Wagner as a Bridge: Singing Beyond Boundaries

Katherine Goforth will showcase her powerful, award-winning tenor voice in concert this spring!

Katherine is the first winner of the True Voice Competition for transgender and non-binary singers. Katherine is undeterred by historical barriers in the performing arts and is finding new ways to show up authentically on stage, in the rehearsal room, and as a creative artist.

FREE for BWS members. Nonmembers may purchase tickets here for $35. Student tickets are $10.

Katherine is the recipient of Washington National Opera’s inaugural True Voice Award for transgender and non-binary singers and the Career Advancement Award from the fourth Dallas Symphony Orchestra Women in Classical Music Symposium. She won critical acclaim as part of the cast that premiered Philip Venables and Ted Huffman’s The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions at the Manchester International Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and Bregenzer Festspiele. Based in Portland, OR, she has appeared extensively as a soloist with Pacific Northwest-based arts organizations, including Portland Opera, Bozeman Symphony, Walla Walla Symphony, Yakima Symphony, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Opera Bend, Opera Theater Oregon, Sound Salon (formerly Byron Schenkman and Friends), Artists Repertory Theatre, Fuse Theatre Ensemble, and Pink Martini.

Katherine was most recently part of the team that developed and produced Nu Nah-Hup: Sacajawea’s Story, a collaboration with Rose Ann Abrahamson, Sacajawea’s familial descendant, Hovia Edwards, Native American flutist, and Justin Ralls, composer and artistic director of Opera Theater Oregon, starring mezzo-soprano Marion Newman and baritone Richard Zeller. She has written for Opera Canada, and spoken at Boston Conservatory, Whitman College, and Renegade Opera.

Katherine was a member of the International Opera Studio of Oper Köln, received her Bachelor’s degree from St. Olaf College, her Master’s degree from the Juilliard School, and attended the Franz-Schubert-Institut, Britten Pears Young Artist Programme, Heidelberger Frühling Liedakademie, Georg Solti Accademia, and Boston Wagner Institute.

Saul Lilienstein explores new dimensions in Wagner’s final masterwork, Parsifal. This lecture will be held online via Zoom; we will send a registration link via email.

FREE FOR MEMBERS - must RSVP via email. Non-members may purchase tickets here for $10 admission.

A former student of Leonard Bernstein, Saul Lilienstein holds B.A. and M.S. degrees in music from Queens College, NY. He has served as Director of the Handel Choir of Baltimore and the Harford Choral Society and, for many years, as Artistic Director and Conductor of Maryland’s Harford Opera Theatre and then of Operetta Renaissance in Baltimore. In 2005, the Wagner Society of Washington, DC bestowed the Society’s Award for “uncommon contributions” upon Lilienstein, who is honored to join past recipients Placido Domingo, Thomas Stewart, Evelyn Lear, and Heinz Fricke.

Kip Cranna presents “Wagner in his youth: How Beethoven and Bellini won his heart.” This will be a free lecture at the Copley Square (Central) branch of the Boston Public Library, held in the Commonwealth Salon. Free and open to the public, no tickets are required.

Clifford (Kip) Cranna, Dramaturg (Scholar in Residence) Emeritus of San Francisco Opera, served on the staff for over forty years and was Director of Music Administration for over thirty years. In 2008 he was awarded the San Francisco Opera Medal, the company’s highest honor, and in 2012 he received the Bernard Osher Cultural Award for distinguished efforts to bring excellence to a cultural institution. In 2014 he received the Star of Excellence Award for outstanding service to the programs of the San Francisco Opera Guild.

He holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Stanford University. For thirty years he was Program Editor and Lecturer for the Carmel Bach Festival.  He has taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, lectures, and writes frequently on music.

Dr. Cranna currently teaches at the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at UC Berkeley, San Francisco State University, and Dominican University.

Wendy Bryn Harmer is a young dramatic soprano from Northern California, best known for her roles in Der Ring des Nibelungen.

She will sing in a recital at Rabb Hall at the Copley Square (Central) branch of the Boston Public Library. The concert will be free and open to everyone, BWS members and the public. No tickets necessary.

