My last Glimmerglass post of the season. Maybe.

On Friday, July 25, before leaving Glimmerglass for the summer (Boo! Hiss!), I was privileged to be in the audience while opera director Jonathan Miller held a masterclass--really an open rehearsal--with several fortunate members of the Glimmerglass Young Artists Program. Mr. Miller has quite an impressive list of accomplishments, including quite a long list of of opera productions, as well as stage and television.

Jonathan Miller works with members of
The Glimmerglass Festival Young Artists Program
Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival.

The Young Artists were presenting the last act of La Traviata, in which, as we all know, poor Violetta dies. Quite dramatically. Mr. Miller is a former medical doctor, and has witnessed many real deaths, and one of his primary goals was to make Violetta's death very realistic. Not a bit histrionic. Over and over again, he coached the young singers in real reactions, not stage reactions.

Jacqueline Echols, who so charmed us in the Ruth Bader Ginsburg program, and also as the ingenue Giuletta in last season's King for a Day, sang Violetta. Mr. Miller frequently coached her to give less, less, ever less movement. A dying person has no energy, even for a wracking cough. And in truth, the more still Miss Echols was, the more effective she was. And when she was directed to actually stir about, that was more effective by contrast. As usual, Miss Echols sang with beautiful tone and musical expression.

Marco D. Cammarota, who had also impressed in the Ginsburg program, sang Alfredo. Mr. Miller also took great pains to coach Mr. Cammarota. Nobody knows what to do or say at a loved one's death bed, especially if it's the first time one has experienced such a loss. Under Mr. Miller's guidance, Mr. Cammarota gave us an Alfredo who was clueless but not weak.

Photo: Karli Cadel/ The Glimmerglass Festival

It was an education to watch this and to gain an insight into this opera. Mr. Miller concluded with some thoughts about what one audience member termed the artificiality of opera as compared to the naturalistic way he was directing the Young Artists to act. I'd love to have a transcript of his reply to that question, and indeed, the entire afternoon, because it was brilliant. In a nutshell, he stated that man is the only animal that has this level of pretending, this state where we know it's not real but we are caught up in the emotion nonetheless. Most every culture has some form of storytelling or literature or theater where we as audience willingly suspend disbelief in order to become part of the story.

To add my own opinions to Mr. Miller's statement, our culture seems to forget that theater is about the willing suspension of disbelief. Today's audiences seem to demand blatant realism in some ways while at the same time tolerating, even celebrating, "concept" productions that bear no semblance to reality at all. (To be clear, there are updated or modified productions of operas that I have liked very much.) This seems to me to be a contradiction. I won't go on and on about post-apocalyptic Parsifals under freeway overpasses and Roberto Devereuxs in boardrooms, because I've made my opinions on such matters clear before. One hopes that in all these productions, the truth, the true feeling and meaning the composer and librettist intended, are evident, as one hopes the director who created such a concept is as skillful as Jonathan Miller was with these Young Artists.

Singer Profile: Ryan McKinny, Bass-Baritone

Longtime readers might recall I wrote a profile of bass-baritone Ryan McKinny last year, after seeing his amazing Dutchman in Der Fliegende Hollander. Of his Dutchman I wrote:

Ryan McKinny as the Dutchman

 Photo: Karli Cadel/
The Glimmerglass Festival

Of course one must begin by discussing the Dutchman himself, sung by Barihunk Ryan McKinny. Not only were his singing and characterization beautiful and nuanced, but his stage presence was electric. His duet with Senta was spellbinding, and one could feel the pain when he believes Senta has betrayed him. And what a bit of bad-boy eye candy he is in costume!

Last year's profile was based on questions I submitted by email, because schedules prevented a real meeting. Last week, however, I was able to get a half hour of Ryan's time for an interview in person. I had quite recently seen his excellent Billy Bigelow in Carousel.

How have you been since last year? 
Really good! It was a big season for me. My first Rigoletto, which was cool—very exciting. A Streetcar Named Desire in LA, working with Renee Fleming. It's been really nice.

The reviews for Streetcar were great.
We got some nice press. Audience response was really good. The play is so good. The opera is good too—I think it's underrated. The story and the characters carry the whole thing. And Renee is wonderful in everything she does.

A Streetcar Named Desire
Los Angeles Opera
Photo: Robert Millard

Stanley Kowalski is not Rigoletto. He's a lot like Billy Bigelow (in Carousel), in a sort of talky way. It's mostly about bringing the character out. I worked really hard on characterization in the opera. Blanche gets these beautiful arias and Stanley gets this kind of aggressive music, so the trick is to make him still be real. Brad Dalton (director) and I worked hard on making that happen, and I think we did a good job.

When you get really aggressive or really angry music, does it affect how you approach it vocally? Do you have to be careful in how you approach it vocally?
I'm really aware if I'm getting close to something thats vocally unsafe. I try to use text a lot if I get something that's angry. I find that's more successful than a barky, angry sound. The barky sound usually reduces any interest in the text and you just hear somebody who is yelling.

With somebody like Stanley, there are things happening to him that make him aggressive, but each moment is specific. You can't just be mad for the whole scene. There are different moments of frustration, annoyance, you know. And there are ways to express that that aren't just yelling. So that when those moments do come, like when you scream “Stella!” Yes, it's very intense, and there are a lot of ways you can play it. We made it a cry of desperation more than anger. So there are a lot of choices you can make, not just for vocal reasons, but for storytelling purposes, so you can create a character with nuance that you want to follow, and you're not like, “Oh, I get it—that's the bad guy.” Which can happen with something like Streetcar. It can happen with Billy, too. If you're not careful, you can create someone who is not really sympathetic, and the audience doesn't want to follow along if they hate the guy.

Photo: Simon Pauly Photography

The scream, “Stella!”-- that's really yelling?
That's real screaming. I still do it in a way that is very calculated, so that I'm not in vocal danger. It still comes out of how I'm feeling as the character and what I'm doing. I didn't want the “Stella!” scream to have any kind of operatic posturing. It needed to feel sort of raw.

I had done some stage screaming before. I had done a new opera in Basel, Switzerland, a couple of years ago, that had that sort of thing in it. I took the time to figure out how to do that. How to work around it to make it effective and also something I could repeat without losing my voice.

You compared Stanley to Billy and said that they're both sort of speaky. Billy is very different from Dutchman!
Oh yeah! Miles away! Billy might sound higher because of the color that I'm using for that character. Billy's voice is bright to me. He's from Brooklyn, come up from Coney Island. He's really kind of brassy, and the music is written for him to be brassy. In terms of actual tessitura there are some high moments, but there are also some things in Dutchman that sit very high. To me the color of the Dutchman's voice needs to have that kind of richer, darker quality. I feel lucky that I can do the color changes that are necessary for those two roles. They're not that far apart in terms of actual notes, but the sound that is expected is quite different.

