The Diva and the Detective

The Case of the Toxic Tenor, book three in “The Augusta McKee Mystery Series,” is now available on Amazon. The first two books, The Case of the Slain Soprano and The Case of the Disappearing Director, have some nifty reader reviews.

Readers like my protagonist:

“Professor Augusta McKee, just introduced in Susan Moore Jordan’s mystery The Case of the Slain Soprano, will take her place among the lady detectives you wish you knew in person. She’s a no-nonsense voice teacher in spike heels, tough and tender and smart as all get-out.” - Michaele

“Augusta McGee … is well-drawn for us and we are soon thoroughly intrigued by this well-dressed and extremely well-shod woman in midlife with many roles - professor of music, voice teacher, stage play director, and supportive mentor to faculty and students.” - Catherine

“McKee makes a strong protagonist and I liked her instantly as she asserts herself in defiance of the detective, who seems a bit overwhelmed by her, but later regains his composure sufficiently to woo her.” – Pocopop

About that detective, Malcolm Mitchell. I owe a lot of thanks to some remarkable people who’ve been an immense help in developing this series, first among them retired Cincinnati Police Department Detective Lieutenant Stephen Kramer, who is former president of the Greater Cincinnati Police Historical Society and former long-time director and current archivist of its Museum. When I started writing the series, set in Cincinnati in the mid-1960s, Lt. Kramer was kind of enough to respond to my request for assistance in understanding police procedural matters in that time and place. He also provided considerable insight into the mind of a homicide detective, and some of the words uttered by Malcolm are—with permission—quotes from Lt. Kramer. 

I also have to thank my intrepid editor, Ashleigh Evans, who continues to help me through tricky scenes and thorny issues as I follow this new path of writing a series, attempting to make each book fresh and new while keeping the reader engaged by my protagonists and how they deal with each new challenge. When considering the cover for the first book, Ashleigh suggested incorporating what has become the series’ brand: Augusta’s red stiletto.

It’s quite a thrill to see the talented Taylor Van Kooten’s covers as a trio. What a serendipity to find a photo of the engraving for the original design of Cincinnati’s wonderful Music Hall and learn it was in the public domain! A perfect background for a murder mystery which takes place in the building. Taylor’s artistic rendering of the gazebo in Eden Park is stunning. We’re already thinking about the cover for book number four, which is my current work in progress. 

Reader reviews are vital for an independent author, and if you’ve read and enjoyed any of my books, I’d be grateful for even a brief review on Amazon. This review for The Case of the Disappearing Director by Pocopop was definitely gratifying. With each book I attempt to hone my writing skills, and it seems I may be succeeding!

“Jordan weaves an intricate plot that slowly peels back the layers, reveals her protagonist's depth and nature, while interspersing Jordan's knowledge and obvious love of opera, classical music, and performance theater. The music and the theatrical aspects add depth to the story and characters, and Jordan uses these elements expertly to help tie up the plot and bring it to a satisfying conclusion. Although Disappearing Director is part of a series, the book stands alone, with no need to read the preceding novel in order to understand this one. I felt Jordan reached new levels as a budding novelist in this story.”

(In celebration of the release of third book in the series, Book One, The Case of the Slain Soprano, Kindle edition, is on sale for $0.99 until 8 a.m. May 4. Grab it while you can!)

You can find links to the books on my Amazon author page: 

https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Moore-Jordan/e/B00IBZ731U/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

Or on my website: http://www.susanmoorejordan.com/

Jake's Journey

An Amazon Reader Review for Man with No Yesterdays begins by calling the book “a fascinating read,” then elaborates on the premise: a man who suffers from total retrograde amnesia, recalling only bits and pieces of his early childhood, who comes to believe he will never remember more.

Could it happen? Theoretically, it could. Traumatic brain injury can leave the victim with little or nothing in the way of personal memory, as well as loss of the ability to speak, move, reason. Best case scenario, the patient slowly recovers most if not all of his life and returns to a normal, or very nearly normal, life.

Jake Cameron, my character introduced in Memories of Jake whose story is told in considerably more detail in Man with No Yesterdays, suffers a T.B.I. due to a helicopter crash in Vietnam. Jake quickly regains his ability to function in the world, but nearly all of his personal history has apparently been locked away for the remainder of his life. He doesn’t remember anything about his years as a Green Beret in Vietnam, even after meeting men he served with.

