Doing this education tour has really made me think again about why I love opera and why I want other people, especially kids, to give it a chance. There are myriad reasons, but here are the things I love most about opera:
1. There are no microphones. Singers have to train their bodies and voices intelligently in order to sing in huge theaters without any amplification other than what happens in their own throats, chests, and heads. Yes, good acoustics in these theaters helps, but without vocal training, those acoustics wouldn't matter one bit when an entire orchestra plays and the hall is filled with thousands of bodies dampening the sound. It's amazing to me what the human body and voice can do - like athletes, we train every day, and we must do so thoughtfully and with intention. It's not as easy as it looks, and it takes years of study, practice, and physical development. This is the number one reason I fell in love with opera in the first place.
2. The music is sometimes beautiful, sometimes intellectually stimulating, and sometimes so passionate and emotional and thrilling that whether you are singing it or listening to it, you feel something that you can't put words to. It is that exact transcendent feeling that is why that particular music was composed in the first place - to give voice to something that words alone cannot express.
3. It's a take on our human tradition of storytelling that involves music, drama, movement, and visual arts (sets, lighting, costumes...) - everything - all in one spectacular live event. Oh, and that brings me to...
4. It's LIVE. Anything can happen on stage. When music is recorded in a studio, or when a film or TV show is made, there are all kinds of possibilities for editing, tweaking, changing things in the studio. In the live theater, you have one chance at that high note, one chance at that scene, and one chance to give the audience an experience that will take them into a different world for an evening. Maybe, if you're lucky, you get one chance to show someone who is experiencing their very first opera all the things that you love about it, and maybe that one night will inspire their love for it, too.
5. Every time you do a show, the same exact opera and maybe even the same exact production, it's different. You get a new opportunity to see into a character, perfect or change that character based on the way you are perceiving the music that day. You get to mold and play and create and take the audience along for the ride.
These reasons are the same for me both as a performer and an audience member. No matter how many times I see La Traviata or Don Giovanni or any other opera I've seen a number of times before, it's always a new experience. The notes on the page always stay the same, but the music and the drama are different every time they're brought to life, every single performance.
We might be in a recession, but that is why we need the arts more than ever - to take us away, just for a couple of hours, into something bigger and grander, more terrible and more wonderful. Get thee to the theater, friends!
Friday, November 7, 2008
Thursday, November 6, 2008
A little bit about the arts and money
Well, since the concert is over, we're back to school programs. Today we did two of our middle school program at the Joslyn Art Museum, and we'll do two more there tomorrow. Apparently, our program is one of the workshops the students can choose in a whole day of art activities at the museum. Isn't that cool? The Joslyn is working with both Opera Omaha and the Omaha Symphony for us to be there. Apparently, there are a lot of grants available for collaboration between arts organizations, and now more than ever, grant money is crucial for the survival of arts organizations. Frankly, any money is hard to come by in the current economic climate. Just this week, Opera Pacific (out of Orange County, California) announced that it was canceling the remainder of its current season due to financial problems. Essentially, the company is several million dollars in the red, and its donors have had to pull promised funding. It remains to be seen whether this is the first of many to go under.
What does this mean for performers? Well, besides the obvious (companies closing doors = fewer performances = fewer jobs), it also means that companies are no longer able to plan their seasons several years in advance. Where opera companies used to plan three or four years in advance, they are now not able to do that because they don't know where the money is coming from. Not only are donors not giving as much, but ticket buyers are buying single tickets instead of season subscriptions, so it's even harder for companies to estimate how much money to count on. This all means that performers are not being contracted many years in advance. For someone like me, who is just starting out, this could be both good and bad. I'm sure you can connect those dots.
I could write more about that, but I won't right now. There are all kinds of factors, including unions, that I don't know enough about yet, and frankly, I am super glad not to be working in arts administration (or any other nonprofit, for that matter) at this point in history. I am VERY glad to be performing, doing outreach for kids who are still totally excited to learn, and working with fantastic people while at this particular point in a singing career, about which I am really optimistic.