Anything else about those characters you'd want to mention?
I think Billy is really interesting. We have a hard time in our modern society forgiving anyone for anything. We don't like that in our stories. We don't like to have to forgive someone for something bad. We do that in our real lives all the time. People do terrible things to each other and still love each other. I like about this piece that it takes a really heavy subject—the domestic abuse thing.  This man hits his wife, and that really does happen, and she really does forgive him. He really learns about himself--what is wrong and how he could have done it differently. But it asks a lot of the audience to be able to go along with that. I think people are afraid of that. I think it's cool that the piece deals with it. Poverty is another thing. Billy might kill this rich guy and take his money, and we understand why. We follow along and know why he makes these poor decisions, and that gives the piece some interest.

Both of your kids are on stage this summer, and they're pretty good little actors, too!
I had no idea what to expect with that. Neither of my children are stage kids. Emma had been in a children's chorus piece a few months ago, but Louis hadn't been in anything. When Francesca asked me if Louis would want to play Trouble in Butterfly, I wasn't sure. He's four. He might just get all the way to the performance and decide he didn't want to do it after all. But he's having a good time and has an incredible amount of focus, which I don't always see in the rest of his life.

They are both really wonderful kids. They interact with grownups a lot, so they enjoy talking to grownups. They're having a good time this summer. That was a big factor in my coming back this year—we had such a good time here last summer.

You travel with your wife and kids all the time. That must be wonderful.
Very challenging but very rewarding. We home school them. We're always setting them up with activities and groups and sports teams and things everywhere we go. They get lots of time with other kids. Even here--Emma is at Girl Scout camp here this week. They've both been going to a day camp in the afternoons. They're always doing something. They're not starved for social interaction.

Do you envision doing that as they get older?
We did some handwringing over this, thinking about what the plan should be. Now the plan is to keep doing it as long as it works, and to be flexible. There's no way of knowing what kind of kids they're going to be when they're teenagers. I know another home-schooling family of opera singers who just put their kids back in school because the oldest one was feeling like he was missing something, not being in school. It is really important to me that we spend a lot of time together. I know a lot of singers who aren't near their families very much, who are unhappy a lot of the time. That's really tough. People don't always have the luxury that I do—I'm very lucky that my wife is willing to do this crazy thing and my kids have really taken to it. For now it works really well.

What do you have coming up?
I'll be singing the Speaker in The Magic Flute at the Met. It's a short role, but it's really cool. I'm doing my first Count in Nozze. I do both Figaro and the Count. I'm covering Figaro at the Met, and I've done Figaro a lot. It's one of those right in-between roles.I hover between baritone and bass-baritone. Billy isn't really a bass-baritone role. I think both the Count and Figaro are interesting to me and I can do them both. I also do both Don Giovanni and Leporello. They're not that different in where they sit in the voice. The only difference is the F-sharp at the end of the Count's aria.

You did your first Rigoletto in Houston. Was that a big challenge—Rigoletto's postural issues?
I had to come up with my own take on it, and not mimic anyone else's Rigoletto. We had a big discussion—he has not just the hump, but he has an assortment of physical problems.  On one side of his body the nerves aren't working right, and his walk would be affected, and he would be in constant pain. So it's no surprise he lashes out from a place of pain. Instead of playing what I thought it would look like, I tried to play what a person would feel under those circumstances, and I think that was ultimately more successful than if I'd tried to go for the “expected look” for a hunchback. Verdi, like all really good composers, is writing about the emotional story anyway. It's not about realism.

That's yet another fach—the Verdi dramatic baritone roles.
I think dramatic baritone is the most accurate description, but writing dramatic baritone on a bio doesn't make sense, and baritone doesn't tell the whole story, so we still say bass-baritone. I honestly don't think about that too much—whether a role fits the name that I have for my voice. I never say yes to a project without singing through it. I try to learn a role before saying yes. For example, Rigoletto was way out of line with what I'd been doing. Patrick Summers (of Houston Grand Opera) asked me about it, and I said, "Give me a week." I knew the opera pretty well, so learning it took no time. I sang through the whole show several times that week. I was able to get a feel for it.

What is your process for learning a new role?
I'm lucky that I'm a pretty quick study. I had good training in college. The first thing I do is look at the score. I'll see how long the role is, where it sits. I'll read the libretto and think about the character. I'll listen to the recordings. I'll sit down at the piano and start singing it. I tend to find the most nuanced moments by actually singing it, as opposed thinking about it.

I do a lot of character discussion. My wife is a former actress and is a really good acting coach. She's been my acting coach for ten years. We are always talking about shows and character and choices. She's always there to bounce ideas off of, or to tell me if an idea isn't reading clearly.

When I consider a new role, I don't only ask if this is something I can do, but also is it something I'd have something to say about as an artist, and would it be worth people's time to hear it? That's more the decision-making process—not so much how does this work for my career, or does this fit in my little box. Obviously my little box is not clear anyway, and that did cause confusion early on, but nowadays people just shrug their shoulders and say, "Oh, Ryan's doing that thing again where he does whatever he wants!"

Although I could have chatted with Ryan all day, we both had places to be, so we shook hands and parted.

Singer Profile: Christine Goerke, Soprano

You'll recalled I raved about the Glimmerglass production of Ariadne in Naxos. Once again the kind PR Diva at Glimmerglass has arranged for me to talk with a star of that production, Christine Goerke. Here is some of what we talked about.

Photo: Arielle Doneson

I loved Ariadne in Naxos. I loved the way you poked fun at the the Prima Donna character.
When do we get the opportunity to do that? Particularly in my rep! If I'm not killing my mother, I'm sleeping in a ring of fire. That's not as much fun as it seems.

I also saw Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Met. I was amazed at your sound there.
For a long time I tried really hard to just hold it all back. I had this idea in my head that there's an age when you're supposed to start singing my rep (dramatic soprano roles), and I was not yet that age. I was working so hard to reign everything in, and sing the repertoire that I thought was “safe”, but that is the most unsafe thing to do--to sing the wrong repertoire. It was a great relief to me to learn it's OK to have a big sound. I don't have to pretend to be something else.

Is is difficult going from a house the size of the Met to one the size of Glimmerglass?
I was terrified! I thought I would blow the doors off this place! I wouldn't be able to balance my cast! I'm very sensitive to what's going on around me, and that desire to balance what I hearing around me is sometime a help and sometimes a hindrance.

Christine Goerke as Ariadne

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

It's been great here because we have some big-voiced Young Artists. So it's been a really good experience to find my way of singing with my voice in this house. I had an opportunity to try out some really new things, and I learned to sing as quietly as I could without coming off of my sound, because of the size of the theater, because of my colleagues. I'm really happy with the opportunity to be in a house this size. It's not 4000 seats. I don't have to put out sound all the time. That was a bit of a gift for me.

How is it working with the Young Artists?
When I was a Young Artist here, I remember really wanting to suck every drop of information and insight out of everyone here, and that's how these Young Artists are. It's cool to be a part of that again. The first day I had a little breakfast meeting with all of them, and I said, “Ask me anything, and I will be completely honest about anything in the business. You might not like the answers, but I will tell you.” I thought that would be the most useful thing I could possibly do for them.

I was so impressed with American Tragedy (which was cast almost entirely with Young Artists)
I know! And that's not an easy score! The vocal writing is difficult, the tessitura is difficult! The part of Roberta is so high! C#s? Really? And Vanessa (Isiguen, who sang the role) does it like it's a piece of cake.

