Joyce DiDonato at the Stonewall Inn

Joyce DiDonato

A few days ago, mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato popped into the Stonewall Inn, in New York and performed Dido's Lament from Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. Yes, you did read that right; one of the greatest singers around today performed in a gay bar in Greenwich Village, accompanied by Julliard415, the Julliard School's period instrument ensemble.

The Stonewall Inn is in fact the successor to the bar raided by New York police in 1969 which led to the Stonewall Riots from which the modern gay rights movement grew. The bar is also close to the spot where Mark Carson, a gay man was shot and killed almost two years ago; now regarded as a hate crime by the police.

This is just the latest in events in which DiDonato has continued to show her ongoing support for lesbian and gay rights. At the 2013 Proms she dedicated Somewhere Over the Rainbow to LGBT voices silenced by Russia's anti-gay laws and at the Santa Fe Opera, she dedicated a performance to a gay New Mexican teen who took his life after being bullied.

The video of the event was made by NPR and can be seen after the break:


Elsewhere on this blog:

• Into the Jungle: New London Chamber Choir - concert review
• Beauty and imagination: Robin Tritschler and Graham Johnson - concert review
• Clarity and rhythmic sublety: Granados Danzas Espanolas - CD review
• Spectacular but unfocussed: Tales of Hoffmann, HD broadcast from the Met - opera review
• Macbeth by design: EPOC at Central St Martin's - opera review
• Review of the reviews:Un Ballo in Maschera - opera review
• Bravura poetry: Nicholas McCarthy at Rhinegold Live - concert review
• Poised intelligence: Ralf Taal in Chopin - CD review
• Imaginative new choral music: A Multitude of Voices
• The Tempest restored: Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse - concert review
• Aspects of Enlightenment in Berlin: Mahan Esfahani & Norman Lebrecht - concert review
• Home