Long, long ago, right after undergraduate school, I worked as an opera stage manager.  And though it has been years since I’ve had to say, “No, no, please don’t show me your surgical wound,” in Italian to a tenor, those Technicolor experiences still call to me.

On April 4, The New York Times ran a brief story about a performance of Aida at the Pittsburgh Opera.  When the leading tenor, Vladimir Kuzmenko, became unwell before the curtain, the Pittsburgh company arranged to borrow a singer from New York City’s Metropolitan Opera.  Kuzmenko agreed to go on until the replacement singer arrived.  But by Act IV, he could no longer sing, and the replacement had not arrived. 

What to do? The artistic director asked conductor Antony Walker to sing the part from the orchestra pit, Kuzmenko mimed the role onstage, and the show went on.

Why am I telling this story on a School Library 2.0 blog? Because it reminds me that sometimes, our value as school librarians comes when we step outside of traditional expectations. 

As your district administrators move toward staffing decisions or budget cuts, how can you position yourself as the person who helps the show go on?  Are there old traditions (like the fact that the conductor never sings during a performance) that need to be jettisoned? New practices adopted? Â

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 13th, 2008 at 8:14 am and is filed under Role of the SLMS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.