What does this mean for performers? Well, besides the obvious (companies closing doors = fewer performances = fewer jobs), it also means that companies are no longer able to plan their seasons several years in advance. Where opera companies used to plan three or four years in advance, they are now not able to do that because they don't know where the money is coming from. Not only are donors not giving as much, but ticket buyers are buying single tickets instead of season subscriptions, so it's even harder for companies to estimate how much money to count on. This all means that performers are not being contracted many years in advance. For someone like me, who is just starting out, this could be both good and bad. I'm sure you can connect those dots.
I could write more about that, but I won't right now. There are all kinds of factors, including unions, that I don't know enough about yet, and frankly, I am super glad not to be working in arts administration (or any other nonprofit, for that matter) at this point in history. I am VERY glad to be performing, doing outreach for kids who are still totally excited to learn, and working with fantastic people while at this particular point in a singing career, about which I am really optimistic.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Concert with the Omaha Symphony, and VOTE
So, this is my name on the door of my very own personal dressing room backstage:
This is the first time I've had my name on the door without having to share! It's exciting, people! The occasion for this was our Choral Collaborative Concert with the Omaha Symphony on Sunday night. This is an annual event bringing together the Omaha Symphony and members of the Opera Omaha Chorus with several area high school choirs. The choirs get to work with conductor Ernest Richardson and OO music director J. Gawf during the rehearsal process, and then they get to perform with the Symphony and the Opera Chorus in the Symphony's beautiful new concert hall, the Holland Center. The four Voices in Residence were the soloists for the concert: on the first half, I sang Poulenc's Gloria with four of the choirs, and then on the second half, all four of us sang opera excerpts and solos with the other three choirs.
The concert went extremely well, and the 2000-seat house was full. Chandler, my parents, my aunt, my sister and brother-in-law, Chandler's dad and stepmom, two of their friends, and several of my girlfriends from Des Moines and Pella all came to hear the performance. It was fantastic! And did I mention how well the concert went?
Here I am after the concert with Chandler:
It was an extremely busy weekend, and I didn't get to see any of those friends or much of the family I had visiting, because I had three hours of dress rehearsal on Saturday, then a performance in a Barnes & Noble in the afternoon, and then another four-hour dress rehearsal Sunday afternoon before the performance. Now, this is not ideal, because all that rehearsal can wear out your voice and your body - it's really exhausting before a big performance. But, it was necessary to rehearse all the choirs together with the orchestra, and that was the only time. This is when you have to be really smart about your singing and save as much energy as you can for the performance even while singing enough to check balance with the orchestra in the hall. Poor Sarah had a terrible cold and still had to do everything we had to do - THAT is when your professionalism is really tested, and she rocked it!
Of course, then we went right back into two school programs yesterday - we were a bit tired, but we have today off. I hope you have all voted and realize how blessed we are to have this right! I'm realizing that more strongly than ever today, because I've been disenfranchised: I requested my absentee ballot a month ago, it didn't come, I called about it and the MN Election board said they would send another, but that never came either. I'm lodging a complaint, because THAT is ridiculous. So, yeah, I'm glad I caucused for my candidate and donated to his campaign, but I don't even get to vote today. I think this will really impact the way I feel about the importance of voting for the rest of my life - so, to all of you who CAN, get out the vote today!
This is the first time I've had my name on the door without having to share! It's exciting, people! The occasion for this was our Choral Collaborative Concert with the Omaha Symphony on Sunday night. This is an annual event bringing together the Omaha Symphony and members of the Opera Omaha Chorus with several area high school choirs. The choirs get to work with conductor Ernest Richardson and OO music director J. Gawf during the rehearsal process, and then they get to perform with the Symphony and the Opera Chorus in the Symphony's beautiful new concert hall, the Holland Center. The four Voices in Residence were the soloists for the concert: on the first half, I sang Poulenc's Gloria with four of the choirs, and then on the second half, all four of us sang opera excerpts and solos with the other three choirs.
