oct 1, Central Crisis Committee bans cultural events. Slovak soprano, member of Vienna State Opera, speaks to RSI after her, for some period, last concert in Bratislava. University City of London publishes European Literary London: a map,featuring Slovak authors in translation.

The reopening of the Vienna State Opera, the art of making chandeliers and a round-up of the weekend's main news

A lot of what drives the world we live in is communication and it is as much about what is behind the words as it is about the words themselves, if not more so. Whether you’re in art or business or both, there is a constant need to be curious about everything that you don’t know, things that represent a bigger world than what we can ever hope to wrap our heads around. These are some of the most important takeaways from this conversation between Elizabeth Bachman and Kathleen Kelly, a pianist, opera coach, conductor, teacher and writer. Kathleen is the first American named as Director of Musical Studies at the Vienna State Opera. Having worked in such an international setting, her grasp on the topics discussed in this podcast is phenomenal. Join in as they delve into everything from philosophy, history, music and communication, gender perception and the various aspects of communication and how we can use it to move ahead in our lives and our society.

On today's date in 1877, the Vienna Philharmonic performed for the first time in Salzburg, the birthplace of Mozart, during a three-day music festival that included works by Mozart and others, including two living composers of that day, a 44-year old fellow named Brahms and a 64-year old named Wagner. The Philharmonic would return to Salzburg six more times for mini-festivals through 1910, some led by composer-conductors like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. A summertime visit was scheduled in 1914, too, but the outbreak of World War I cancelled that. In 1925, an annual "Salzburg Festival" was established, with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera as the main musical participants. The Second World War disrupted the Festival in the 1940s, but soon after it reestablished itself among the most prestigious of international musical happenings. The biggest names all performed at the Salzburg Festival: Herbert von Karajan, Luciano Pavarotti, and James Levine, to cite just a few. Traditionally, a familiar brass fanfare opens each Festival broadcast, but probably few music lovers know the name of its composer. It was written by Joseph Messner, who wrote over 700 works in nearly all genres. He was born in 1893 in the Austrian Tyrol and died in 1969 in a village near Salzburg, where he had served as church organist, conductor and composer for decades, leading many Festival concerts featuring sacred music by Mozart and others.

In this episode, Jeremy Wilson and I discuss his Body, Mind, Spirit project, what the study of music is really all about, winning the job the Vienna Philharmonic, leaving that job and starting his current job with Vanderbilt, and more.Jeremy's youtube channel - www.youtube.com/jeremywilsontromboneJeremy's Instagram - www.instagram.com/jeremywilsontromboneDuring his tenure in Vienna (2007-2012), Wilson performed hundreds of orchestral concerts at home and in 28 countries around the globe under the batons of the world’s leading conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Valery Gergiev, Mariss Jansons, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Christian Thielemann, and Franz Welser-Möst. At the Vienna State Opera, he played over 550 performances of 85 different operas and ballets, including five complete Wagner “Ring” cycles. He had the honor of performing with some of the greatest opera singers of our time, including Renée Fleming, Thomas Hampson, Jonas Kaufmann, and Anna Netrebko, and his artistry is documented on numerous recordings.A native of Tennessee, Wilson returned to his home state in 2012 to fulfill his long-time passion for teaching and devote more time to his young family. He accepted a full-time teaching position at Vanderbilt University but continued a busy performance schedule as well. During the 2013-14 arts season, he served as guest principal trombonist with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and subbed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He also has performed on several occasions with the Saito Kinen Orchestra at the special invitation of Maestro Seiji Ozawa.In addition to his versatility as an orchestral player, Wilson is highly sought as a soloist and chamber musician. The winner of numerous solo competitions, he has been featured in concerto performances and solo recitals in venues across the country. As a chamber artist, he has performed with a range of brass ensembles, including Tri-Star Brass, Maniacal 4, and the award-winning trombone quartet from the University of North Texas, and he is a regular member of the Blair Brass Quintet, composed of Vanderbilt faculty. With his keen affinity for jazz, Wilson also was a member of the University of North Texas’s famed One O’Clock Lab Band, the University of Tennessee’s award-winning ensemble Tennessee Trombonery, and the Knoxville Jazz Orchestra. He recently released his debut album titled Perspectives.Highly respected as a dedicated teacher and clinician, Wilson has given masterclasses and lectures around the United States. He has been a featured guest artist at the International Trombone Festival, the American Trombone Workshop, and the Trombones de Costa Rica Festival. His students have been finalists for several domestic and international competitions and have participated in many prestigious summer festivals. Wilson currently serves on the Vanderbilt Faculty Senate, is faculty advisor for the Pi Delta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, and is Music Director and Faculty Advisor of the Commodore Orchestra, a Vanderbilt campus orchestra comprised mainly of non-music majors. He recently received the Blair School's Faculty Excellence Award.Wilson started studying music in the sixth grade, becoming a serious student of the trombone in high school. In college, he double-majored in music education and performance at the University of Tennessee, where he was a Presser Scholar, before getting a Master of Music at the University of North Texas, graduating in 2011. His teachers have included Don Hough, Vern Kagarice, Jan Kagarice, Tony Baker, and Tom Lundberg.Wilson currently resides in Franklin, Tennessee, with his wife Kristi and their three children.Support the show (https://thatsnotspit.com/support/)

