With a Tweet, Tweet Here

Please forgive me, loyal readers. After a busy week and and even busier weekend I took some vacation days to recover. But, I'm back at it and have a ton of exciting things to share.

First, let's talk about the Tweet-up. For those of you saying, "A Tweet-what?," let me explain. Some of the staff members are active on Twitter (Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Thank you, Wikipedia.). Twitter allows us to share all the fun stuff that goes on behind the scenes with our friends/followers. Twitter people are cool and like to get together face-to-face thus resulting in a Tweet-up. This is a time for Tweeple (Twitter people) to network, socialize and enjoy some food.

To share our love of opera with our Twitter friends we decided to host a Tweet-up before our Pearl Fishers dress rehearsal and invite everyone to stay and watch the rehearsal. We had a great turnout with about 55 people in attendance. Special thanks to Cameron Mitchell Restaurants and The Refectory for providing us with door prizes for the event. We heard a lot of people saying it was their first opera experience and where surprised to find out how much they enjoyed it. Some of our friends even wrote a few blogs about it (to read them click here, here and here). Check out some of the great Twitter feedback here and here.

I like to start with dessert first

Posing with Twitter-er extraordinaire Rocky (@rockson)

Providing our friendly bartender with a little help

Smiling for the Camera with Jason (@blantonious)

Press and I marveling (and sampling) the
amazing food spread

A Lovely Day

Holy cow! It is crazy busy here on East Naghten Street. Things are so busy that they've put yours truly to work - I've been helping move boxes, stuff envelopes, run errands, make artist arrangements, etc. This has left me with little time to blog. Today, I finally put my hoof down. I will not take on any more projects until I can blog! So here it goes...

Opera Columbus has many excellent volunteer groups. These volunteer groups perform various functions from serving as manning the Opera Columbus booth at various festivals to fundraising. They are the heart of of Opera Columbus.

President of Les Claqueurs, Esther (right), your favorite blogging
bovine and another fabulous Claqueurs member

Last Wednesday, I, along with most of the OC staff, had the pleasure of attending the annual picnic of Les Claqueurs. Les Claqueurs is a unique club of senior volunteers interested in advancing the purposes of Opera Columbus.

At the picnic, we were able to talk about all the super fantastic things going on at Opera Columbus. We talked about our upcoming production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers and the most exciting thing (in my humble opinion) was talking about our new blog. The Claqueurs seemed excited to meet me and herded around demanding to be photographed with their new favorite cow. I, of course, happily obliged.

Here I am with our hosts Dick and Ginny and Claqueurs
member, Harriett. Harriett is a woman after my own heart.
Way to promote the show, my friend!

They are a fun group of people and boy, oh boy, can they cook up a storm! They take their picnics seriously. I couldn't help but go up for seconds (hey, it's pumpkin pie, it was calling my name):

Celebration

Giving Charlene Brown, host of WOSU's Artzine,
some tips during an interview with Press about
arts and the economy (to air in October).

Whew. It's been a whirlwind of a week here at Opera Columbus. Not only did we celebrate Press' birthday but everyone is crazy busy getting ready for our upcoming production of Bizet's The Pearl Fishers (have you bought your tickets yet? Get on it by calling 614-469-0939). In honor of his birthday, I spent some time with Press this week (I even had to help him prep for a TV interview). We chatted and here's some fun stuff you should know about the wonderful guy that leads our company:

OPERA

First Opera: Mozart's The Magic Flute, an Opera Columbus production in the early 90s.
How you got involved with OC: A partner at my office and an OC board member at the time, Sheldon Chizever, invited me to attend a performance. His hope was I would get involved with the Board (which I did).
If someone said, "Ug, opera isn't for me," how would you respond: Have you tried it? It's not an elitist artform. It was originally created for the common class. This beautiful artform combines music, symphony, sets, acting, etc. It's colorful and full of pageantry!
What's your take on cows and opera: Well, if a cow wants to be excited about opera she should probably check out a production of Carmen. There are usually some fine looking bulls appearing with the toreador.

FAVORITES
TV shows: Days of Our Lives, Law & Order and LOST.
Books: The Green Mile and anything by James Patterson.
Music: If by Dean Martin and anything by Enya, The Beatles and Queen.
Ice Cream: Dolce de Leche.

COLUMBUS
Favorite restaurant: The Top on East Main.
Hidden gem: Tommy's Diner on East Broad.
Proof that this isn't a cowtown: We have amazing arts and culture here in the city and it's accessible to everyone. In other cities people can't be involved with multiple arts and cultural organizations due to cost or distance - here it's affordable and easy to get to and attend/participate.

FUN STUFF
When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up: A baseball player.
What would people be surprised to know about you: I'm a huge OSU Buckeyes fan, but I guess that's not a surprise. How about the fact that I have eight different season subscriptions to various sporting events and eight different memberships/season subscriptions to arts/cultural organizations. I love sports and the arts - I do it all!
If you were stranded on a desert island what three things would you want to have with you: All I would need is Joan, my wife of 40 years.

Oh Happy Day

I hardly slept all weekend. While I had a lovely time relaxing, following the latest election news and shopping at the outlet malls, I could not wait for Tuesday morning! Why? Because, silly, Opera Columbus single tickets go on sale today!

Ordering is super easy and the CAPA Ticket Office folks are incredibly helpful and basically plain awesome. You need to call our friends in the Ticket Office (614-469-0939) and order your tickets today. You can also go online and order tickets, but then you miss talking with the fabulous CAPA peeps.

Opera tickets make great gifts, too. I ordered a pair of The Pearl Fishers tickets for a couple of my cow gal pals back home and a pair of Turandot tickets for my fancy friends who love Neal E. Boyd on America's Got Talent (he sings the famous Tenor aria, "Nessun Dorma", from Turandot). And I think I may get a few tickets to The Mikado for some of my musical theatre loving friends.

Get on it. Order your tickets today (614-469-0939 or click here)! See you at the opera!