Mounting a full-fledged, full-length opera is an incredible challenge in every way you can imagine, and especially when the time between first rehearsal and first performance is one month. But that’s exactly the insane scenario facing us with “Elixir of Love.” We began on January 8th- and the first of our two performances is February 8th. That could easily be a recipe for catastrophe, were it not for a cast of singers both greatly gifted and firmly committed to the task at hand – plus a stage director like Matt Boresi, who has an amazing gift for making such an undertaking feel like a exhilarating adventure while keeping meticulous track of where we have to go and how we can get there.
One thing that has made this production exceptionally exciting – but also more challenging – is that we have double cast almost all of the major roles. We did that for no other reason than because we had so many incredible singers audition for us and only so many roles available, and to have told any of them “thanks, but not this time” would have felt like an absolute crime. So on Friday the 8th, Max Dinan, Megan Mehl, John Kryl and Rae Pare will take the roles of Nemorino, Adina, Belcore and Giannetta- and on the 9th, those roles will be handed off to Nick Huff, Amanda Digrindakis, Mike Anderle and Maura Atwood. And on the night when each quartet does not have the leads, they are part of the ensemble.
I have been teaching at Carthage since 1991, and to the best of my recollection, the only time before this that an opera role has been double cast was Dr. Sjoerdsma’s final production at Carthage, Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, in which the role of Prince Orlofsky was shared by Jennifer Cobb and Krystyn Taggart, to delicious effect. Otherwise, every opera production at Carthage since I’ve been around has involved the standard practice of one singer per role. That’s also how it’s been at the Racine Theater Guild, where I have been the music director for most of their musicals over the past decade. (We’ve been tempted more than once when confronted with a really difficult choice between two or more supremely deserving people contenders for one role- but have always managed to make a tough choice.) But with Elixir of Love, stage director Matt Boresi and I were very much in accord that the quality of singers we heard in auditions all but necessitated that we double cast the leading roles. It was a far cry from days gone by when we felt stretched just to cast an opera once over, let alone twice over! As problems go, having “too many” fine singers is a wonderful problem with which to contend!
And I for one am SO glad that we did the double casting thing, because it has immeasurably enriched the experience of everyone. In the case of our Nemorinos and Adinas, it has probably been something of a lifesaver to have another singer to pick up some of the burden and gave each of them the occasional day off from the rigors of their major role. The role of Nemorino involves almost an hour’s worth of singing – which makes it a long, taxing role. And while Adina does not have quite that much singing, she probably has some of the most difficult music in the whole score. I am sure that both Megan & Amanda and Nick & Max have been very grateful not to be shouldering their respective roles by themselves – especially in the last week when they would alternate acts (one singing act one, then switching for act two) or the last two days of rehearsal, when one cast sang one day and then gave way to their counterparts for the next. Either way, it gave each of them a couple of helpful breaks just when they were starting to feel rather exhausted.
But it goes so much farther than “sharing a burden.” It has also been so exciting and illuminating to see how different singers bring their own unique gifts as well as the sum of their own experience and study to a given role. For instance, with our two tenors we see two utterly distinct yet altogether wonderful takes on the role of Nemorino. Nick Huff comes to the task very much an “opera guy,” with a gorgeous voice and elegant style that is unquestionably made for the opera stage; he loves opera and is soaking up as much of it as he possibly can. (He already knows MUCH more than I did about opera when I was his age.) Max Dinan, by contrast, has never sung in an opera before but has played a host of leading roles in musicals and brings to this role an astonishing wealth of stage experience as well as some superb instincts for the theatrical side of things. But don’t misunderstand: Nick has some fine talent as an actor and theatrically has grown by leaps and bounds just in the course of the past month. And although Max may be more used to using his voice for Sondheim and Andrew Lloyd Webber, he is singing up a storm in this taxing role. I am tremendously proud of both of these young men and so glad that they both have the opportunity to devote themselves and their talents to this. I think they’ve both grown in amazing ways, artistically and vocally. Likewise, Megan Mehl and Amanda Digrindakis have done such fine work as Adina, a role which can be played very perky and light or with a much deeper, darker cast to her personality. And as I said before, Adina has to deliver some of the most fiendishly difficult passages in the whole score. It is very fun and intriguing to see what Amanda and Megan are doing with this role and its many challenges.