How would a man react to this truly awful dilemma? Jake first tries to regain his memory, spending time at home with his family, looking at photos, listening to their memories of him. And he does have moments of recall from childhood, a few very vivid; but most are snapshots, faded and foggy. As weeks and months pass and very little more is revealed to him, he begins to face the possibility he may never remember the man he was … the warrior he was. So who is he now? 

Throughout the book I strove to reflect on the daunting difficulties our warriors faced in Vietnam, both in country and after returning home. As a novelist, my aim in writing the novel was to address a “what if” situation: what if a young man who had fought valiantly in Vietnam lost all memory of himself and even began to wonder why he had become a warrior? What then? How would he move forward to create some kind of life for himself? And for Jake, this is complicated further when he vividly recalls one childhood memory that rocks him to his core.

I appreciate that this reviewer called the book “a fascinating read.” My hope is that a reader will come away with that sense. It was not an easy book to write, and I challenged myself even further by allowing Jake to speak for himself … writing in the first person.

If you are intrigued, the link to order the book on Amazon is included below, and it’s available in paperback and as a Kindle. If you read and enjoy … I would love to hear from you (my email address is on my website), and reviews are music to us indie authors’ ears!

(originally published November 22, 2017)

“The Cameron Saga,” Memories of Jake and Man with No Yesterdays

covers by Tristan Flanagan

website: www.susanmoorejordan.com

Link to Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Moore-Jordan/e/B00IBZ731U/

Thoughts on the Vietnam War

Introduction for National Vietnam Veterans Day Observance, March 24, 2019

“Vietnam changed every person who was there.” A comment made by my character Andrew Cameron in my book Memories of Jake.

Some three years ago I embarked on a journey of research and writing books about two brothers whose lives were turned upside down by their involvement in the Vietnam War. I was a young wife and mother during that period, and while I was, of course, aware of the war, I had no idea how much I didn’t know or understand about the conflict. Research included reading many first-person accounts, watching videos and films, visiting veterans’ forums online, and eventually finding a voice, Lt. Col. Charles Vincent of the Army Corps of Engineers who had fought with the Green Berets in Vietnam and who became my military consultant. The result was these two books, Memories of Jake and Man with No Yesterdays, the first published in March of 2017 and the second the following November.

While writing, I began to have some small understanding of what our valiant warriors endured both while in country and after returning home. It was a deeply emotional journey and has changed my life forever. Over the course of the books, I covered nearly every aspect of the war, from the Gulf of Tonkin resolution to the fall of Saigon and beyond. Andrew, the older brother, visits the Wall in Memories of Jake. In Man with No Yesterdays, Jake, the younger brother, spends time in the Cascade Mountains in Washington State with his brothers-in-arms. This is my dedication for Man with No Yesterdays: “To Jake and to all who fought in Vietnam, with the hope that never again will we blame the warriors for the war.”

I followed the bill that was introduced in Congress to declare March 29 National Vietnam Veterans Day which was signed into law on March 28, 2017. Last year, the Pocono Cinema worked with me to honor our local Vietnam Veterans. Staged readings from both these books were presented along with music from the era. Courtney Tolino and I agreed this observance should become an annual event. This year, I asked the Vietnam Veterans of America, Pocono Chapter 678, if any of them had personal memoirs we could present in this same format … actors reading the words they had written. Three men—Tom Doyle, Glen Lippincott, and Jim Sargent—submitted the writings you will hear tonight.

Two books I read when researching have resonated with me ever since, and we’ve included two selections from Home Before Morning by Army nurse Joyce Van Devanter. Women also served in Vietnam, and some died there. The other is a book I believe should be required reading in every high school in this country, Philip Caputo’s book A Rumor of War. The author shows us a clear-eyed, heart-wrenching, totally honest look at the things war can do to a man. And the things a man can do while he is at war. Nearly thirty years later, Caputo considered his time in Vietnam in retrospect and his thoughts included this:

“Vietnam was the epicenter of a cultural, social, and political quake that sundered us like no other event since the Civil War. […] Our self-image as a progressive, virtuous, and triumphant people exempt from the burdens and tragedies of history came apart in Vietnam, and we had no way to integrate the war or its consequences into our collective and individual consciousness. […]

“At the very beginnings of Western civilization, it was the role of the battle singers, who sang their verses around the warriors’ glittering fires, to wring order and meaning out of the chaotic clash of arms, to keep the tribe human by providing it with models of virtuous behavior—heroes who reflected the tribe’s loftiest aspirations—and with examples of impious behavior that reflected the worst failings.