The concert went extremely well, and the 2000-seat house was full. Chandler, my parents, my aunt, my sister and brother-in-law, Chandler's dad and stepmom, two of their friends, and several of my girlfriends from Des Moines and Pella all came to hear the performance. It was fantastic! And did I mention how well the concert went?
Here I am after the concert with Chandler:
It was an extremely busy weekend, and I didn't get to see any of those friends or much of the family I had visiting, because I had three hours of dress rehearsal on Saturday, then a performance in a Barnes & Noble in the afternoon, and then another four-hour dress rehearsal Sunday afternoon before the performance. Now, this is not ideal, because all that rehearsal can wear out your voice and your body - it's really exhausting before a big performance. But, it was necessary to rehearse all the choirs together with the orchestra, and that was the only time. This is when you have to be really smart about your singing and save as much energy as you can for the performance even while singing enough to check balance with the orchestra in the hall. Poor Sarah had a terrible cold and still had to do everything we had to do - THAT is when your professionalism is really tested, and she rocked it!
Of course, then we went right back into two school programs yesterday - we were a bit tired, but we have today off. I hope you have all voted and realize how blessed we are to have this right! I'm realizing that more strongly than ever today, because I've been disenfranchised: I requested my absentee ballot a month ago, it didn't come, I called about it and the MN Election board said they would send another, but that never came either. I'm lodging a complaint, because THAT is ridiculous. So, yeah, I'm glad I caucused for my candidate and donated to his campaign, but I don't even get to vote today. I think this will really impact the way I feel about the importance of voting for the rest of my life - so, to all of you who CAN, get out the vote today!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Choral Collaborative Concert this weekend!
I've been back for several days now, but the audition went well. Not great, but fairly well. There are so many variables that go into these things - but I'm not going to write about the torture that is the audition process today, because I don't want to bring you all down. Another time! I will say, however, that spending 20 out of 34 consecutive hours in airports and airplanes for a five-minute audition on your day off is saaaaad.
On the upside, I did get to eat a homemade empanada after my audition.
Anyway, for the past couple of days we have been preparing for the Choral Collaborative Concert, in addition to our education outreach schedule. This concert is an annual collaboration between several area high school choirs, the Omaha Symphony, and Opera Omaha. This year, the first half of the concert features four choirs in Poulenc's Gloria, with yours truly as the soprano soloist. I looooooove this piece of music, people - if you don't know it, it's worth looking for a recording. This is the one I own and enjoy.
The second half of the concert features three more choirs and all four of the Voices in Residence in various opera excerpts. There are a couple of things from the current Opera Omaha season (from Pirates and Boheme), as well as several familiar crowd-pleasers (the Hebrew slave chorus from Nabucco, the Pearl Fishers duet, Brindisi from Traviata, and "Sing to Love" from Fledermaus to name a few). I should also mention that twelve Opera Omaha chorus members join the high school choirs in both parts of the concert, so this is a collaboration and educational experience in many ways. The concert concludes with all the choirs and soloists singing the Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana.
I think I've said it before, but I love working with high school students because teenagers don't know yet what they should or shouldn't be able to do - they try anything, and as a group, they can be pretty fearless. It's amazing to hear how well they know this music. Of course there are things they still need to learn and changes to make during rehearsals, but they do it really quickly and well. This is going to be such a fun show! I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of that throughout the many hours of dress rehearsal on Saturday and Sunday (yes, dress rehearsal on the day of the show = insane). But the product will make it all worthwhile!
On the upside, I did get to eat a homemade empanada after my audition.
Anyway, for the past couple of days we have been preparing for the Choral Collaborative Concert, in addition to our education outreach schedule. This concert is an annual collaboration between several area high school choirs, the Omaha Symphony, and Opera Omaha. This year, the first half of the concert features four choirs in Poulenc's Gloria, with yours truly as the soprano soloist. I looooooove this piece of music, people - if you don't know it, it's worth looking for a recording. This is the one I own and enjoy.
