All Hail The Tenth Muse! Part 2

All Hail The Tenth Muse! Part 2

By Dr. April Lynn James.  Part 1 is published here  My bestselling book,* The Tenth Muse: How Maria Antonia Advanced the Pastoral Opera, is a major revision of the dissertation I completed in 2002. Why did I not publish it then? I had other things to do with my life...
All Hail The Tenth Muse!  Part 1

All Hail The Tenth Muse! Part 1

By Dr. April Lynn James Affectionately known as The PhDiva!!!, Dr. April is a classically trained soprano with a PhD from Harvard best known for her groundbreaking work returning operas composed by women to the world’s stages. She survived her Harvard doctoral...
Link Roundup: June 26, 2023

Link Roundup: June 26, 2023

Start the week by catching up with some of the exciting and GOOD news!! San Francisco Opera has staged its first work by a woman composer, El último sueño de Frida y Diego by Gabriela Lena Frank and (librettist) Nilo Cruz.  Also the first production of a work in...
Smyth’s Der Wald in forthcoming recording!

Smyth’s Der Wald in forthcoming recording!

By   Dr. Amy Zigler, an Ethel Smyth scholar and Associate Professor of Music at Salem College. She will be speaking about the recording, the female characters, and issues of agency in Der Wald at the Operatic Feminisms symposium on March 25, 2023, at Columbia...
Dr. Marcia J. Citron on The Wreckers at Houston Grand Opera

Dr. Marcia J. Citron on The Wreckers at Houston Grand Opera

We are deeply honored to have Dr. Marcia J. Citron as a guest blogger. Dr. Citron is Professor Emerita at the Shepherd School of Music, Rice University. The author of When Opera Meets Film (Cambridge UP, 2010) and Opera on Screen (Yale UP, 2000), her groundbreaking...
The Wreckers Storms Houston!

The Wreckers Storms Houston!

by Amy Zigler, PhD, Associate Professor of Music, Salem College 116 years after its premiere, Dame Ethel Smyth’s The Wreckers received its first-ever staging by a major American opera house. In keeping with its renewed focus on the ‘grand’ in Houston Grand Opera, the...