Heartbeat Opera’s Lady M Virtual Soirée: We had a beautiful time

Heartbeat Opera’s Lady M is planned as a modern, adapted, shorter version of Verdi’s Macbeth told from Lady Macbeth’s point of view and was to have premiered this Spring; it’s the sort of thing Heartbeat Opera does, changing operas and creating new ones to better communicate with today’s audiences.  Then, the pandemic closed all theaters.  The company’s leadership could simply have postponed or folded their new production.  Instead, they marshaled their spirits and their creative energies to remain engaged with their artists and to offer something new to their audiences.  Voila, an online Lady M Soirée, or a fantasia as Director and Adaptor Ethan Heard calls it.  It is a virtual drawing room party devoted to introducing the concept behind Lady M and giving us a sampling, but also ncludes us as part of that process.  It’s something new and fresh, and we need that!

A Zoom room snapshot of the creative staff and performers for Lady M; photo courtesy of Heartbeat Opera.

The Lady M Soirée was born out of need, theirs and ours.  Let’s let Merle Haggard provide the context before I discuss details.  (I have finally started watching the Ken Burn’s series “Country Music” that I recorded on PBS some time ago; this somehow started me listening to Merle Haggard).  Mr. Haggard always seems to have the right song to articulate emotional longings; country music has been described as three chords and the truth. For the Lady M Soirée, I offer his song “I’ve Had a Beautiful Time” (with my annotations):

We met downtown in the barroom (substitute Zoom room)
Both of us needing a friend (true I think)
And you brought me home to your doorstep (all was recorded or live-cast in performers homes)
And it was there you invited me in (I got to see the Movement Director’s vacuum cleaner)

And more (no annotations needed) -

We talked about what we been needin'
Discussin' our ups and our downs

And I've had a beautiful time
Holding your heart next to mine

And finally (which will require a little discussion) -

And I can't say I found any answers
But you listened while I rattled on

The Soirée offered a mix of intros among the staff and attendees; a behind the scenes video discussion of artistic issues with the creation of Lady M and the technological issues in pulling together the virtual Soirée; a few aria performances (one live, one I’m not sure, and one recorded); finishing with the group splitting into chat rooms to mingle with the staff and artists for a Q&A. 

A sampling of current offices/performance venues for Heartbeat Opera; photos courtesy of Heartbeat Opera.

Highlights for me: I think it was real; it seemed real.  I was in a Zoom room with twenty to thirty other homo sapiens or that appeared to be homo sapiens, including artists, staff, and audience members. That was kinda cool.  Some of the presentations were recorded, and the mix was not always entirely clear to me.  I’m always harping on how much better live performances attended in person are; the Soirée inched somewhere in between recorded and in person (I might also note that my twenty-something son tells me that hearing performances in person isn’t nearly as preferred by him as me; worries for opera’s future?.

Soprano Felicia Moore as Lady M and mezzo-soprano Sishel Claverie as a Weird Sister; photos courtesy of Heartbeat Opera.

The whole affair maintained my interest, but it was the excellent singers that doled out the afternoon’s desserts.  Soprano Felicia Moore as Lady Macbeth has a captivating voice, powerful and rich with color.  Her early Lady M aria sung in her childhood bedroom, and the video of the sleepwalking scene (Maledetta) were excellent, giving her the chance to fully display the colors, texture, and emotionality of her voice. Wow.  It was interesting in the Q&A that Ms. Moore said that perhaps the most difficult part of her bedroom performance was singing with accompaniment that was recorded. Mezzo-soprano Sishel Claverie appeared live where she lip-synced part of the Witches chorus, transformed in Lady M to the three Weird Sisters, all solo sopranos.  The weird sisters look like they are going to bring the fun in the staged production.  Ms. Claverie brings infectious energy and excitement to the role.  The other singers appeared for a few seconds in the different video clips. In the short time allotted, there was a brief appearance of Beauty led by the singing. 

Screenshots showing some visual effects in the Sleepwalking video; photos courtesy of Heartbeat Opera.

The music arranged by Music Director and Co-Translator Jacob Ashworth with new arrangements by Daniel Schlosberg was played by a six-piece ensemble and had to be sewn together from audio/video files. The music in Maledetta added to the eerie mood and shifts in the scene and had me wanting to hear more of the new arrangements.

