Multi-tasking

In the throes of the last big crunch. Flute stagings, two L'Etoile performances, arrival of Steve Blier and 3 National Symphony shows in 4 days.

One thing at a time, and briefly, by necessity:

Flute and Writer's Block

I whined a few days ago about my article for the Magic Flute program. I believe that a few years of blogging have so exercised my informal writing muscles that I've forgotten how to pen a single thoughtful, probing, erudite paragraph. So I gave up and submitted this for our printed program.

L'Etoile

Brush-up rehearsal yesterday (due to a 5-day gap between performances) was, accordingly to all reports I've received, more enjoyable than it had any right to be. Should bode well for this weekend's performances.

The reviews are in, and we've skimmed them and moved on. Always happy when the critics have a good time. More happy (shhh) when the audience does.

I love this particular parade of descriptors, though:

• Deliciously tuneful, rhythmically buoyant
• Kinetic, amusing, sometimes naughty
• Daffy, ribald
• Effervescing
• Fresh, affectionate
• Cheeky
• Zany
• Boisterous

You could do worse with an evening in the theatre. I think we'll do all comedies all the time from now on. There are worse themes to build a season on, right? (Just kidding!)

Manhattan Diaries

See ACB's post here. She's in the cast, and I hope she'll continue to chronicle her week as we lead into next Saturday evening's performance.

Symphon-iPod (The Post coined it... don't blame me.)

Crazy and satisfying concert last night with the NSO. Some terrific music married to gorgeous images and video courtesy of NASA. And we published a conductor's commentary (kind of like the director's commentary that you get in the extra feature on a DVD) that could be downloaded as a podcast, then brought to the concert. Live music in one ear, insights on the music and images in the other ear, and all manner of beautiful pictures for the eyes. Stimulation overload? Well, yes at times. Did it make some of the music and pictures stick with me long after they normally would have. Actually, yes.

The tech press was all over this, and I'm sure the classical music press will be charitable if they withhold judgment. But it was a fascinating experiment, worthy of being held, and holding some promise for the future.

The Flute and the Magic of WTOC

It seems I’ve grown up with Mozart at the Filene Center. My first professional opera gig was as a pianist intern assigned to the Wolf Trap Opera Company’s 1985 production of The Magic Flute. Dawn Upshaw sang Pamina, Richard Croft was Tamino, and guest artist Jerome Hines towered over everyone as Sarastro. My travels with Flute began by teaching the music to the boys who sang the three genii, helping cue the offstage microphones, and operating the supertitle equipment. My journey continued as I assisted an entire generation of Wolf Trappers in mastering Mozart’s marvelous roles – including Paul Groves as Tamino, Gordon Hawkins as the Speaker, and Nathan Gunn as Papageno.

If you don’t go to the opera often, these names won’t mean much. Fear not – all that matters is that they are emblematic of all the lucky young singers who found their voices here at this magical place. After thousands of hours of voice lessons and auditions, multiple degrees, and serious soul-searching, these artists were given the opportunity to sing on this stage. Then they took Mozart and Wolf Trap with them throughout the world – singing Papageno in Paris, Tamino in London, and Pamina in New York.

Most program notes are scholarly in tone, written by musicologists with impeccable credentials. I would like to be such a writer, but I am humbled by my decades spent with the inhabitants of Mozart’s last opera. On the first day of rehearsal this year, our director spoke to the cast plainly about the task ahead. No dwelling on Masonic symbolism or political allegory. Just this: Flute is a story about growing up. About sometimes finding out that those people you thought were good are not really what they seem. About honoring the journey and simply doing the best you can.

The people we’ll see on the stage tonight are not like the next-door-neighbors we met during last summer’s Marriage of Figaro. They are, rather, like the characters in the best bedtime stories we could ever tell to our children - foolish, wise, funny, and honorable all at the same time. They are scared of monsters and kind to their friends. The parents love their children fiercely yet make mistakes. And it all ends happily, if not simply.

Mozart was 35 when he wrote this opera, and he died without reaching his next birthday. He had a pregnant wife, a son, many debts, and he was in failing health. History has attributed all manner of grand and noble motivations to the composition of The Magic Flute, and it’s certainly not my place to diminish them. However, I don’t believe (particularly in this case) that Mozart was writing for posterity. His friend Schikaneder offered him a job writing a Singspiel (much more like a Broadway musical than an opera) for his public theatre on the outskirts of town. Not exactly a royal commission and certainly not a prescription for a long-lasting work of art. Yet hundreds of years later, The Magic Flute is consistently among the top ten most popular operas of all time.

