Great minds against themselves conspire...

Antoine Plante called me well over a year ago to ask me if I might be interested in directing a show for Mercury Baroque, and I must say, I leapt at the opportunity. I am a huge fan of Baroque music, and in fact, the very first full length show I directed was Scarlatti’s Cain: Il primo omicidio for Ars Lyrica Houston. From a director’s perspective, there are just so many things to love about Baroque opera.
Primarily for me, it is the music…passionate, intense, exciting, sensual, vulnerable… sometimes all in one aria! In Houston we are particularly blessed with a great Baroque performing community, and often may experience in one season the full spectrum of the period from the early works of Monteverdi to the pinnacle of Italian, French and English Baroque schools. However, unlike more “mainstream” compositions like Boheme or Carmen, chances are the piece will be new to the audience. True, Dido & Aeneas is one of the more regularly performed Baroque works, but it is no Traviata. This means that hopefully both the artists and the audience can come to the table with open eyes. We have a chance to do, see and hear something fresh, without the inevitable comparisons to past productions, or simple fatigue from over-familiarity. Directorially, this is wildly exciting.

So where do I begin?.... stay tuned...