
Guild to Award $20,000 to Students
W
elcome back to our winter visitors! And a warm hug to our past members. You should all have received your Membership Directory for 2016-2017. We have around 30 new members, and we will need every one of you. For we have taken the plunge, and pledged that at the 2017 Quest for the Best (mark your calendar for March 11) we will award $10,000 in prizes, our largest prize money ever. Our Quest honoree will be Iris Arnesen, who writes The Opera Glass and has narrated many wonderful previews for us, sharing her expertise as a gift to the community. Iris is also the author of two highly regarded books on opera. Do read her superb chapter on Madama Butterfly in The Romantic World of Puccini. And Iris will narrate that preview on January 17 and 20!
This season we will also award $10,000 in grants and scholarships to UA voice students. So in total we will provide $20,000 in support of the next generation of opera stars. That’s a pretty significant amount in the Tucson cultural world. We run a lean operation, and your membership and donations determine the amount we can give our students. To the few who haven’t yet renewed your membership, please do so now.
Finally, please do come to our previews of Rusalka, the dark masterpiece of Antonín Dvořák, on November 9th in Oro Valley,or November 11 in central Tucson. The narrator will be Metropolitan Opera soprano Elizabeth Futral, now on the UA voice faculty. See my take on this rarely performed gem, including the insights of Renee Fleming, the most noted Rusalka of our time.
See you at the previews, and at the opera. And bring a friend!
Carol Garrard, President
