The Wolf Trap Opera Studio takes the stage of The Barns tomorrow for scenes from The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Barber of Seville, Turando, Love for Three Oranges, The Daughter of the Regiment, Iphigenie en Tauride, and West Side Story!
(Photos from Friday’s dress rehearsal)
FUSION (noun): a merging of diverse, distinct, or separate elements into a unified whole
Etymology: from fusus, pp. of fundere “pour, melt”
Thursday was all about melding music and visual art. Melting the colors in the art until they became harmonies, words, and melodies. Pouring the music back into the paintings until they became wholly new.
A midday concert at Wolf Trap was followed by an evening of music and art at The Phillips Collection in downtown D.C. Four singers and two pianists presented a concert of songs inspired by paintings in the collection, and the audience was able to view a projection of each painting during the performance of its paired song.
I have a seriously underdeveloped visual sense, and it is my ongoing challenge in the opera business (the most multi-media of all genres) to amp up my ability to see. For that reason, these Vocal Colors recitals have a strong, peculiar attraction for me. Sadly, I missed both of Thursday’s events, as my job description for the day kept me at the Filene Center for Joshua Bell’s performance with the NSO. But I was there in spirit, and I’m looking forward to the chance to see the video recording of the evening concert. Bravi to Eve, Kenneth, Ashlyn, Ryan, Michael & Jeremy, and to the other Ryan for making it all happen, with appreciation to The Phillips Collection for this wonderful partnership.
Photos by Eric Melear
Of course
This fall’s audition tour dates and locations have been determined. The online application and other details will be available by August 10, but here are the dates and deadlines for planning purposes. All sites and dates are options for Filene Young Artist and Studio Artist auditions, as well as Fellowship interviews.
DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 24
DEADLINE: OCTOBER 1
DEADLINE: OCTOBER 8
The process of preparing an opera is largely additive.
Learn the role inside-out, annotate and memorize. Then show up for rehearsal. Add blocking, props, costumes, sets, orchestra. Amplify and enhance until the glorious whole is bigger than the sum of its many complicated parts.
Present to an audience primed for being transported out and away from themselves into another place and time.
The process of preparing one of Steve Blier’s concerts is somewhat surprisingly and curiously reductive.
It’s not that inhabiting these songs doesn’t require an accumulation of knowledge – for there’s an important preparatory gathering of language, subtext, context, style and musical elements. But the recipe for the intensive week of rehearsal that immediately precedes these events is more about uncovering than it is about augmenting.
Take one singularly dedicated, inspiring, and seasoned musician and a handful of singers curious to know more about themselves, the music, and the world.
Throw away old habits. Dismiss all preconceptions. Banish timidity. Fend off bias and easy categorization. Deflect those judgmental voices in your head. Strip away anything but the raw anger/love/glee/sex/whimsy/yearning in the songs.
Jettison fear.
Sweep it all away until all that’s left is your heart, your voice, the words and the music.
Present it to people who want to travel inside themselves.
Walk taller and stronger on the other side of it, and accept the appreciation of those of us who went along.
Thank you.
[Latin Days, American Nights photos by Eric Melear]
David Portillo & Ashlyn Rust with the NSO
Well, actually, it was David & Ashlyn and Nathaniel & Hana who got to spend last evening with the amazing National Symphony Orchestra, bringing bits and pieces of the Romeo and Juliet musical legend to the stage. To the approximately-115-degree stage of the Filene Center. But even the current heat wave didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the crowd or take the edge off last evening’s performances.
Nathaniel Peake sings "Ah, leve-toi, soleil"
The NSO players and conductor Emil de Cou were all so gracious to our young artists, and the singers were predictably thrilled to have this opportunity. This was our only presence at the amphitheater this summer (for all three of our staged operas are indoors at The Barns), and we were grateful for this chance to put our singers on the Filene Center stage. They did us all proud.
Hana Park sings Juliette's Waltz
Kudos also go to Studio Artists Claudia Rosenthal & Rafael Moras, who entertained the preshow Chairman’s Dinner crowd, and to FYA (and former Studio Artist) Catherine Martin, who spoke so eloquently and charmingly about her Wolf Trap journey.
How lucky I am to be surrounded by all of these people and their equally generous and talented colleagues!
[Photos by the multi-faceted and ever-awesome Eric Melear]
I’m a mother. Of two grown children. And although I work consciously to keep that part of my identity separate from my work, there is the inevitable overlap.
I unfortunately have little patience for educators/administrators/mentors who take their roles to a maternal (or paternal) extreme, treating students and other younger people on their watch as they would children. Descriptive copy about the WTOC and my role often includes the “nurture” word, and although it’s strictly true, it makes me a little queasy. What we do, when we are at our best, is create environments in which people can flourish. It’s less about tending to them than it is about managing the noise around them.
Nevertheless, the mother in me comes screaming out with every new opera we undertake. Each one starts from just a glimmer and then rushes headlong from infancy to independence. And when it takes the stage, completely full-grown and out of my hands, I allow myself probably too much parental pride. It’s mixed in with full knowledge of the unfinished business, warts, and other imperfections that are always part of art and part of life. But the pride is born of seeing how far we can go in a short time, and how we can all make an amazing whole that is so much bigger that the sum of our individual parts.
