Opera lovers can come downtown
As associate dean for fine arts at Georgia State University, I welcome the Atlanta Opera downtown in partnership with Georgia State University’s Rialto Center for the Arts presenting “Soldier Songs” next November (“Opera, Rialto team on ‘Soldier Songs,’” Living, May 27). While the AJC story notes this is “the first time the opera company has performed downtown,” audiences will wish to know there are many other downtown opera opportunities.
GSU's School of Music offers an opera each season: this fall at Kopleff Recital Hall, Nov. 13-15, Sondheim's "Into the Woods," and in the spring at the Rialto, April 15-17, Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel." GSU's Harrower Summer Opera Workshop, now celebrating its 32nd year, also presents downtown at Kopleff Recital Hall. For the June 12-14 performances of Verdi's "Falstaff," Strauss's "Der Rosenkavalier" and scenes from Mozart's "Figaro," the workshop welcomes Atlanta Opera director Tomer Zvulun as masterclass clinician and soprano Indra Thomas, known world over for her performances as Aida.
In all, I count more than 15 performances of five operas for us to enjoy in downtown Atlanta.
PEARL MCHANEY, ATLANTA
Cheaper oil isn’t economy’s problem
TONY GARDNER, CUMMING
America should return to capitalism
We have 93 million people not working and collecting some form of dole from the government. President Obama has put 43 million people on food stamps and given us a real unemployment rate of 11 percent for whites and 18 percent for minorities. This not what most people would call success. There is one group that’s stuck by Obama in the face of all these failures: the news media, which continues to falsely report about his failed tax-and-spend policies that have wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars. This president refuses to accept that he’s failed, and it’s time to go back to what we know is successful: capitalism.
TOM GAMBESKI, JASPER
