(San Francisco, CA) - Esa-Pekka Salonen’s announced 2025 departure from San Francisco Symphony still stuns, even several months on. With this piece, OI aims to:

• Explore the known why behind the financial crisis

• Explain why we oppose the company’s devastating, short-sighted cuts

• Provide guidance on how this legacy brand could begin repairing its self-inflicted wounds

Given his stature as the Bay Area’s classical music journalist, we first relied on San Francisco Chronicle’s Joshua Kosman and his reporting. Kosman’s first piece laid out the situation, Salonen’s terse statement, SFS musicians’ vocal support of their Maestro, as well as their demand for audited financials from CEO Mark Spivey and Board Chair Priscilla Geeslin...

(New York, NY) - We recently had the pleasure of experiencing Festival Opera’s artist showcase at the Point Richmond, CA home of General Director Zachary Gordin. The occasion was for East Bay-based for Festival Opera’s new production of “La voix humaine” and “Dido & Aeneas” at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center on July 12th and 14th; these operas will be paired in a one-of-a-kind way. From FestivalOpera.org: “A double-bill of short operas written 270 years apart, yet similar in themes of love and betrayal. Both Elle and Dido suffer the devastating consequences of heartbreak. Their stories resonate across time, bringing the audience in-close as they share these deeply human experiences.” Susie Hanson, Festival Opera Board of Directors, noted that these operas are linked by the common theme of women making powerful decisions for themselves…

(San Francisco, CA) - There are a few opera world provocateurs these days, but no one hits like Haus of Shmizzay on Instagram. Online research tells us that he’s a classically-trained tenor James Smidt, who’s studied at both the University of North Carolina School of the Arts' A.J. Fletcher Opera Institute and University of Maryland's Maryland Opera Studio, the latter for his master's degree in opera performance. In addition to being a voice teacher - the focus of our December 2023 chat - he's an in-demand speaker and one of opera's more excitingly unpredictable English-speaking voices on IG, with receipts from grateful and succeeding artists (client testimonials and work wins speak for themselves)…

(Paris, France) - Voice teacher Karen Nimereala first came to our attention through a friend in 2019. Classically-trainer and a former opera singer herself, some of Ms. Nimereala’s longtime clients include pop music icons Sting and Mylène Farmer. Prior to flying to Paris to see Ms. Farmer’s landmark residency, a friend mentioned that they had a social media connection to “Karen, Mylène’s voice teacher…did you know she was an opera singer?” A longtime fan of Ms. Farmer, this information had somehow eluded me…

(Santa Fe, NM) - Opera Innovation profiled David Lomeli just before he began his tenure as Santa Fe Opera’s Chief Artistic Officer. In the years and seasons since, David continues to drive artistic endeavors for Santa Fe Opera, The Dallas Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, and Operalia, but for his own startup businesses, too: Bolero Tech and the Vincerò Competition, respectively. In late April, we met David at Santa Fe’s famed Inn at the Loretto, for a wide-ranging discussion on the problems Bolero’s technology solves, new partnerships in the Americas, the future of opera and a game-changing algorithm…

(Santa Fe, NM) - We’re especially excited to share this chat with Emma Scherer, who we’ve known since her time at The Santa Fe Opera, working closely with Charles MacKay, while also running the company’s Executive Office and Board Relations. We met in 2015, when I had the opportunity to onsite consult with SFO public relations and apprentice artists that season. I was immediately impressed by everything Emma did and how she did it; a professional’s professional who kept everything and everyone moving forward, towards that day’s business goals, with an eye to the evening’s performance and everything that meant for Mr. MacKay and countless others. Fast-forwarding to the present, Emma has been The Santa Fe Symphony’s Executive Director since September 2021 and is preparing for the company’s 40th season in 2023/4. However, on the way there, Emma and collaborators launched the Art + Sol | Santa Fe Winter Arts Festival in February 2023…

(Santa Fe, NM) - We were thrilled when we heard about Allison Swenson’s move to Omaha as General Director, but a little sad, too. Allison’s been an incredible force at Santa Fe Opera for many years, and it’s been wonderful to watch her progress to leading that company’s robust and successful development arm. However, in opera as in any other business, the only way is up. So, this progression to General Director at one of the Midwest’s most important, vibrant and cutting edge small companies is absolutely in line with the professional that we’ve come to know and admire…