In our January 2020 podcast, we find out about violinist Nicola Benedetti's latest venture, an impressive educational initiative that she's been dreaming of starting for years. She's our cover star on the January issue of BBC Music Magazine, and in this podcast we also enjoy a clip from our cover CD of works by Mozart and Schubert, played by BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists.Plus, in this episode we pay tribute to the late conductors Mariss Jansons and Stephen Cleobury, bring news of the winners at the 2019 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and hear about Olga Neuwirth's Orlando, which became the first opera by a woman to be staged in 150 years at the Vienna State Opera.And, as usual, we each bring along a new recording we've been enjoying this month.This episode is presented by deputy editor Jeremy Pound, who is joined be managing editor Rebecca Franks and reviews editor Michael Beek. It was produced by Ben Youatt and Jack Bateman.Recordings:Mahler Symphony No. 3Randi Stene; Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus/Mariss JansonsSimax PSC1272Jeremy's choice: Forgotten TreasuresBuffalo Philharmonic/JoAnn FallettaBeau Fleuve 6059960998531Rebecca's choice: The Etudes Project: Volume OneJenny Lin (piano)Sono Luminus DSL-92236Michael's choiceVivaldi/JupiterLea Desandre, Bruno Philippe, Peter Whelan, Thomas DunfordAlpha Classics ALPHA550Stories:Mariss Jansons (1943-2019)https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-50630050Sir Stephen Cleobury (1948-2019)https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/nov/24/sir-stephen-cleobury-obituaryWinners of the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards:http://www.classical-music.com/news/winners-royal-philharmonic-society-awards-2019-revealedOrlando world premiere review:https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/dec/14/orlando-vienna-state-opera-review-olga-neuwirth-world-premiere-virginia-woolfJanuary 2020 issue of BBC Music Magazinehttp://www.classical-music.com/magazine/next-issue/bbc-music-magazine See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Team OBS bids farewell and good riddance to OBS co-founder and co-host Tobias Wright. They talk with Tobias about his career change, watch with horror as he inducts himself into the OBS Hall of Fame, listen to some of his favorite singers and recap the highlights and lowlights of his own checkered career on the airwaves... Plus, in ‘The Two Minute Drill’, who do you think gets paid more, Peter Gelb at the Met or Dominique Meyer at the Vienna State Opera...? www.facebook.com/OBSCHI1 www.operaboxscore.com www.wnur.org/popup

Controversy surrounds this year's Nobel Prize for Literature; unusually there are two winners, Polish Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian Peter Handke. Handke has been vocally supportive of the Serbs during the 1990s Yugoslav war including accusing the Bosnian Muslims of staging attacks. Jonas Eklöf, Editor in Chief of Swedish literary magazine Vi Läser, reports on the presentation ceremony in Stockholm today. Traces is a forensic crime thriller set in Dundee based on an idea by Val McDermid and written by Amelia Bullmore. Molly Windsor (who starred in Three Girls) heads the cast as a technician in a forensic laboratory who is still coming to terms with a traumatic event in her past. Critic Stephanie Merritt reviews the six-part UKTV drama series. Mike Lew’s darkly comic take on Shakespeare’s Richard III - “Teenage Dick” - has its UK debut at the Donmar Warehouse in London. Samira talks to Michael Longhurst about his vision for the theatre after becoming Artistic Director earlier this year and to actor Daniel Monks about playing this canonical disabled character. After a century and a half the Vienna State Opera has this week staged its first work by a female composer. Olga Neuwirth's opera, Orlando, is based on Virginia Woolf’s novel about an Elizabethan poet who lives for centuries, never ages and switches gender. The director, the librettist and the costume designer are also all women and the star is a queer cabaret artist. Olga Neuwirth talks to Samira Ahmed about her opera, and its wider cultural significance. Presenter: Samira Ahmed Producer: Hannah Robins

Mozart's Don Giovanni by the Vienna State Opera by WRS

It’s a Thanksgiving 'Chalk Talk'! The OBS-ers share what they’re grateful for in Operaland just in time for Turkey Day... But first, it’s a very special 'HOF' from Matt, where he brings you a long overdue tribute to the late, great Jessye Norman... In the 'Two Minute Drill', the Met’s credit rating gets downgraded, a Glyndebourne director gets fired, and the Vienna State Opera puts on an opera written by a woman... Hey, it only took ‘em 150 years... www.facebook.com/OBSCHI1 www.operaboxscore.com www.wnur.org/popup

Thomas Wally (b. 1981), an Austrian composer, violinist, and lecturer living in Vienna, has dedicated his life to music from a very young age. Today he can enjoy a diverse and successful career in music. His works are internationally recognized and performed in many world scenes. As a successful violinist, Wally works for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera’s Orchestra, and plays in the Lux string quartet. He also teaches at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Many describe him as a composer of virtuoso and technically difficult music. In his work, T. Wally often strives to maintain a balance between a strictly constructed score and an organically pleasing sound. About music in his life and different creator and artist amplitudes, T. Wally talks to musicologist Ona Jarmalavičiūtė.