The second half of the concert features three more choirs and all four of the Voices in Residence in various opera excerpts. There are a couple of things from the current Opera Omaha season (from Pirates and Boheme), as well as several familiar crowd-pleasers (the Hebrew slave chorus from Nabucco, the Pearl Fishers duet, Brindisi from Traviata, and "Sing to Love" from Fledermaus to name a few). I should also mention that twelve Opera Omaha chorus members join the high school choirs in both parts of the concert, so this is a collaboration and educational experience in many ways. The concert concludes with all the choirs and soloists singing the Easter Hymn from Cavalleria Rusticana.
I think I've said it before, but I love working with high school students because teenagers don't know yet what they should or shouldn't be able to do - they try anything, and as a group, they can be pretty fearless. It's amazing to hear how well they know this music. Of course there are things they still need to learn and changes to make during rehearsals, but they do it really quickly and well. This is going to be such a fun show! I'm going to have to keep reminding myself of that throughout the many hours of dress rehearsal on Saturday and Sunday (yes, dress rehearsal on the day of the show = insane). But the product will make it all worthwhile!
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Heading to Miami!
I have an audition for the Florida Grand Opera Young Artist program tomorrow (Monday) at 2:20 pm, so I'm flying out today. Please think of me tomorrow afternoon!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The outreach portion of the program
Okay, so I realized today that I haven't posted since Monday - sorry! I guess this week has been a little tiring. On Tuesday, we rehearsed both of our school education shows and then presented them both to a small invited audience at the Opera Omaha offices. This was basically our dress rehearsal, and we started right off with two shows Wednesday and two more today.
The programs are both pretty cool - Program A is aimed at high school and college students and adults, and Program B is for middle-schoolers. We open both programs the same way, with an introduction from Rossini's La Cenerentola, and then we dive into asking the kids what they think of when they think of opera. We get a lot of the same answers, usually things like the lady with the horns (costumes!), loud singing or high notes (yes - and no microphones!), dramatic, and foreign languages. We take the things they say and talk about what opera is: storytelling using all art forms (composition, singing, orchestra, dancing, poetry, prose, set-building, costume design). We also sing musical examples from different operas along the way, explaining how composers use the music to tell a story. After each example, we ask the kids to tell us what they think was happening in the excerpt and why they think that, based on what they heard in the music. This is so interesting, because they usually get it right, even thought they can't understand any of the words!
After this, we have the students help us write our own opera, based on this simple text: It was a dark and rainy night. There was a knock at the door. We opened up the front door. It was the pizza delivery guy!
For each of the four sentences, we give the students a choice between two different styles. Is the rain gentle or stormy? Is the knock sneaky or dramatic? Do we open the front door in an exuberant way or a dreamy way? And finally, is the pizza delivery guy evil or the love of our life? Omaha Symphony conductor Ernest Richardson wrote the music for this little experiment, and it's super fun: he plays with melodies from famous pieces of the operatic and classical repertory, many of which the average person has probably heard on movies and TV commericals. The kids get really into this section, and I think it really demonstrates the way music can tell (or even change) a story.
Anyway, we wrap things up in our A program with quartets from Rigoletto and La Boheme. The B program is actually built around the theme of weather, so it includes a quartet from Street Scene and one from Regina, as well as an excerpt from The Blizzard Voices, a new opera that premiered in September at OO. We also tack the Boheme quartet onto the end of that program as well, since OO is doing it in the spring. The students all get vouchers for free tickets to the show, so it's a pretty sweet deal.
That's all for now. I need to go to bed!
The programs are both pretty cool - Program A is aimed at high school and college students and adults, and Program B is for middle-schoolers. We open both programs the same way, with an introduction from Rossini's La Cenerentola, and then we dive into asking the kids what they think of when they think of opera. We get a lot of the same answers, usually things like the lady with the horns (costumes!), loud singing or high notes (yes - and no microphones!), dramatic, and foreign languages. We take the things they say and talk about what opera is: storytelling using all art forms (composition, singing, orchestra, dancing, poetry, prose, set-building, costume design). We also sing musical examples from different operas along the way, explaining how composers use the music to tell a story. After each example, we ask the kids to tell us what they think was happening in the excerpt and why they think that, based on what they heard in the music. This is so interesting, because they usually get it right, even thought they can't understand any of the words!
