Wolf Trap Opera

I don’t know if I’ve ever been the onstage recipient of the kind of audience response that greeted last night’s Bastianello & Lucrezia performances.  We who toil in the fields of “classical” music often go through entire evenings onstage wondering if anyone in the audience is really with us.  Of course, we sometimes find out later, much to our relief, that we weren’t alone in our journeys; it’s just that you can’t always tell the difference between a silence that is only respectful and tolerating and one that is deep inside the music.

I’d like to believe that we can feel the energy and empathy of an audience that is silently involved, but in my experience, the performer’s sense of listeners’ receptiveness has more to do with his or her own confidence and openness on any given day.  I could happily be wrong on this.

But comedy… well, you get feedback on it pretty immediately.  Failure is pretty obvious, and success is audible.

I’ve rarely heard an audience enjoy itself as much as the folks did Friday night at The Barns.  And once you take into account that about half the them were chamber music series subscribers (not known for demonstrative behavior:)), and the others were vocal music and opera devotees, you might appreciate the astonishment we felt onstage when they were with us every second of the way.  Including what felt like a collective holding of breath when the story turned serious.

It was a fairly reckless thing we did, wedging a semi-staged opera into the calendar and budgetary confines of a chamber music series, and there are many people to thank.  Including the Boss, who gave this reach a vote of confidence; Rahree (whose exhausting day is recounted here); SSW and her volunteers (who churned out libretti); guest of honor librettist Mark Campbell (who regaled a capacity preshow talk crowd); and a not-to-be-taken-for-granted outpouring of hard work, good will, and positive energy by our 5 cast members, guest pianist and director.

More details will follow on your chance to see these performances online, no matter where you are.  The inaugural event in Discovery Goes Digital will feature video streaming of B&L on May 24.

Meantime, I am toast.  My ability to churn out many back-to-back long days of multi-tasking is lacking.  I will disappear until mid-April, when the blog will return in its robust production season mode.  Lots of exciting stuff on the docket for May through August, and all the more reason to go into it with a full tank.

See you soon.

Bastianello and Lucrezia both have their Wolf Trap premieres tomorrow night.  Here, a few moments from today’s dress rehearsal.

Family portrait

You're born, go through life, fall apart .... and then wake up dead.

Utterly pantsless

Heads, legs, tails, head

An admirer... somewhat young.... that would be a pleasant change!

Doktor Hermann

Once she downs the potent potion...

Nothing to dread

He sayeth "It is OKayeth"

A wandering fool am I

Never let it be said...

Bastianello photos credit Christina Schnoor

Lucrezia photos credit Lee Anne Myslewski

Thanks, ladies!

I was looking forward to this week’s Bastianello & Lucrezia rehearsals so that I could report from the front lines.  It was clearly delusional thinking, for the last 6 days have left no time at all for writing.

As one can only do in a small company (and I know that many of you out there see yourselves in this…), I have been playing the piano, compiling the program, shopping for props, pulling costume pieces, moving furniture, taking blocking, spiking the floor and doing the daily schedule.  In the meantime, Rahree is holding down the fort in the office, trying to advance the 2010 summer operas (which begin rehearsal in 8 weeks), processing contracts, coordinating the videotaping of this Friday’s performances (for future internet broadcast) and putting things in motion for our upcoming workshop of The Inspector; and SSW is furiously xeroxing librettos and match-making artists and homestay housing placements.

All of this is sufficient to keep me plenty humble in the face of my 15 minutes of fame, which played out a few days ago.  I was interviewed for the Washington Post Sunday magazine’s “First Person Singular” column, and the article ran this past weekend. It’s scary doing an hour-long interview for a piece that you know is capped at 400 words, for no matter how careful you are, it’s too easy to spit out combinations of 400 words that would read spectacularly badly out of context.  No worries, for Amanda Long did a nice job with the piece, and even if I sound like a bit of an opera iconoclast, it’s not too far from the truth.

Even though it’s for a good cause, raising the profile of the WTOC, this visibility makes me more than a little uncomfortable.  (Actually, it’s mostly the pictures, of which I’m mortified.  I harbor a near neurosis about seeing photos of myself.)  But it has netted a few fun moments – the 4-year-old at church who asked for my autograph, the neighbors who tweeted the article, and the fact that my son posted it proudly on his Facebook wall.

So it’s back to the rehearsal room for some more Musto, Bolcom & Campbell.  I continue to adore these comic opera gems, and the artists who are performing this weekend have done astonishing work and preparation.  I intend to keep just enough energy and focus in reserve so that I can lose myself in what I know will be a truly enjoyable night in the theatre.

Friday at 8.

Be there.

As in, Saturday, March 13.