Palm Beach Opera Vocal CompetitionRenata Scotto is an Italian soprano and opera director.Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano DonizettiValència is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-largest city in Spain.Montserrat Caballé was a Spanish operatic soprano.Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor.Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a prolific and influential composer of the classical era.Robert Schumann a German composer, pianist, and influential music critic.The Spoleto Festival (Festival dei Due Mondi) is an annual summer music and opera festival held each June to early July in Spoleto, Italy, since its founding by composer Gian Carlo Menotti in 1958.Opera Idol was an annual opera competition for amateur singers run by Cincinnati Opera.Ainadamar is the first opera by Argentinian composer Osval do Golijov.Carmen is an opera by French composer Georges Bizet.The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Mozart.Don Carlos is a grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi.Diego Velázquez was a Spanish painter, the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV, and one of the most important painters of the Spanish Golden Age.Manuel de Falla was a Spanish composer.Francisco Albéniz was a Spanish virtuoso pianist, composer, and conductor.Reynaldo Hahn was a Venezuelan, naturalized French, composer, conductor, music critic, diarist, theatre director, and salon singer.Enrique Granados was a Spanish pianist and composer of classical music.Franz Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period.Tomás Luis de Victoria was the most famous composer in 16th-century Spain, and was one of the most important composers of the Counter-Reformation, along with Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina and Orlando di Lasso.Antonio de Cabezón was a Spanish Renaissance composer and organist.Martín y Soler was a Spanish composer of opera and ballet. Although relatively obscure now, in his own day he was compared favorably with his contemporary, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as a composer of opera buffa.Luigi Boccherini was an Italian composer and cellist of the Classical era whose music retained a courtly and galante style even while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers.Giuseppe Domenico Scarlatti was an Italian composer.Farinelli was the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi, a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera.The Vienna State Opera is an Austrian opera house and opera company based in Vienna, Austria.Otto Klemperer was a Jewish German-born conductor and composer, described as "the last of the few really great conductors of his generation."Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer.Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian conductor. He was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic for 35 years.The Spanish National Youth Orchestra is a Spanish youth orchestra.Teresa Berganza is a Spanish mezzo-soprano.Sir Georg Solti was a Hungarian-born orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.Luisa Miller is an opera by Giuseppe Verdi.Lorin Maazel was an American conductor, violinist, and composer.Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western and Eastern classical music. He is currently music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and Conductor Emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.Carlo Maria Giulini was an Italian conductor.The Symphony No. 5 is Beethoven’s 5th symphony and is one of the best-known compositions in classical music and one of the most frequently played symphonies.The Goldberg Variations is a musical composition for harpsichord by Johann Sebastian Bach, consisting of an aria and a set of 30 variations.La Traviata is an opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi.Roméo et Juliette (Romeo and Juliet) is an opera by Charles Gounod.Giacomo Puccini was an Italian opera composer who has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi."(Ravenni & Girardi n.d., Introduction.)Richard Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras.Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period.Nikolaus Harnoncourt was an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier.Pablo Casals was a cellist, composer, and conductor from Catalonia.La 1 (La Uno, The One), is the flagship television channel of Spanish public broadcaster Radio televisión Española (RTVE).La 2 (La Dos, The Two) is Spain's second state-owned television channel for the public broadcasting service.Senegal is a country in West Africa.José Plácido Domingo is a Spanish opera, conductor, and arts administrator.Otello is an opera by Verdi.Franco Ferrara was an Italian conductor.Guido Cantelli was an Italian orchestral conductor."Fritz" Reiner was a prominent conductor of opera and symphonic music in the twentieth century.Alicia de Larrocha was a Spanish pianist and composer. She was considered one of the great piano legends of the 20th century.The Tudors is a historical fiction television series set primarily in 16th-century EnglandMedici is an Italian-British historical dramaSpotify Technology S.A. is a Swedish media-services provider founded in 2006.

Tel Aviv is the most populous city in the largest metropolitan area of Israel.The Gulf WarThe First Intifada was a Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.The Second Intifada was a period of intensified Israeli–Palestinian violence.Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist.In May of 1809, eager to protect his precious hearing during the heavy bombardment of the Siege of Vienna, composer Ludwig von Beethoven hid in his brother’s basement with pillows covering his ears.The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) are the military forces of the State of Israel.The Staatsoper, the Vienna State Opera, is an Austrian opera house and opera company based in Vienna."Largo al factotum" is an aria from The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini.The Israeli Opera is the principal opera company of Israel.Robin Guarino is an opera and film director.She is a Professor of Opera at the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music (CCM).The Marriage of Figaro is an opera buffa (comic opera) composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.Pierre Beaumarchais was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary (both French and American).Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss.Powel Crosley Jr. was an American inventor, industrialist, and entrepreneur. He was also a pioneer in radio broadcasting, and a former owner of the Cincinnati Reds major league baseball teamHugo Hofmannsthal was an Austrian prodigy, a novelist, librettist, poet, dramatist, narrator, and essayist.Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras.Maria Callas was an American-born Greek soprano. She was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century.Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, model, and singer.Omer mentions the following as pieces she would love to direct: Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss and Hofmannstha, The Rake’s Progress, Carmen, Don Giovanni.The Magic Flute is an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.Beyoncé is an American singer, songwriter and actress.

