"Truly
fertile Music, the only kind that will move us, that we shall truly appreciate, will be a
Music
conducive to Dream, which banishes all reason and analysis. One must not wish first to
understand
and then to feel. Art does not tolerate Reason."
- Albert Camus |
"All
art, literature and music must be brought forth with your heart’s blood. Art is your
heart’s blood."
- Edvard Munch
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"A
verbal art like poetry is reflective; it stops to think. Music is immediate, it goes on to
become."
- W. H. Auden |
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| . . . WHAT'S NEW . . . |
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| THANKSGIVING WEEKEND 2007 In the works... the newsletter and news will be reformed
into a blog - the idea is for more regular updates, as well as an easier means of dialogue
with my audience. Of course the entire site is a kind of blog, divided into topic
chapters.
Slow and perhaps steady, the site is being redesigned,
refined, and recoded into XHTML... it's a spare-time project sandwiched between work,
freelance work, school, and life. One step at a time.
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| 18 JULY 2007 JERRY HADLEY
tenor 1952-2007
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Below, the best of colleagues
at San Francisco's War Memorial Opera House with baritone Rod Gilfry for Sitzprobe of
Manon, 1998.
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Jerry Hadley is a key part of The Tenor Book, was from the beginning. We did
about 5 hours of interviews, plus rehearsal and performance shooting in San Diego, San
Francisco, and Santa Fe. An artist's statement and recommended
recordings... Jerry's tour de force achievement in Myron Fink's THE CONQUISTADOR... more to come. The Washington Post and LA Times have the balance nearly right... Vaya con Dios.
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PRACTICALLY MID-DECEMBER 2006
Always something... after a summer filled with great
strides forward on the Tenor Book capped off by a working vacation in Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia, there will now be a little break. |
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| When I can resume
work on the website, look for on-stage images from Pittsburgh Opera's PAGLIACCI, and great
work being done in the Vocal Studies department at The Governor's School for the Arts, in
Norfolk. Meanwhile, taking a personal time-out to
do battle with cancer - focusing all my energy and determination there, to help out the
great doctors on my team. And I expect to be back behind the keyboard before you know it.
Thank you to my world full of friends... the quote below is for you: |
| "People are
like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out but when the
darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light within." - Elizabeth Kubler-Ross |
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ALMOST VALENTINE'S
DAY 2006
A new edition of the ArtLetter
is available, and will be issued more regularly from this point forward. Take a look, and
if you want to sign up for the e-mail notifications of subsequent issues, please send me an e-mail - the sign-up boxes aren't working yet (it's a
cgi script thing - working on it!)
In it, I start a discussion about writer's block, the tenor book, upcoming travel dates...
and am extremely pleased to present comments from guest artist John Howe. If you don't know his work
as an illustrator, you certainly know him as one of the conceptual artists from the LORD
OF THE RINGS trilogy. His description of a typical work session applies to all
artists. Please explore his comments here - see one
of his books in the Words & Music shop - and visit
his website. Enjoy. |
|
MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND 2005
The great server crash - took the entire website,
e-mail, and the ISP's backup down with it - I'd been meaning to back up all the
new work... but hadn't quite gotten around to it.So,
I'm taking the philosophical approach to it all - it's the path-not-the-destination sort
of thing. There's little point in retracing my steps completely, when there are other
books to write... but the much-anticipated spring-cleaning/new-look to the website, which
was only a couple weeks away from being finished, is delayed a bit longer as I slowly put
the skeleton of the website back together. All will be well... perhaps not just yet.
Meanwhile, much of the discussion and work-in-progress
that's been retrieved from various archives, the Google cache, nooks and crannies, is
still valid. Explore... the dead-ends will open up in time. Cheers,
- Martha Hart |
| PROJECTS |
PASSION & GLORY AT THE OPERA - The Tenor Book
BRAND NEW UPDATES |
| For the past five years, ML
Hart has been working on a new book about that most spectacular voice in the opera
house. Interviews and photographs reveal what it takes to be a tenor. |
|
In-progress
pages give a first look... and of course they're being re-worked. think of it as
a rehearsal. As work has resumed on The Tenor Book - full speed ahead - the structure of
it is changing. There are lots of threads to weave into this tapestry, from editing images
to indexing to transcribing the interview tapes. |
Go behind the scenes in the recording studio
with Opera Rara in London, for the making of Rossini's Otello.
ML Hart's photographs show you the whole process, featuring conductor David Parry and
the New Philharmonia Orchestra with soloists Elizabeth Futral... and one of the tenors
featured in the new book - international star Bruce Ford. |
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| WEB PAGES |
|
WORDS & MUSIC
SHOP
ML Hart's recommendations for reading &
listening
It's so much more than just a list of recordings, videos and books about
photography, dance, jazz. And when it comes to opera...
... it's a salon where you'll find
artist-profile pages with commentary, reviews, photographs, and links featuring some of ML
Hart's favorite singers, past and present. This group includes tenors (of course) but
there's more. Perhaps you'll discover a "golden age" singer who becomes one of your
favorites, too.
Facts, figures, intriguing & inspiring fun stuff!
Explore More - and take a look for
yourself!
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| The WEB GALLERY now shows ML Hart's graphic
design and painting along with a wide range of photographic
series, including recent travels in the Mediterranean and along the Alaskan
coast. |
There are new links and
expanded information about artists' rights
movements and copyright protection - click on the what is copyright?
link found at the bottom of every page. |
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| BOOKS |
 order your copy from amazon.com |
A beautiful book, perfect for
the child in all of us.
The Young Person's Guide to the Opera takes a look at the what
and how of opera, with excerpts on a CD and tons of photographs from both Covent
Garden and the ones from San Diego Opera are by ML Hart. |
|
 |
THE ART OF MAKING OPERA
A Personal View
photographs and notes of
ML Hart |
Winner! First Place - Best Non-Fiction
Book
San Diego Press Club Awards
more details? see the navigation to your left |
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| OPERA PAGE UPDATES |
| MOST ARE WORKING AGAIN (MID-JUNE '05) AND THE REST SHOULD BE UP
AND RUNNING SOON (MARCH '06) |
| PHOTOS |
|
Production photography pages for
Carlisle Floyd's American masterpiece, Of Mice and
Men at San Diego Opera ... also, photographs from A Masked Ball and Handel's Ariodante...
LA Opera's powerful productions of two of Benjamin Britten's best: Billy Budd and Peter Grimes ...
... and (soon) take a look - in color! - at Zandra Rhodes' fantasy
costumes for SDO's production of The
Magic Flute... still another dozen opera pages to be finalized and
uploaded. |
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| STORIES |
|
Each page of production
photographs has a link to the story of the opera - a new page gives a
brief synopsis plus a bit of historical context for that opera. |
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| INFO |
|
If you're new to opera (or want a
refresher course), check out OperaBasics
to give you a good idea of what all the fuss is about... or explore the Top 10 Ways to Fall in Love With Opera. |
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| HISTORY |
|
1873 was a landmark year with the
birth of both Feodor Chaliapin
and Enrico Caruso - two singers
who would revolutionize opera. Find out about these remarkable artists in the Words
& Music Shop's ARTIST PROFILES. |
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COMING
SOON |
|
You're invited to see what it really
takes to make Opening Night happen as the singers and crews rehearse...
...and on the production pages in the caption text, you'll find words highlighted in color - you'll be able to pop up a glossary box
for the definition by mousing over the word... |
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| IN THE WORKS! The history of opera - 400+ years of
historical (and hysterical) intrigue, gossip, personalities, and madness! |
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