Lehtipuu and Hvorostovsky

Topi Lehtipuu

Image from Bach Cantatas website

Finnish lyric tenor Topi Lehtipuu as Ferrando singing "Un'aura amorosa" from Mozart's Così fan tutte. Mr. Lehtipuu is perhaps the best singing actor on stage today. When he swoons about his love during this aria, you want to swoon too. Warm voice, piercing eyes, trim, and intense. A new favorite for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilD7XMEuq-M

Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Image from LA Opera website

Russian (Siberian) baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky as Hérode singing "Vision Fugitive" from Massenet's Herodiade. One of my favorite arias sung by the silver fox himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZkmuJbr7Vs

Recent Curation and Exhibition Design

 Developing Expressions exhibition (K-12 from area schools) at the Hearst Center for the Arts, Cedar Falls, IA.

 Another view of Developing Expressions. This has been an immensely gratifying project for me and is the third children's art exhibition I've designed and installed since 2006.

 An installation view of the 2013 Annual Juried Student Art Exhibition at the UNI Gallery of Art, which was juried by Memphis College of Art professor Fred Burton.

 The Individual Is the One Illusion, an exhibition I curated from the UNI Permanent Art Collection. Students in Dr. Elizabeth Sutton's Art and Globalization seminar provided the didactics.

An installation view of The Individual is the One Illusion featuring sculptures by Jose de Creeft (foreground) and Arturo Herrera (background). To the left is a painting by Dana Saulnier of Ohio, which was part of the Gallery's ambitious painting exhibition that ran from January through early March 2013. It was titled REVERB: Recent Abstraction in Painting and featured eight artists from across the country who push the formal boundaries of abstraction.

Recent Work

 "Landscape for Kenneth Noland," a painting for the Waterloo Center for the Arts April fundraiser "Come As You Art."

Stewart and Kwiecien

 Noah Stewart

Photo from Michigan Opera Theatre

Here is the exquisite Pearl Fishers duet with Nmon Ford and the American tenor Noah Stewart. Representations of male friendship and love are pretty rare in opera, but Bizet's Les pecheurs de perles (The Pearl Fishers) is the exception.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ul0hw7FVEA

 

 Mariusz Kwiecien

Photo by Mikolaj Mikolajczyk

Polish baritone Mariusz Kwiecien as Belcore in Donizetti's L'Elisire d'Amore singing "Come paride vezzoso." Listen to the beautiful tone, watch the enticing striptease!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj5YT2NOs0I 

"Cries of Joy!"

Image from Epoch Times

Peruvian Bel Canto tenor Juan Diego Florez. The link below is a scene from Rossini's Le Comte Ory. Very funny, very randy! I love the on-stage chemistry between Florez, Diana Damrau, and the fabulous Joyce DiDonato.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEivbIRrmMU

French countertenor Philippe Jarousky and Nuria Riel sing C. Monteverdi's "Zefiro Toma." Pure joy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zq49rymjvNg

Amazing opera singers, beautiful productions

 Image from Dwight Connoisseur

American Bel Canto tenor Lawrence Brownlee (center) in a production of Armida by Rossini. His vocals are impeccable, and he has such a range of emotion. The trio pictured have exceptional blend, and the end of the aria is breathtaking and terribly funny. What beauty!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UCqPgaZM8w

 Image from Voix des Arts

French countertenor Christophe Dumaux in a production of Il Giasone by Cavalli. I have yet to see a sexier staging with the exception of the 2007 production Ercole su'l Termodont by Vivaldi in which Zachary Stains romps half-clad across the stage from one aria to the next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWWsHP7OooM

The Light at Adams Street

The incredible play of light that happens each late winter morning on Adams Street. Sometimes I just stare at the wall and door next to my front door and watch the patterns change over minutes and hours.