Then there is Belcore, the brash, charismatic army sergeant at whose feet most women swoon whether they want to or not. Our two Belcores, Mike Anderle and John Kryl, bring sharply contrasting personalities to the role but each works well – and I think there is just the right sort of healthy and friendly rivalry between Mike and John that is bringing out the best in them. I think some of the biggest thrills will be coming from Belcore. And I am delighted by Rae Pare and Maura Atwood, our two Giannettas, who also have demonstrated how nicely this double casting business can and should be. Maura is very talented but quite young and inexperienced- but she has come ready to work and to learn. And in Rae she could not have a more supportive colleague, whose exceptionally strong skills for the stage have been a great example not only for Maura but really for the whole cast.
So how does one rehearse two performers for every lead role? Very carefully, I suppose the answer might be. Matt ended up doing it a couple of different ways- often with both singers onstage, essentially working right next to each other, but also in more parallel fashion in which one set of leads would be on the set and the other would be mirroring their every move in the space immediately behind the set. And of course, what has also been helpful and fun is in how these various singers will struggle with different things- what might come very naturally to one singer might be a source of frustration and consternation for the other. And one singer might ask very different questions than their counterpart does- or be more meticulous and calculated while their counterpart might be much looser and freer. And in one more layer of complication, I decided that our leads could choose to sing certain passages in the original Italian if they were do inclined- and I also said that those choices did not need to be consistent. So for instance, Nick is choosing to sing a couple of things in Italian that Max is opting to sing in English. I thought that kind of variation would give me a bit of a headache, but I actually like it a lot- and I’m hoping that some people will come to both performances in other to experience that variation and other differences as well between the two casts.
In addition to the double casting in the lead roles, we also did something unconventional with the role of Doctor Dulcamara, the fast-talking salesman who comes to the village peddling his “magic elixir.” It’s a tricky role, in more ways than one- and at some point we decided that the role would be split between the original character and another character we created out of thin air- the doctor’s lovely and quick-witted assistant. And by doing this, we were able to offer a major role to a fine young mezzo, Stephanie Mikuzis, who otherwise would not have had a significant part in this opera. In pairing Stephanie with her good friend Steve Hobe, Matt and I were seeking to recreate the wonderful work which they did together as Ko-Ko and Katisha in our recent Gilbert and Sullivan gala. The first trick was to split the role of Dulcamara between them – except for a few passages when it made sense for the two of them to sing together. And therein was the second trick- composing harmony for them to sing rather than settling for straight unison, which would have been unbearably boring. The result essentially changes Dulcamara’s aria into a duet, and his two duets (one with Adina, one with Nemorino) into trios. It might seem like an audacious thing to do, but we did it anyway and I’m so glad we did.
Of course, we could not do Elixir without a chorus- and Matt and I could not be more delighted with the men and women of our ensemble. They have grabbed hold of their roles with tremendous gusto and with nothing less than 100% investment. And I think it’s safe to say that they have contributed in an invaluable way to the success of our leads.
Are we home free? Not by a long shot. The last day of J-Term was this past Thursday, and classes don’t resume until Wednesday. That means there’s quite a break with all kinds of time to forget music, words, blocking, you name it! But my hope is that in between the Super Bowl and getting a haircut and sleeping until noon, I trust that our singers have done at least a little bit of glancing at their scores and done a bit of reviewing of their blocking. . . because before they know it, we will be staring at Friday and Saturday, February 8th and 9th, when Elixir stops being about “coming up soon” and instead becomes “here we go! ready or not!” But I am almost completely certain that we will be ready – and I can’t help but believe that this crazy, exciting business of double casting has been beneficial for everyone involved. After all, life is always better when one learns how to share!
pictured above: Stage director Matt Boresi works with (left to right) Nick Huff and Max Dinan (our Nemorinos), John Kryl and Mike Anderle (our Belcores) and Amanda Digrindakis and Megan Mehl (our Adinas.)
Performances of “Elixir of Love” are Friday, Feb. 8th (Dinan, Mehl, Kryl, Pare) and Saturday, Feb. 9th (Huff, Digrindakis, Anderle, Atwood) . . 7:30 p.m. . . . . in Siebert Chapel. Admission is free. Please come if you can.