Would Opera News – the magazine or the website – cover such stories about the personal lives of opera singers?
A. We already cover stories like this, in moderation, most often in our recurring feature series, “Singer’s Diary” – which last season had a story on Gregory Kunde, a tenor restarting his career after testicular cancer. A few years ago, we did a very moving interview with Jan Curtis, recovering her voice and her life after a stroke. We did what we considered a very important cover story in June 2002, in which Patricia Racette, a very important soprano, publicly discussed her homosexuality for the first time. The response from our readers on that was overwhelmingly positive. The difference for us is that Miss Racette was on our cover because of her accomplishments as a singer. Her relationship with her partner was and is a very important part of who she is an artist, so with her permission and encouragement, we included a discussion of that part of her life. We did not put her on the cover of the magazine because she was a lesbian. In my opinion, 60 Minutes presented Miss Voigt in a way