Decades after my first Flute I’m still in equal parts entranced and mystified. It’s a tough opera to produce, what with dancing animals, trials by fire and water, singing children, and tricky German dialogue. It’s not surprising that the administrator in me approaches it with trepidation. But caution fades when Papageno bounds onto the stage, the Queen of the Night vents her wrath, and the Three Ladies weave their voices around such glorious music. And for me, forever, it will all be sung to the evocative background of crickets and gentle breezes in the Wolf Trap trees.

Problems Time Has Solved

My InBox.

Not my email InBox, which I reduce to almost zero on a regular basis. (It's a sickness.) Rather, it's my desk InBox to which I'm applying that most-wonderful-of-strategies: Problems Time Will Solve.

Everyone in my office knows not to put important mail in my real InBox during the summer. If I'm really meant to see something it ends up on my chair or on top of my computer keyboard. Yes, I get the hint.

And the InBox is overflowing. Really, it takes more time to get something to balance on top of it that it would be to just read it and get it over with. Still I persist. Yesterday I had to go searching for something that might've been buried. (It wasn't.) And I realized that almost everything in the InBox could now go directly into the trash. Hmmm.

Writer's Block

There are some problems time doesn't help, though. Like the fact that I've been trying to write an article for the Magic Flute printed program (we call it Center Lines) for weeks. It was due last Friday. And everything I start gets scrapped. I am going to write something tonight. If I have to stay up all night to do it. (And since I sleep so poorly these days, it may not make any difference.)

Wishing Upon a Star

Two more performances of L'Etoile to go. I am so fond of this piece. Not rocket science, and somewhat underwhelming if your taste skews to serious high art, but so satisfying on every other level.

Open Studio

Today marked the beginning of a week's worth of Wolf Trap Opera Studio classes open to invited guests. I had the honor of kicking it off, doing an auditions workshop. I really don't remember what I said or did, but I'm told it was useful and entertaining. Tomorrow - Italian recitative; later this week - acting, movement, and a scenes program.

Enough avoidance. Back to work. Wish I were a musicologist.... And I'm toiling away here, missing the Hippiefest...

Vive Ouf!

I've been told by several colleagues associated with our production of L’Étoile (opening tomorrow!) that I've neglected this most-enjoyable-of-operas in the blog. It seemed inconceivable, for most of my days lately have been consumed by all things L’Étoile. But it's true. Completely unintentional but true.

How to summarize a month's worth of Chabrier's sassy and sweet opera?

We ignored it for years, believing that the orchestration was too extensive for our mini-pit. Once we discovered this beautiful reduction (for you musicians and producers: strings plus 2.1.2.1.2.2.1 and 2 percussion), we were sold. And this year's audition year netted the perfect cast.

Lazuli, the wandering peddler.

Princess Laoula with King Ouf

Lazuli with astrologer Siroco

Ouf with Aloës

Lazuli trying to escape

Tapioca

Hérisson de Porc-Epic

Lazuli & Laoula

Nous voyageons incognito

Photos 1, 2, 4, 9 by Carol Pratt
Photos 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 by Andrew Propp

To my chagrin, there are still tickets remaining for this 4-show run. Best tickets available next Friday (8/3), but also good ones to be had this weekend (tomorrow at 8, Sunday at 2) and for the final show (8/5 at 2.)

I Vant to be Alone

A day (well, almost 8 hours) by myself. And did I ever need it.

Yes, I know, too much solitary time is also a curse. But I haven't had a single morning, afternoon, evening, whatever of alone time in over 2 months. Have used my few days off to help my dad move. And the rest of the summer has been a blur of people. Lovely people (for the most part), mind you, but I've had my fill. (Now, if you are working at Wolf Trap and you're reading this, realize that this is not an admonition to avoid me...)

I'm a people person, but the cost can be high. Because I'm also a people pleaser, and no matter what the situation, precious energy is siphoned off for that purpose. Yes, I know it's not particularly wise or mature, but I've given up trying to change. The thing is, though, I'm the last one in line unless I'm the only one in the room. Therefore, my day alone today was the best drug money can't buy.