Performances, live and recorded, were done in interesting ways; visuals were usually engaging if sometimes baffling.  Movement Director Emma Jaster, who owns an excellent vacuum cleaner, along with Ethan Heard and Jacob Ashworth did a twenty-minute Zoom tour of each of the performer’s homes to help the singers deal with moving and performing in their individual circumstances.  The visuals in Maledetta were eerie and appropriately disturbing for Lady M’s nightmare, though for me, had more of a collage than flowing effect. 

My only disappointment with the virtual Soirée is that, at an hour, it was all to brief.

When I think about what distinguishes opera, it is Beauty.  Opera has the ability, more so for me than other art forms, to achieve Beauty and when it does, a wormhole in the universe opens up connecting the audience to each other and to the universe itself with the feeling that we are all part of a larger truth.  But opera companies are also in the entertainment business.  I have the feeling from this brief introduction to Lady M that it will be entertaining when staged.  I was certainly happy to drink from the Soirée’s cup.  The question in my mind is will it attain transcendence through Beauty.

Most opera companies are striving to remain connected to their audiences via offering concerts and operas via streaming, but Heartbeat Opera stands out for injecting creativity into an online performance, using the medium to not just sustain their audience, but to draw them closer with fresh, personally engaging experiences.  It turns out that Merle Haggard’s friend in the song was not his wife.  Were we sort of cheating on live and in person opera, In the spirit of if you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you are with?  One risk with cheating is that sometimes those relationships blossom; then what?  We don’t have answers, but for the future, one can envision a complementarity for virtual soirées and staged performances.  I think technology is moving into staged performances as well.  Pittsburgh Opera is now providing interactive experiences using smart phones during their staged performances which I like, but as a separate experience from traditional viewing.  Classical opera performances aren’t going away, but new, perhaps younger fans may well be gravitating towards technology-enhanced experiences.

Heartbeat Opera is planning to move ahead with staged performances of Lady M next Spring.  After the introduction to her in the Soirée, I want to see Lady M, and I wonder how these virtual experiences might lead Heartbeat Opera to adjust what is finally presented.

The Fan Experience: There are 12 remaining online Soirée performances scheduled, May 28-June 6, sometimes two evening performances or a matinee and an evening performance; the run was extended due to its popularity.  As an interactive opera experience, each Soirée will likely be slightly different. You need to have a computer and a good internet connection sufficient for streaming audio and video, and you must download the Zoom app if you haven’t already. Heartbeat Opera sends you all the instruction you need.  If you are uncomfortable being part of a group, you can participate with your video feed and/or microphone turned off.  It will cost you $30 for a one-time entrance to the Soirée, but the whole family can watch.  Not bad for possibly a glimpse of opera’s future.  There were a couple of technology clunkers, but no harm done.  At the end, there was an appeal for much needed support for Heartbeat Opera’s Tomorrow Fund. 

National Philharmonic at Strathmore’s Inspirational Tribute

Composer Aaron Copland, 1962; photo in Public Domain, wikipedia.

National Philharmonic at Strathmore has released a virtual performance of composer Aaron Copland’s classic “Fanfare for the Common Man” that is both heartfelt and a gem among music videos.  I found it to be a touching, emotional tribute to hospital workers and common Americans on the frontlines dealing with the coronavirus pandemic crisis.  Copland gave his work its name because he was inspired by a speech given in 1942, the year his work was to premiere, by Vice-President Henry Wallace.  The speech came to be known as the “Century of the Common Man”.  It was given shortly after America’s entrance into WWII.  Wallace gave tribute to the common men and women of America, everyday people, who would carry the burden of that great war and be essential to our victory and who he felt should reap the benefits of victory.  Earlier, President Roosevelt had presented the nation with his Four Freedoms; one was the Freedom from Fear.  We are again in a battle for freedom from fear.  Kyle Schick, Director of Artistic Operations, had the idea for a virtual performance of the Fanfare and then realized the relationship to the medical care workers in today’s struggle against the coronavirus pandemic.  He pitched his idea for a video to leadership at the National Philharmonic at Strathmore, an orchestra that has served its community for over three decades, and now, like all orchestras today, has lost access to the performance stage.