Not only are these kids fabulous vocally, but they're also all great on stage! I don't know that I had that kind of stage savvy at that age. That's a remarkable thing that I'm seeing this summer.

You say there are some big-voiced girls here?

Christine Goerke as Ariadne and Corey Bix as Bacchus 

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

We've got some big-voiced girls here and some big-voiced guys here. It's cool. This is the age where people are trying to find their way. Chances are at 25 or 26 it's not quite time to transition to dramatic rep yet. It's really great to have the conversations and to figure out what they do well right now. For all voices, they need to really trust the ears of their teachers and coaches--and they to learn which ones to trust, because they might hear conflicting opinions. It's been really very cool to be a part of that, if even for two months.

Tell me about being Heldenmommy (Christine's Twitter handle--translated literally, heroic mommy).
I wouldn't trade it for anything. Those two girls (5 and 7) are what I'm most proud of in this life, and I'm honored to be their mom. I get things wrong like every parent does, but I love 'em and they enhance my life more than they could possibly know.

I am really blessed and really busy. My kids have been with me all summer. We've been having a great time because it's stunningly beautiful here! They're having so much fun, and they want me to be a part of it. You know, they don't want us to be a part of things for very long. They're 5 and 7 and they still want me. Pretty soon they'll be teenagers and I won't know anything, so I'm trying to grab every moment.

How much time do you have to spend away from them on the road?
My husband and I talk about every single offer, and my manager is amazing, and understands how important it is to be with my kids. We try to keep my big travel during the school year. It's not any easier to be away from them, but the kids have a set schedule, and they're doing stuff during the week, and Dad's home all day on the weekends. Summers, I try to do things where I am away for a shorter period of time, or I can bring them with me. I try to keep my Europe gigs together, so it's one big stint but then I'm home.

It's tough. It's what every working parent goes through. But we talk about everything and we somehow manage to do it. The girls understand that when I go away, I'm coming home. It takes work, but it's worth it. It's so worth it!

How often do you add a new role?
That is trickier now that I have kids. And adding a Strauss or Wagner role is not like adding a Mozart role. All of the stuff I do now is through-composed—no repetition of text. I have to be able to dedicate three months--not necessarily immediately beforehand, but I still need that time to be able to do the work. I work on the language first, then I have to work on the music, then there's memorization time.

Text always comes first. I can't do anything until I know exactly what I'm saying. Then I go to the music and figure out how the composer wanted to say it. Then I come to a compromise between what he wanted to say and what I want to say. Then I write all of the text down. There's something about putting pen to paper and writing text out that helps me. Then I might look at DVDs or listen to audio recordings of the work, and see how people get from point A to point B—that cements everything for me.

I feel like I have to walk in on the first day of rehearsals and be ready to do a performance. I know that's not necessarily the idea—they are rehearsals—but I feel uncomfortable if I don't start there. I'll start out with my own ideas and work with director and conductor and other cast members, and my ideas will change. But I start in a place where I have the ability to change things on a dime, and that doesn't waste time.

Talk more about the vocal transition you've experienced.
When I was singing the Mozart and Handel roles, my focus, my resonance was very high, very light. That is great—it allows singers to sing very high and very fast. But as my voice was growing in size, it became more difficult to sing that way. I started having problems because I was doing unhealthy things to preserve a voice that was no longer my own. I finally realized that what had worked so well for fifteen years wasn't wrong at all, but I was only using part of my voice. The minute I relaxed and breathed and allowed my voice to be itself, the vocal color changed, the voice size changed. It was as easy as discovering where the rest of my voice was. It sounds simplistic, but it really was that.

When you made that change, did you have engagements for the former rep that you still had to fulfill?
A few, but then I had about 18 months without much. I was able to really work through the transition.

I'm often asked if it was hard to go out and start auditioning again. I was terrifed! I thought I had to prove to everybody that I wasn't broken. Of course that's not what they were thinking. They only wanted me to succeed. It took me a good six months before I felt like I was able to do good auditions. But I was singing the rep really well, and once word got around, things started to happen.

The Met was amazing. They'd seen this coming when I was 25. They let me cover Elsa, Ariadne, Sieglinde, a lot of roles. I got to be part of the rehearsals and hear the orchestra and hear the singers who were doing this repertoire, and see how it all worked. For me that was a big gift. I was at home, I was with my teacher, I was with all the coaches who knew me and knew my voice, and I was able to get myself going that way. I wish that for everybody who has to make a transition. It was a real gift.

Who is your teacher?
Diana Soviero. [raised eyebrows] Oh yeah! Everybody has that reaction. People are confused because she never did any of my rep. I have coaches for my rep! This woman knows bel canto technique, and that's how you're supposed to sing all music. Diana still sings and still sounds amazing! That's the best validation for my choice.

I'm glad to hear you say that about bel canto technique! People think it's different for German music. 
It's not different! It's a necessity! Everything has to have line, everything has to have support, everything has to have the right attack, everything has to have spin! It's singing!

Do you do the big Italian roles?
We're having conversations about this right now. I do Turandot--I have a bunch of those coming up. We're talking about Fanciulla. We are talking about Forza, but Verdi is tricky for me. A lot of the Verdi soprano roles sit at the top of the staff and go up from there. My voice loves to live in the middle, and sing my high notes, and come back. That's why Eboli (in Don Carlo) is perfect for me. I did Eboli in Houston and in Toulouse.

In brief if there's one thing you'd like to communicate in this profile, what would it be?
Put yourself into your art. Don't try to be perfect! Perfect does not art make! Art is passion, is thrilling, is risk taking, is dangerous, is miraculous! And if you don't take chances, none of that will happen. I have said so many times, “That was so beautiful, but I don't care. Do it again, and it doesn't matter if you crack or say the wrong word—just be an artist!” I would rather hear a performer throw her heart into something and crack five times than to have her sing something perfectly with no passion. To me that's boring. I have to remind the Young Artists always that they have permission to be themselves. Everybody brings something really cool to the table. Why not really shine with what you have?

Francesca Zambello, part II

In part 1 of my interview with Francesca Zambello, we talked about running an opera company. In this part, we talk about specific productions and other topics.

Photo: Clair McAdams

There was a profile associated with your Covent Garden Carmen where you discussed how important it is to be period specific and give a good sense of the time. Yet that was the same year you did an updated Aida at Glimmerglass (2012).

I think with Carmen it's important to make clear that she is not only outside of society, but she's also an outsider within her own community. She's not just a Gypsy--she's even farther out. But she still has this magnetism. Not just sexually. Everyone is fascinated.

Aida is about racial conflict--not black and white, but about two nations against each other and within themselves.It's about civil conflict and warring nations. The King and Amonasro are heads of warring tribes.

I think we made people realize that Aida is really a story that is going on right now. Insurgence in Syria. Afghanistan. It's the same story, right? Somebody proclaims himself king and is king for a day, and then somebody else is king. It's not like there are free elections in any of these places.

Carmen is an enigmatic character. Enigmatic characters are the most difficult to portray, but the ones everyone is most interested in. Many times audiences find Micaela and Liu more sympathetic, but Turandot and Carmen are the enigmatic women. Difficult to penetrate.

And you wouldn't have an opera about Liu.

