It sounded like such a good idea…. combine opera workshop and music theater workshop for a semester in order to mount a program where a number of important stories would be told with excerpts from both operatic and music theater settings: Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Cinderella” with Rossini’s opera “La Cenerentola” … Verdi’s “Aida” with Elton John’s “Aida” …. Puccini’s “La Boheme” with Larson’s “Rent” … and a couple of stories with with as many as four different stage versions from which to draw. There was an incredibly rich pool of possibilities, and although we knew it was going to be a lot of work, it also felt like the kind of program that would come together almost on its own, emerging out of this great idea like a seedling sprouting out of rich soil – almost inevitably.
I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my life!
I wasn’t wrong about the basic idea (which was not my idea, by the way) which really is exciting. But the part about the program coming together on its own? I’ve never been a bigger idiot! This proved to be one of those programs that was dragged kicking and screaming to the stage. What exactly to do? What not to do? Who should sing what? In what order should these things be sung? Do we make the opera kids sing music theater? The music theater kids sing opera? How could we help the students in each “camp” learn from the other? And there were three of us wrestling with these questions: Matt Boresi (the stage director of our operas), Lorian Schwaber (one of our voice teachers) and me. It’s amazing how much more complicated the planning and organizing phase is when it’s three people rather than two trying to put the thing together. We muscled through to the best of our ability, but it was a gestation that none of us are anxious to repeat.
But choosing and assigning repertoire wasn’t the half of it. Then it was a matter of getting everything taught and coached, and with over thirty students in the class, it became a supremely difficult challenge to know who to work with and for how long – and how carefully to plot out what other students would be doing on those days when they were not being coached. Do you assign them specific tasks- almost like homework- or leave it to their own sense of commitment to make progress on their own? And what could we do or say to help foster a deeper appreciation between the two groups for each other’s work? Granted, some of them have their feet decidedly in both camps… having sung in “Elixir of Love” in January but sliding over to the music theater side of things for this semester. But other students were and remain firmly anchored on their particular side of the “divide” and it was hard to know what to do with those students…. handcuff them to a chair and pour Grand Opera into their ears? Or Music Theater, depending on what their first love happened to be? I think Matt and Lorian and I hoped on some level for this experience to be one of rich cross- pollination. . . but at some point it became clear that this program was a 15-headed Hydra that was not going to be easily tamed, and thoughts of broadening people’s horizons gave way to a desperate race to just get everything put together and presentable to the public. And along the way, more than a few of the students began to wonder just where all this was headed . . . to glory? or to an ignoble plunge off of a cliff?
Given all that, what transpired last Friday evening in Siebert Chapel was almost miraculous. It turned out to be a wide-ranging and entertaining journey through some famous stories as told both in operatic and musical theater terms. The audience heard excerpts from Cinderella/ La Cenerentola …. La Boheme/ Rent …. Romeo & Juliet/ I Capuleti e i Montecchi/ West Side Story/ Me & Juliet …. Madame Butterfly/ Madame Chrysanthemum/ Miss Saigon …. Falstaff / The Merry Wives of WIndsor …. and opera and musical theater versions of Little Women. There was also a prologue in which the audience heard a monologue from Nash’s “The Rainmaker” and then that very same moment (and some of the very same words) as they’re found in the musical “110 in the Shade.” That was a way to remind the audience right off the bat of the special magic when great words are wed to great music. The program turned out to be a mixed bag, ranging from stirring successes to near-misses— but there’s no question that everyone made huge strides over the last couple of weeks, to an extent that, frankly, exceeded my expectations.
If anything embodied our highest hopes for the class, it was the opening number. . . a mash-up of two songs from the musical Kiss me Kate – “Another Openin’, Another Show” and “We Open in Venice.” The musical theater kids did the first song, tearing into it with wonderful gusto – at which point, they were interrupted by the more proper-looking opera kids, singing the second song with very cultured vocal tone and movement. And then, we plastered the two songs together (something that does not happen in Kiss me Kate) and it was dynamite! There in a nutshell was the fun and pizazz of music theater and the impressive grandeur of opera – happily meshing … which led in turn into the rest of the program, with yours truly at the piano.
The final portion of the program was a medley drawn from both the operatic setting and the musical setting of Little Women …. a beloved classic if there ever was one. And as we neared the end of that set, there were tears streaming down my cheeks – in part because of the moving performance of our singers in what is such a tender tale – and also because I’ve never been more exhausted, emotionally and physically, or more profoundly relieved that something was over. And as all of the singers ran to the stage to sing a reprise of “Another Opening/ We Open in Venice,” I literally could not see a thing because of the tears in my eyes and played that last sixty seconds of music by heart. But they weren’t just tears of exhaustion and relief. As I (sort of) saw those smiling faces of those thirty-plus singers, giving their all for that roof-rattling finale, I was feeling overjoyed that life yields us some of our richest pleasures- and most valuable lessons- when we least expect them.
pictured above: Max Dinan and Alicia Petzholdt, in the midst of one of their first staging rehearsals. They sang together in duets from both Bernstein’s West Side Story and Gounod’s Romeo and Juliette.