There was a fire last night at Carthage.
Sort of.
What I really mean to say is that some young musicians were ON FIRE last night in the second performance of our fall opera workshop, devoted to composer Gian Carlo Menotti. The first performance, Saturday afternoon, was impressive but in a rather tense, “whew, we made it!” sort of way. I was proud of everyone, especially considering how little time we’d had to put this together. . . but hoped that Sunday’s repeat would be a little more solid and a little less scary.
Oh my gosh! Instead of being a little better, it was ten times better – and I’m not exaggerating. First of all, there was a great electricity in the air before a single note had been sung, thanks to a big audience that seemed especially excited to be there. And from there, it felt like everything our singers did filled that room with still more energy, and they just built on each other’s excellence all night long. And as the pianist, I was so privileged to be on that stage, sharing in the excitement.
So this was the performance by the young men and women who have been in the opera section of Music Theater Workshop, which is team-taught by yours truly and an amazing guy by the name of Matt Boresi. (I’m the music guy, while Matt is the staging guy, although I do occasionally stick my nose into his side of the business, which he never seems to mind.) Our students were an interesting mix of opera veterans and newcomers, and ranged in age from a freshman to a super senior – but what they all had in common was eagerness to learn and openness to what Matt and I wanted to do with them. The toughest part was in getting some of them to simply let go of their inhibitions- especially those who have been pretty much anchored in music and have not done much theater. As Matt put it, theatre students spend plenty of time in theatrical games rolling around on the floor and pretending they’re barnyard animals – and before long, nothing scares them (onstage, at least.) But singers without that kind of background can literally be scared of raising their arms and making a powerful gesture- and it was our job to try and nudge them out of their safety zone. And it has been gratifying – and downright fun – to see at least some of those inhibitions put to rest.
So we decided to make the fall workshop all about Gian Carlo Menotti, the composer of such amazing operas as Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Medium, The Telephone, and The Consul. One half of the evening would be a complete performance of a quirky opera called “The Old Maid and the Thief” which Menotti wrote for the radio in 1939. The remainder of the evening would be devoted to arias and duets from other Menotti operas. With one exception, everything on this program was in English – but that was the only “easy” thing about it. Otherwise, we’re talking about complex modern music and thorny theatrical challenges – and not all that much time to get it all mastered, which is what made last night’s successful performance so thrilling for us.
We started the evening with an excerpt from the final duet of Menotti’s The Telephone, in which a guy grows increasingly frustrated with the woman to whom he wants to propose marriage- because every time he’s about to pop the question, her phone rings- and she’s off on another long phone conversation. (This opera was written about sixty years ago, but it sure seems like a prescient commentary on our modern world and the way in which we often lose ourselves in our devices and lose all contact with the person right next to us.) Senior Kim Deal and freshman Fletcher Paulsen did a fine job and this got things off to a fun start. Next, Rachel Lee sang an exquisite, sad aria – Must the Winter Come So Soon? – from the opera Vanessa, for which Menotti wrote the libretto to a musical score by his partner, Samuel Barber. After that, Kim had to switch gears a bit and portray the crippled boy Amahl, opposite Katie Schmidt as his mother. We had them sing a portion of the duet where Amahl is first telling his mom about an amazing star up in the sky – which is of course the star over Bethlehem – but she is not about to believe what she assumes is his latest tall tale. After that, Fletcher returned to sing one of my favorite Menotti arias – “Amelia cara” – from an early opera composed in Italian and which calls for the flowing, beautiful singing that Fletcher is already capable of. We finished up with two arias from Menotti’s Pulitzer Prize-winning opera The Consul, in which Magda Sorel, the wife of a political dissident, is desperately trying to get her visa processed which will allow her to leave the country and be reunited with her husband – but she runs into one brick wall after another. We first heard Rachel sing the lullaby that is sung by Magda’s mother-in-law to her seriously ill baby grandson – and you could hear a pin drop in the recital hall; Rachel could not have been more moving. After that came Katie with “To This We’ve Come,” in which Magda’s frustration and anguish finally explodes out of her in what some people regard as the finest opera aria in the English language. Katie delivered a performance that was searing and heartbreaking and downright inspiring.
The second half was “The Old Maid and the Thief,” which was actually directed by a gifted senior, David Duncan, who is one of my voice students – but is also a theater major. This was one of his senior projects, and both Matt and I were tremendously impressed by David’s work. The opera is about an old maid, Miss Todd, and her young maid Laetitia – and the handsome stranger who shows up on their doorstep one evening. I don’t know how to say anything further about the story without getting in way too deep, so I’ll simply say that things get VERY complicated for all concerned. The cast was comprised of four very talented singers. The smallest role, that of the gossipy neighbor Miss Pinkerton, is actually very tricky and taxing – and we were so fortunate to have Julia Stampfl, a fine singer and actress, in that role. The role of Bob was portrayed by Bryan Chung, our “super senior” who is back at Carthage to get an education degree. When Bryan first came to Carthage, he could hardly crack a smile as he sang- and now he is a truly accomplished singing actor, and was responsible for some the funniest moments in the performance. As the young maid Laetitia, Talia Nepper was truly superb – creating a truly delightful persona and singing divinely in the aria “Steal me, Sweet Thief.” Last and by no means least was Kristi Hamilton in the crucial role of Miss Todd. This is a big role, vocally taxing, and theatrically complex – and Kristi, in only her second opera, rose to the occasion magnificently. I was so proud of her.
I’m thankful for these fine performers – for their teachers, who helped out back in their respective studios – for the audience, who gave our singers such potent support all night long . . . and especially Matt Boresi, who is better at what he does than anyone else I’ve ever seen. He is so smart, so funny, so compassionate, so imaginative – and I can’t think of anyone better equipped to get young singers excited about this crazy art form called opera.
pictured above: Matt Boresi works with Kim Deal, trying to get her more comfortable with portraying the crippled boy Amahl.