PALM SPRING LIFE FEATURES PSOG & VALERY RYVKIN

Excerpts from the December issue of Palm Springs Life feature article "THE THREE MAESTROS" by Linda Mears Hardie.

A NEW OUTING

"For all of the impressive notches in his opera-conducting belt, Valéry Ryvkin is a realist when it comes to the popular appeal of the genre.

He recognizes that some scores engage audiences more than others — such as Mozart’s "Die Zauberflöte" ("The Magic Flute"), which he conducted for the first time recently in Greensboro, N.C., as artistic director of the city’s opera company. “I have to say I adored it,” Ryvkin says. “It was refreshing.”

Another refreshing experience awaits him when he raises the baton for the daylong Opera in the Park on March 27, 2011, spotlighting some of the Southwest’s brightest new talent. It will mark the second year Ryvkin has lent his skills to Palm Springs Opera Guild’s popular event, now in its 13th year. “It is so important for young, would-be performers to experience the audition process for the Palm Springs opera competition,” he says.

“One of the deciding factors in who performs at Opera in the Park — part of a prize for that competition — is career potential, because if they succeed at this level, it means financial help and more opportunities to perform elsewhere.”

While Ryvkin may find it hard to believe the desert has 5,000 die-hard opera fans who would clamor to attend, for example, "The Maid of Orleans" (the Russian production with which he made his European debut last year in Germany), he sees potential in the informal ambiance of Sunrise Park attracting those whose musical tastes lie elsewhere. “They might say, ‘Hey, this is not that scary; we should try opera sometime.’”

And they would be among the converts making opera the fastest-growing performance art in the country, enjoying a 35 percent increase in its audience in the past decade, according to The New York Times.

If Ryvkin could make an opera sound like Broadway by putting a big orchestra and big voices behind it (as in "Séance on a Wet Afternoon"), then further decoding it with a series of youthful vocals under blue skies and sunshine is all to the greater good of the art."

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