— You visit the opera and you should be surprised, that’s how it should feel when you come – elderly man is explaining to the group of youngsters gathered in a retro-hip courtyard bar-cafe… They look at him and listen silently without giving any sign of either approval or disapproval. They are beautiful. All of them. All so young. Torn jeans, but somehow still neat. They appreciate the attitude of the elderly man. They value the unexpected, unknown, misty concept of not caring about losing control. — It’s that joy, that surprise, that fascination – the elderly man continues… He closes his eyes… he remembers how he was thrown into the realms of an opera and its power at much later stage, late thirties of his life. He feels envious to the youngsters who are to feel it, already in the very realms that he only discovered for himself only in his middle ages… — La Traviata… – the drinking song theme started playing in the elderly man’s head. Perhaps the very fact of being absolutely unsure of his tastes, knowledge or attitudes towards the opera that made him so fascinated… He remembered planning the trip to Vienna State Opera, with his love – La Traviata… Will they go? Are they there? Is it the trip he wanted? Are they the happiest? Are they together? All in good health and best spirits? Or is it a dream? — Who says you cannot feel it? Of course you feel it! You’re in the fog, it’s all around you, you cannot understand where you are. You cannot see the hand in front, but the hand feels the particles, we are in the fog… — Will it lead us to the shiny opera in another country, another city, another year, another feelings?… Or will the fog make us bling and we slip down and fall into the abyss – somewhere, somehow… What is the fog preparing? Is it like in opera? All the preparations behind the curtains before the act starts – what’s ahead? — Embrace the unexpected, enjoy the moment in the fog. It’s the anticipation, it’s the thought about visiting Vienna with his love, it’s the thought about the Vienna State Opera, – that’s making it the night full of vivid imageries and emotions… — You call it fog?… I call it the very substance that makes everything possible… The curtain of life that is there to give us the emotions otherwise unattainable. — Oh the fog… I thought, I was scared that I could have lost you, but it’s just the fog. Here you are! I prepared tea and some sweets to hug each other and watch the fog move on… — I stood next. Hands-reach. Waiting for you to reach out, baby… Thank you for joining me in this journey towards emotional healing, finding oneself and remembering what makes us happy. The topics covered in these podcast episodes are: #Emotional Healing #Finding Yourself #Follow Your Wings #Happiness is a Choicr #Meditating Meditating #Peace of Mind #Psychological Journey #Reminiscences Reminiscences #Thinking Aloud #Thoughts Thoughts #Leap of Faith #Short Stories #Short Story Series #Blogging Everyday #Thinking Along Writing #Finding Inner Self #Therapy Therapy #Art Therapy #Psycho Flow #Read at Night #What to Believe In #Why to Live #What Makes Life Beautiful #Imagination Imagination #Creativity Creativity #Inspiration Inspiration #Life is a Story #Faith Faith #Uncensored Uncensored #Symbols Symbols --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/zack-followingz/message

Maestro Nir Kabaretti is best known in our part of the world as the Music Director of the Southwest Florida Symphony, but he’s better known around the world as the Music Director of the Santa Barbara Symphony, which he has led since 2006 and he was recently appointed Music Director of the Israel Sinfonietta Be'er Sheva chamber orchestra. Maestro Kabaretti graduated from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, and was then appointed Chorus Master of the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, and since then he has done a whole lot - go check out his wikipedia page, for real.NOTE: in the episode we refer to the Israel Sinfonetta Beer Sheva Festival in Israel. The festival is 3/26 - 4/1 and more info can be found here

Recorded: 12 December 2018 Please note that this interview has quite some background noise from the concert hall. I managed to have a chat with Sophie Dervaux backstage in the world-renowned Vienna Musikverein Hall in December 2018. Sophie joined the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic as principal bassoon in 2015. Previously, she was principal contrabassoon of the Berlin Philharmonic from 2013 until 2015. I find out about Sophie’s favourite composers, upcoming projects and other interesting topics. Sophie shares with us her musical origins and how she chose the bassoon, after initially starting on the guitar and clarinet. She also tells us some of her most memorable concerts, being an advocate for the bassoon and the responsibility of the new generation to promote and create awareness for the instrument. She also takes us back to the day she won the job at the Vienna State Opera. Enjoy listening, and subscribe or share! To find out more about Sophie, please visit her website: https://sophiedervaux.com/ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you have enjoyed this podcast, and would like to support me make better content: https://www.patreon.com/jewelair Special thanks to Marcello Malatesta, for editing this audio.

Stephanie Houtzeel is a mezzo-soprano who is currently a member of the Vienna State Opera. Pianist John Milbauer is a Steinway artist and teacher at the University of Arizona.

The ladies are out of their comfort zones this week. Amanda brings Junko Tabei to the table, the first woman to summit Mount Everest (and many other peaks). Rita tells us about Camilla Williams, an opera singer who broke barriers when she became the first African American soloist with the Vienna State Opera.  If you're enjoying this podcast, please rate and subscribe!

She seduces, she traps, she destroys. She's a femme fatale and her signature aria is the dangerously alluring “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” from Samson et Dalila by Camille Saint-Saëns. "My heart opens to your voice,” sings Dalila, "like the flowers open to the kisses of the dawn." It sure sounds like a love song, but just below the surface it’s simmering with seduction and betrayal. In this episode, host Rhiannon Giddens and her guests reflect on the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, the trope of the femme fatale and how Saint-Saëns created this unforgettable moment that sounds as if Dalila’s slowly removing her clothing, one note at a time. Plus, you'll hear mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča sing the complete aria from the Metropolitan Opera stage. The Guests Mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča made her Met debut a decade ago, but the role of Dalila is relatively new to her: she first sang Samson et Dalila at the Vienna State Opera in May 2018. But judging from her recent appearance at WQXR, the part of a Biblical seductress suits her just fine. James Jorden is the founding editor of the world's first (and still very popular) opera blog Parterre Box. He's written for many other publications, including Opera News, The New York Times and the New York Observer. In another life, he used to sing “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix." Dr. Caroline Blyth teaches religious studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and studies Biblical themes in contemporary culture. She spent eight years researching the Delilah story for her book Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction.  

On this episode, we meet soprano Katherine Manley and tenor Joseph Dennis, the Pamina and Tamino in Central City Opera’s production of THE MAGIC FLUTE. They delve into the characters, their relationship onstage, and this production, sharing their personal connections with the opera and the themes within. Joe tells us about his experiences as an ensemble member of the Vienna State Opera, and Kate shares what she loves about being a musical chameleon – and why Mozart petrifies her. I also discover that there is a sequel to THE MAGIC FLUTE! Who knew?! Turns out – our Tamino does. Have questions or want to provide feedback? Email us at podcast@centralcityopera.org. Remember to subscribe to our podcast to get the latest episodes delivered directly to your device. To hear more stories from inside Central City Opera and buy tickets to the shows, visit us at CentralCityOpera.org.