(Santa Fe, NM) - We first connected with Ulrike Köstinger via Instagram and Zoom during the pandemic. At the time, Ulrike was Chief Content and Partnership Officer for Operabase, CueTV and holding company Arts Consolidated. Operabase, the world’s go-to opera database, has documented global operatic activity since 1996, enjoying global brand recognition for decades. With over 600,000 performances on file, Operabase has recorded the work of artists in more than 3000 theatres, has 1.3 million business of opera and enthusiast subscribers, and publishes opera season information in 34 languages. After 2+ years in her previous role, Köstinger became Arts Consolidated/Operabase CEO on January 1, 2023…

(Paris, France) - The latest live album from French Pop Rock legends Indochine held more than a few surprises. Last summer’s Central Tour was a major cultural happening. Six massive concerts, in both attendance and scale, swept across five (5) French stadiums - once in a lifetime events for Indochine’s fervent fanbase…

(Washington DC) - While listening to a recent Monocle 24 on Saturday podcast, we caught Monocle’s DC correspondent Chris Cermak interviewing Dr. Maria Rosario Jackson, National Endowment for the Arts Chair. Cermak’s questions for Dr. Rosario Jackson were focused on the post-pandemic state of the performing arts. We’re bringing this interview forward since it covers topics regularly discussed on the OI platform…

Something’s apparently rotten in the state of Colorado. We first heard about Central City Opera’s entanglement with AGMA (American Guild of Musical Artists) via the latter’s 15DEC statement on Instagram, which was shared and commented upon by a few individuals across the opera spectrum. THE JIST: Per Eden Lane’s Colorado Public Radio story: “Founded in 1932, Central City Opera is one of the oldest opera companies in the United States. Now the company is in a bitter dispute with the labor union representing its performers…

Most people with a working knowledge of the business of opera understand how artists are often represented by managers who help them navigate their careers and/or how getting a manager is a primary goal for most young singers. The concept of a Hollywood-style or rock-and-roll music agent is already culturally imprinted, but when those concepts are extrapolated to opera, it can often mean different things…

Klaus Nomi was genius. Having accidentally discovered him during the pandemic, I went down the rabbit hole on this legendary, German pop-countertenor who left us in August 1983, succumbing to AIDS. Exploring his catalogue on Apple Music (recommended), we began listening to “The Cold Song,” immediately realizing we were hearing notes originally written by English Baroque composer Henry Purcell…

Opera is our favorite art form. We wouldn’t be here if that wasn’t true. However, three years of pandemic (and pandemic-light) brought opera industry failings into much sharper focus, including force majeured soloists, racial and gender disparities, YAP application fees, #MeToo and more. OI was also troubled by these issues, but committed to championing innovators, doing our best to also spotlight wrongs constructively in real-time.

We discovered London-based artist Claudillea Holloway by accident. Like many things these days, it started on Instagram. While scrolling through the stories of friend and tenor Elliott Paige, a video of Claudillea performing an operatic cover of The Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black appeared. Given OI’s love of all things that move the dial for opera, we literally fell out of our chair, screaming…

Are you sick of your screens yet? Have once high live video grooming standards fallen considerably? It’s understandable. Given how often we already engage in virtual consulting across various live video platforms, we prefer often a good old fashioned phone call over looking directly into someone’s pupils…

Surprise! Welcome to the Opera Innovation | No. 1 playlist + liner notes. Since we’re still about opera and the classically trained voice, we thought we’d highlight artists who’ve been on the blog or our social media channels since we launched in late Spring 2020. Some people here are friends I’ve known for a while, others I’ve only met online, and some who are sadly no longer with us but live on through their one-of-a-kind work…

Here at Opera Innovation HQ, there’s one production of Salome by which all others are compared (and we’re not even talking about the artists on stage or in the pit, as incredible as they were). Santa Fe Opera’s 2015 production, designed by Leslie Travers and directed by Daniel Slater, happened to be my introduction to Richard Strauss’ one-act opera…

From February 27 through April 24, American Lyric Theater conducts a free, eight-week, virtual symposium on writing for the opera stage. The CLDP Opera Writers Symposium will provide artists with practical tools for both first-time and experienced creatives with an interest in creating new opera…

(Santa Fe, NM) - On February 12th, The Santa Fe Opera announced that it had hired The Dallas Opera’s David Lomelí as its new Chief Artistic Officer, consolidating the roles previously held by Artistic Director Alexander Neef (now leading Opéra de Paris) and Director of Artistic Administration Brad Woolbright, who retired in December 2020…