Everything has to come from character. Narrative has to come from character--character can't come from narrative. What's Liu's conflict? Liu just wants the guy. That's all she wants for the whole show. Turandot changes. Liu doesn't change.

What goes into the decision about updating or keeping the opera in the time?

Each production is different. You work with your designers and you determine what is the best world or environment to tell the story. I don't arbitrarily think, “Let's set that in the 20s!” I think that's silly. If it leads you in your discussion with the set and costume designer and choreographer to a place where you think that will serve the piece, that's your decision. 

It's no secret we're doing an updated Ariadne here. I was very inspired by the conflict of Ariande, which is basically high art vs. pop culture. That's a pretty contemporary question. And I also have always loved the fact that central New York has all these cities with names like Syracuse, Utica, Ithaca, so I thought why isn't Naxos here? The estate of "the richest man in Vienna” could be like any estate up here. It's not like I thought, oh, let's make it contemporary. I thought, it's so important today that people realize there are the patrons, and there are the other people, and how do we all mix together?

But I'm just as interested in a period piece. Butterfly is really very period. It's set partially in the American consulate, but still in Nagasaki at the turn of the century. I'm working on Candide for next year, and I'm setting it right in the middle of the Enlightenment. I don't think, "Let's update this piece." I think, "How can I best tell this story? What are the visual cues that will help the audience? How will the characters relate? Who is that character going to be?" For me it's all got to start with the people. Once you get the people right, you'll get the world right around them.

It doesn't have to be totally representational. We're doing Dialogues of the Carmelites this year in Washington, and of course I've set it totally period. The setting is abstract. It doesn't look like France at the end of the 18th century--it's just some spaces. But the clothing is very period.

Sometimes I teach classes, and young directors say to me, "I'm going to set it in ...." That might be an interesting idea, but first let's start where the composer wanted to set it. Let's understand that world, socially, politically, visually. And when you know those things, then you can find parallels in other worlds. For example, I was teaching a class in The Marriage of Figaro, and I asked them how many people really know about the French Revolution? How many people really understand what was going on? What is the droit du seigneur?  What was happening in art when Mozart wrote this piece? What was happening in Vienna? What was happening in Prague? Why was he traveling between those two places? If they can't answer these questions, I don't want to hear about their plan to set it on a tennis court. That's not informing the work. It's putting a frame around it, instead of getting the canvas out.

You're doing a Vivaldi opera next season. You presented a Lully opera in 2012. How do you balance the need to sell tickets with your responsibility to serve the art?

It's a difficult question. When you do an lesser-known opera you really have to streamline it. Get it out there, let people hear it, but you can't do huge productions of those works.  Producing a rarity like Bianca e Falliero today (she directed the US premiere of Rossini's redicovered opera in 1987—we'd discussed it earlier because I was in the chorus of that production) would be extremely difficult to justify economically, whereas something like Madama Butterfly will not only sell tickets but also be rented to other companies as a production. Opera companies can't do those shows unless they have a huge repertory, unless they're doing ten shows. 

You have a long list of honors and accolades. One of DC's most powerful women! One of the ten most powerful women in music! I hope you'll use your powers for good!

I feel a responsibility now to do that. One of the great things about running a company is that it's not just about me. It's about all of us. It's hard, but it's satisfying, because I'm passionate about it. I wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't passionate about it. I feel fortunate to be someone doing something I deeply love.

Madama Butterfly at Glimmerglass

Dinyar Vania as Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton and
Yunah Lee as Cio-Cio-San

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

On Monday, July 21, I saw the second performance of Madama Butterfly at the Glimmerglass Festival. Another triumph, another visually stunning show, more great performances. I'm running out of accolades to use when describing what I see at Glimmerglass. With Michael Yeargen's sets, Robert Wierzel's lighting, and Anita Yavitch's costumes, all the visual elements combined effectively to create a strikingly beautiful and fluid effect.

Director Francesca Zambello has set some scenes in the American consulate in Nagasaki instead of Cio-Cio-San's house, the original setting. The intent was to place additional focus on Cio-Cio San's outsider status both in her own community and in the community of Americans in Nagasaki. Yes, that intention was met, with the additional bonus of showing how common it was for Japanese women to have half-American babies and seek aid from the consulate, but I can't say it added much to the opera for me. In fact, I wound up wondering why all these American women were working in an American office in Nagasaki. Wouldn't any American woman in Nagasaki at that time be there because of her husband, and not be working outside the home? And wouldn't any single American woman be unlikely to find herself in Nagasaki?

Aleksey Bogdanov as Sharpless (center) 

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

No matter. Back to the superlatives. A shining cast of young guest artists and Glimmerglass Young Artists brought the opera to life. Yunah Lee and Dinyar Vania have sung Cio-Cio San and Pinkerton before many times, and proved they have the vocal goods, particularly as the afternoon warmed up and so did their voices. They were at their best vocally and dramatically in the last act, which we all know is devastating. Kristen Choi was a very effective Suzuki, and Aleksey Bogdanov was also a good Sharpless. Both are thankless roles that require excellent singing and acting. Sharpless in particular does a lot of listening, and must react to what he's told.

As usual, smaller roles were fulfilled by members of the Glimmerglass Young Artists Program. Ian McEuen in particular deserves praise for his Goro.

Madama Butterfly runs through August 23 at Glimmerglass. Once again, I recommend this show.

P.S. I saw the next performance of Madama Butterfly on Thursday, July 24. Much, much better performances vocally and dramatically from all. I didn't mention it before, but I think the fact Monday's show was a matinee had an effect on the singing.

One single concept still irks me--using the US consulate instead of Cio-Cio-San's house for some scenes. So some of the chorus music is sung by people in 1904 American garb, instead of people from Cio-Cio-Sa's own community. The text makes more sense to my feeble mind if it comes from her community--mocking her naive pride, berating her for abandoning her own traditions to adopt American ways, etc.

Singer Profile: Corey Bix, Tenor

I heard the excellent Corey Bix sing Bacchus at the Glimmerglass Festival's opening of Ariadne auf Naxos on Saturday. The kind PR Diva at Glimmerglass arranged for me to spend some time in conversation with Corey, and here is some of what we talked about.

Photo: Arturo Everitt

You took a look at the questions I usually ask when I do this by email. Is there anything you would like to convey to my readers?
A lot of your questions were well directed. As I think about where I am today, I especially like the questions about working with younger singers. I have been fortunate enough to be fostered by singers with great careers. I was a winner of the George London competition, and Nora London really took a big chance on me and sent me to Vienna. I started working with Hilde Zadek, who was a very well known soprano of her generation. I also worked with Thomas Stewart and Evelyn Lear while they were alive, and Johan Botha. All of them gave a lot to me, and all talked about continuing to pass that down to younger singers. I feel like that's a responsibility.

I don't know if I'm at the level yet to be passing everything down like they did, but it was a very big thing for me. Here they have a mentorship program, and I had mentors when I was here [as a Young Artist]. They were obviously established singers. Even if we aren't singers with 50-year careers, the knowledge we have from living in this career is very beneficial to young singers. It's nice to be able to share that.