(And just in case you think I did noble things with my solitude, consider this. I was so disgusted trying to clean my house that I gave in and bought a Dyson. Yes, MI, I did it. And yes, I filled two of those canisters with dirt. Thought about blogging a picture, but I'm not sure I want you to know that much about me.)

See you at L’Étoile. Almost forgot... nice preview today in The Baltimore Sun.

Vive Ouf ! Vive notre Ouf, notre bon Ouf, le plus excellent des Ouf !

Stars and Sillies

Thinking a lot about star power and large personalities. Three days' worth in this weekend's National Symphony Orchestra concerts: Lang Lang, James Galway, Marvin Hamlisch.

I worked the Lang Lang concert. It's always fascinating to see a pianist who's completely at home at the keyboard. There are pianists who conquer the instrument, who dominate it and make it speak volumes. But it doesn't always follow that the keyboard seems to be a completely natural extension of them. I'm not being articulate, but the distinction seems so very clear somewhere inside my head.

I didn't work the Galway concert because I had a technical rehearsal for L'Etoile. But I made a quick run over to the theatre to hear the Pines of Rome that was supposed to follow Galway's appearance. Got there a few minutes early, just in time for his Danny Boy encore. It was a long night, with several hours ahead yet, and the idea of Danny Boy wasn't particularly appealing. Guess I was having a music snob moment.

I have to say, though, that even though the idea felt like kitsch, the execution was completely satisfying. Simple, honest, heartfelt, unapologetic, all that good stuff. Followed by some gloriously bloated Respighi, complete with bird calls, 32' organ stops and herald trumpets from the U.S. Army Band. Emil de Cou called it a giant deep-friend symphonic Twinkie. (To truly appreciate Emil's wacky sense of humor, spend a couple of minutes with his YouTube ad for our NSO concerts.)





Life After the Woods




We finished up our week of Instant Opera with a couple of atypically glorious midsummer mornings. You've heard me talk a lot about this project, but I'm struck again and again by how well this experiment seems to have turned out. We started out 2 years ago with a goal that even we weren't sure we could reach. And we surpassed it.

What do the kids and their parents seem to learn from these crazy mornings of improvisational acting and singing?

That there are smart and funny 20-somethings who sing opera.

That they do it willingly and happily at 11am for hundreds of small children.

That the crazy conventions of opera are pretty simple after all. By the end of the show, everyone knows the difference between bravo, brava and bravi. They can also order a hamburger in recitative.

That there can be a sense of excitement and total investment in opera that has nothing to do with the stereotype of large immobile people in boring costumes parking and barking.

And, as if that weren't enough, what do the participants take away from the woods?

Well, for starters, that they can get up on stage and negotiate every curve ball thrown at them for 15 whole minutes and live to tell the tale.

That they have the recipe for Mozart recitative so firmly imprinted on their subconscious that they can navigate around the circle of fifths unerringly and convincingly.

That their colleagues are not only talented, they are also gracious.

That it's possible to bring their art to the uninitiated without boring themselves or patronizing the audience.

That almost nothing will happen to them onstage for the next 20 years that will surprise them.

Next year we're upping the ante. Improvised English text during the arias.

Once Upon a Time in Germany

Even though there were other important things happening today (a "Dressing for Operatic Success" seminar with costume guru Marsha Leboeuf, an all-too-entertaining L'Etoile run-through among others), I can't resist yet another storyboard from opera in the woods. Once again, all created by the several hundred children in the audience. One of whom, obviously, was recently in Germany :)

Once upon a time in a castle, a king and a princess (quite bored, they were)....

... swam every day (in the moat, of course)....

....until Harry Potter and a dragon.....

.... came along to fly with them.

Of course, there was a surprise character

(some evil guyfrom the Harry Potter books...

I'll have to get the name for you...

I'm not exactly up on all of that, sadly).

But there was a happy ending!

Tomorrow brings more Instant Opera, coachings for Magic Flute (which starts in 5, count 'em, 5 days...) and a National Symphony concert.

The Happy Dragon

Today, in the woods.....

Once upon a time in a castle, a princess...

...and a wizard...

...galloped through the forest every day until a dragon...

...came along to kidnap the princess.

(There was a handsome prince, too.)

Gotta Love Instant Opera.

(Thanks for playing, Jeremy! You were brilliant!)