Turandot: A Night at the Opera with Christopher Browner ’12
Turandot: A Night at the Opera with Christopher Browner ’12

Taft’s popular “A Night at the Opera” program returns to campus April 12 with Christopher Browner ’12, senior editor at New York’s Metropolitan Opera.

Taft’s popular “A Night at the Opera” program returns to campus this week with Christopher Browner ’12, senior editor at New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Browner will take the audience on a journey through Giacamo Puccini's final opera, Turandot; he will be joined by performers from the Met’s young artist program. The event takes place in Taft’s Choral Room on the main campus Friday, April 12 at 7 pm. The program is free and open to the public; tickets are not required.

Turandot is a three-act opera set in China. It tells the story of Prince Calaf, who falls in love with Princess Turandot. To win her hand, suitors must solve three riddles; execution awaits those who answer who do not answer correctly. Despite passing the test, the princess refuses to marry Calaf. As the tale unfolds, Calaf presents the princess with a challenge of her own.

Turandot remained unfinished at the time of Puccini’s death in 1924. The music was completed posthumously by Franco Alfano, allowing for a 1926 debut. Browner’s talk at Taft, along with pieces from the show performed by young Met artists, will serve as an insightful and enthusiastic introduction to Turndot, on stage at The Met through June 7. The show features Franco Zeffirelli’s “dazzling vision of mythic China with soprano Elena Pankratova making her Met debut as the legendary—and lethal—title princess, opposite tenor SeokJong Baek as the valiant prince who puts his life on the line to win her love.”

A lifelong opera fan, Browner still remembers the first show he saw at The Met as a child; he also remembers the seat he sat in.

“As the orchestra was tuning and the chandeliers were rising up to the ceiling, I grabbed my dad’s hand—my heart was beating out of my chest because I was so excited.”

As a Taft student, Christopher went to The Met a dozen or so times each year—even more as a student and opera critic for his campus newspaper at Columbia University. Browner was a music major, and directed operas with student groups. He apprenticed with the Santa Fe Opera, studied Italian, and visited the great opera houses across Europe. His work as a senior editor at The Met is the culmination of a lifetime spent pursuing his passion—one he is thrilled to share each year with audiences at Taft.

Performance photo and show notes courtesy metopera.org

Silverman Named Gold Key Award Honoree
Silverman Named Gold Key Award Honoree

Taft Girls' Varsity Hockey Coach and Olympic Gold Medal Winner Gretchen Ulion Silverman has been named a recipient of the prestigious Gold Key Award by the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance (CSWA).

Taft Girls' Varsity Hockey Coach and Olympic Gold Medal Winner Gretchen Ulion Silverman has been named a recipient of the prestigious Gold Key Award by the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance (CSWA). Silverman, along with four other members of the CSWA Gold Key Class of 2018, will be honored at the 77th annual Gold Key Dinner at the Aqua Turf Club in Southington on Sunday, April 29, 2018.

Silverman, then Gretchen Ulion, scored the first goal in the very first gold medal women's ice hockey game in history. Women's ice hockey became a medal sport at the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, where Silverman was part of the United States that upset Canada 3-1. She also tied the team lead in scoring during that Olympiad with eight points (three goals, five assists).

Silverman came to Taft in 2013, after an impressive academic and playing career. At Dartmouth College, she established school records in career goals (189) and points (312), and to date holds the top four single-season goal totals in Big Green history – 49 (1991 and 1994), 46 (1992) and 45 (1993). She was two-time Ivy League Player of the Year and league Rookie of the Year in 1990. Dartmouth won two Ivy League championships during her tenure there. She was a member of the U.S. women's national team from 1993 to 1998, which captured silver medals at the 1994 and 1997 World Championships, before bursting onto the world stage with the Olympic gold. The team was inducted into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame in 2009.

The inaugural Gold Key Dinner was held in 1940, with baseball legend Connie Mack and golf superstar Bobby Jones among the first recipients. Connecticut legends Joan Joyce, Carmen Cozza, Bill Rodgers, Gordie Howe, Marlon Starling, Geno Auriemma, Rebecca Lobo, and Brian Leetch are among the past Gold Key honorees.

(A complete list is available at www.ctsportswriters.com.)

Contact CSWA President Tim Jensen of Patch Media Corp, at tim.jensen@patch.com or 860-394-5091 for Gold Key Dinner tickets and information. Proceeds from the event benefit the Bo Kolinsky Journalism Scholarship, named after a longtime Hartford Courant sportswriter and past CSWA president who died unexpectedly in 2003.

Since 1939, members of the Connecticut Sports Writers' Alliance have been chronicling and sharing the exploits of Connecticut athletes with the citizens of the Nutmeg State. The Alliance began as a group of newspaper sportswriters but over the last 77 years, the Alliance has evolved to include sportswriters, television and radio broadcasters, photographers and online journalists. Our mission is to perpetuate the craft of sports journalism through our financial aid/scholarship program for high school seniors who intend to pursue a career in sports journalism while honoring those who have enriched the sports landscape in Connecticut. Proceeds from the Gold Key dinner help fund our scholarship program.

Content courtesy Patch.com