“Vietnam was fought with M-16s and helicopters instead of swords and steeds, but the battle singer’s task was the same. The nature of the war made it exceptionally difficult: how to find meaning in such a meaningless conflict? How to make sense out of a succession of random fire-fights that achieved nothing? And what heroes could be found in a war so murky and savage? How to explain our failings? Yet the task was necessary. […]

“The politicians, commentators, analysts, and historians still cannot agree on the war’s causes, much less on its larger significance. So, it is left to the artist to make sense of it, or at the very least to begin to make sense of it, shaping enduring art out of the shapeless muck of a terrible experience.”

  

And that is why we are here tonight, to try to make some sense of the Vietnam war through words and music, to share thoughts and memories and pay tribute to the fallen and honor their sacrifice, to celebrate the heroes who are still with us. Tonight, we are the “battle singers.”

**

 Excerpts from A Rumor of War by Philip Caputo, First Owl Books Edition 1996

covers by Tristan Flanagan

The Mouse’s Mom – My Friend, Judy Lawler

How do you pinpoint the genesis of a friendship? In this case, it was community theater that brought Judy Lawler and me together. The first show I directed for Pocono Lively Arts was Cinderella, in 1984. While there were no mice in the script, I recalled the Disney film which had a veritable mouse universe. I’m sure I wasn’t the first director of the stage show to do this, but I thought, we have to have mice in this show. We had four adorable little kids, I think maybe six and seven years old, and the tiniest and I believe youngest was Marjorie Lawler. Marjie’s mom, Judy, who was there for rehearsals anyway, offered to help backstage.

That was the beginning. The next year PLA did Brigadoon and both the Lawler ladies were onstage, and that became their routine for many years. (One of the greatest things about PLA was the involvement of more than one family member in our shows.) Over the years, Judy played a lot of characters, from a nun in The Sound of Music to one of Major-General Stanley’s female relatives in The Pirates of Penzance; from the White Rabbit in Alice to Fruma Sarah in Fiddler on the Roof. She was a talented woman with a great sense of comedic timing, and one of my favorites of her myriad roles was the Stepmother in another production of Cinderella, in 1993. This tiny, dynamic lady was incredibly funny bullying her two daughters who were both bigger than she was.

  

As one of the comic duo in Babes in Toyland, Judy suffered a severe injury onstage near the end of the final performance of the show when she landed a comic jump at a bad angle. Her foot was severely broken and she was out of commission for months. But she returned as soon she could, and in later years was a terrific Widow Harper in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, singing as she danced all over the stage. And she was the greatest ever Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz. Her castmates in any theatrical production loved this unfailingly positive and supportive actress. Judy had a wicked sense of humor. She had fun, and she was fun.

Judy loved performing and went outside of Pocono Lively Arts musicals to appear with Center Stage Players in non-musical productions—both comedy and drama—and even took part in an indie film, a drama. I don’t recall what led to our deciding to establish a summer Children’s Theater Workshop, but we did it together for some twenty years. Judy was beloved by all those children we saw over those years—mainly because she truly loved them. She had a gift for teaching and directing our children’s shows.

Our friendship went beyond theater, though, and in 2013 she encouraged me to try my hand at writing a book. I remember the exact day (May 6), and exactly what she said to encourage me. At first, I scoffed and said I might as well try climbing Mt. Everest, but she said, “Don’t think so big. Think of one event. One thing.” I had just the thing in mind, a story of tragedy to triumph that happened to a high school friend. And then she said: “Write it in the first person. From her point of view.” That did it. I was set on a path that opened my life to a new passion. She read my work and encouraged me. She would listen for long stretches when I discussed a plot I had in mind. Now, that is a true friend.

Professionally, Judy earned a second degree in pastoral counseling from Moravian College. She worked in a rehabilitation center for a number of years, and for the local hospice. She had private clients as a counselor. Judy’s spirituality allowed her to always see beyond the moment, beyond the trouble and pain. Beyond despair. She exuded love and kindness.

She was a great wife and mother, an amazing friend, generous to a fault. Judy was in many ways my mentor, my guru, the person I could confide in. The person who would listen to my book plots and be unfailingly encouraging.

She will be sorely missed. 

The Men We Love

One of the perks of being a writer is spending time with other people whose minds “work” the same as ours do. Our Lady Writers’ group decided recently to share our thoughts about the men in our lives. Not our husbands, our brothers, or our sons, but the other men in our lives: the characters we write. Each of us picked a favorite, and it was no easy task. We’ve all written multiple novels and have been a part of many characters’ lives. But there are always standouts, those characters you come to love above all others. Here are ours.

