EPISODE 3: Mark Morash and the Shakespeare Riot
I speak with Interim Music Director of the Calgary Opera about his musical journey, the need for Opera companies to invest in R&D, and the emotional power of the human voice. I also tell the story of the time competing versions of “The Scottish Play” in New York City caused a riot.
SHOW NOTES and links!
The story of the battle of the film rights over agent 007 is told in Robert Sellers book “The Battle for Bond.”
http://tomahawkpress.com/battle-for-bond-banned-edition/
Stratford Festival productions at CBC GEM:
https://gem.cbc.ca/series/stratford-presents/all/8d5898e8-9215-4c97-8fe3-a10b30c89d58?cmp=sch-stratford
Stratford@Home:
https://www.stratfordfestival.ca/Subscription
The story about Astor Place Riot is told is several places, including this podcast from the Folger Shakespeare Library:
https://www.folger.edu/shakespeare-unlimited/astor-place-riot
For a more complete telling, Nigel Cliff has written an entire book about the incident- titled “The Shakespeare Riot: Revenge drama and death in Nineteenth-Century America.” Cliff situates the incident in tensions between working class Americans and the wealthy elite class:
http://www.nigelcliff.com/?page_id=52
Richard Nelson dramatized the events in his play “Two Shakespearian actors.”
https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/two-shakespearean-actors/
Calgary Opera’s page on Mark Morash:
https://calgaryopera.com/resident-artists
Wikipedia page on the San Francisco Opera Merola Opera Program for emerging artists:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merola_Opera_Program
Calgary Opera’s free videos:
https://calgaryopera.com/videos
The Operas Mark mentioned:
Dead Man Walking by Jake Heggie
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Man_Walking_(opera)
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/heggie-dead-man-walking/680688122
-On CD
http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/Drilldown?name_id1=5208&name_role1=1&bcorder=1&comp_id=102119
A Streetcar named Desire by Andre Previn
-streaming
https://music.apple.com/us/album/previn-a-streetcar-named-desire/1452174581
opening scene on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRG29gtyjQc
As One by Laura Kaminksy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_One_(opera)
-streaming
https://music.apple.com/ca/album/kaminsky-as-one/1469926527
cd/download
https://www.brightshiny.ninja/as-one
For starting out in Opera with arias, Renée Fleming told ClassicFM her favourite 6 arias here:
https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/renee-fleming-favourite-soprano-arias/
“Che Gelida” by Puccini (mentioned by Mark)
La Boheme - Pavarotti- "Che gelida manina" Fiamma Izzo d' Amico "Si, mi chiamano Mimi"
As always send you questions, queries, ideas for future episodes to Jon@culturemonster.ca