James Jorden, who died earlier this week at 69, is almost certainly one of the most influential people in my life who I never met. In 1994, frustrated with his own floundering career as a stage director, and by the sorry state of both opera writing (overly academic guff or reformatted press releases) and opera performance (snoozy, billionaire-funded walkthroughs of works that should be gutsy and bloody and bold), he started making a DIY zine called Parterre Box and distributing it at Tower Records and gonzo-style in the cruisy bathrooms of the Metropolitan Opera. Eventually the site moved online, where he broke stories and posted blind items as his drag persona La Cieca, and fostered a community where three generations of opera queens learned our aesthetic values and affective approach. As the site grew, Jorden kept taking chances on new writers and ideas, and gave older ones—like the feisty and impossible, but also impossibly-knowledgeable Albert Innaurato—chances to share what they knew with the youngsters.
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