The Two Men in My Make-Believe Life
Sahar Abdulaziz

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I’ve written quite a few male characters to date. Some have been devious, sneaky… sociopathic… evil, and, well, frankly, off-the-wall-nuts. On the other hand, I have also written brave, loving, considerate, loyal, charming male characters that can make one’s heart throb and soul ache. However, if I’m being totally honest, my most favorite male characters of all time have got to be Melvin Vine, from my book, The Gatekeeper’s Notebook [2019 release] and Irwin Abernathy from my novel, Unlikely Friends, [Feb/2019 release]. In-love doesn’t nearly come close to describing how I feel about these two.

Melvin is a man on the spectrum whose artistic talent is beyond genius. He is awe-inspiring, kind, a steadfast and loyal friend with a heart that knows no evil. Despite the curveball’s life has thrown him and the cruel people he’s had to endure, he’s never stopped being the compassionate and insightful man more people need to become.

And then there’s Irwin Abernathy, my grouchy, cranky librarian who would rather be knee-deep in a good book than surrounded by people… any people. No peopling. Irwin is what I would describe as a social introvert. A curmudgeon. He finds humans an unnecessary distraction. However, here’s the thing about Irwin than I find so appealing. He’s authentic. A man of his word. What you see is what you get. He doesn’t superimpose judgment, but when faced with hardship, he stands true and loyal, refusing to back down. He’s the guy who will move mountains to do the right thing [albeit grumbling under his breath the entire time].

Despite Irwin’s grumpy demeanor, and Melvin’s over-trusting persona, they are the kind of friends that everyone needs, but not many deserve.

About Sahar

Author of The Broken Half, As One Door Closes, Secrets That Find Us, But You LOOK Just Fine, Tight Rope, Expendable, as well as the upcoming novel, Unlikely Friends, Abdulaziz again demonstrates that those who have suffered abuse are not victims, but survivors.

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The Leading Man in The King's Jewel Series

Belinda M Gordon

The King's Jewel Series is full of interesting male characters, both human and fae. But to select one to tell his story makes for an obvious choice. Of course, I'm talking about the saga's leading man, Alexander Mannus.

Alexander (Xander) has been through a lot in his life.

His mother disappeared when he was 7 years old leaving him and his brokenhearted father with nothing but unanswered questions. In her absence, Alexander obsessed over the unusual gemstone she had left behind. Studying geology became his passion.

Alexander became an officer in the US Marines, respected by his men for his fierce might-for-right attitude and his odd sixth sense. An IED abruptly put an end to his military career and left his right arm and hand nearly useless.

While recuperating at Walter Reed Medical Center, Alexander married. A year later his young wife died in a car accident, leaving him to raise his infant daughter, Sophia, alone. He became slow to trust and protective of his loved ones—ever fearful of losing them.

He spent years wandering the globe with his daughter and his best friend mining gemstones, yet he never found any that matched his mother's. Until one day he received a letter from an elderly woman in the Pocono Mountains....

And here Tressa's Treasures begins.

About Belinda

Belinda M Gordon was born and raised in Pennsylvania and currently lives in the Pocono Mountains wonderfully supportive husband and a crazy dog named Max. She is of Irish heritage, which is how she became interested in Celtic Mythology. She used the Celtic Mythology, specifically of Ireland, as the starting point of her Romance/Fantasy series, The King's Jewel.
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Becoming

Kelly Jensen

Most of my leads are male, so choosing just one to highlight has been a challenge. I’ve enjoyed writing all of my guys, from creating their backstory to watching them grow on the page. Learning from them as they face challenges, crying as their hearts break, sighing with deep contentment as they find a happy ever after—with a partner, but also with themselves.

In the end, I decided to write about Max from Block and Strike. Max is one of my youngest leads at only twenty-two, but his growth on the page far outstrips anyone else I’ve written. I think I fell in love with Max when, during a critical scene in the book, he didn’t react the way I’d expected him to. Instead of running from a certain conflict (as outlined), he turned around and stood his ground.

