Ira continued to perform as Gran Scena’s prima “donna,” Madame Vera, in a solo spin-off of Gran Scena, entitled The Annual Farewell Recital, through 2009. Siff has served as on-air commentator with host Margaret Juntwait on the Met’s live international Saturday radio broadcasts since 2007. He also lectures on opera and writes for Opera News. Siff began stage directing opera in 2000, collaborating since then with such conductors as James Levine, Richard Bonynge, and Christoph Von Dohnanyi. He’s taught voice and coached singers on interpretation and style for 40 years in New York, as well as giving master classes in Israel, Italy, Holland, and the US. It was as Madame Vera that he first teamed up with Margaret Juntwait for two seasons of hilarious mock diva interviews on WNYC’s Weekend Music. Through 2009, Siff continued to perform as Gran Scena’s prima “donna,” Madame Vera, in a solo spin-off entitled The Annual Farewell Recital. Gran Scena toured internationally through 2002 to many of the world’s great opera houses and festivals, including Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Edinburgh Festival, Venice Festival, Munich Festival, Covent Garden Festival, and literally countless others in the US, Great Britain, Europe, South America, and Australia. In 1981 he founded La Gran Scena Opera Co., and the troupe became an instant hit, their musically-skilled, hilarious-but-affectionate spoofs of opera divas winning great acclaim from the press, public, and music world. This led to an interest in blending opera with comedy. Ira performed in many new operas and shows at The New York Shakespeare Festival, Judson Poets’ Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, and other off-Broadway venues, as well as in various cabarets where he did a one-man show featuring spoofs of opera.
While acquiring a degree in visual arts at Cooper Union, his avid interest in opera led to voice lessons and musical studies, and a debut as a tenor in 1970. Ira Siff is a native New Yorker who grew up on the standing room line at the old Met worshipping the great singers of the time-and, of course, listening to the Met broadcasts. He lives in New York’s East Village with Stephen Miller, his partner of 14 years. His recent articles have appeared in the publications of the Seattle and Washington DC opera companies and Barcelona’s Theatre de Liceu. He is also a writer and producer for the Metropolitan Opera’s famed Quiz featured as part of its live international Saturday broadcasts. He was a frequent contributor to the NPR program At the Opera, and was the host of WNYC’s Overnight Music in 2004-2006, which included the weekly show El Salón, focusing on Hispanic issues in classical music.īerger has worked at the Metropolitan Opera since 2006 as a writer, producer, and on-air commentator with host Margaret Juntwait for the live weeknight broadcasts on Met Opera Radio.
He is a frequent lecturer/speaker on opera at a variety of venues, including the Embassy of Finland, the Italian Cultural Institute (New York), the Smithsonian Institute, the Wagner Society of America (New York, Washington, DC, Chicago, and Boston), and the National Museum of Women in the Arts-as well as for the opera companies of Seattle, Houston, Baltimore, and Washington, DC. Berger is the author of several books on opera, including Wagner Without Fear, Verdi With a Vengeance, and Puccini Without Excuses (Vintage Books) and wrote the tribute “Chris De Blasio” in Loss Within Loss: Artists in the Age of AIDS (University of Minnesota Press). He can’t remember a time when he didn’t write, and has published on a variety of subjects, including architecture, religion, and sports. In 1984, Berger moved to New York, worked in architecture/design, taught Romance languages at Baruch College, and became a constant presence in audience of the Metropolitan Opera. During college, he got his first taste of the opera world at the San Francisco Opera working in various capacities, including merchandising and translating for artists who didn’t speak English. After spending time during his teen years in various places around the US and Europe, he earned degrees in Latin and Italian literature at the University of California at Santa Cruz.
William Berger grew up in Los Angeles in a bilingual (Spanish and English) and multicultural (Mexican, Italian, and Jewish) home where everyone listened to opera and had strong opinions about it.
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