Following @Joyce DiDonato
Opera News
by F. Paul Driscoll
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The mezzo of the moment is using every available digital resource to bring her passion for unadulterated opera to current fans and potential new audiences. F. PAUL DRISCOLL checks in with opera’s most accessible diva.
Joyce DiDonato, who sings the title role in this month’s The Met: Live in HD presentation of La Donna del Lago, is opera’s most connected singer. One of the first artists in her profession to have a well-designed, user-friendly website (joycedidonato.com), DiDonato has embraced Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as ways of keeping her audiences informed about and involved in her activities as singer, teacher and arts activist.
DiDonato’s fans are passionate supporters of their favorite mezzo:last October, they started a social-media campaign to have DiDonato, a lifelong Kansas City Royals fan, sing the National Anthem at the 2014 World Series. Using the hashtag #letjoycesing, the campaign gathered enough momentum to win DiDonato an invitation to appear at game seven of the series, singing live before a television audience of twenty-five million.
The current season is one of the busiest of DiDonato’s career thus far. Autumn saw the release of her latest Warner Classics disc, the Grammy-nominated Stella di Napoli, an international concert tour of Handel’s Alcina and — as part of a season-long, multi-event Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall — a solo Carnegie recital that was live-streamed by medici.tv. In early November, DiDonato visited the offices of OPERA NEWS to guide us on a tour of her website.