The following letter to the editor was sent to Classical Singer magazine by Willie Anthony Waters, General Director of Connecticut Opera and Artistic Director/Conductor of Opera Ebony. It was originally intended for the New York Times as a response to an article about whether Gershwin’s wishes should be ignored and other races should be allowed to be cast in Porgy and Bess. The New York Times chose not to print the letter. Classical Singer also was not able to print the entire letter due to space concerns as it is over 2000 words long. After some deliberation, we chose to print a 700 word version of it here but make the full letter available to readers on the website version of “Letters to the Editor.”
After CS interviewed MidAmerica Productions, we were fortunate to interview Eileen Terril of the Independence Messiah Festival who had used MidAmerica’s services to arrange a trip to perform at Carnegie Hall two years ago. This choir’s experience performing there for the first time exemplifies what the venue has come to mean to singers all over the world
