Spring-Summer '24 Recap

Where I’ve Been and Where I'm Going: Tanisha presents her new opera series- Parents in Opera

  It’s always nerve wracking to present a new series to the audience. However, I have so many new ideas that I want to create for new opera programs. The Parenthood series was an idea that I thought about since last year. I finally got the time to create it with notable mothers and fathers from famous operas. The audience learns each mother or father’s perspective as it relates to the characters around them especially their children. The Mother, May I opera program debuted in May right after Mother’s Day while Father, May I made its debut right after Father’s Day. The mothers I include in Mother, May I are : Azucena from Verdi’s Il Trovatore, Bess from Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess and the Queen of the Night from Mozart’s Magic Flute. The fathers featured in Father, May I are: Germont from Verdi’s La Traviata, Amonasro from Verdi’s Aïda and Wotan from Wagner’s Die Walküre.

 The audience enjoyed the new series and even had comments about their own memories with their parents.

 June and July were full of famous opera talks like La Bohème, Carmen and Aïda. The audience had excellent questions about new productions of these operas and questions about the characters. I distinctly remember someone asking why Mimì was upset at Rodolfo after she heard him talking about her in La Bohème. "Didn't he tell the truth about her?" asked the person. I posed the question to the audience member and asked them how they would feel if they were Mimì. From that question and subsequent thought- they agreed with her decision. I also received a beautiful comment from an audience member that sticks with me even while I type this. It was after I presented Verdi's Aida at an assisted living location. Unable to walk or move her arms, she simply said

“This was special.”

  I presented Aïda in late July because of the storyline’s rich history in Egypt and the idea of summer travel to distant lands. In this opera program, the audience and I discussed the recent incidents that opera companies face with makeup when depicting the characters. These conversations lead to many audience members asking why opera companies didn’t just hire people that looked like the role. I explained to them that the decision can be a gray area because companies have to think about who can actually sing the role as well as who looks like the role. That conversation is really a panel discussion for another time.

August welcomes both virtual and live programming for libraries, senior groups and assisted living locations. I am happy to announce that I will present at the Bristal York Avenue location in NYC and for the Melville Greens Women’s Group for the first time. The opera talks on schedule are Carmen and Luciano Pavarotti.