About After the Premiere

Justin Vickers explores opera as a genre and as a profession after the premiere, when an opera’s afterlife — and it’s next chapter — begins.

Opera has always trafficked in spectacle and intensity, but what interests me most are the quieter pressures beneath those surfaces: the assumptions about age, authority, memory, voice, and value that shape how musical stories are told and how they continue to be heard, long after the curtain has fallen.

After the Premiere blog posts will appear weekly and will address opera, vocal music, archives, pedagogy, and the contemporary musical economy, with particular attention to how works and institutions continue to shape meaning long after their first performances.

All “After the Premiere” Blog Posts

After the Premiere: André de Ridder, New Music, and What Musical Leadership Can Still Change

After the Premiere: “Three Visions of Opera Now” (3/3) In this short series — “Three Visions of Opera Now” — I draw on recent conversations with three major figures working across very different corners of today’s operatic landscape: stage director Christopher Alden, theatre director Cal McCrystal, and conductor André de Ridder. Rather than presenting these as conventional interviews, each post reflects on how their artistic choices reveal broader questions about opera’s f

Justin Vickers

12 hours ago10 min read

After the Premiere: Cal McCrystal, Comic Tradition, and the Serious Work of Making Opera Welcoming

After the Premiere: “ Three Visions of Opera Now ” (2/3) In this short series — “ Three Visions of Opera Now ” — I draw on recent conversations with three major figures working across very different corners of today’s operatic landscape: stage director Christopher Alden, theatre director Cal McCrystal, and conductor André de Ridder. Rather than presenting these as conventional interviews, each post reflects on how their artistic choices reveal broader questions about o

Justin Vickers

Jan 268 min read

After the Premiere: Christopher Alden on Revival, Surrealism, and Why Handel Keeps Catching Up to Us

After the Premiere: “ Three Visions of Opera Now ” (1/3) In this short series — “ Three Visions of Opera Now ” — I draw on recent conversations with three major figures working across very different corners of today’s operatic landscape: stage director Christopher Alden, theatre director Cal McCrystal, and conductor André de Ridder. Rather than presenting these as conventional interviews, each post reflects on how their artistic choices reveal broader questions about op

Justin Vickers

Jan 157 min read

“After the Premiere”: Why Does Justin Vickers Have a Blog, Anyway?

Welcome to “After the Premiere” Opera, Vocal Music, Archives, the Industry, and Musical Afterlives By Justin Vickers Opera culture invests enormous symbolic weight in premieres. We mark first performances as moments of arrival, consecration, and especially — given the economics of the genre — great financial risk. New works are greeted with excitement or suspicion; revivals are framed as rediscoveries; reputations seem to pivot on opening nights and first reviews. Yet most of

Justin Vickers

Jan 145 min read