A few minutes ago, Kathy and I were enjoying a quiet dinner together- decompressing from a busy day which included church this morning and Fiddler on the Roof rehearsal for her (the first rehearsal on the stage of the Racine Theater Guild plus a concert at Carthage for me. All had gone well, so we were both feeling good. Then my phone buzzed with a text from my best friend Marshall- and as soon as I read what he had written, I let out something between a moan and scream of anguish. (I’m sure Kathy thought it was terrible news.) What did Marshall’s text say?
I’ll tell you in a minute.
First, a word about the concert that kept me busy this afternoon. It was a program of arias from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro which we somewhat hurriedly organized after we had to cancel this weekend’s performances of the opera because our soprano singing the role of Susanna came down with a bad throat infection and could not sing. It was important for us to present some sort of program this afternoon because most of the college’s trustees and spouses were to attend the performance ahead of a special dinner and meeting. (Their day’s activities had specifically been planned around the opera.) Since Susanna sings in literally every duet, trio, ensemble and finale, it was impossible for us to do any of them without her- so that left us with our only option: a program of arias. To give the event a little extra sparkle, we decided that the six Figaro singers would be in costume- and we even brought in some of the furniture from our set to give us at least a little sense of place. And to lengthen the program a bit to align with the original schedule, I asked each of the six singers to sing one other piece of their choosing – plus each of he singers was introduced to the audience and asked to say a few words about the piece they were performing. We actually began with those “other pieces” in part so the singers wouldn’t have to change out of their dress up clothes and into costume, and then back into dress clothes for the second half. And I think the switch actually worked perfectly. The six singers ended up choosing a wonderful array of varied songs and arias: Allie Kurkjian (our Countess) sang Juliette’s sparkling Waltz Song from Gounod’s Romeo & Juliet. (It provided a perfect contrast to the morose arias of the Countess.) Michael Huff (Bartolo) sang a spooky song by Henry Purcell, “Music for a while.” Laura Smith, our Barbarina, sang something else by Mozart: “Bester Jungling,” a high-spirited aria from his opera The Impressario. Matt Burton (Figaro) performed “The Vagabond, ” a vigorous art song by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Merikatherine Bock (Cherubino) gave us a lovely taste of operetta with “Vilia” from Lehar’s The Merry Widow. Austin Merschdorf finished out the first half with “If ever I would leave you” from Lerner and Loewe’s Camelot.
It was in the second half that we proceeded to the Figaro arias …. sung roughly in the order that they fall in the opera. On the one hand, it was frustrating to not be able to do any of the amazing ensembles which contain some of the most inventive and expressive passages in the work- and almost all of the opera’s actual comedy. The arias tend to be rather serious – even the ones sung by the more comedic characters – and give only a hint of what this opera is all about. On the other hand, they contain incredibly rich emotional life- to say nothing of Mozart’s flawless way with the human voice – and by the time the last notes of the last aria had died away, I felt like all of us had been reintroduced to Mozart’s unparalleled genius in a very exciting and even moving way. And I could not have been prouder of our singers for managing so skillfully what I’m guessing was a slightly unnerving experience. Everyone sang beautifully and expressively. And we ended it all with the last couple of minutes of the Act Four finale- at the point where the Count kneels down and asks for the Countess’s forgiveness- and receives it! “We all are contended …. and happy again …. ” It was a lovely way to draw things to a close.
So what did Marshall’s text say that elicited that sad moan?
“Happy 230th birthday to NOZZE DI FIGARO today!”
Not exactly tragic news- but I was just so sad that I didn’t know this before we sang our performance today. How fun it would have been to announce to the audience that we were presenting this music on the actual anniversary of this masterpiece’s first performance? But even in retrospect, it was fun to know that we managed to commemorate a tremendously important moment in music history – even if we didn’t know it at the time!
(By the way, we are planning on presenting The Marriage of Figaro in its entirety on Tuesday evening, May 10th, at 6:30 p.m.)
P.S.- Originally I was going to title this blog post “No Lines, No Waiting” and contrast the modest little crowd we had for today’s concert with the HUGE crowd that was on hand last night for the final performance of Carthage’s production of Urinetown. As I stood in that enormous line waiting to get my ticket, part of me was thrilled for the cast and crew that so many people were interested in seeing their show. (It appeared to be close to a sell-out crowd.)
But frankly, part of me was also really frustrated and jealous that music theater attracts so many more people than opera does- not just at Carthage but everywhere. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that one of the things that’s kind of fun about being an opera person is the whole “Road Less Traveled” thing. It is not the kind of music that tops the Billboard charts or gets done in Super Bowl Halftime shows or gets sung on Saturday Night Live- but for those of us who love it, none of that matters. Maybe part of the fun is exactly the fact that we love something that most people don’t “get” – although that doesn’t stop me from trying to awaken more and more people to the wonders that opera has to offer.
By the way, Urinetown was quite impressive. Congratulations to everyone involved- but especially to Christian Aldridge, a voice student of mine, and Sean Kelly, a former student of mine, who were fantastic in two of the lead roles.