So while you've been here you've been able to take some of the Young Artists under your wing?
I will be doing that. We've been busy with rehearsals to this point. We had a mentor dinner, and they asked us so many questions! Things I don't know the answers to! There are not a lot of perfect answers to questions, particularly in our field. “What's one thing you wish you would have known going into this career?”

Just one? (laughing)
Francesca said it best at a recent breakfast: This is a hard career, and it's going to get harder. A lot of people think that when they are done with school the career will happen. Often young singers come from college or conservatories with the idea that a career will be handed to them.

Christine Goerke as Ariadne and Corey Bix as Bacchus

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

I was very fortunate. I was a member of the Des Moines Metro Opera young artist program in undergrad, and then Glimmerglass Young Artists Program, and then Santa Fe. And when I left Santa Fe, I thought a career would be handed to me. That didn't happen. I'm a different voice. I wasn't going to leave a young artist program at 25 and start doing the roles that I sing. For me that was an adventure. I had to learn to be patient and keep going.

What did you sing at 25?
At 25 I was singing Walther's Prize Song and I'd had my first look at Bacchus, but certainly wasn't singing the role. My audition package was Tamino and Lensky and Vanessa or some other obscure English aria—or Rape of Lucretia a lot. Lyric/italiensich rep.

People from early on told me I'd have the dramatic voice I have now, but who knew what to do with that? That was the adventure as well. People would tell me to wait, but what to do while I wait? So it was fortunate I won the London Competition, and I met Evelyn Lear and Thomas Stewart, and they told me, “You're going to have to wait. We've all sung with people who sang what you sing, and they waited.” It's different now. In the 70s everybody sang everything, and you could have a big-voiced Tamino, but not now. Not even Europe. European houses used hire a big-voiced tenor “Fest”, but now it's easier to hire them as guest artists for individual productions than to have them around all season for two roles.

I loved hearing you sing Bacchus. You have this really free sound and so many people in your fach don't!
I've always had a voice that sits high. I've had to work hard to get the depth into my voice. I have a great teacher in Houston, Stephen King. I also have a great coach in New York. I first sang Bacchus in 2009, and it has become easier over the years. It's definitely a role I've had to grow into.

I've had to resist listening to recordings. What young dramatic tenor doesn't want to sound like James King? You have to sing with your own voice, but you can take inspiration from the artistry of people like James King or Jess Thomas or Max Lorenz. I love Johan Botha. Young Ben Heppner. I'm not into the baritonal, heavy heldentenor sound.

Hilde Zadek sang in the Wiener Stadtsoper when it reopened after WWII, so she sang with some of the greats. I used to sit around the table with her and people like Christa Ludwig, and we talked about the differences in voices like mine in Europe and in the US. There is less of the pushed sound in Europe. I think it's the size of the opera houses. Ariadne is perfect for this size opera house (Glimmerglass). Most opera houses in Europe are not large.

When did you start transitioning from the lighter rep into what you do now?
I started in transitioning toward more German repertoire in my first and second year in Florida, so 2005 and 2006, I think. I had a great coach in Florida—Scott Gilmore, who is now in Chicago at Roosevelt. He had worked in a lot of European houses. He thought it was worth looking into at that time. We looked at Meistersinger and Frieschütz, a lot of Mahler and Strauss songs. I did two song recitals that were all German Lieder while I was there. We decided that was the direction to go.

Do you still do any Italian rep?
I haven't done any Italian roles yet in my fach, but I'd like to try it out. I'd like to do more French, too. I've sung Don Jose a couple of times. I'd like to do some of the Verdi, but I don't want to jump into it too crazily. It is a different beast. And Italian doesn't roll of my tongue as easily as it does for some.

But it sounds like German does.
Because I've spent a lot of time in Germany and Switzerland and Austria. I can hear it. I don't speak it fluently—I'm working on that.

How much of your time do you spend in Europe?
Three years ago it was 90% of my time. Now I spend more time in the US. I miss being over there, but when there I miss being home. But the benefit is that I have friends in every part of the world, and if I got stuck anywhere for a holiday, I wouldn't be alone. And I've seen the world. I sang Oedipus in the ancient theater of Delphi. I sang in Savonlinna, Finland. I sang Ariadne in Vienna, which was cool. There are benefits of both sides, and I miss Europe. I need to get the European career going again.

Do you have separate US and European representation?
When I went over in 2008 to Vienna, I auditioned the second day and immediately had a manager there. He died two years later, and while I'm still with the organization, I need get working on making more things happen. I also have representation in the US with ties to Europe, but you need a manager who is there. Like anyone in this business, they trust people they know, so I need people on the ground there, doing the work for me.

How many new roles a year are you doing?
Currently I don't have to do a lot of new roles. My first year in Europe I did four new roles. Rusalka, Arabella, Ariadne, and I think I was learning Meistersinger at the same time.

What's your process for learning a role?
I'll usually start with translating the text, finding out if there is a historical or literary basis I can use to learn about my character—and my own ideas can always change when I start working with the director. Then I work at figuring out the direction of the spoken phrase, so that I can have that in my singing phrase. I take it to my teacher, and I record all my lessons on my iPhone or iPad, so I always have that to refer back to. I played piano from the age of six, so learning a role musically takes about two days. I can always play for myself, which is nice. I like to have a lot of lessons, to make sure that I'm working it into my voice and staying grounded. Because I've worked so much in Germany and Austria, I feel like I need fewer coachings in style than lessons in singing the role well with my voice. Since most of the German operas are so text-based, as long as I have that structure, it's easy to fit into the music.

Most successful singers I talk to say they've never had bad teaching to overcome. Is that you as well?
This might sound bizarre, but I think one of the best things about the Young Artists programs I've done is the visiting teachers. A different teacher every two weeks. Every teacher has his own way of teaching, his own “technique”. No teacher is right for everyone. I learned a lot from the teachers who weren't right for me, in figuring out why, and in working to keep or regain what was working for me before meeting these teachers. One thing I learned quickly is to just let go of a teacher who doesn't fit me.

At this point we had to conclude our interview to go to an excellent concert of Glimmerglass Young Artists.

Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy at Glimmerglass

There's a reason your intrepid reporter calls himself a bel canto bear. I am not well versed or trained in anything newer than Britten or Poulenc, and that's a stretch. For the most part, I have 19th-century ears. I am not an expert in new music and won't evaluate the musical merits of the opera I saw open at Glimmerglass today, popular current composer Tobias Picker's An American Tragedy, based on the novel by Mr. Dreiser. I am qualified to tell you, however, that it was a moving and intense experience of music theater that I highly recommend.

Christian Bowers as Clyde
and Vanessa Isiguen as Roberta

Photo: Jessica Krayl/
The Glimmerglass Festival

Most should be familiar with the plot of the novel. Ambitious social climber Clyde Griffiths becomes entangled with a factory girl and a socialite. The factory girl becomes pregnant and demands marriage. Clyde considers murder but can't go through with it, but the girl dies in an accident that implicates him, and he's convicted of her murder anyway. An article in the program leaves us to wonder whether the tragedy in the title is the fates of the characters or the economic and social system that brought about those fates.