In the 2023-24 season, she sings her first performances of Brünnhilde in Die Walküre with Atlanta Opera. She also returns to the Metropolitan Opera as Kitty Hart in the new production of Dead Man Walking and sings Ravel’s Shéhérazade with the Utah Symphony. Last season, she returned to Utah Opera for further performances of Senta and sang Sieglinde in Die Walküre in concert with Michigan Opera Theater in addition to returning to the Metropolitan Opera roster for its productions of Lohengrin and Der fliegende Höllander.

Sought-after in German repertoire, she has also recently excelled as Chrysothemis in Elektra with the Metropolitan Opera, Leonore in Fidelio with Opera Omaha and Boston Baroque, the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos with Palm Beach Opera, and Eglantine in von Weber’s rarely-performed Euryanthe at the Bard Music Festival. She previously joined Seattle Opera as well as the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the Tanglewood Music Festival for operas the Ring Cycle. Her countless performances within the epic work encompass the roles of Sieglinde, Gerhilde, and Orltinde in Die Walküre; Freia in Das Rheingold; and Gutrune and Third Norn in Götterdämmerung.

“Erica describes the disasters and near catastrophes that occurred while performing Wagner at the Met. Erica presents an exploration of her experience with a special focus on the difficulties in his Lohengrin.”

This discussion will be held online over Zoom; we will set up an RSVP link closer to the event.

Violinist turned author Erica Miner now has a multi-faceted career as an award-winning author, screenwriter, journalist, and lecturer. A native of Detroit, she studied violin with Boston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Joseph Silverstein at Boston University where she graduated cum laude; the New England Conservatory of Music; and the Tanglewood Music Center, summer home of the Boston Symphony, where she performed with such celebrated conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Erich Leinsdorf. Erica went on to perform with the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Company for 21 years, where she worked closely with renowned maestro James Levine.

Join us in celebrating the culmination of the BWI students’ hard work this summer! This will be an all-Wagner concert featuring each student performing memorized, fully-staged Wagner scenes.

Overseen and coached by Jane Eaglen, directed and staged by Danielle Wright, with the orchestral Brett Hodgdon and Robert Mollicone accompanying singers on piano.

The event will be from 4-6pm in Seully Hall at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, who are our gracious hosts for the Institute.

FREE to Boston Wagner Society members and Students with valid ID.

$20 to all others, payable in advance on our website, or at the door.

Boston Wagner Institute will announce more events soon, so join the Boston Wagner Society to take advantage of unlimited free access to all BWI and BWS events!

Helen Greenwald is a musicologist, cellist, and translator. Her scholarly interests center on vocal music of the 18th–20th centuries, and her work has appeared in a myriad of renowned published journals. She is the convenor and editor of the Oxford Handbook of Opera (Oxford University Press, 2014), a volume of fifty essays by an international array of scholars.

Dr. Greenwald will be discussing the complexities of performing Wagner in today’s world. Can we reconcile the man or even separate him from his art?

Greenwald also writes regularly for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Opera at Covent Garden, and the Metropolitan Opera. She was Visiting Professor of Music at the University of Chicago in 2008. She currently is a professor of musicology at New England Conservatory. Her current project is a book on Verdi's Rigoletto for Oxford University Press.

The event will be 2-4pm at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, Room 406 (Opera Studio at 8 Fenway). We appreciate them as are our gracious hosts for the Institute.

FREE to Boston Wagner Society members and Students with valid ID.

$10 to all others payable in advance on our website or at the door.

Boston Wagner Institute will announce more events soon, so join the Boston Wagner Society to take advantage of unlimited free access to all BWI and BWS events!

International Wagnerian Mark Delavan will work with the young singers of the Boston Wagner Institute.

The event will be from 2-4pm in Houston Hall at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, who are our gracious hosts for the Institute.

FREE to Boston Wagner Society members and Students with valid ID.

$20 to all others, payable in advance on our website, or at the door.

Boston Wagner Institute will announce more events soon, so join the Boston Wagner Society to take advantage of unlimited free access to all BWI and BWS events!

International and local Wagnerian Renée Tatum will work with the young singers of the Boston Wagner Institute.

The event will be from 2-4pm in Houston Hall at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, who are our gracious hosts for the Institute.

FREE to Boston Wagner Society members and Students with valid ID.

$20 to all others, payable in advance on our website, or at the door.

Boston Wagner Institute will announce more events soon, so join the Boston Wagner Society to take advantage of unlimited free access to all BWI and BWS events!