Alisa and Rachel sat down with Kathleen Kelly to talk about being mothers in this business of opera and creating new works to satisfy new audiences. Kathleen Kelly enjoys a wide-ranging and dynamic musical life as a pianist, opera coach, conductor, and master teacher. The first woman and first American named as Director of Musical Studies at the Vienna State Opera, Kathleen joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 2015 as that school’s first Coach/Conductor of Opera.

There have been many highlights in Simone Young's career. Alongside conducting most of the world’s great orchestras including the London and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, the City of Birmingham Symphony, and the BBC Symphony at the BBC Proms, she was also the first woman to conduct at the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic, two orchestras she regularly returns to conduct today. In 1983, at just 22, Simone Young had already joined the staff of Opera Australia. She studied at Sydney’s Conservatorium of Music prior to taking up her position with AO where she worked as a répétiteur. By 1986, the young Sydneyite was conducting at the Sydney Opera House and appointed a resident conductor with Opera Australia. Simone moved to Germany, where she took up a position assisting James Conlon, the conductor at the Cologne Opera. This led to further engagements, including working alongside the legendary Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera and the Bayreuth Festival. In 1998 she was appointed principal conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra in Norway. But Australia was never far from her sights. In 2000, Simone was given what she terms one of the greatest honours of her career, when she conducted the national anthem at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. Not long afterwards, she returned to take up the position of Music Director with Opera Australia, but despite these three years being an artistically rewarding period, they were turbulent years in her career. In 2005 Simone returned to Europe to direct one of the Germany’s major opera houses, the Hamburg State Opera, and as chief conductor of the city’s philharmonic orchestra, positions she held until 2015. Simone has also been a great mentor for a number of Australian conductors and singers. She says, “I think it is incredibly important for young conductors to see just how tough the working side of this job is. If you don’t want to work hard, don’t choose this profession.”It was, indeed, in the midst of a heavy performance and rehearsal schedule in Berlin that Simone Young joined the Tall Poppies podcast. In this episode, she recalls how her musical education in Australia and her father’s good advice prepared her for an international conducting career. Simone also confides how she plans to tackle the latest position she has added to her illustrious list of honours – that of being the Australian Nana to her two grandchildren.

This time we talk about the world and Columbus premieres in the triple bill Art In Motion.Fool's Paradise - Balletmet is only the 2nd company in the U.S. to perform this Christopher Wheeldon production. The other two companies in the world include Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera.Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s acclaimed 18+1 will return to Columbus, with its celebratory air and a shower of confetti. This performance was such an audience favorite it had to be brought back this year. Cha-Cha and Mambo create a huge party on stage.Then a world premier from Edwaard Liang thanks to funding help from The Columbus Foundation. Be prepared to watch it rain on stage. Here is a link to the Instagram video he mentions - https://www.instagram.com/p/BQjkMk8BBmR/?taken-by=edwaardliang&hl=en March 17-25, 2017 | Davidson Theatre (formerly the Capitol Theatre)"Triple bill = Electic = Full Meal" - Edwaard LiangA huge range of choreographers in this triple bill performance. You will leave the theatre awestruck."Beauty can save the world" - Edwaard LiangFollow BalletMet on:Twitter and Facebook - @balletmetPinterest - pinterest.com/balletmet/YouTube - youtube.com/user/BalletMetInstagram - instagram.com/balletmet/Buy tickets at http://www.ticketmaster.com/Balletmet-Columbus-tickets/artist/803506A affiliate podcast of Circle270Media Network - www.circle270media.com

This time we talk about the world and Columbus premieres in the triple bill Art In Motion.Fool's Paradise - Balletmet is only the 2nd company in the U.S. to perform this Christopher Wheeldon production. The other two companies in the world include Paris Opera and Vienna State Opera.Gustavo Ramirez Sansano’s acclaimed 18+1 will return to Columbus, with its celebratory air and a shower of confetti. This performance was such an audience favorite it had to be brought back this year. Cha-Cha and Mambo create a huge party on stage.Then a world premier from Edwaard Liang thanks to funding help from The Columbus Foundation. Be prepared to watch it rain on stage. Here is a link to the Instagram video he mentions - https://www.instagram.com/p/BQjkMk8BBmR/?taken-by=edwaardliang&hl=en March 17-25, 2017 | Davidson Theatre (formerly the Capitol Theatre)"Triple bill = Electic = Full Meal" - Edwaard LiangA huge range of choreographers in this triple bill performance. You will leave the theatre awestruck."Beauty can save the world" - Edwaard LiangFollow BalletMet on:Twitter and Facebook - @balletmetPinterest - pinterest.com/balletmet/YouTube - youtube.com/user/BalletMetInstagram - instagram.com/balletmet/Buy tickets at http://www.ticketmaster.com/Balletmet-Columbus-tickets/artist/803506A affiliate podcast of Circle270Media Network - www.circle270media.com

Welcome to Season 2 of America's talk radio show about opera! George and Tobias DVR the first presidential debate and talk opera... In our ‘Chalk Talk’ segment, we look at two stories of two different African-American men who got into the opera business against all the odds: bass-baritone Ryan Speedo Green who beat juvenile hall to make it into the ensemble at the Vienna State Opera, and Morris Robinson, who finished his college football career at The Citadel before singing at the Metropolitan Opera.... Then it’s one of our new segments, called ‘The Hot Seat’, in which we take a look at an opera figure who has made a big career move, or made a tough choice, that has brought them into the public eye. This week we focus on Oliver Mears, who has just been appointed as the Director of Opera at the Royal Opera House in London... Plus you get all your opera headlines in ‘The Two Minute Drill’, and we wrap up with another new segment called ‘Crunching the Numbers’. We interpret some cold, hard stats from opera and read between the lines. This week, we look at the most -- and least -- popular tenor arias heard in auditions, taken from Kim Witman's blog at Wolf Trap Opera...

