Is this genre a new part of the symphonic pops “long tail”?  It’s not Mahler, but it certainly can hold its own next to the decades-old Broadway/cabaret pops model.  It feels more complex and varied than most film music.  And it certainly has an audience.  (The male/female ratio is the largest I’ve seen all summer.  Yes, ladies, I know you’re out there.  But even you know you’re outnumbered.)

The whole atmosphere is a curious combination of the emotional landscape of movie music, the buzz of a rock event, the power and pomp of an orchestra concert, the audience spontaneity of jazz, and the cult of opera.

I’ll turn tomorrow’s NSO concert (Holst Planets with a new HD film!) over to colleage Rahree while I oversee Steve Blier’s dress rehearsal in preparation for Sunday’s Invitation to the Dance!  See you there.

On Sunday afternoon, we turned the theatre over to our studio singers, fellows and interns.  75 minutes of scenes from 7 operas in 4 languages were sung, played, supertitled, and stage-managed by folks whose average age couldn’t have topped 23.  The rest of us cheered, enjoyed, and did the best we could at house management.  Even a 3:10pm severe thunderstorm that wreaked havoc with the light board and supertitle projectors didn’t faze these folks.

It’s the first time we held this event (which itself is a mere 3 years old) at The Barns, our small-but-mighty mainstage.   It was an experiment that paid great dividends, and we will be seeking to replicate it and improve on it in future seasons.  I came away with lots of food for thought, some of which I didn’t bargain on.

I’ve been puzzling out the dramatically different vibe that was present in the house that afternoon. On one hand, it shouldn’t have been a surprise.  The audience comprised mostly friends/family of the performers and a wide range of Wolf Trap donors.  They were predisposed to wish us well.  Admission was free, which also doesn’t hurt the frame of mind.  I knew all of this, but the overwhelmingly relaxed, open, dare-I-say-happy groove that pervaded the afternoon was somehow shocking.

There are folks who do enjoy their time at the opera, no doubt, but at a typical show in a typical house, we don’t usually hear from them.  We are more aware of their discontent fellow patrons, with an inner monologue of…. this-better-be-worth-the-money… I-went-through-rush-hour-hell-to-get-here… I-don’t-like-my-seats… I-hate-this-director/conductor/singer.  You get the idea, and I’m sure you can fill in some of your own.

So why, for a program of scenes with no orchestra, no sets and no costumes, were people seemingly more willing to relax and try to have a good time?  Is it all about the free ticket? Is it about low expectations being exceeded?  Is it bundled up with a personal connection to the artists and/or the organization?  Is it that the ticketed performance is a business transaction with a complicated return-on-investment mindset?

I’ll never know, but it is my mission to bottle some of it and figure out how to embed it in every show we do.

This month’s Washingtonian magazine features a terrific article on Kenneth Kellogg, who grew up in D.C. and has returned home to make debuts at Wolf Trap Opera and Washington National Opera this season.

Click here to download the full article.

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

Click through to full list of cities and dates for this fall. 19 days in 8 cities.

First application deadline is September 24.

DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 24

• New York: October 25-30
• Philadelphia: October 31
• Vienna VA Option #1: November 2

DEADLINE: OCTOBER 1

• Cincinnati: November 5-6
• Los Angeles: November 8
• San Francisco: November 11

DEADLINE: OCTOBER 8

• Houston: November 13-15
• Chicago: November 20-21
• Vienna VA Option #2: November 22-23

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 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.