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I Live Here Westchester | Dan Montez on Building Taconic Opera, Free Opera, and Beethoven’s Ninth
Description
Dan Montez is the founder and general director of Taconic Opera, a Westchester company that has staged opera since 1997. Before that, he sang about 60 leading roles, including at Lincoln Center and San Francisco Opera. Montez talks about walking onto the Lincoln Center stage and not being able to hear himself, the touring life that made him leave the top opera houses, and the hiring rule he set when he started his own company: no one who can’t go home to their family at night. He also explains how Taconic got started with a free booth at the Jefferson Valley Mall, why he trains the chorus himself, and what the audience looks like after nearly three decades.
He previews Taconic’s November 14 performance at the Tarrytown Music Hall, which pairs Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto and the Witches’ Sabbath scene from Boito’s Mefistofele. Tickets and details are at tarrytownmusichall.org and taconicopera.org.
In This Episode:
0:00 Welcome and the Taconic Opera story
0:35 Stepping onto the Lincoln Center stage
1:49 Why he left the touring life to start his own company
4:21 Why opera voices mature late
6:26 1997: a free booth at the mall and karaoke opera night
7:51 How he picks a season
9:18 Staging, acting, and how Taconic pays for it
13:49 Training the chorus himself
16:55 From Yorktown Stage to the Tarrytown Music Hall
18:20 Who sits in the audience
23:01 Social media and keeping up
24:29 November 14: Beethoven’s Ninth, Prokofiev, and Boito
27:15 Is he still singing?
27:48 Composing new work next to the canon
29:39 Where a first-time opera goer should start
30:51 Dance of the seven veils
31:20 The book, and the 30th anniversary
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I Live Here Westchester is a production of I Live Here Media.
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