Today is the day—Song of the Day turns 3! Here’s a look back at our first week of songs from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier. Have a listen to “Abismo de sed,” sung by Teresa Berganza with true cojones.
Read MoreAs Song of the Day turns 3 this week, we look back at our first week of songs (beginning June 15, 2015) from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier. Here is Valerie Masterson performing Yum-Yum’s Act II song from The Mikado. It’s a rare bit of footage, not the 1966 movie but an even better 1973 rendition for television.
Read MoreAs Song of the Day turns 3 this week, we look back at our first week of songs from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier. Today, in honor of summer, here’s the iconic Leslie Uggams singing “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over” for live television on a day when there was a disaster with the cue-cards.
Read MoreSong of the Day turns 3 this week! Here’s a look back at our first week of songs from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier. Here’s the hit song from Two Gents, “Who Is Sylvia.”
Read MoreSong of the Day turns 3 this week! Here’s a look back at our first week of songs (beginning June 15, 2015) from NYFOS’s artistic director Steven Blier: To kick the venture off with a bang, two renditions of the Queen of the Night’s rage aria (Act II, Mozart’s Magic Flute).
Read MoreMadison Leonard, one of our most recent NYFOS@Caramoor Emerging Artists has had a big year! And now she answers our questions as Artist of the Month for May 2018.
Read More“The Art of Pleasure” ends with a section simply called “Peace.” The centerpiece is an unpublished song by Michael John LaChiusa entitled “Heaven,” which I first heard on Mary Testa’s album, Have Faith.
Read More“The Art of Pleasure”—my Wolf Trap concert for this year—includes a section of guilty pleasures. This was at once the most fun and the most difficult group to program. How far were we willing to go? It’s not so easy to assign louche material for a group of people you don’t know. As always, I took a flying leap (the M.O. for my entire career, it seems). The first song would definitely be Tom Lehrer’s 1959 classic “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.”
Read MoreIn the interest of empowering the cast of my Wolf Trap show “The Art of Pleasure,” I asked them to make suggestions of songs and subjects. “What pleasures beyond the obvious ones (food and sex) do you want to sing about, and what songs bring those pleasures to life for you?” I wondered what kinds of answers I’d get. At this point I knew only one of my cast members personally, and no one wants to look stupid or weird—especially not young professionals dealing with a music director they’ve never met.
Read MoreThe final group of songs in Act I of “The Art of Pleasure” is simply called “Romance,” and that gave me an opportunity to program the steamy duet “Schön wie die blaue Sommernacht” from Lehár’s Giuditta.
When it comes to high-calorie, high-fat romance, there’s no one quite like Viennese operetta icon Franz Lehár. His stage-works create a world of unmarried blonde women, tenors whose lasciviousness skirts the overtly creepy, and a passel of supporting players who are usually less wealthy and less Viennese.
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