Thursday, June 06, 2013

Opera's youngest super-bloggers

I think it's high time I call your attention to some blogs that have impressed me lately.  But then, you probably already know about Opera Teen and Il Dolce Suono and OperaRox! because, people, they're all over the interwebs, getting shout-outs from greats like Joyce DiDonato, publishing insightful reviews of productions they see, engaging in intelligent twitter convos with opera singers all over the globe (and if you're on Twitter, you know how truly rare that can be), and generally amping up the visibility among the younger crowd and creating a buzz for our fabulous art form.

You've heard me talk about OperaRox! before, since it's the brain child of my friend Kim, who is also an editor of the online opera magazine Opera21. She does weekly livestreams of operas and chats with people all over the world about the production.  She's a lovely mezzo as well, and I know she's going to do great things...wait...she already has!

I love Il Dolce Suono's hilarious anecdotes and conversational tone-- she also has an awesome video on the blog right now of the fabulous Ferrucio Furlanetto singing King Phillip's aria from Don Carlo (aka best opera ever)...watch it.

Opera Teen is getting a lot of attention these days for his operatic romps, read an article about him here on Operavore : "An Opera Teen Builds an Internet Fan Base" and indeed he has.  His Twitter feed is fun to follow, he reviews and writes articles on opera for The Huffington Post, he's been to LaScala (sigh!) and he's a regular at the Met.

This is the new guard of the opera-obsessed, giving me hope that, contrary to concerns of many in our field-- WE WILL HAVE AN AUDIENCE 20 YEARS!!! We will!

I am revived when I read these blogs!  The spirit and enthusiasm and fabulous videos they're posting-- love it.  It reminds me of why we're doing this-- opera is irresistibly fabulous, compelling, and actually kind of addictive-- we have to share the gospel of this super-human genre.  It's larger than life, and intimate at the same time.

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