Start here: www.wolftrap.org/wtoc

The 2010 internship applicant pool is deep.  Fathoms upon fathoms of highly qualified, ambitious, smart, personable young people.  I would not have been the least bit competitive with these folks when I was in my early 20’s.  By these standards, I was a complete slacker and nonstarter.

This embarrassment of riches undoubtedly says something about the sad dearth of job opportunities, and it means that some folks who shouldn’t be shut out will not receive the offers they deserve.  And we are in the position – seemingly enviable, but not entirely so – of having to choose.

So, we have a plan.

You know how Wolf Trap Opera makes a unique contribution by choosing the best emerging professional singers and giving them an unparalleled chance to be the stars of the show?  A Filene Young Artist residency means no understudying, covering, or singing in the chorus for a summer.  Well, why not do the same for our rock star roster of internship candidates?

Rahree and I would just take a little unpaid vacation this summer, enabling the organization to bankroll hiring all qualified interns.  Then we’ll turn over complete operation of the opera company to these amazing young people.  No more sitting in a cubicle taking orders from professionals or hovering behind the tables in the rehearsal room waiting for instructions – our interns can run the whole show!

We will sit on Rahree’s front porch (just a few miles away), like yogis on the mountaintop.  And whenever this brave new world of arts admin hits the skids, we’ll be there, mint juleps in hand, to dispense advice and wisdom.

It’s a beautiful tie-in to the WTOC mission, don’t you think?  Not to mention that, as a National Park, Wolf Trap is well accustomed to the process of natural selection and survival of the fittest… and this would give us a perfect arena in which to allow the strongest of the next generation of arts leaders to emerge.  We could shop the whole thing to the Survivor franchise – tribes and alliances and all.

We are so happy about this brilliant new initiative and can’t wait to blog about it from the porch!

Kim

PS – Just. Kidding.

PPS – Wish. I. Weren’t.

I’m spending most of the week translating the Zaide dialogue, revisiting what has become a familiar 3-pronged approach.

1. What Does It Mean?

Accuracy first, of course.  For this phase, my Berlin Correspondent is invaluable.  I crash through the text, dispatching a chunk of it fairly easily, churning out multiple options for other sections, then getting hopelessly shipwrecked on a handful of idioms and maddening syntax puzzles.  Thank heaven I can send German gibberish across the ocean at night and have it land in my InBox the next morning, sparkling and clean.

2. Would S/he Really Say That?

Of course, figuring out what the words and phrases mean is only the first step.  They have to come convincingly out of the mouths of actors.  The English needs to flow in a fashion similar to the way the vernacular German text would have for Mozart’s audience hundreds of years ago.  The characters need to have their own voices, with word choice and syntax consistent with their place in the society of the story.

And finally,

3. Would I Understand That if I Heard It?

It’s all for naught if the correct translation delivered in a distinctive voice doesn’t make sense in real time to the audience.  It doesn’t matter if it looks good on the page – it must tell the story in a way that doesn’t require the audience to work too hard.

And of course, none of this is linear.  Sometimes, in pursuit of #3, #1 gets lost, and you have to work your way backward to the beginning again.  And yet time marches on and deadlines loom..

I’ve lately been  considering putting the second half of my general job description in quotes.  As in Arts “Management”.  It’s not that the verb “manage” feels like an overstatement, it just never seems to begin to describe this amazing dance that we do.

I was pleased to read this recent post on Bob Sutton’s Work Matters blog: From Chaos Comes Creativity, from Order Comes Profit. The key phrase: “…the messiness and failure required to generate a new idea needs to be shut off as you move into the implementation phase, where more control and order are required.” Somehow, viewing “management” as the act of defining this transition point – and giving the activities on either side of it the room they need to flourish – well, that brought new clarity.

On the “chaos” side of the hill, we must strive to keep the conversation loose, to facilitate a huge quantity of crazy ideas so that the truly great ones can emerge, to see the exhausting and challenging aspects of the artistic personality as completely bound up with the creativity that we so desperately seek.

On the “order” side, we must seek to endorse chosen ideas while not completely invalidating others, to nurture the spirit of creativity while finding that place where it can truly flourish, and to sustain hours and days of spreadsheets, emails and reports.

All of this soul-searching took me, as many good things often do, to Merriam-Webster.  Italics mine.

1 : to handle or direct with a degree of skill: as a : to make and keep compliant [good luck with that... let me know how compliance works for you...] b : to treat with care [this I can do] c : to exercise executive, administrative, and supervisory direction of [really? a string of 3 adjectives that make me laugh]
2 : to work upon or try to alter for a purpose [once the purpose is properly defined, I'm all about this one]
3 : to succeed in accomplishing [from your mouth to God's ears]

Now back to translating Zaide.  Nur mutig, mein Herze, versuche dein Glück!