In spite of my claims above, there were moments I found musically very effective. The church scene, with tenor John Kapusta as the pastor, was very moving and beautiful. There were trio scenes in which the factory girl Roberta and the socialite Sondra sang in parallel lines or unison, regardless of which girl was with Clyde at the moment. In fact, there was a scene in which the lad literally walked across the stage from one to another and back, drawn to both, as the two women sang similar texts in this fashion. Roberta's monologue that opens Act II was quite satisfying, growing in intensity as Roberta's desperation for word from Clyde grows. I also quite liked the chorus of factory women that opened the show.

Cynthia Cook as Sondra
and Christian Bowers as Clyde

Photo: Karli Cadel/
The Glimmerglass Festival

With the exception of an excellent cameo by Patricia Schuman as Clyde's mother, the entire cast is comprised of Glimmerglass Young Artists, all of them excellent singers and musicians. Clyde was played with secure acting, solid singing, and very nice legs by baritone Christian Bowers. We began to see the change that desperation and fear bring about in him when he learns that Roberta is pregnant. This young man has the goods to portray the central character of a full length opera, and indeed he was in nearly every scene.

Vanessa Isiguen sang the fiendishly high and difficult role of Roberta Alden easily, and acted the young girl seduced and then turned more and more desperate effectively.  Cynthia Cook sang and acted Sondra Finchley beautifully. We saw her soften from the cynical young girl who thinks she is worldly to the young woman in love.

Tremendous applause is due to the design team, for yet again Glimmerglass has produced a visually stunning show. The constant presence above everyone's head of shirts (set design by Alexander Dodge) made clear the presence of the factory in the lives of everyone, regardless of high or low station. (I do wonder whether the use of a crucifix in the church scene instead of an unadorned cross was a misstep, since the congregation seemed to be Protestant.) The lighting by Robert Wierzel was quite effective. Period costume and  hair/makeup by Anya Klepikov and Anne Ford-Coates were beautiful and perfectly appropriate for what this blogger knows of the period.

Conductor George Manahan led the orchestra and ensemble in the difficult score while also encouraging beautiful phrasing and shaping.  Director Peter Kazaras kept traffic moving well and had many clever ideas.

An American Tragedy runs at the Glimmerglass Festival through August 24. I highly recommend it.

Christian Bowers as Clyde Griffiths

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

An unhappy diva is sad to see!

I have made public before today my opinions on updating operas from the time they were intended to the current time, or from a remote past to a less remote past. I have stated that the usual intended purpose--to clarify social roles and power structures--is usually not met successfully. I have stated that attention to period detail--or worse yet, inattention to period detail--can provide more distraction than clarification.

Christine Goerke as the Prima Donna

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival.

Disregard all that. The opening of the Glimmerglass Festival's production of Ariadne auf Naxos--rather, Ariadne in Naxos--provided insight aplenty and many, many sensory pleasures! As Francesca Zambello stated when I spoke to her recently, why shouldn't this extravagant entertainment be thrown as part of some house party at one of the many grand estates in New York? New York has an Ithaca, a Syracuse, a Utica--why not a Naxos? Think Rockefeller instead of Esterhazy. I believe in this case the update worked!

Ariadne auf Naxos is already a silly story, but often the comedy is not clear enough. This new English version by Kelly Rourke made sense out of what has always seemed to me to be a chaotic Act I. The richest man in Vienna (or Cooperstown?) has arranged for an evening's entertainment to include both a new opera and a popular song and dance troupe. The fact the evening's entertainment includes both is appalling enough, but, in the interest of finishing the entertainments in time to see the scheduled fireworks display, the assembled parties are instructed to combine the two so that the patron will be satisfied in seeing both contracts fulfilled. (I was still thinking in legal terms after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's program that afternoon.) Act II is the combined opera seria of the serious young Composer we met in Act I with the commedia dell'arte-inspired song and dance act.

Beth Lytwynec as Dryad, Jeni Houser as Naiad,
Jacqueline Echols as Echo and Catherine Martin as Composer 

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival.

Updating the story to what could be today at a grand estate in upstate or central New York worked for me. The diva behavior of the Prima Donna and the Tenor is timeless. The naive, reckless, idealistic behavior of the Composer is timeless, as well. Making Zerbinetta and her troupe of commedia dell'arte players into a girl singer and her boy-band dancers might be a bit dated already, but that's part of their charm. The Tanzmeister (very well done by John Kapusta) becomes something of a manager for the boy band, and the Musiklehrer (quite nicely performed by Adam Ciofarri) becomes the Composer's agent.

Taking the pants off the Composer, a role always sung by a mezzo pretending to be a naive teenage boy, also makes sense. Catherine Martin acted the naive, young, self absorbed Composer quite effectively, and sang quite beautifully. Her bio lists roles much heavier and lower than those associated with women who sing the Composer, so she deserves additional kudos for successfully negotiating this fiendishly high mezzo role. I liked the directorial touch of having her on stage for much of Act II, although her role is usually considered done at the close of Act I.

Rachele Gilmore as Zerbinetta and
Carlton Ford as Harlequin

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival.

In Act II, when we see the Composer's very, very serious opera (auf Deutsch, to show just how serious!) juxtaposed against the pop sentiments of Zerbinetta's troupe (in American English), we see even more of a payoff. In fact, one of the best moments is when the four dancing boys sing in German, seeming to mock Ariadne's grief.

I can not praise the cast highly enough! Christine Goerke, whom I truly did not praise highly enough when I saw her as the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Met last spring, was a delight to see and hear as the Prima Donna/Ariadne. Full, luscious tones that were most at home in the huge, Wagnerian phrases of "Es gibt ein Reich" and her final duet with Bacchus. ZOMG, as the young people say! Ms. Goerke has a wonderful sense of humor, and seemed to relish in poking fun at the Prima Donna character. She was accompanied quite ably by Beth Lytwynec as Dryad, Jeni Houser as Naiad and Jacqueline Echols as Echo.

As Zerbinetta, Rachele Gilmore brought a sound that grew in beauty through the evening so that her showpiece aria in Act II was not only a delight, but an almost explosive joy! Tiny and beautiful, this young woman made the most out of Zerbinetta's earthy yet idealistic sentiments, while also controlling the four dancing boys portrayed with great charm and wit by Carlton Ford, Gerard Michael D'Emilio, Andrew Penning, and Brian Ross Yeakley. Carlton Ford's Harlekin was especially charming and self absorbed, and Mr. Ford's singing was lovely to hear.

Corey Bix sang the demanding role of Bacchus in glorious, unforced tones. (I have to confess I never find that role very interesting, though.) Musical theater veteran Wynn Harmon seems to have already established himself as a staple of the Glimmerglass stage, and as the Manager of the Estate, he was delightfully arrogant and pretentious.

I have to praise the creative team in the highest terms! Director Francesca Zambello, scenic designer Troy Hourie, costume designer Eric Teague, lighting designer Mark McCullough, choreographer Eric Sean Fogel (whom I've praised before)--the work of all was simply stunning. Conductor Kathleen Kelly brought everything together quite beautifully.

Ariadne in Naxos continues through August 23. Once again, I highly recommend seeing this Glimmerglass show.