Henry A. Wallace’s 1942 speech proclaimed the “Century of the Common Man”; photo in Public Domain, source - wikipedia.

Arts performance groups very much want to stay in touch with their audiences and make contributions in these constraining times, yet they are unable to give public performances.  Director Schick correctly noted that we all are feeling scared, all experiencing fear and needing uplifting messages, messages of hope and connection, looking to see the good in our society.  We can all agree that those on the frontlines dealing directly with individuals who have or might have contracted the disease are putting themselves at risk on our behalf and thereby, exemplify Americans at our best, sacrificing for others.  This is also a unique and strange time for musicians who can’t be on stage together.  They continue to develop music and art, but any recording done presently must be made at home, by individuals.  The NP leadership felt that a virtual performance on video by the National Philharmonic honoring our frontline workers would be welcomed by music fans as an effort to overcome adversity, and that the tribute to common American heroes would be embraced by music fans and appreciated by the frontline workers. 

NP video, YouTube: The performers in the video are Peter Gajewski (conducting), Michael Hall (french horn), Chris Gekker (trumpet), David Sciannella (trombone), Willie Clark (tuba), and Tom Maloy (percussion, timpani).

There are many artistic and technological challenges in making a virtual performance.  One can find many examples of virtual orchestral performances on YouTube.  Most of these use multiple frames highlighting different performers at the same time who are playing in isolation and recording their parts in isolation and later have their audio tracks merged.  Getting all the performers together on the same tempo and pitch is an immediate challenge.  Director Schick has a background in audio editing and knew he could use a click track (audio files with a metronomic pace added) to enable the performers to play their parts with the correct tempo before mixing.  There are also some advantages to this process; Schick knew he could use this technology to be able to present Copland’s fanfare with just five performers with the same performers playing more than one part, simplifying the task.  As the tempo for the piece changes, slowing down, using the click track file becomes problematic.  To assist the performers in overcoming this challenge, NP Founder and Conductor Piotr Gajewski filmed himself conducting the piece.  Schick combined the trumpet/percussion pieces with Gajewski’s video and gave it to the other performers to address both tempo and pitch issues.  Each performer recorded their parts in their homes using iPhones.  Final mixing was overseen by Schick and Patron Services Manager, Quinton Braswell.

To make NP’s tribute more effective artistically, they decided to employ photographs of hospital workers who are on the frontlines.  The photos are outstanding! They were taken by professional photographer Sinna Nasseri, whose work is known for revealing human emotion in his photographs (you can see more examples of his photos in this NYTimes article, which includes some of the photos used by NP), and also friends and donors to NP who shared their work.  Director Schick and the NP team have blended these into a highly effective presentation, beautifully coupled to the music, and this unique element greatly enhances the emotional appeal of the performance.

A fanfare is a short, lively, loud piece of music by brass and percussion instruments used to introduce something to come, a musical work or even a person, such as a king.  It can also be included as part of a larger work.  Copland later used the Common Man Fanfare in the final movement of his Symphony No. 3.  However, it was written for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra at the request of conductor Eugene Goossens.  Along with Copland’s Billy the Kid ballet and the Grand Canyon Suite, the Fanfare is among his most popular works.  Aaron Copland is one of America’s greatest and most influential composers.  The National Philharmonic at Strathmore has put together a fine virtual performance that honors both Mr. Copland and the common Americans serving us during the coronavirus pandemic.  It also serves as a reminder that Copland wrote the Fanfare to honor the common men and women serving us in WWII. Finally, It is an enjoyable short, piece of music. 

If there were a classical music TV network, like MTV for rock, I think the NP video would be on their hits list.  Personally, I’d like to see more virtual performances of classical music and opera where the opportunities for creative visual expression are explored; this is certainly being done with lighting and video effects in live stage performances.

The Fan Experience: The video is about four minutes in length. There is a short opening statement of purpose on the screen followed by a quick start to the music. The sound is bold and crystal clear; I recommend doing a sound level check on your device before listening.  The orchestra plays at the Music Center at Strathmore, but has not announced their 2020-2021 season as yet. One item of interest I found on their website is that young people ages 7-17 may attend any of their concerts at Strathmore for free, a very good deal for families. 

Maryland Lyric Opera: A Regional Hometown Opera Company Gives Back

Let me start with a list of organizations who have recently received donations of surgical face masks from Maryland Lyric Opera (list provided by Marianna Gray, Director of Marketing and Communications):

Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore

St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore

Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring

Holy Cross Germantown Hospital

Shady Grove Adventist Hospital

Adventist Healthcare Germantown Emergency Center

Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, Rockville, MD

The ARC of Montgomery County

The ARC of Prince Georges County

AFSCME Maryland

INOVA Fairfax Hospital

George Washington University Hospital

BayWoods of Annapolis Retirement Community

The Kensington in Falls Church, VA

Interfaith Works Women’s Shelter in Rockville, MD

Cobbdale Assisted Living in VA

Medstar Montgomery Hospital National Center for Children and Families Men’s Homeless Shelter on Taft Court, Rockville, MD

Bronx Lebanon Hospital

NYC Nassau University Medical Center, NY

The list is not exhaustive at this point.  My communication from Ms. Gray stated that over 300,000 masks had been provided and another 200,000 were on hand for distribution.

Members of the Maryland Lyric Opera team delivering their donations of surgical masks; courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

All of the arts, including opera, are going through a potentially disastrous period.  The second half of the opera season had to be cancelled to meet social distancing guidelines, and frankly, we still don’t know when performances can begin anew.  Singers and musicians are greatly limited in even their ability to practice and hone their crafts.  Careers are paused and the future is uncertain.  Companies, performers, and staffs do not have income coming in from performances; they must survive on the generosity of donors.  You might think opera professionals would be closing up shop entirely or simply hunkering down in their basements.  In reality, most companies are working hard to offer online streaming of concerts and opera performances, both recorded and live in the limited ways they can, and trying to maintain contact with their devotees through social media.  Check out Maryland Lyric Opera on Facebook to get timely postings of upcoming opera performances across the globe that can be accessed online.  Such efforts are much needed and greatly appreciated by their fans. 

Maryland Lyric Opera also deserves a shout out for a special effort they are making.  We’ve all read about the shortages of PPE’s (personal protective equipment) since the early days of the coronavirus pandemic. Doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and other medical personnel have been having to perform their jobs without adequate supplies of PPE’s.  During the early days of pandemic, the US Coronavirus Task Force downplayed the importance of masks for the general public, instead emphasizing that the in demand, start-of-the-art N95 masks should be reserved exclusively for medical personnel and other at risk workers.  On April 3, the CDC announced a new policy recommending that cloth face masks be worn by the general public.  The supplies of secondary-defense surgical masks made of cloth had already begun to dry up. 

Brad Clark, Founder and Artistic Director of Maryland Lyric Opera; photo courtesy of Maryland Lyric Opera.

Maryland Lyric Opera decided to do something about this, extending their reach as far into Maryland and the DC area as possible.  At the beginning of last season, Founder and Artistic Director Brad Clark made a generous donation to MDLO’s Student Initiative “Hello Opera” which allowed Maryland Lyric Opera to offer students tickets to its performances at nominal cost.  When the remainder of the MDLO performance season had to be cancelled due to this pandemic, Director Clark and the MDLO team decided to re-purpose those funds to provide surgical three-ply cloth masks to medical facilities and facilities with at risk populations in the area; they were able to use their world-wide opera connections to acquire masks.

For this important work, they have been acknowledged in articles in Bethesda Magazine and in the Baltimore Sun newspaper.  In the Bethesda Magazine article, I am impressed by a statement from Susie Sinclair-Smith, CEO for the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, who said that they were struggling to find PPEs for a men’s homeless shelter in Rockville. She reports that the situation turned around on April 9 with support coming in from surrounding communities; the first donation they received that day was 4000 surgical masks from Maryland Lyric Opera.   INOVA Health Systems gave MDLO this praise: “We are incredibly grateful for their support in providing face masks for our #InovaHeroes!” Their efforts have also been written about in Operawire.

