ARIA SERIOUS?

Summer is coming to an end, so it's time to look at some of the artists who will make up our 2012 season. This means the return of our 10 Questions With... Up first is the lovely Spanish mezzo soprano Silvia Tro Santafé who will make her Company debut as Rosina in our season closer The Barber of Seville . Silvia specializes in the bel canto repertoire in particular Rossini. Other than bel canto , Ms Tro Santafé also focuses on Handel, Mozart, Massenet and 20 th century French repertoire. She took a few minutes from rehearsals in Naples to answer some questions for us. So, without further ado, 10 Questions With Silvia Tro Santafé . San Diego Opera ( SDO ): First, welcome to San Diego Opera! We're very excited to have you making your Company debut with us. Where are you right now and what, if anything, are you singing? Silvia Tro Santafé ( STS ): Well, at the moment I am in the middle of rehearsals for Semiramide in Naples singing the role of Arsarce ...

In this week's podcast, Dr. Nic takes a look at Opera Buffa and Don Pasquale . If you think Opera Buffa means singing shirtless, then this podcast is for you. You can download it here . Enjoy!

- Sad news to start with. The Aria Serious crew came back from vacation this morning to learn that tenor Salvatore Licitra was seriously injured in an accident over the weekend . His condition is listed as "stable, but extremely grave." Licitra was forced to withdraw from our production of Carmen earlier this year due to a back injury. He's scheduled to sing with us as part of our 2013. All of us here at Aria Serious and San Diego Opera wish him a speedy recovery. And dear readers, if you ride scooters or motorcycles, please wear a helmet. - Moby -Dick had its Australian premiere over the weekend and we have lots of tidbits to share about it: First, a wonderful and lengthy interview with composer Jake Heggie about the opera, his process and some very candid personal stories . Then, a nice interview with their (and our) Ahab, Jay Hunter Morris . It's true we originally told him we wanted him to sing the role of the whale. And still, another preview ar...

The trend of being closed on Fridays in August continues, making this our "Friday." So it is time to ask: what are you listening to this weekend? For the Aria Serious crew we'll be listening to nothing - we're heading into the Sierra backcountry for a week of camping and even our ipod and headphones are an added weight we don't want to carry. Plus we just want to get away from it all. This means don't expect any updates next week, but we'll be back at the end of the month. Make it a good one, and please, share your listening plans in the comment section.

San Diego Opera is very pleased to announce our Community Conversation lecture series for the 2012 season. Six relaxed lectures will focus on Moby -Dick and Salome. Being the science geeks (and scuba divers) that we are here at Aria Serious you can bet we're excited about some of these. All of these lectures are free and open to the public but do require an RSVP because these venues have capacity caps and these lectures do get full. You can RSVP here . And speaking of venues we have some great ones this year: Birch Aquarium at Scripps , Hubbs -Sea World Research Institute , The San Diego Maritime Museum, Congregation Beth Israel and La Jolla Country Day School have all stepped up to provide us space and speakers for these exciting events. Join us for one, or all. We'll be the giddy one in the front row. Community Conversation lectures are as follows: In Search of the Whale: Herman Melville’s Moby -Dick September 27, 2011, 7:00 PM San Diego Maritime Museum, ab...

We're a day late and we apologize - flu took us down. This week's podcast looks at the role of Ahab in Moby -Dick . You can download it here . The Aria Serious crew is also working on a "10 Questions With..." interview with our Ahab, Jay Hunter Morris, who is currently rehearsing the role in Adelaide for the Australian premiere later this month. We'll post it once we get his answers back.

In this week's podcast, Dr. Nic takes a look at musical imagery and atmosphere in Stauss's Salome . You can download the podcast here . We hope you enjoy it!

Over the weekend: - Classical music and digital music . The future or the death of our favorite art form? - Taking classical music out of the concert hall . - Another week, some more NYCO news. Just days after announcing the music director position has been cut, NYCO's esteemed vocal coach has decided to move on . - Next week we're giving a tour of our Scenic Studio. You can join us! - Did you know we're on Twitter? If you like our weekend roundups you should know we post news like this every day here .

First, a bit of business - the San Diego Opera offices are closed on Fridays in the lovely month of August. We'll be back on Monday and our website is never closed for all your opera needs. Since technically this makes today our Friday, it's time to ask what we always do: what are you listening to this weekend? We're going to listen to Don Giovanni - we love this opera and we know it quite well, it makes for good music to hum along to (fine, sing along to) especially since we're patching stucco on our house all weekend. Then we will listen to internet radio. Gosh, we sure love internet radio. Share your listening plans below, and oh - take tomorrow off. Tell them the opera said it was OK.

Not feeling it this Monday? We understand. But then we sat down with a cup of coffee and Nic's podcast, and suddenly Monday was looking much, much, better. This week, Dr. Nic explores great recordings of Don Pasquale , our third opera of our 2012 season.