A heroine's welcome, and then some opera

That's a paraphrase of a New York Times headline when James Levine returned briefly to the pit a few years ago to conduct Wozzeck. Today's heroine was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was given a well-deserved standing ovation when she was introduced by Francesca Zambello. What followed was a scenes program both charming and moving, with a legal theme. Justice Ginsburg introduced each scene, and provided pithy commentary as well. The scenes were very well performed by members of the Young Artists Program, with pianists David Moody and Kevin Miller. The scenes were staged by Conor Hanratty and Joshua T. Miller. I must say I liked all the singing, and I found the staging of all the scenes effective, but there is neither time nor space to evaluate them all. If I omit names it does not indicate any displeasure at all, for nothing on the program displeased me.

Justice Ginsburg and Francesca Zambello
presented a similar program in 2013
Photo: Karli Cadel, Glimmerglass Opera

One of my favorites scenes was first on the program, the well-known sextet from Act III of Le Nozze di Figaro. In brief, Figaro is trying to wriggle out of a debt to Marcellina that obliges him to marry her, and in the course of arguing over the matter it is discovered Marcellina is really his mother. I especially liked the Susanna of Jasmine Habersham and the Marcellina of Claudia Chapa, as well as the Figaro of Matthew Scollin.

You might recall I recently saw Madison Opera's performance of Jake Heggie's Dead Man Walking, and wrote of how moved I was. Ben Edquist and Courtney Miller presented the confession scene with admirable vocalism and acting. I was in tears the entire scene both from the performance in front of me and the memory of Madison's production. I do wish the excerpt had not ended before Sister Helen offers Joseph God's forgiveness and her own. Pianist David Moody also deserves special mention for this scene's difficult score.

I was charmed and delighted by the excerpt from Derrick Wang's opera Scalia/Ginsburg. Soprano Jacqueline Echols easily moved from full-on coloratura soprano to sultry, jazzy chanteuse and back in this highly amusing pastiche of styles and actual musical quotes from other operas.

Other vocal standouts include Marco Cammarota as Pinkerton in a Madama Butterfly excerpt and Jennifer Root as Leonore in a Fidelio excerpt.

Taminophile interviews Francesca Zambello

Longtime readers will not be surprised to know I'm a big fan of Francesca Zambello's work. As Artistic and General Director of the Glimmerglass Festival, she has done work that has garnered great acclaim, including from this humble blogger. She is also Artistic Director of Washington National Opera, and has worked in all the world's great houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Paris Opera. She has staged musicals on Broadway and London's West End. Her long list of awards includes France's Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, Germany's Palm d'Or, and three Olivier Awards.

Francesca Zambello
Photo: Claire McAdams

What would you especially like to communicate to my readers?
We're working hard to curate the art form. That's important today. I think a lot of companies are too busy doing other things instead of focusing on a really good product. That's my interest--that's what I work very hard to do in these two places. When you run the company, or are Artistic Director, you make decisions to keep it on course.

I'm glad you included great singing in that answer, since sometimes there is a perception that opera directors today lose that focus.
Great singing generally leads to great character portrayal. Nothing is worse than being in a rehearsal when a singer can't sing the role. They're never going to give you a good acting performance because they're wrapped up in trying to get through it vocally. That's not to say everyone has to sound like Birgit Nilsson. There are some singers you know are B singers but A actors, and they sing in a way that you believe their voices.

Here we try to get the best singers for the role vocally. There are times when a singer doesn't look right, but you work with everyone else--the costume, set, and lighting designers--to figure out how to make somebody look good. But the singing has to be good.

Most of the singers here at Glimmerglass are debuting these roles. That's part of who we are.

You've garnered a lot of praise for building a community in this area around the Festival.
I came here, and I had ideas about what I wanted to do. Historically, the most successful companies have followed an impresario. Whether it's Rudolf Bing (Metropolitan Opera), or John Crosby (Santa Fe Opera), or David Gockley (Houston Grand Opera). Those personalities basically dictated, for better or worse, what the company was doing and saying.

We changed the name to Glimmerglass Festival. We broadened the programming. We worked with other organizations in the area--the museums, food places, the brewery. We worked with the community to make this a destination. Culture has to be a destination if you're not NYC or Berlin or Paris.

We also worked on raising the product quality within the financial constraints that we had. That meant getting the best music people here. We hired Joe Colaneri as Music Director, having him work with the orchestra. Calling in a lot of my friends--Eric Owens, Debbie Voigt, Christine Goerke--to come and not just perform, but really mentor all the Young Artists. I have a great guy who's head of the Young Artists Program (Michael Heaston). Over 1,000 kids apply for 36 Young Artists slots.

So we've built it up from the inside. On the outside, it's publicity, like trying to get on the financial page so that somebody reads about us and comes. This month we're in United Airlines in-flight magazine. We try to find other ways to make culture a destination. That's what I've been focusing on. It's a lot of tickets to sell in the middle of a cornfield!

It has improved your donor base, your supporters both in the area and outside, hasn't it? 
50% of our audience comes from within a two-hour radius. I feel obligated to give them Aida or Dutchman. They're never going to see those operas live unless they go to NYC. That's why we have them. Only 10% of our audience comes from New York City. 10% from DC. 10% from Canada--we're very grateful for our Canadian patrons.

Does it feel like starting over again each summer?
I'm here a lot during the winter, but we also do a lot of events during the year. We go to someone's home, bring some singers, talk about the company. This year we did events in Boston, Miami, Washington, a number in NYC, Albany, Utica, Ithaca, Binghamton—I can't remember them all! I go to all those places with a couple of singers. Try to get 50 people in somebody's home, encourage people to come here, buy tickets, donate, whatever. We try to convince people to come, to give for a variety of reasons, but again, we're not in NYC, we're not Chicago. We're in a place where people forget about us ten months of the year.

It's a year-round job. And then the planning!

We're doing four shows out of the gate really fast. Each show gets four to five weeks of rehearsal. You gain the most in the rehearsal hall. That's a problem with many big companies--they cut down on the rehearsal period. We benefit from that slow rehearsal process. People can go home and think about the work, or go swimming in the lake and think about the work. They have time for their roles to gestate.

Working in a festival has a lot of great karma around it. A festival is very different from a repertory company in a big city. In the first part of my career I was lucky to work with a lot of festivals like Santa Fe. I love it. I love summer. I love doing this.

You once said you thought music critics had the wrong focus.
I probably said that before the internet era. The internet definitely helps us sell tickets if there is good word of mouth. By contrast, New York Times reviews are more helpful with fundraising than ticket sales.

Everyone's a music critic now. That's OK. I don't have a problem with a point of view, but I do have a problem when a writer doesn't know what he's writing about. I'm not saying you don't have to critique. I think a critic has a responsibility to educate as well as critique. Tell a story. Say something like, "I hated it, but the audience was all standing at the end." I think it's interesting to the reader. Report, educate, evaluate.

A question I stole from Inside the Actor's Studio: What's your favorite swear word?
I try to tone down the cussing, because there are kids around a lot. Kids are important.

I was amazed at the kids in Passions last season.
Weren't they amazing? I am so proud of that show. It didn't sell a lot of tickets, but I'd been trying every year to build up the children's chorus, just having kids involved as much as possible, and look what we accomplished.

It was so powerful for those kids. Such difficult music, and they loved doing it. And what's so nice is during the winter they stayed together. They're from different towns, and they kept in touch, went to see each other's school and community shows.