Even if you don't have time or money for a musical performance while in Austria, a visit to the Vienna State Opera house is a must. At www.ricksteves.com, you'll find money-saving travel tips, small-group tours, guidebooks, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, and more on this destination.

Even if you don't have time or money for a musical performance while in Austria, a visit to the Vienna State Opera house is a must. At www.ricksteves.com, you'll find money-saving travel tips, small-group tours, guidebooks, TV shows, radio programs, podcasts, and more on this destination.

Feb. 7, 2015. Ian Bostridge discusses Schubert's song cycle Winterreise, D. 911, following his performance of the work in the Library's Coolidge Auditorium. Speaker Biography: Ian Bostridge's international recital career takes him to the foremost concert halls of Europe, Japan and North America, with regular appearances at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg and the Edinburgh, Munich and Aldeburgh festivals. Opera engagements have included Don Giovanni and Ades's The Tempest for the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; The Rake's Progress in Munich; Semele for English National Opera; Don Giovanni for the Vienna State Opera; and Aschenbach (Death in Venice) for both English National Opera and at the Monnaie, Brussels. The recent Barbican production of Curlew River will toured the U.S. in 2014. He is the Humanitas Professor of Classical Music at the University of Oxford for academic year 2014-2015. For transcript, captions, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=6700

Vienna State Opera loses another conductor...Metropolitan Opera lays off 22 non-union workers thanks to Mike Mayes's's's' rants...Kiri Te Kanawa thinks Britain is "Killing" talent...Death of Klinghoffer protests scheduled for opening night at The Met...Man who beat cab driver fearing he wouldn't make the curtain of Fanciulla avoids jaintime. This week in Oliver's Corner, Carlo Bergonzi just does everything better. This week features Michael, The OC, Doug, Jenny Rivera and Mike Mayes.

Helen Pickett, born in San Diego, California, studied dance at The San Francisco Ballet School under the direction of Lew Christensen and Michael Smuin, and later, Helgi Tomasson.  In 2005, Mikko Nissinen, director of the Boston Ballet, offered Helen her first choreographic commission,Etesian. The New York Choreographic Institute awarded her a Fellowship Initiative Grant in 2006. In the same year and through 2008, Helen choreographed for Boston Ballet, Washington Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Louisville Ballet and Ballet X. In 2007, Dance magazine named Helen one of "25 to Watch". She received a Choreographic Residency from Jacob's Pillow in 2008. From 2009 through 2011, Helen created new ballets for Royal Ballet of Flanders, Ballet West, Boston Ballet, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, Atlanta Ballet, and Dance Theatre of Harlem. In 2012 and 2013, her commissions include Atlanta Ballet, Semper Oper/Dresden Ballet, Vienna State Opera, Scottish Ballet and Smuin Ballet. Helen was one of the first choreographers to receive the Jerome Robbins Foundation’s New Essential Works Grant. For over a decade Helen performed with William Forsythe's Ballet Frankfurt. During her last season with Ballet Frankfurt, Helen simultaneously performed with The Wooster Group, director, Elizabeth Le Compte. She acted with the Group for five non-consecutive years in the OBIE award winning House/Lights,North Atlantic. In 2005, Helen returned to the role, as a guest artist with The Royal Ballet of Flanders, in William Forsythe Impressing the Czar. In 2009, Impressing the Czar received the Laurence Olivier Award and in 2012, the Prix de la Critique award for outstanding performance of the year. Helen collaborates, as an actress and choreographer, with installation video artists and filmmakers including Eve Sussman, Toni Dove and Laurie Simmons. Helen, a founding member of Eve Sussman The Rufus Corporation, created the role of the Queen in 89 Seconds at Alcazar, which was shown at the 2004 Whitney Biennial, and now is in the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 2007, Helen acted in Sussman feature length film, The Rape of the Sabine Women. She played Sally Rand in Toni Dove's video installation and feature film, Spectropia. Helen teaches Forsythe-based improvisation and her motivational creative workshop entitled The Expansive Artist throughout Europe and the United States. Dance Europe published Helen's article, Considering Cezanne,in 2006. In 2011, Helen earned a Master of Fine Arts in Dance from Hollins University.

Georg Hann (January 30, 1897 - December 9, 1950) was an Austrian operatic bass-baritone, particularly associated with the comic (singspiel) German repertory. Born in Vienna, he studied at the Music Academy there with Theodor Lierhammer. He joined the Munich State Opera in 1927, and remained with this theatre until his death. He also appeared regularly at the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, quickly establishing himself as a leading buffo interpreter, notably in roles such as Leporello, Falstaff, Kecal, Ochs, La Roche (role he created in 1942), etc. He made guest appearances at the Berlin State Opera, La Monnaie in Brussels, the Paris Opéra, the Royal Opera House in London, La Scala in Milan. He did not limit himself to comic roles but also sang Sarastro, Pizzaro, Gunther, Amfortas, Daland and tackled a few Italian roles as well notably Wurm, Alfio, Tonio, as well as Mefistophele in Gounod's Faust. Hann died in Munich aged only 53.    Hann sings arias and scenes from: Zar und Zimmermann (Lortzing), Der Wildschutz (Lortzing) w. With Wolfgang Windgassen and Res Fischer, Barber of Bagdad (Cornelius), w.Lorenz Fehenberger, Nabucco, Falstaff, Gypsy Baron, Die Bettelstudent(Millocker).

