home team
RogerEvansOnline reports that George Steel, executive director of Columbia University’s Miller Theatre, will be the new general director of the Dallas Opera. La Cieca would like to take a moment to recognize the “man bites dog” novelty angle of this story: Steel is not British.
He’s a countertenor. Balls of Christ. They are in for a huge amount of baroque yawn marathons in Dallas.
I love the part in the article about how “at the age of 14, he boldy approached Leonard Bernstein and engaged him in serious musical conversation.” I do not doubt that LB was delighted…..
But who knows, maybe he is smart and will enliven the place. However, Dallas is not a town for Stockhausen. I hope he gets that.
well, yes, dearest Cieca, but have you ever SEEN George? He looks like he just came from Oxbridge, the set of Brideshead Revisited, from Greenwich, CT., or the lasted Polo catalogue – which may all be the same thing, anyway.
Ok, dare I say it?
HERE WE GO AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and…
Will you people just get OVER IT.
So which is it, No. 1? Baroque or Stockhausen that you’re going to condemn him for out of your own imagination?
And, No. 2, should we stop choosing our administrators by nationality and start going by appearance? (He is in fact from a Southern family.)
Another report:
http://www.nightafternight.com/
from the Dallas Opera website
http://www.dallasopera.org/the_company/general_director.php
The main problem is that this man hasn’t yet directed an large opera COMPANY. A university theater is NOT a opera company in a large city. But maybe at least he will conduct & rid us, for a spell, of the lazy tempi of Graeme Jenkins!
A “university theater”? You clearly don’t know anything about the Miller Theatre, which has a far bigger season and, alas, currently far more influence than the Dallas Opera. And this is all because of Steel, which includes the magic with which he attracts smart (and rich) support.
What “large opera COMPANY” would you imagine where the intendant might aspire to move to the Dallas Opera?
If he’s like that last two general managers, his job is going to be raising money, and a lot of it. He might be a brilliant choice or, if he wants to start meddling in the Dallas Opera tradition, it might be a huge disaster. We’ll call it “Pamela Rosenberg, South.” Remember her?
You miss my point, Alto. Your Miller Theter is a PART of Columbia University. The issues are different and the funding sources are far different in the private sector. Your comment wouldn’t be founded on NYC/east coast snobism, would it?