(Business Wire) 11 July 2005

With 45 opera performances to choose from, announced today that its OperaOnline.us selection for the “Best of Everything in Opera” for the fiscal year 2004 -2005 opera season are now complete, and close in a matter weeks will be ready for unveiling in its September Internet publication “OperaOnline.us. “We have a few more operas to see before the season ended,” said OperaOnline.us’ owner, Paul Joseph Walkowski.

“This was a difficult year,” he said. “We had to make some tough decisions, but after months of wrestling with who is the highest honor awarded, we feel a present fairly credible and interesting line-up. If we develop in August, we have an exciting offer for our thousands of readers. “

This is the second year OperaOnline.us is to be announced awards for Best of Everything, and after its founder, interest seems to be just grows and grows. “We originally designed to make this article up for a month, but then found that by the end of the first month interest rates increased, so we wanted it left a second month, and visitors can see what we have said before, so we left it -.. a third month and on and on it went until we leave it on our front page for the entire season, it held one of the most visited areas of our Web site “

Under the idea from the Academy Awards, Walkowski readily admits that the selection is subjective and based on the reviews of two reviewers: himself, and Joseph Giannino, an opera fan who OperaOnline.us for contributions in DC Baltimore and Philadelphia. Walkowski reviews operas from New York to Maine. “It’s a long way,” says Walkowski “and a busy season., Especially since we wratcheted to the number of operas each year we”

Walkowski After he was asked to review and link to its site more operas than he can attend. “It’s not that I do not go there,” he said of the interest in companies is shown on his website have presented, “it is that I can not afford to make the trips. It is so easy.” Walkowski says he now help to find the company and / or commercial advertisers to cover the travel costs. Ring of the Nibelung “I regret very much that I go back verification Opera Theatre of Pittsburgh had” Walkowski said. ” We just do a feature on Jonathan Dove, the composer, Wagner condensced 19 hours in eleven, but the cost of the trip from Boston to Pittsburgh, while there was only a few hundred dollars too much for a small company like mine. “

While the Internet offers a “Global Forum”, and the OperaOnline.us website provides a central location for operas and singers to make up what is in the northeastern part of the United States (happening the site an average of 25 000 hits per month verified) , Walkowski says, he tries to remember that his trips are paid for out of pocket. “I need deeper pockets,” he says philosophically.

money crunch or not, he says his side did so last season’s 45 operas. “I want to add more operas,” he said, does not reduce “the number. And to do this and pay my authors a small fee for their efforts (OperaOnline.us also a writer, Stefan Hogan, who writes about the opera from Bratislava, Slovakia) takes about $ 5,000 per year. And that is what we sell a spot on this page. is the spot for the entire year. “

Until that patrons found Walkowski says he will continue as before and want as many operas as he can to accommodate the increasing demand of its features and reviews to meet on the site. “If we name all male of the best singers, the best stage designer, lighting designer best, best chorus, theater at best – and the” best of “much more, we draw the readers, singers, opera companies, directors and fans of the opera’s popularity. the site has increased my expectations. “

addition to opera reviews, OperaOnline.us also has an extensive archive of previous articles with conductors, singers and artistic and general directors. “We also do about three comments per month, have a large CD / DVD section and it updates daily as news reaches our desks that we think might interest readers,” he said.

seasrch no engine, Walkowski says, and give OperaOnline.us go in and “we are generally opens on the right top of the list.”

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