My two first children of summer 2010 couldn’t have been more dissimilar. And as parents will tell you (and it’s true, but hard to believe), I loved them absolutely equally.
Zaide was the dark, complicated child. Brooding, intellectual, troubled, but not without hope and humor. She won the imaginations of many and troubled the hearts of a few. Her focus was a bit more honed than her brother’s, as her singers were fewer in number (9), and I was far less distracted during her development. (Isn’t it always that way with the first child?) She was a rebel, but her intentions were so clear and her motivations so laudable that it was easy to forgive her anything. I was proud of her unswerving nature and her belief in the universality of love and the power of music.
Turco was the sunny middle child. Dressed in bright primary colors and always looking for new ways to please. Full of incredibly endless energy, always with a new silly joke to tell. Far busier than his sister, with 19 singers on his stage, he often left me breathless. He didn’t get as much single-minded devotion, as other demands competed for my attention as he was coming into focus. But he didn’t seem to mind, taking wings as effortlessly as anyone could imagine. People sometimes thought he wasn’t serious enough, but I adored how he could take our troubles away every time he was in the room.
The third child has yet to be born, but the due date is upon us, and we’ll learn more about him or her quite soon. I have a feeling s/he will be a marvelous mixture of the first two.
The analogy may already be tired, but I’ll take it one more step, offering up these images of Zaide and Turco - for no mother worth her salt passes up an opportunity to show off some photos.
Prepare preshow talk for Turk… manage last-minute ticket requests for sold-out shows… plan to write a blog post… kick off the Vocal Colors recital series… get ready for first Blier residency… think about writing a blog post… set up rehearsals for concert with NSO this Friday… gather notes for meeting with Midsummer Night’s Dream stage management team… make Inspector premiere plans with Foundation colleagues… feel guilty about ignoring the blog… go to Castleton Festival on day off… finalize audition tour cities for the fall… sit on the balcony stairs during Turk matinee and write this blog “post.” (Back soon with actual content:))
Part Two of Anne Midgette’s survey of new American opera ran in the Post yesterday, and we got some nice ink for our recent and future commissioning activity. (Do click through – it’s a good read.)
Part One ran last Sunday, on the day of our WTOC Artist Welcome Reception, and quite a few donors made a point of telling us how disappointed they were about the fact that we received no mention in an article about new opera. We advised patience, and indeed, in Part Two, there is prominent mention of both Volpone and The Inspector.
My only displeasure came from what must have been a serious lapse in use of the English language during my interview. I resorted to the one thing about which I spent years haranguing my own children: the “L” word. Says I about working in a thrifty organization that isn’t too dependent on big money and lavish gifts from outside funding sources, “…when you see things go south, you’re like, ‘I’m glad I wasn’t relying on it.”
“You’re like…” Really, Kim? Blrgh. You get the gist, though.
Hurrah for new music theatre that retains the best of the bountiful opera tradition that precedes it, that entertains and intrigues the audience, and that doesn’t require so much money that it collapses in on itself.
We’re spending Independence Day weekend in our own Italian piazza, with the quirky denizens of Rossini’s Turk in Italy. It’s not exactly barbecues and fireworks, but it has its own charm.
In the spirit of the holiday weekend, some irreverent Turk pseudo-facts and observations:
“I’m thinking about hanging out next to the docks in my sunglasses. A boat from Turkey? Oh, let’s see who it is.” (Plot summary according to the ladies’ man and “pool boy” Narciso.)
“There’s gonna be a lot of sunglass acting in this show.” (Conductor Eric Melear)
How many notes are too many notes? Well, according to my highly scientific Saturday-night-middle-of-technical-rehearsal math, there are approximately 24,200 notes in this opera. (For the higher level math required to reach this conclusion, see *footnote.)
“It’s my Rossinian reality show.” (Says the puppet-master Poet)
“An inspiration for my character? Samantha Jones in Sex and the City.“ (Any guesses?)
“Don Geronio has social anxiety disorder.” (Probably to be expected of a husband who’s as browbeaten as he is…)
Rossini’s music? Well, it’s “rhythmic vitality underneath and lyric beauty above” accord to Maestro Melear. And from the soprano’s perspective? It’s “vocal bling.” (Sorry, Fiorilla. You’re a far more serious artist than this would indicate, but it’s a description that has legs. Love it:))
Final room run-through for Turk in Italy tonight. Into the theatre tomorrow. And since I am too scattered to string together actual words (largely because we’re trying to put the finishing touches on the 2011 season audition schedule and because Rahree and I wrestled the first draft of the 2011 budget to the ground!), it’s the perfect opportunity for a photo post.
The Turk
The Boyfriend
The Husband
Fiorilla
The Poet Puppetmaster
The Maestro
The Gypsy Girls
Plot Twist
Cat Fight!
Photo in the Piazza
The Turk in Italy. Martinis, infidelity, fortune-telling, and vocal bling under the Neapolitan sun. July 9, 11 & 13.
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