Boston Wagner Society is delighted to welcome back Erica Miner to present:
The Perils of Wagner:
Backstage Drama at the Met Opera Part 2 — The Ring
December 15th, 2PM EST on Zoom
Free to BWS Members — No purchase necessary for BWS members, simply email us to RSVP. info@bostonwagnersociety.org
In a follow-up on her presentation on the dangers and difficulties in performing Lohengrin, former Met Opera violinist Erica Miner reveals the behind-the-scenes dramas and perils inherent in Wagner’s Ring, with emphasis on the controversial 2010 Robert Lepage Met production.
As well as a former Met Orchestra violinist and musicologist, Erica is an acclaimed author. Her latest book is Overture to Murder.
The curtain comes down on murder in the third novel of Erica Minier's Julia Kogan Opera Mystery series. Julia heads to the San Francisco Opera, under inordinate amounts of pressure, as concertmaster for Wagner’s powerful The Ring of the Nibelungen, replacing the ailing concertmaster, Ben, who has suffered serious injuries in a suspicious hit-and-run accident. When one prominent company member becomes the victim of a grisly murder, Julia cannot resist becoming involved in the investigation. As in her previous sleuthing at the Metropolitan Opera and Santa Fe Opera, Julia once again discovers that fiery artistic temperaments, and danger lurking in the dark hallways and back stairways of an opera house, provide a chilling backdrop for murder. This time, however, it’s not only her own life that is in peril.
Violinist turned author Erica Miner now has a multi-faceted career as an award-winning author, screenwriter, journalist, and lecturer. A native of Detroit, she studied violin with Boston Symphony Orchestra concertmaster Joseph Silverstein at Boston University where she graduated cum laude; the New England Conservatory of Music; and the Tanglewood Music Center, summer home of the Boston Symphony, where she performed with such celebrated conductors as Leonard Bernstein and Erich Leinsdorf. Erica went on to perform with the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Company for 21 years, where she worked closely with renowned maestro James Levine.
When injuries from a car accident spelled the end of her musical career, Erica drew upon her lifelong love of writing for inspiration and studied screenwriting in New York and Los Angeles with script gurus Linda Seger and Ken Rotcop. Erica’s screenplays have won awards in a number of recognized competitions such as WinFemme, Santa Fe, and the Writer’s Digest.
Inspired by journals she wrote during her travel adventures abroad, Erica penned the novel and screenplay of Travels With My Lovers, winner of the Fiction Prize in the Direct from the Author Book Awards. She also has written the feature screenplay and TV Series Bible for FourEver Friends, the first in her journal-based novel series chronicling four teenage girls' coming of age in Detroit in the volatile 1960s. Subsequent novels in the series are set in Boston and New York. In addition, Erica has written the screenplay of her mystery novel Murder In The Pit, now renamed Aria for Murder, released in Oct. 2022, which takes place at the Met Opera. The sequel, set at Santa Fe Opera, is due for release in Sept. 2023. The next sequel will be released in Sept. 2024. The entire series is being republished by Level Best Books, with new titles, covers, updates, and enhancements, starting in September of 2022 with Aria For Murder.
Erica's lectures, seminars, and workshops on writing and on opera have received kudos in venues worldwide, including the Seattle Symphony; the Wagner Societies of New York, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego, Northern California, North Carolina, and Sydney, Australia; the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at the University of California, San Diego, and the University of Washington; for the Creative Retirement Institute at Edmonds College near Seattle; the Seattle Symphony at Benaroya Hall; and on the High Seas, where Erica was named a top-rated speaker for both Royal Caribbean and Celebrity Cruise Lines. Her wide-ranging topics range from "The Art of Self Re-Invention," to "Journaling for Writers: Mining the Gold of Your Own Experiences,” "Wagner and Bernstein: Parallels and Contrasts," "Opera Meets Hollywood;" and numerous others.