This is Volume 2 of Opera Lively's interview series with operatic artists. Once more, both seasoned international stars and rising young or regional singers, conductors, stage directors and composers share their insights with our readers. The detailed reports of two master classes are also included. Featured in Volume 2, Juan Diego Flórez, Jay Hunter Morris, Diana Damrau, Olga Peretyatko, Isabel Leonard, maestro Marco Armiliato, maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Lawrence Brownlee, Giuseppe Filianoti, contemporary composers George Benjamin and Kevin Puts, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Jessica Pratt, Ildar Abdrazakov, Paul Appleby, Lisette Oropesa, Michael Spyres, directors Laurent Pelly and Francesca Zambello, and many others. Opera Journalist Luiz Gazzola, MD, PhD, the senior editor at Opera Lively Press and at the web site www.operalively.com, uses his more than three decades of experience as a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and opera lover to engage with the artists in a pleasant and conversational manner, while asking musically well-informed and intellectually challenging questions, in unusually deep interviews. Don't miss our Volume 1 with Joyce DiDonato, Anna Netrebko, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Danielle de Niese, Piotr Beczala, Thomas Hampson, Matthew Polenzani, Deborah Voigt, and 30 other artists.
About the Author: Luiz Gazzola, MD, PhD, has loved opera since a lucky encounter with Carmen decades ago. Over the years, he has explored the opera repertory from Monteverdi to George Benjamin, taking in hundreds of recorded and live performances (he used to live two blocks from the Metropolitan Opera House), as well as reading widely on the subject. Opera is in Dr. Gazzola's blood, given that he is a dual citizen of Italy and the United States who speaks five languages. He holds the position of Senior Editor at Opera Lively Press and the www.operalively.com web site, and is the author of "Opera Lively - The Interviews" and "The Opera Lively Guides - Les Troyens" also published by Opera Lively Press. His passion for this fascinating art form drove him to embrace a second career as a registered opera journalist, while remaining active as a Board Certified Psychiatrist. Dr. Gazzola, who authored a book on Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder, is a graduate of Columbia University, with a doctoral degree in Psychoanalysis from the University of Paris, France. He has written articles for cultural magazines, and led a seminar on Cinema and Psychoanalysis at Columbia University. Opera, cinema, and literature join fine wines as his main interests outside of his family and profession. He currently lives with his wife Marta in North Carolina, where he teaches students from Duke University. In between Psychiatry lessons, he always makes a point of introducing opera to his students, refusing to be discouraged by a dismal 6% conversion rate for new opera fans among them.