In 1955, Cappuccilli auditioned for La Scala in Milan, where the auditioners, deeply impressed, encourage him to enter the Viotti competition. After his first place award, he made his official operatic debut in 1957 at the Teatro Nuovo in Milan, singing Tonio in Pagliacci. In 1960, he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera, singing Giorgio Germont in La traviata, which was to be Cappuccilli spent most of his career singing in Europe, with only infrequent travels to North and South America. He made his debut at the Teatro alla Scala in 1964, as Enrico, at the Royal Opera House in London as Germont in 1967, and his Opéra de Paris debut took place in 1978, as Amonasro. He also appeared at the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival. He worked with the greatest European conductors of his time (Karajan, Gavazzeni, Abbado, Kleiber) and became one of the finest interpreters of the Italian repertoire. Cappuccilli was highly respected as a "Verdi baritone", where his beautiful voice, fine vocal technique, musical elegance, and dignified stage presence, were shown to their best advantage. He left an impressive discography, he recorded Lucia di Lammermoor twice, first with Maria Callas in 1959, and with Beverly Sills in 1970. Other notable recordings include; Rigoletto, opposite Ileana Cotrubas and Placido Domingo, under Carlo Maria Giulini, Macbeth, opposite Shirley Verrett, and Simon Boccanegra, opposite Mirella Freni and Nicolai Ghiaurov, both under Claudio Abbado. He also recorded Don Carlos, Il Trovatore and Aida under Herbert von Karajan Cappuccilli sang until his mid-sixties; an automobile accident in 1992 ended his stage career. He died in his native Trieste, at the age of 78.[2]  Pagliacci,Zaza,Macbeth,Attila,Due Foscari,Forza,Trovatore,Do Carlo,Pearl Fishers, Chenier, Nabucco,Ernani,Roberto Devereux. (68 min.)

The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig is perhaps the finest account of Mahler's Vienna. Written as an autobiography and ending with his suicide note from 1942, this eyewitness account details the unique cultural life of Vienna before the First World War and the extraordinary developments in architecture, music, literature and painting. The lecture explores the cultural environment and the background to Mahler's music and his role as the Music Director of the Vienna State Opera. It also provides an account of the tumultuous events that shaped Mahler's posthumous reception.

Simone Young is an Australian conductor whose career has centred around the opera world and conducting the great Austro-German symphonic works. She appeared as a judge in the BBC TV series Maestro and has conducted here occasionally. She is currently Music Director of the Hamburg opera but her career began in her native country where she learnt the basics of her craft under a variety of mentors including Richard Bonynge and Stuart Challender at Opera Australia. Taking their advice she went to Europe and became assistant to a number of conductors including Daniel Barenboim whom she worked with on Wagner at Bayreuth. She later became the first woman to conduct both at the Vienna State Opera and the Paris Opera. She was Music Director at Australian Opera in the early 2000s but left after a dispute over funding and artistic standards. Hamburg followed where she will remain in her post until 2015. Simone Young talks to Norman about the prejudice she has encountered as a woman her musical tastes and her research in the archives at Bayreuth. Approaching 50 she is widely tipped to get one of the forthcoming vacancies in the major opera houses but notwithstanding these opportunites, she considers her priority now to be how she can develop her ability to concentrate on artistic concerns principally the music. Producer Tony Cheevers.

My all-time favorite basso passed away today.Cesare Siepi was the possessor of a luscious,velvety voice and on stage he was sensational.I saw him countless times and am so saddened at his passing. Here is a brief article about his  many successes.: His international reputation was established in 1950, when Sir Rudolf Bing brought him to the Metropolitan Opera in New York to open the 1950 season as King Philip II in Don Carlos. He was to remain principal bass at the Met until 1974, adding roles such as Boris Godunov (in English) and Gurnemanz in Parsifal (in German), and singing all the major roles of the bass repertoire. His also gave his debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in 1950, and appeared there regularly until the mid 1970s. In 1953 Siepi debuted at the Salzburg Festival with a legendary production of Don Giovanni conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, staged by Herbert Graf, and designed by Clemens Holzmeister. He made an immediate impact in the title role of Don Giovanni which became perhaps his best known role, as it had been for the most famous Italian bass of the generation before, Ezio Pinza. This performance has been released on CD, and a 1954 mounting of this production was filmed in color and released in 1955. Siepi was a frequent guest at the Vienna State Opera. In 43 performances he sang Don Giovanni, more often than any other singer in modern times except for Eberhard Waechter. In 1967 Siepi was Don Giovanni in a controversially received production staged by Otto Schenk and designed by Luciano Damiani that showed Mozart's masterpiece in the light of the commedia dell'arte, emphasizing the comic and ironic elements of this opera (conductor Josef Krips strongly opposed this production's concept). In Vienna he also sang Basilio (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Colline (La bohème), Fiesco (Simon Boccanegra), Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Padre Guardian (La forza del destino 1974 in a new production conducted by Riccardo Muti), Gurnemanz (Parsifal), Mephisto (Faust), Filippo II (Don Carlos), and Ramphis (Aïda). His final performance at the Vienna State Opera was in Norma (Oroveso) in 1994. He was a particularly fine recital artist, especially in Community Concerts under Columbia Artist Management, and a sensitive interpreter of German Lieder. He married Met ballerina Luellen Sibley and they have two children. Siepi enjoyed a long career, and performed regularly until the 1980s, including lead roles in the ill-fated Broadway musicals Bravo Giovanni and Carmelina. In addition to his studio recordings, there are also many live recordings of performances of his major roles. According to the Italian Wikipedia, Siepi's formal farewell to the operatic stage occurred at the Teatro Carani in Sassuolo on 21 April 1989. Indeed, Capon's List shows live recordings made as late as 1988. Siepi's last studio recording was as the old King Archibaldo in RCA's 1976 taping of Montemezzi's L'amore dei tre re, with Anna Moffo and Plácido Domingo in the cast.     Rest in Peace, my beloved Cesare. P.S. For my podcast on Siepi,see archives of May 3, 2006  