As a writer, this was a pretty pivotal moment. I hadn’t had a character do this before. Max’s love interest, Jake, had proved a little ornery, but was mostly following my outline (except for nixing my entire first chapter and telling me where I should start the book). But Max had been following the program, and it was about then that it clicked for me that I was writing something more than a simple romance—I was writing the story of Max’s becoming. Over the course of the novel, he would grow and change into the man he wanted to be and it was kind of beautiful. So I let him stand his ground in that scene. I watched with pride as he conquered the rest of the story, not only allowing himself to trust and fall in love, but to become strong and self-reliant.

From Max I learned that all of my characters have lives of their own and that if I listen to them, they’ll tell me their stories. All I have to do is write them. Since then, I’ve fallen in love with every character I write, because I always remember how Max taught me to craft a better novel.

About Kelly

Kelly is the author of eleven novels–including the Chaos Station series, co-written with Jenn Burke–and several novellas and short stories. Some of what she writes is speculative in nature, but mostly it’s just about a guy losing his socks and/or burning dinner. Because life isn’t all conquering aliens and mountain peaks. Sometimes finding a happy ever after is all the adventure we need.

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My Favorite Male Characters

Susan Moore Jordan

This was really a no-brainer: my favorite male characters are Andrew and Jacob Cameron, brothers I followed through two books, Memories of Jake and Man with No Yesterdays. The books cover a period of many years, from 1954 to 1992. From a traumatic childhood experience to high school and college, and then into the Vietnam War and its aftermath. One or both of them experienced every phase of the Vietnam War, from the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to the fall of Saigon. And beyond the war, Andrew visited the Wall. Jake spent time with Vietnam vets who couldn’t get their minds back into being home.

Yet throughout all this, they strove to find a way to lead happy and productive lives. The love between them was stronger than time and space, and until they were together, the walls between them obliterated, that happiness couldn’t be complete. Andrew and Jake took me on a difficult, sometimes painful, often uplifting journey. The art and music in their lives became a lifeline for each of them in different ways. Jake, the adventurer, followed a path that became a physical odyssey as well as an emotional one, and his new-found love of music eventually brought him happiness. Andrew, the homebody, used his talent as a gifted painter to conquer the trauma of his war experience and to connect more completely with the people he loved most.

Andrew and Jake Cameron. Each of them walked through fire and emerged renewed.

About Susan

Jordan attended the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati and moved to the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania in 1971 with her late husband and three young children, where she established a private voice studio and directed local community and high school musical theater productions. Since 2013 she has been writing novels (nine in print to date), combining her experiences of tragedy to triumph and her love of music, including “companion” novels, Memories of Jake and Man with No Yesterdays, released in March and November of 2017.

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THE TENOR AND THE CRITIC

This is a true story.

Tenors can be notorious for their ego and temperament, and this particular tenor –Michele Molese—gave in to a public demonstration of both during a performance in 1974 at the New York City Opera, and I happened to have been there.

Harold Schonberg was music critic for the Times for a lot of years and was well known for his sometimes acerbic critiques of not only opera singers but apparently any musician he felt was “showboating,” including Leonard Bernstein. Schonberg’s long and distinguished career included a Pulitzer Prize.

One of Schonberg’s critiques of Molese’s singing included a comment to the effect that the tenor sometimes “squeezed” his high notes. Molese apparently didn’t take it too well, but then, tenors are notoriously sensitive about their high notes. Understandably so … some opera goers figure no matter how beautifully the tenor sings, if his high notes aren’t sheer perfection, he hasn’t done his job. Pity the poor tenor!

Here’s where the fun began. Molese was singing Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera (A Masked Ball). The tenor’s big third act aria includes a high C. Mr. Molese sang it well, and the audience (which obviously included many of his ardent supporters) gave him prolonged and vigorous applause. After which Mr. Molese complete broke character and tradition, stepped to the front of the stage and announced in English: “The pinched high C was for Mr. Schonberg.”

Well, the audience erupted. Loud booing on the one hand, applause and “bravo!” on the other. Yes, I’d say the audience was of two minds about what had just happened. I was dumbfounded and sat with my mouth open, attempting to process this scene. I’d read about stuff like this happening in Europe. This was New York, for heaven’s sake. Eventually, the audience quieted and the performance continued.

But that’s not the end of the story. As the singers took their solo bows after the completion of the performance, Mr. Molese’s appearance created a huge stir. More boos, more “bravos” – and then something happened that was right out of a movie. What appeared to be a Molese detractor ran to the front of the stage, shouting something (I’m guessing obscenities, but because there was so much noise it was impossible to hear from my seat in the balcony.). By this time the agitated audience had begun to file out of the house and the aisles were clogged.

