May 2008

James Hoge

Sunday, May 04, 2008

James Hoge hit the nation’s capitol as a cub reporter in 1958 and stayed three decades as a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times – rising to become the paper’s Editor and Publisher. Then he came to New York in 1984 to become the Publisher and President of the Daily News -- and since 1992 he has served as Editor of /Foreign Affairs/ magazine with a global circulation of about 165,000. It is not an exaggeration to say that /Foreign Affairs/ is the most widely read and surely the most influential publication covering the explosive international issues of the day.

In this wide ranging interview with host Gilbert Kaplan, Hoge selects operas guaranteed to provide a thrilling first encounter for a teenager (unlike his first which was with the daunting Wagner’s/Parsifal/); reveals music that could be a soundtrack for his first meeting with his future wife; his memory of singing as a boy chorister on Carnegie Hall’s stage; and why after giving up on piano studies as a teenager he now plans to study the guitar (so he can play together with his 10-year-old son). He even discusses opera roles that best portray Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain.