Great God Gold

Yesterday, the news that there is a shortage of Rosco gold paint. Go figure. Just in time for the painting of our Volpone set, which is a not-so-subtle metaphor for uh... gold.


And today, these photos from the shop - the building of the rake (the stage floor that's angled toward the audience) and construction of the Volpone walls (which contain a very large number of windows that open a la Hee-Haw... or was it Laugh-In?)

Notes from the Continent

This, via Nick's blog. A former Wolf-Trapper, Nick is reporting on his career.

"Yesterday I did a short interview with a young woman who is filming a student documentary on American opera singers in Europe. One of the questions she asked me was: what have I learned from my work? I told her that among the many things that I have discovered, I have learned that the world is not black and white, but contains mostly various shades of grey, and that I feel good about myself when I maintain my integrity and honesty."

We should all discover such things in our work.


The Music of the Future

As we rehearse our 3-year-old opera, I was enchanted to find this in my InBox (from Composers Datebook) - a reminder that all music was once "new."

"The work on first hearing is generally unintelligible and not enjoyable . . . Musical people as a rule have not yet got 'educated' by the music of the future up to the point where they may enjoy passages bereft of all tonality, by meanderings through doors of modulation, around corners of accidentals, and through mazes of chromatics that lead nowhere unless it be to the realm of giddiness." (The work in question: Brahms' Serenade #1 at its first U.S. performance in 1882.)

Memorial Day in Rehearsal

Congratulations to TL, who became an American citizen on Friday. Not too many new Americans have the pleasure of celebrating by singing the Star Spangled Banner with the backup of an entire opera company.




Volpone music rehearsals have been calm, methodical, and illuminating. We buffered in an extra 4 days of rehearsal for this show, and I believe that having had the time to sift through this score thoroughly will prove invaluable.


Stagings have just begun in earnest. Act 1, Scene 1. Volpone pretends that he's dying. His "frends" visit one by one, ostensibly to pay their respect, but in truth bringing expensive gifts to curry Volpone's favor so that they'll have a prominent place in his will. The joke's on them, of course, as Volpone and his servant intend to abscond with the loot.


Today, Corvina* brings a gold candlestick. (In a Whole Foods bag, it seems:))








[*Corvina: The Raven. Corvina is Bonario's mother, yet she would quickly trade her mother's milk for an ounce of gold. She is imposing and overbearing, not all that bright, and not all that pleasant.]


And, downstairs, rehearsals continue for this weekend's Berlin Night Life concert. Pictured - the Comedian Harmonists, hard at work on Mein kleiner grüner Kaktus.




Tomorrow: the arrival of the Wolf Trap Opera Studio. As our Studio Administrator told me today in an email, "I ran into them in a huge group as they were unpacking what looked like a full-fledged cross-country move... There is a lot of energy going on in this group."

Can't wait.

Wie lange noch. With Potato Salad

Today, the first in the series of our "Little Lunch Music" mini-concerts. Our office environment is very open, and once you start singing Kurt Weill in the atrium, there's no escaping it! But as far as I can tell (from our trial concerts last summer), the WT Foundation employees enjoy their noontime musical diversion.

We Love Our Interns

Picnic this afternoon at the scene shop, in honor of our interns. We could not function without them!

Tonight, working through some paperwork while listening to the audio monitor feed of tonight's Prairie Home Companion show. It's happening about 50 feet away onstage, but I'm sitting at a desk typing while I listen to it (as if it were a radio show...hmm...). Beautiful night outside, with Garrison talking to 6,000 of his closest friends and Billy Collins reading his poetry.

And.... We're Off

Free-floating anxiety in the building today, as the Volpone cast gathers for the first time and slogs, uh..... sings through the score. :)

The design presentation revealed a unit set (what other kind is there in The Barns?) that functions as a huge gold framework for the story. Which is, of course, is about lust. Primarily for money, but it's not the object of the lust that's the important thing. And it's a good reminder that 401 years ago, Ben Jonson wrote this play and set it in what was at that time the most opulent city in Europe - Venice.

Director Peter Kazaras referred to the The Grifters in describing the title character and his sidekick. Implement the scheme and move on. Nice parallel.


The Power of the Right Frequency

Minnesota Public Radio has this "myth-buster" piece about singers breaking glass. Don't believe it for a moment.

It was sometime around 1987. We were rehearsing for a scenes concert for the large amphitheatre, and the rehearsal was being held in The Barns, our chamber venue. The entire 60+ piece orchestra and soloists were arrayed on the floor of the theatre (our chairs are movable). There are sliding glass doors on either side of the house. During the bass/baritone duet from Luisa Miller, the full low frequency complement on house left (singers, celli, basses, trombones...) must've tickled the think-paned glass in just the right place, and it cracked from top to bottom. I wouldn't have believed it if I wasn't there.

They Trap Wolves, Don't They?

I've been told that the new Wolf Trap Opera Studio has a Facebook page. (Thank goodness I'm not on Facebook... what I don't know can't hurt me:))

What does tickle me is that supposedly there's a picture of an actual wolf trap instead of the WT logo. Perhaps that's why PETA keeps trying to get us to change our name.

Kabarett!

Volpone rehearsals start on Thursday, but we're keeping busy with prep for Steve Blier's first concert next Saturday. Berlin Night Life - Songs from Berlin's theaters and cabarets, exploring the sexual mores and political currents of Berlin during the Roaring 20's. This is great material, and the cast is doing it proud.

These concerts typically involve 4 of our singers, but the special attraction in this one is a set of songs by the Comedian Harmonists - a male quintet. Hard to describe - spend 40 seconds here and you'll understand.

"The Power of Music Lifts and Heals"

Thanks to Jessica Duchen for pointing us to this article on Maxim Vengerov. Music therapy is in my roots, and although I don't regret having left the profession (and anyway, there's plenty of therapy to do in the opera world...), I am still deepy touched by these kinds of things. It's humbling, grounding, inspiring and comforting all at once.

I was doing some research last night for a program piece, and I spent some time with Eric Plaut's Grand Opera: Mirror of the Western Mind. His treatment of Carmen included an exploration of art vs. entertainment. Not a new discussion, to be sure. But his summary stuck with me. "Entertainment tends to reinforce prejudices.... Offering new insights is a hallmark of art."

There's nothing here about music being hard (art) or easy (entertainment), good or bad. Plenty of music that's intended to be art is bad. And lots of entertainment is harder than it looks. His point, I believe, is that Carmen (and many great pieces of music) are both.

When music speaks to us "where we live," with little effort on our part to go out and meet it, well then, it's entertainment. The part about reinforcing prejudice doesn't have entirely negative connotations - it just means that we like our entertainment to fit neatly into our world view and require little of us.

Conversely, art asks something of us. Not so it can be "good for us" (really hate that spoonful of sugar argument), but so we can grow. So we can move on, open up to all life has to offer, and enjoy the ride. But art can only do this if it has an entryway - the listener has to be open to the fact that there may be worthwhile things in life outside her existence. And that seems to be increasingly rare.

I remember one of Alex Ross' columns shortly after 9/11, when he talked about the fact that we have to make room for "difficult music." Whenever we are threatened, whenever our personal and collective resources are low, we can really only absorb that which reinforces things we know and hold dear. It takes courage and calm to welcome something that feels foreign.

I've wandered, but happily so. Thanks to Maxim Vengerov.

Back to Work

Tweaking stage management laptops. Finding audio clips for radio ads. Writing audition feedback. (Note to self: next year, cite a deadline for requesting feedback...) Writing Carmen supertitles. Editing video from Volpone seminar. Planning for first podcast of the season!

Bike to Work Day!

It's May 18, Bike-To-Work-Day in the Washington D.C. area. My husband is a serious cyclist, and when I bought him a new bike for his birthday (a big one...birthday, that is...) last winter, I decided to get myself a modest little hybrid. Of course, I can't keep up with him, but I'm trying.


I passed (actually, I was mostly passed by) 50-60 cyclists on the way to work this morning, and they were all guys. Now, there are women cyclists out there, but they don't so much seem to be biking to work. It's easy to see why.

The longer commute on two wheels is not the problem. It's the helmet hair, the refusal of makeup to stick on sweaty faces (yuck...sorry...), and the difficulty of carrying a change of clothes, a computer, and the slimmed-down contents of a purse in a backpack. Not to mention a Carmen score or two.

Anyway, I got to feel healthy and virtuous today, and the bike does look good in my office:)

Welcome to Wolf Trap!

I love overhearing bits of advice that the returning Trappers impart to the initiates. Things like "They have the best hot dogs - crunchy and chewy at the same time!" (The Vienna Inn)

Disappointment

Mixed with the excitement of company arrivals are notes of frustration and regret.

Our much-anticipated upcoming recording of Volpone is not to be. This is not the place to spin out all of the confusing and irritating details, but the American Federation of Musicians told us that there's no nationally approved recording agreement whose conditions our company meets, and the local doesn't have the ability to negotiate individual agreements with organizations. I know - those statements are probably not as conclusive as they sound. But it has taken us months to get to this impasse with the AFM, and I'm sure it would take us many more months to get out of it.

The bottom line is that we've run out of time. We had so wanted to get this terrific piece out there in circulation, and it's tough to walk away from it. For now, the goal is to sort all of this out after the season so that when our next new fabulous operatic comedy hits the stage, we'll be ready to capture and share it.