Maryland Lyric Opera describes itself as a regional opera company. I think of it as a hometown opera company.  Here are the opening lines from OperaGene’s blog report on MDLO’s performance last September of Il Tabarro and Cavalleria Rusticana: “Suburban Maryland now has a hometown opera company (I’m talking to you Bethesda, College Park, Kensington, Rockville, Silver Spring, and Wheaton).  And folks, the hometown opera company can bring it!”.  I noticed in their list above that their masks donations even made it to Northern Virginia and DC facilities. Okay, it’s a regional opera company that feels like a hometown company in bringing high quality opera to local communities.  They see themselves as serving a regional community. Lucky community.

The Fan Experience: Looking back, I see over ten entries during the last two years in OperaGene on Maryland Lyric Opera, a still-young opera company.  A main activity of the company is providing world-class training and enhancing the professional develop of young artists.  I am always impressed with the quality of their young artists and their superb orchestra led by Conductor and Music Director Louis Salemno. Some of their performances have been season highlights for me.  Their 2020-2021 season is scheduled to start on September 23, but has not yet been posted on their website, so I suggest you get on their email list to receive notices of their concerts and opera performances. 

Connecting to Opera’s Beauty, Connecting to Each Other

I enjoy most genres of music, but for the last seven or eight years, opera has been my go-to genre.  Why do I connect so much more strongly to opera now, what is different about opera?  The answer I keep returning to is opera’s beauty.  When I was a young boy, watching the 1933 movie “King Kong” on television made quite an impression on me.  I have never forgotten the closing lines.  The airplanes had just killed King Kong, shooting the creature down from the top of the Empire State Building where he was trying escape having captured the object of fascination, the beautiful actress Ann Darrow.  I felt such sadness for the beast; I felt like taking a swat at the airplanes myself.  Having observed the action, a police lieutenant says to the movie producer Carl Denham, who was responsible for bringing the captured beast to NYC for display, “Well, Denham, the airplanes got him.”  Denham answers back, “Oh no, it wasn’t the airplanes. It was beauty killed the beast.” 

Beauty may not be an irresistible force, but it is a powerful one.  I also think that opera has a unique type of beauty, a beauty that stops you in your tracks, lifts you up, connects us to each other as humans to something larger than ourselves.  Perhaps you know the scene in “The Shawshank Redemption” where a rogue inmate plays an opera duet over the loudspeaker in a prison.  The inmates stop in their tracks and listen, momentarily transfixed by the beauty of the sound.  Had a pop song been played instead, the inmates would have grinned, maybe swayed or danced to the music, and enjoyed, even shared in the experience.  But Mozart’s aria provided the inmates with a transcendent experience.  I think that perhaps without knowing it that this is opera’s goal, to use the human voice and music enhanced by a story and staging to share with its audience a transcendent experience that connects us to each other and to something greater than ourselves.

During my journey with opera, I find there are a few recordings of arias and duets that I go to for comfort that consistently draw me into opera’s spell and the beauty washes over me like warm, soothing water.  I’d like to share two of these, both duets, one by the ladies and one by the gentlemen.  I find the blending of voices in duets can be especially beautiful.

The first is the Flower Duet from Léo Delibes’ opera Lakmé.  I ran across this duet searching opera arias on YouTube early in my love affair with opera.  I have not seen Lakmé and am only vaguely aware of its plot.  I have listened to the duet being performed by several different sets of performers, but I have never felt the desire to look up the libretto or to find out what the song is about.  The music and the voices speak to me very clearly what the aria is about, though I can’t put the meaning into words, reminiscent of Morgan Freeman’s voice over during the opera scene in “The Shawshank Redemption” when he says that he doesn’t know what the ladies were singing about, but liked to think it was about something too beautiful to be put into words.  Here is a performance of the Flower Duet sung by coloratura soprano Sabine Devieilhe and mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa that I especially enjoy:

The second is a duet from Georges Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers for tenor and baritone, performed in this case by the world famous singers, tenor Jonas Kaufman and baritone Dmitri Hvorovstosky.  I heard this duet first while watching a video of the opera, and in fact, felt there was a disconnect between the music and the words.  I think it’s best heard like the Flower Duet, without knowing what it is about.  Let these extraordinary voices and Bizet’s extraordinary music tell you what it means to you.  This is an overt example of how opera brings us together – a German tenor and a Russian baritone sing a duet written in French – as the audience add your own nationality.