Anja Silja (Lulu) Gerd Nienstedt (Der Tierbandiger) Ernst Gutstein (Dr Schoen) Waldemar Kmentt (Alwa Schoen) William Blankenship (Der Maler) Hans Brand (Der Medizinalrat) Hans Hotter (Schigolch) Manfred Jungwirth (Der Theaterdirektor) Hilde Konetzni (Garderobiere) Mario Guggia (Der Prinz) Martha Moedl (Grafin Geschwitz) Oskar Czerwenka (Rodrigo) Rohangiz Yachmi (Der Gymnasiast) Heinz Zednik (Ein Kammerdiener) Orchestra and Chorus of the Vienna State Opera; Karl Bohm. 16 December 1968.

Anja Silja (Lulu) Gerd Nienstedt (Der Tierbandiger) Ernst Gutstein (Dr Schoen) Waldemar Kmentt (Alwa Schoen) William Blankenship (Der Maler) Hans Brand (Der Medizinalrat) Hans Hotter (Schigolch) Manfred Jungwirth (Der Theaterdirektor) Hilde Konetzni (Garderobiere) Mario Guggia (Der Prinz) Martha Moedl (Grafin Geschwitz) Oskar Czerwenka (Rodrigo) Rohangiz Yachmi (Der Gymnasiast) Heinz Zednik (Ein Kammerdiener) Orchestra and Chorus of the Vienna State Opera; Karl Bohm. 16 December 1968.

Rienzi: Siegfried Jerusalem Irene: Nancy Gustafson Steffano Colonna: Walter Fink Adriano: Violeta Urmana Paolo Orsini: Peter Weber Raimondo: Roland Schubert Baroncelli: Torsten Kerl Cecco: Wolfgang Bankl Friedensbote: Anat Efraty. Zubin Mehta. Vienna State Opera, 13 December 1997.

Rienzi: Siegfried Jerusalem Irene: Nancy Gustafson Steffano Colonna: Walter Fink Adriano: Violeta Urmana Paolo Orsini: Peter Weber Raimondo: Roland Schubert Baroncelli: Torsten Kerl Cecco: Wolfgang Bankl Friedensbote: Anat Efraty. Zubin Mehta. Vienna State Opera, 13 December 1997.

Rienzi: Siegfried Jerusalem Irene: Nancy Gustafson Steffano Colonna: Walter Fink Adriano: Violeta Urmana Paolo Orsini: Peter Weber Raimondo: Roland Schubert Baroncelli: Torsten Kerl Cecco: Wolfgang Bankl Friedensbote: Anat Efraty. Zubin Mehta. Vienna State Opera, 13 December 1997.

In the conclusion of this three-part series, we look back at the work of American baritone Clarence Whitehill, who excelled in Wagnerian roles around the world, and first performed at the Bayreuth Festival in 1904. The program also features the work of some of the best Wagner conductors on the scene today. We highlight musical excerpts from Donald Runnicles at the Vienna State Opera, Valery Gergiev at the MET, and Pierre Boulez leading the 2004 controversial staging of Parsifal from the enfant terrible of German art, Christoph Schlingensief.

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the musical director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Lorin Maazel. He was a child prodigy whose career as a conductor has survived, and thrived, beyond his early precocity. His musical talent became apparent at the age of five, when he began playing the violin, while at seven he was discovered conducting a piece by Haydn playing on his parents' record player. He was the first American and youngest conductor, at the age of 30, to conduct Lohengrin at Bayreuth. After a career which has included prestigious posts at the Vienna State Opera and the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, he is currently Musical Director of the New York Philharmonic. In May this year, Lorin Maazel's first opera, an adaption of George Orwell's 1984, will he performed at the Royal Opera House in London.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Quartet No 14 'Death and the Maiden' 4th Movement by Franz Schubert Book: Pensées by Blaise Pascal Luxury: Vermeer Painting - The Piano Lesson

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the musical director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra Lorin Maazel. He was a child prodigy whose career as a conductor has survived, and thrived, beyond his early precocity. His musical talent became apparent at the age of five, when he began playing the violin, while at seven he was discovered conducting a piece by Haydn playing on his parents' record player. He was the first American and youngest conductor, at the age of 30, to conduct Lohengrin at Bayreuth. After a career which has included prestigious posts at the Vienna State Opera and the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras, he is currently Musical Director of the New York Philharmonic. In May this year, Lorin Maazel's first opera, an adaption of George Orwell's 1984, will he performed at the Royal Opera House in London. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs] Favourite track: Quartet No 14 'Death and the Maiden' 4th Movement by Franz Schubert Book: Pensées by Blaise Pascal Luxury: Vermeer Painting - The Piano Lesson