NEWS
By Janet Gilbert | June 8, 2009
There's a gentleman who frequents Centerstage events in Baltimore and always wears a bright red "Arts Advocate" button. A year ago at a show there, I introduced myself to him by admiring it. I asked him if I qualified as an arts advocate, having driven my three children to assorted music and dance lessons over the past decade? He gave me the button. These days I wear it to bed and dream of a Maryland where the future of the arts is not in jeopardy. I have intensely personal reasons for my commitment to the arts.
NEWS
By Tim Smith | May 31, 2009
The first time Placido Domingo stood on the stage of Baltimore's Lyric Opera House, he sang. When he returns on Tuesday, after 43 years, he won't open his mouth. Instead, the eminent Spanish-born singer, who has performed at all of the world's leading opera houses and who, with Luciano Pavarotti and Jose Carreras, rocked the global market in 1990 as part of the storied Three Tenors phenomenon, will be on the podium. He will conduct Puccini's Turandot with soloists, orchestra and chorus of Washington National Opera.
NEWS
May 18, 2009
Save opera, not Senator How many of us really have an interest concerning the fate of the Senator Theatre that has been bailed out numerous times and still can't make it? After all that's been said, it's just another movie house, and an obsolete one at that. Consider: No multi-complex, no stadium seating, no parking, no senior citizen discount, no credit card payment, no snacks, no etc., etc., and lastly, not many people interested in attending, at least when I've been there. The Baltimore Opera, on the other hand, is a unique jewel in Baltimore's crown along with the Inner Harbor, Aquarium, art museums, Fort McHenry and much more.
NEWS
By EDITORIAL | May 12, 2009
Baltimore needs an opera company it can believe in now that the venerable Baltimore Opera Company has closed up shop. For 58 seasons, the company's singers and musicians performed what has been called "the most extravagant art" - a lavish collage of symphonic music, theater and dance - with great panache and brio, to the delight of enthusiastic and intensely loyal local audiences. The roster of stars who have performed under its auspices reads like a Who's Who of 20th-century musical theater: sopranos Birgit Nilsson, Renata Scotto and Beverly Sills; tenors Placido Domingo and Carlo Bergonzi; baritone Thomas Hampson and bass-baritone James Morris.
NEWS
By JACQUES KELLY | April 21, 2009
Geraldine Weidemuller, a past Baltimore Opera Guild president, died of cancer April 12 at Gilchrist Hospice Care. The Guilford resident was 91. Born Geraldine Wendler in Sewickley, Pa., she attended Sewickley Academy, Miss Thurston School for Girls and the Women's College of Pennsylvania. She moved to Baltimore in 1945 after her marriage to John E. Weidemuller, a construction firm owner. Mrs. Weidemuller was past president of the Baltimore Opera Guild and had been a national board member of Opera Guilds International.
NEWS
April 8, 2009
Residents of Mount Washington and other nearby neighborhoods have known for years that the curtain might one day fall on Pimlico Race Course for good. But the prospect of razing the vast track property in favor of a shopping center is truly alarming ("Suitor wants to raze Pimlico," April 3). The recession has made it clear that we already have excess retail capacity. Any effort to build and lease a new shopping center at Pimlico would likely drag on for years and face considerable trouble attracting quality tenants.
NEWS
March 29, 2009
Opera lover left with memories Regarding "Death of Baltimore Opera leaves void" (Commentary, March 22): I was 11 years old when my music teacher at P.S. 203, Alvina Macdonald, took us on a field trip. She had schooled us well in Verdian lore, explaining every scene and aria that we were about to hear. I remember getting off the bus and climbing many steps. I remember the conductor and the audience recognizing the great soprano Rosa Ponselle. And then I was transfixed. There were no subtitles then, so you had to know your libretto or you were lost.
NEWS
By Edward Gunts, Mary Carole McCauley, Rashod D. Ollison, Tim Smith and Michael Sragow. | March 26, 2009
POP MUSIC moe. moe., the critically well-received prog-rock band, has been around for about three decades. The band has been prolific in that time, turning out 17 albums. Its experimental but accessible approach to rock remains solid on the group's latest studio album, Sticks and Stones. The band performs at 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Rams Head Live, 20 Market Place. Tickets are $25-$29.50. Call 410-244-1131 or go to ramsheadlive.com. Art Alexakis Art Alexakis performs an acoustic set Friday night at Hard Rock Cafe Baltimore, along with Adam Scott-Wakefield of local blues band Old Man Brown.
NEWS
By Tim Smith | March 15, 2009
The news that came late last week from the Baltimore Opera Company wasn't unexpected. Ever since the organization sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, everyone knew that the next shoe could drop with the thud of Chapter 7 liquidation. Still, when it fell, somehow it seemed impossible. After nearly six decades (more if you count the precursor organization), the city's grand opera company is dead, waiting for its assets to be auctioned so that creditors can be paid a portion of what they are owed.
NEWS
By Tim Smith | February 26, 2009
"I know I'm not a perfect singer," says Robert Cantrell. "Who wants a perfect singer? All the great ones had their flaws." The Georgia-born bass-baritone gives a little laugh as he says that, the laugh of someone who doesn't take himself too seriously. But Cantrell does take his art very seriously, as audiences will be reminded Sunday when the Baltimore resident will be a soloist in the Handel Choir of Baltimore's performance of the exquisite Requiem by Maurice Durufle. For the better part of two decades, Cantrell, 44, has been a frequent and much-admired contributor to the region's musical life.