After this, we have the students help us write our own opera, based on this simple text: It was a dark and rainy night. There was a knock at the door. We opened up the front door. It was the pizza delivery guy!
For each of the four sentences, we give the students a choice between two different styles. Is the rain gentle or stormy? Is the knock sneaky or dramatic? Do we open the front door in an exuberant way or a dreamy way? And finally, is the pizza delivery guy evil or the love of our life? Omaha Symphony conductor Ernest Richardson wrote the music for this little experiment, and it's super fun: he plays with melodies from famous pieces of the operatic and classical repertory, many of which the average person has probably heard on movies and TV commericals. The kids get really into this section, and I think it really demonstrates the way music can tell (or even change) a story.
Anyway, we wrap things up in our A program with quartets from Rigoletto and La Boheme. The B program is actually built around the theme of weather, so it includes a quartet from Street Scene and one from Regina, as well as an excerpt from The Blizzard Voices, a new opera that premiered in September at OO. We also tack the Boheme quartet onto the end of that program as well, since OO is doing it in the spring. The students all get vouchers for free tickets to the show, so it's a pretty sweet deal.
That's all for now. I need to go to bed!
Monday, October 20, 2008
Pirates is over, Chandler is gone
Well, the show is over: Wednesday, Friday, and a matinee on Sunday, and that's it. Here are some pics of the opening night cast party:
Tara, me, and Sarah.
With the incredible (and sweet!) John Davies, who sang the Sergeant of Police. He has the most beautiful voice, and we're totally setting up a fan club on Facebook!
The three of us yet again, this time with Patrick Ryan Sullivan, our sweet and fantastic Pirate King. If I told you he has sung Gaston in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, would you be surprised? I think it's the hair...
Let's see...here we add Gene Scheer. He sang the Major General, but aside from being a performer, Gene is also an amazing songwriter and opera librettist. He's currently working on a libretto for an opera based on Moby Dick. Not my favorite book, I'll admit, but if you cut out all the chapters on how to use whale blubber, it could be a very cool opera.
Oh, and here's one more show picture - John Davies as the Sergeant.
However, here is my favorite person of the entire weekend:
Chandler! He had to go back to Minneapolis today, but my sweet hubby got here in time for the show on Friday, stayed the whole weekend, and saw the show again on Sunday. My aunt came with him from Minneapolis, and the rest of my family was here for the Sunday show as well. Today was my day off, my "Sunday," if you will (and you will), and I'm exhausted. We jump right into our education outreach tomorrow, and I feel like I need another day to recover, but, here we go - five weeks of touring!
Tara, me, and Sarah.
With the incredible (and sweet!) John Davies, who sang the Sergeant of Police. He has the most beautiful voice, and we're totally setting up a fan club on Facebook!
The three of us yet again, this time with Patrick Ryan Sullivan, our sweet and fantastic Pirate King. If I told you he has sung Gaston in Beauty and the Beast on Broadway, would you be surprised? I think it's the hair...
Let's see...here we add Gene Scheer. He sang the Major General, but aside from being a performer, Gene is also an amazing songwriter and opera librettist. He's currently working on a libretto for an opera based on Moby Dick. Not my favorite book, I'll admit, but if you cut out all the chapters on how to use whale blubber, it could be a very cool opera.
Oh, and here's one more show picture - John Davies as the Sergeant.
However, here is my favorite person of the entire weekend:
Chandler! He had to go back to Minneapolis today, but my sweet hubby got here in time for the show on Friday, stayed the whole weekend, and saw the show again on Sunday. My aunt came with him from Minneapolis, and the rest of my family was here for the Sunday show as well. Today was my day off, my "Sunday," if you will (and you will), and I'm exhausted. We jump right into our education outreach tomorrow, and I feel like I need another day to recover, but, here we go - five weeks of touring!
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