Dear Isabelle,

I help singers who want to perform high quality fully staged opera with orchestra in Rome, Italy under the sponsorship of an American educational charity and an Italian cultural charity.

The general population of Italy considers opera lovers to be normal men and women who comprehend, appreciate, and voice opinions about its performances. American singers I know have heard in Rome construction workers, taxi drivers, shop keepers, and waiters humming, whistling, and singing melodies of operas. Italians go to the opera to experience the story told through the action and singing. They expect to hear every word. They expect to feel the theater. They expect to hear properly placed voices. The Italian, who has the responsibility of hiring singers to satisfy the Italian opera lovers buying tickets to experience his/her company’s opera production, feels safer engaging a singer who has successfully performed the role in front of an Italian audience of opera lovers.

Regarding Classical Singer: In the earlier forum their employees removed postings damaging to their advertisers and removed positive postings of those programs they considered to be rivals of their advertisers. The recently created forum is for the moment public. Physical bulletin boards or face to face conversations are more reliable. In a small community those who encounter misinformation or lies posted on college or public bulletin boards pulled down the lies or post announcements contradicting the lies. In a face to face conversation one can see the person and judge the merit of his/her opinion by appearance, behavior, and response to direct questions.

I am happy to answer questions sent to my email address privately or, if of general interest, to the egroup.

Molly Barber