A Molese fan decided he had to silence the guy who continued to carry on in front of the stage, and he jumped up onto the back of a seat and, with amazing agility, actually ran to the front using the backs of the seats. When he reached the offender, punches were thrown and then he went for the guy’s throat. Eventually the two men were separated.

Mr. Molese’s obituary indicates the NYCO fired him after the incident, but after a period of time he was rehired and continued to sing with the company until 1980. Good tenors aren’t easy to come by.

True story. Who says opera is boring??

(I included this story, changing the names to protect the innocent, in my book Eli’s Heart.)

Links to all my books can be found on my website

www.susanmoorejordan.com

CARMEN: The Perfect Opera for People Who Don’t Like Opera

“Opera is boring.” One of the biggest reasons people won’t even listen to opera. Carmen—probably my favorite opera—is anything but. Ill-fated, star-crossed lovers, who manage to destroy each other. An upstanding young soldier who ends up deserting from the army. A gypsy woman who has men falling at her feet. A dashing toreador who creates the fatal triangle. Gypsy dances that will stir your blood as much as any rock music you ever heard. In fact, music that will enchant you because it’s simply great.

Admittedly, I fell madly in love with the art form the first time I heard a Met radio broadcast in the fall of 1953. I was fourteen. The opera wasn’t Carmen, it was Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, an obscure opera that is seldom performed these days. But just hearing the way people could use their voices simply blew me away. I’d heard symphonic music from early childhood forward, but I discovered opera all on my own.

“They sing it in a foreign language.” This is generally true, though the first production of Carmen I ever saw was performed in English at the University of Tennessee. The Metropolitan Opera—probably the greatest opera house in the world—does this amazing thing. Several times during their season they stream live a Saturday matinee performance to thousands of movie theaters worldwide. There are English subtitles. With Carmen, they are hardly necessary.

The plot is easy to follow, and with great artists such as Roberto Alagna (for the February 2 performance which I can’t wait to see … he may be the ideal Don José) you get a steamy love story that’s terrific. And the music. Go to YouTube and check out the Act II opening … look for the video with Elina Garanča, who is a fabulous Carmen. Watch and listen to the whole thing (all five minutes of it) and then tell me how boring it is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5h_7ywjPPQ

Yes, well, Carmen is set in Spain and the current production at the Met has updated it to the time of Franco’s Spain. I like the update. The story is timeless, it could be set at almost any time and in any locale. And yes, Carmen is sung in French, because Georges Bizet’s amazing opera was written in French.

“I don’t understand that kind of music.” Oh, really? You never heard “The Toreador Song” in your entire life? Were you born under a rock or what? (When I was a kid there was a silly parody: “Toreador-a, don’t spit on the floor-a. Use a cuspidor-a, That’s what they’re for-a.”) Bizet’s music is totally accessible … even if you (think) you’ve never heard classical music. Maybe you just need to allow yourself to hear and see a little classical music in the form of opera … the forerunner of musical theater. While you’re on YouTube, check out the second act finale, where Carmen and her gypsy smuggler friends convince Don José (by the way, since the opera is in French, it’s generally pronounced with a “J” rather than a “Y” sound) to desert and become a smuggler. They tell him it’s a lot more fun.

The Met should put me on their marketing staff. I’m trying hard to convert more people to appreciate the art form. It’s NOT boring, it’s NOT stuffy, it’s great entertainment. Sadly, in the U.S. there isn’t the appreciation for the art form there is in Europe, where state supported opera houses are packed night after night for a nine or ten-month season … and with young opera lovers. It’s expensive to produce an opera, and tickets to a performance at the Met can run into the hundreds of dollars. I’ll bet tickets to Hamilton are at least as much if not more. You know what? I haven’t seen Hamilton … but from what I understand, Hamilton is an opera. How much dialogue is there in that show? Oh, and Les Miserables is an opera. What a thrill for me to direct that show—excuse me, opera—with an amazing bunch of high school kids in 2011. An experience I’ll never forget.

So, there’s my pitch. If you have a theater that carries the Met in HD series, buy a ticket (for about $25) and see Carmen. Give it a try! This is probably the most popular opera ever, so they are offering “encore” performances on February 6 and 9 along with the live telecast on February 2.

Then after you see it … I’d love to hear from you.

https://www.susanmoorejordan.com

https://www.amazon.com/Susan-Moore-Jordan/e/B00IBZ731U/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1