On Site Opera

Flowers from a special occasion and photographs that mark a moment in time are just a few things we keep pressed between the pages of a diary that holds our most personal thoughts. What is the most nostalgic thing you have ever found in a book you’ve hidden away? #diary #memories #driedflowers #details #show #performance #opera

The arts have faced lots of challenges throughout the pandemic but lots of organizations have been working overtime to find creative ways to still enjoy live experiences. Thank you, Spectrum News NY1 for including us in your list of innovative opera companies who are finding new audiences-- from a distance!

What did your first love feel like?

Hey, LA! Looking for something to do this week? We Like L.A. lists "The Beauty That Still Remains: Diary in Song" as a top 10 thing to do this week! Order your opera-by-mail experience and listen to it this week, next week, or into the new year!

If you have already received "The Beauty That Still Remains: Diary in Song," you heard pianist Dr. Howard Watkins help to bring these poignant and emotional texts to life through song. Today we wish him a warm congratulations for his new position at Yale University as the Presidential Visiting Fellow, where he will serve as a coach and collaborative pianist for the Yale Opera program during the spring 2021 semester. Please join us in applauding Howard for this wonderful achievement!

Our friendraiser is in full swing and one of our goals is to grow our email list to keep our On Site Opera community up to date on all of our company news! As a thank you for helping our opera family to grow, if you sign up, share this post, or tag friends in the comments to do so, you will be invited to our exclusive gratitude concert on November 10! To sign up for our newsletter, visit https://osopera.secure.force.com/signup/

On love alone he will build his kingdom -Gian Carlo Menotti, Amahl and the Night Visitors

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world. #vote

Our Artistic and General Director Eric Einhorn joined The Lied Society Round Table this afternoon to talk about all things music! Watch their conversation here.

Kamila Stösslová holds a unique place in music history-- and in our Fall season! In the summer of 1917, while on holiday in the Czech spa resort of Luhaovice, the Moravian composer Leoš Janáek met a young woman named Kamila, pictured here with her younger son, Otto. He was 63; she was 25. He was trapped in a marriage of which he had long since tired. She was married, with two small sons, to a prominent antiques dealer. Janáek fell hopelessly in love, sending Stösslová a r...ather forward letter a few days after meeting her, followed, over the remaining 11 years of his life, by over 700 more. While their early correspondence frequently centred on the ability of Stösslová’s husband to procure household supplies for the Janáeks during the restrictions of the First World War, the composer increasingly grew desperate with his feelings. ‘Oh do love me,’ he beseeched Stösslová, insisting that he had never felt the same way about anybody, not even his wife from whom he made surprisingly little attempt to hide his new-found passion. Did Stösslová return any of that passion? With a husband who was frequently away from home, she may have welcomed the attentions of this musical celebrity, and was possibly aware of the advantages, both financial and social, of encouraging these attentions. She replied to his letters, on occasion hinting at something beyond platonic friendship. ‘Someone would just smile and ask how it was possible, but yes, it is possible you are much dearer to me than if you were young,’ she eventually admitted. But that was as far as she was prepared to go judging, at least, on the evidence left to us. Honoring her wishes, Janáek burned most of her replies after reading them. Who knows what the destroyed letters might have revealed. It did wonders for his creativity, though. Over the next ten years, Janáek wrote some of his best works, including the The Diary of One Who Vanished whose subject matter perfectly fitted his frame of mind at the time. Want to hear these letters and sentiments of this unrequited love brought to life again more than 100 years later? The Diary of the One Who Vanished ships to your mailbox starting November 16!

Imagine discovering a diary from a distant time and place in your mailbox... Imagine that diary coming to life through music and song...... Tickets to "The Beauty That Still Remains: Diaries in Song" are now on sale! To purchase yours today: https://osopera.org/productions/diaries/

May your Halloween be...hauntingly spirited! Happy Halloween! excerpt from our 2019 production Turn of the Screw, at Wave Hill

Rehearsals are looking a little different these days, but we are nearly ready to launch our Fall opera experience, "The Beauty That Still Remains: Diaries in Song," coming to a mailbox near you in just a few weeks! Here is a BTS shot from the recording studio, capturing the voices of our talented cast!

Our Friend-raiser begins today! We are all supporters of the arts, whether we share our voices and musical talents, donate funds or time, attend performances, or introduce a friend to a new arts experience. Even tapping on an arts organization’s social media post is a form of support! In all of these ways, we come together to collectively bring hope, joy, beauty, and reflection to the world. All of us as artists, as donors, as audience, as trustees, as staff, as volunteers... and in whatever combination of those identities describes each of us together form the On Site Opera family. While we normally launch our year-end fundraiser at this time of year, we have decided instead to kick things off with a friend-raiser! Help us expand our family tree by growing our social media following, email list, audiences and our safety net for the future! Here you can learn all the way you can get involved today. As a gesture of gratitude, if you support On Site Opera before November 10 through any of the methods listed above, we welcome you to join the OSO family for a virtual gratitude concert on November 17 at 5:30pm featuring Mario Diaz-Moresco and Spencer Myer. Comment below how you will get involved today and over these next few weeks so we can send you your personalized concert link!

Raise your hand if you’ve made a plan to vote? You can vote early, by absentee ballot, or in person on November 3! If you are in NYC, find all of your voting Info at elections.ny.gov... @b.a.vansise #vote #bts #rehearsal #makeaplantovote

In just 30 minutes, the World Opera Day 2020 Celebration Concert, featuring Brian Jagde, Denyce Graves, Peter Sellars, and more begins! To stream and listen, https://www.operaamerica.org/applications/WOD/index.aspx

Tomorrow is World Opera Day-- a day to celebrate opera as an art form and the impact it has on the world around us. This year, this day particularly resonates with our opera community, as continued closures forces us to reflect on opera’s place in society and to ask when and how live performances will resume. On Site Opera has presented 18 unique productions that renew the mission to cultivate and inspire new audiences. May this day be filled with beautiful music and wonderful memories of past performances, while looking ahead to reimagining the opera experience for all in the months ahead!

#worldoperaday #community #history #historylesson

While opera can create great beauty and majesty on stage, it can also teach us lessons from our past and introduce us to different times and places. Our production of "Morning Star" at the historical Eldridge Street Synagogue told the story of an immigrant Jewish family struggling to find a better life on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the early 20th century while impacted by the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Great Depression, and World War I. #WorldOperaDay