So, I’ve been in Cologne for the past two weeks. I’ve just made my debut here with this opera company, having performed the Verdi Requiem in a staged production. To many devout opera followers, the idea of stage and Verdi Requiem in the same sentence could come as a shock. It did to me when I first heard about it. Having been here and working on the production and now performing it to a large audience, I can say with ease that it is healthy for the opera world to experiment, try new things, and take risks. I’m about taking risks. The premise of staging this particular Verdi Requiem at Oper Köln was to show how the prospect of death affected the lives of various individuals. In our show, the music is stopped on four occasions to speeches from actors who portray their close passes with death, except that the actors are not just actors, they are the actual people that had the horrifying experiences that they detail. I’m compelled to write about this here because many of us have family, friends, or others that were in horrible situations, where our hearts ached for them. Music is often a first outlet for people struggling with death or in the throes of a horrible situation. The cohesion of the stories told in this Requiem with Verdi’s incredible music is certainly unique and definitely a shift from the norm. This of course begs the questions, is shifting from the norm or status quo, the way to move opera forward, to bring opera to the masses? And is this shift in this particular case a worthy one? I ask these questions to all of you reading and for your input.

I’m honored to be a part of the experience of communicating Verdi’s incredible music every performance to a very generous public and am looking forward to my next performance. Viva Verdi.