Encouraging the Students

When the Hopkins Center production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, the first opera ever produced at the Hop, gets underway this spring, the singers will have the bonus of being coached by a real pro: mezzo-soprano Barbara Martin, divacum-avant-garde-musician, who will be in residence for eight weeks this spring and summer.

Martin has a lot going for her. She received her bachelor's and master's degrees from Juilliard, has performed with the Met in a number of operatic roles, was described by a New York Times critic as being "to contemporary music what Mae West was to the early days of the talking picture," and before the Dartmouth-Harvard hockey game sang the only on-key rendition of the National Anthem that Thompson Arena has ever heard.

While she is here, Martin will present informal concerts in nearby communities, participate in a series of workshops and classes, and generally act "as a catalyst to bring to people certain kinds of music which they might never have experienced otherwise." She says that when she introduces contemporary music on campuses, "students can ease into listening to and appreciating classical music from it. I like to encourage students to have an open mind about music, to explore different areas."