Is Opera Boring?

Posted by Tom Fasano on November 30, 2009 – 8:56 pm -


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Will Crutchfield – Opera Conductor

Posted by Tom Fasano on March 19, 2009 – 9:54 pm -

Will Crutchfield

Ah-ha! Will Crutchfield argues his point during a debate in Ms. Hunley’s class period. The class was also used for research, note-filing, and practice before tournaments.

I found this photograph in the Warwick High School yearbook of 1975. A friend of mine way back then in Newport News, VA, was Will Crutchfield, who grew up to be a famous opera conductor — that is, after a stint with the New York Times as the youngest opera critic in that paper’s history. Will’s an amazing person who has to his credit the discovery of a lost and unknown Donizetti opera, Elisabeth, the manuscript of which he found in a basement of London’s Royal Opera House. Sometimes in life one meets someone who’s destined to break away from the herd; of all the people I’ve met, Will took the lead.

What follows is a video clip of Will rehearsing “Ecco ridente in cielo” from Rossini’s Barber of Seville at the Polish National Opera of Warsaw. The tenor is Blagoj Nacoski.


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