We are joined by Alan Dornak who tell us about what it means to be a Countertenor, and about the Orfeo Vocal Academy. And in “Noah’s Culture Bits” we have an experimental opera movie “River of fundament” by artist, model, sculptor, Matthew Barney.

Show Notes
- Alan Dornak – countertenor, voice teacher and opera director at Wagner College and on faculty at AMDA (American Musical and Dramatic Academy), and the General Director of the Orfeo Vocal Arts Academy, a 3-week summer vocal intensive in Dresden, Germany.
- Music Credit: Allegra Durante & Alan Dornak
- Jewels of the Baroque
- Vertical Player Repertory
- Frontiers Fort Worth opera Festival – Frontiers – Fort Worth Opera Festival
- Very Supportive Audiences
- New York Snarky Audiences?
- Sweets by Kate – Griffin Candey libretto by Thom Miller
- Service Provider – Christopher Weiss and John de los Santos
- The erosion of Romance by our obsession with mobile technology
- Microphones, amplified
- Francois Nouvion – Historica Tenors Website (No longer active)
- “The tenor of the future, 2 mics and no voice”
- Countertenors
- Stereotypes – small and effeminate? Partiers?
- Der Rosenkavalier – Met LIVE in HD
- Staged By Robert Carson
- Inventive Staging
- Set in 1911
- Renee Fleming – the Marchellin
- Will be headlining in “Carousel” on Broadway as Nettie Fowler, Spring 2018
- Elîna Garança – Octavian
- looked like Steven Costello
- Günter Groissböck
- Final Act set in a Brothel
- Mohammad as a Name in translation versus “Dem Mohammed” which is slightly racist?
- Oklahoma at Bard College
- Cyrano de Bergerac – Metropolitan Opera
- Composer, Franco Alfano
- Original story by Alexander Dumas? (Correction: Edmond Rostand)
- La Campana Sommersa – Ottorino Respighi
- New York City Opera
- Set looked like a dune made of sand
- Hunter Opera Theater
- Ladybird
- Composer: Henry Mollicone
- “Face on the Ballroom Floor”
- Librettist: Sheldon Harnick
- Composer: Henry Mollicone
- Fireworks – Kitty Brazelton
- Composer: Kitty Brazelton
- Librettist: Billy Aronson
- Microphones
- Sung like Musical Theater
- Ladybird
- The Secret Gardener – Mozart
- On Site Opera
- Performed in a public garden
- Comparison of early Mozart to Music Theater
- Opera and Musical Theater Microphones – is it definitional
- Monteverdi were not written for trained singers
- American vocalism vs. Italian sound
- Treatises and Singing Technique
- Neapolitan street singing
- Do we really know anything about how people sang historically?
- Leon Botstein “Reading a treatise about how people sang historically, is like reading the bible to learn about how people had sex”
- Baroque Music in Europe vs. America
- Who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf
- Edward Albee
- A black actor in the role of Nick
- The Glass Menagerie
- Sally Field and Joe Mantello
- Ignoring Stage directions
- Disabled Actress
- Cerebral Palsy
- Anthony and Cleopatra – Johann Adolf Hasse
- Anthony Played by a Woman – Vittoria Tesi
- Cleopatra by a Man – Firanelli
- Women Playing Men (Pants Rolls)
- What about Men singing Women’s rolls?
- Tosca with Scarpia played as a Woman “Passing”
- Men singing Castrati Roles
- Countertenor Voice vs. Castrati Voice
- What was the sound?
- Vocal chords size of a child and lungs of an adult?
- Size of the face?
- Alessandro Moreschi (11 November 1858 – 21 April 1922)
- The Last Castrato
- Was an Old Man, and Not trained well
- Tenor character up an octave
- Using a chest voice sound up high
- Stephan Zucker – Bel Canto Society
- Chest Voice idea has changed – has to do with resonance
- Teaching Countertenor is same as any other voice
- There are no countertenor-only teachers
- River of fundament
- Matthew Barney
- Filmaker and sculpture
- Was a Male Model
- Installation art
- Dating with Bjørk
- Rivers of Fundament (Warning this contains very graphic imagery)
- 6 hour film
- brain adjusts to long works
- first hour is excruciating but eventually gives over to it
- Indie Opera Live!
- Women in Opera
- National Opera Center
- Marc Scorca Hall
- June 5, 7:30 pm
- New York Opera Festival