Being involved with our Festival has been an amazing transformative experience for some of these kids. Many are from working-class families. Many of them are from schools whose music programs are being cut. They gain confidence and direction working with our artistic staff and our artists, and it's often reflected in greater accomplishment and focus in the rest of their lives. That's the kind of thing that makes this job worthwhile.

I work really hard to get kids in the theater or to put them in shows. Sometimes we have groups from 4-H, or the Dairy Princesses, for example. These are kids who are coming to the opera now. They might not do it forever, but they have exposure culture in their lives now that might not have been there before.

That's why we're here. That's our calling.

Click here for part 2 of my interview!

He wanted to be good, but conditions wouldn't allow it*

Longtime readers of these pages know of my love affair with the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, NY. I'm delighted to say I've returned for a week of opera and musical theater, and it's off to a terrific start with Carousel. This 1945 hit from Messrs. Rodgers and Hammerstein was their second musical, the first being Oklahoma! in 1943. Although it never achieved the commercial success of Oklahoma!, Carousel ran for 890 performances on Broadway, and also had great success in London's West end in 1950.

Ryan McKinny as Billy Bigelow

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

As in the original production, we are thrown into the action from the downbeat. Choreographer Daniel Pelzig's overture ballet has the dancers and chorus miming the hard mill and fishing work that the New England townspeople would have endured, as well as the joy of a visiting carousel. We saw barker Billy Bigelow lead the crowd in a mimed call and response, and we saw them circle around Billy, using motions and carries that suggested the carousel itself. A very exciting effect.

The cast was uniformly strong in singing and acting, and I could understand almost every word. Ryan McKinny, whom I praised last season as Wagner's Dutchman, was Billy Bigelow. While the Dutchman was dark and sinister, Billy is sometimes light-hearted, sometimes very dark and brooding, and Mr. McKinny's singing brought out the contrasts. His acting was sure-footed and natural, and we understood how deeply troubled Billy was. Sharin Apostolou, also no stranger to these pages, was another standout as Carrie Pipperidge. It is impossible not to focus on her when she is on stage. As always, her acting was very natural. Her singing was very even and beautiful, both high and low.

Ryan McKinny and Andrea Carroll

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

Andrea Carroll sang Julie Jordan, the girl who falls for Billy Bigelow. Her singing also was even and beautiful throughout, and it had a richer timbre than expected for this role or for other roles listed in her credits. Her acting was at the same high level as the rest of the cast. Joe Shadday, whom I praised last season for his cameo role in Verdi's King for a Day, was an appropriately blustery and tender Enoch Snow.

Musical theater veteran Wynn Harmon again graced the Glimmerglass stage as the Starkeeper and as Dr. Seldon. Rebecca Finnegan, another musical theater veteran, was all harridan as Mrs. Mullin, and all sweetness and light as the Heavenly Friend. Young Artist Ben Edquist was a delightfully oily Jigger Craigin.

This is visually a beautiful production. A unit set by designer John Culbert suggested a pier or a beach or a sidewalk. Lighting was quite striking, especially in the scene when Billy meets the Starkeeper. Anne Ford-Coates and Jessica Jahn provided very effective hair/makeup and costumes. I should also mention Doug Peck's fine music direction of the show.

I'm happy to say this show continues its run through August 22. I recommend it highly!

Photo: Karli Cadel/The Glimmerglass Festival

*The title of this post is adapted from a quote from Mr. Brecht's Threepenny Opera. 

Lucrezia Borgia at Caramoor

As I have many times in past years, I ventured up to Katonah, NY, for a beautiful evening of singing at Caramoor's Summer Music Festival. You will recall my fondness for this venue, for the beautiful surroundings and the opportunity to hear fresh, young talent alongside more accomplished professionals. The work that Will Crutchfield, Director of Opera at Caramoor, and his team do is to be commended.

Will Crutchfield
Courtesy caramoor.org

On Saturday, July 12, the main event was Mr. Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia, (libretto by Mr. Felice Romani, based on Mr. Victor Hugo's play, Lucrèce Borgia). As usual, there was so much more than that one opera on offer! I like to arrive early and hear the afternoon lectures and concerts of apprentices and young artists, and once again I was quite happy I did. The first sung program was called "Bel canto a due", which has become a popular series of young artists singing, as you might imagine, bel canto duets. Mr. Crutchfield explained that these are wonderful duets not only for their beauty but also for the learning opportunities in singing such intricate music with a partner. Another program showcased other musical settings of Victor Hugo's verse, including Mr. Liszt's familiar "Oh! quand je dors" and an adorable duet from Mr. Mendelssohn's setting of Ruy Blas. All of the afternoon's singing was quite good, and I regret that I can't name everyone who impressed me. Bass-baritone Joseph Charles Beutel continues to dazzle with his singing, his acting, and his youthful looks. Hsin-Mei Tracy Chang gave a lovely and tender performance of Mr. Gounod's setting of "Sérénade", and Yunnie Park sang a shimmering "Oh! quand je dors". Among the other singers I wish to name were soprano Elise Brancheau, mezzo Desiree Maira, tenor Scott Brunscheen, and baritone Joel Herold. Again, I can't name everyone, but rest assured there was not a dud in the bunch on Saturday afternoon!

Angela Meade
Photo:  Devon Cass

On to the main event! Mr. Donizetti's score is full of all the melody, the fioritura, the drama that we have come to expect from his works. Interestingly, Mr. Crutchfield chose to perform the 1833 version on Saturday night, but will perform the 1840 version, which follows Mr. Hugo's play more closely by replacing the soprano's final solo scene with a finale for the soprano and tenor, on July 18.

As Lucrezia, Angela Meade gave us all that we know of her--smooth line, beautiful tone, musically expressive presentation--and added a passion I haven't seen. I am happy to say the young lady, still in her 30s, is growing artistically. Christophoros Stamboglis, who wowed us last year in Caramoor's Don Carlo, gave us a passionate and vengeful Alfonso D'Este, Duke of Ferrara and Lucrezia's husband. Always singing beautifully while still portraying the many emotions of the Duke, Mr. Stamboglis was a highlight of this production.

Michele Angelini
Photo:  Rebecca Fay

Tenor Michele Angelini has graced these pages before, and I must say I can only praise his performance as Gennaro, Lucrezia's illegitimate son. He is making quite a name for himself in the high, florid bel canto repertoire, and while I see the role of Gennaro as perhaps a bit beefier than the Elvinos and Lindoros for which Mr. Angelini has garnered much praise, he handled it with great ease. As Orsini, close friend of Gennaro, Tamara Mumford gave a dazzling performance. Looking both dashing and beautiful, and singing with a luxurious tone and great ease, Ms. Mumford earned the roars of approval she received at the curtain call.

The smaller roles were sung quite ably by Caramoor young artists and apprentices. Standouts include Mr. Beutel, of course, as an aide to Lucrezia, and tenor Cameron Schutza, whose featured role as Rustighella, one of the Duke's henchmen, gave him lots of stage time. As always, the Orchestra of St. Luke's and Will Crutchfield gave a stellar performance of the demanding score, beautifully paced, shaped and nuanced.