Local Colleges As Purveyors of Classical Music

School starting back set me to thinking about my experiences last year, and one in particular came to mind that I want to record on OperaGene, involving a performance of the Parker Quartet.  My son, now a junior, attends a liberal arts college, St Johns College in Annapolis.  It distinguishes itself by its complete liberal arts focus and by using the Great Books as its texts.  There have been collateral benefits to my wife and I from him attending.  One is the discussions (often arguments) we have about music.  I lack training in music.  For a while as a young boy, my son took up piano and then the viola.  At St. Johns, freshmen and sophomores are required to take music courses.  They are required to be in the choir in year one and take a music theory class in year two, including having to learn and play one piece of music on the instrument of their choice and write a short piece of music.  It seems that guys like Plato and Aristotle thought it was important.  A typical discussion (argument) we have comes about when I say that guys like Mozart, Wagner, and Verdi were either born on distant worlds, or aliens came here and gave them special powers.  He counters that I would have a more rational understanding of how they created their works if I studied a bit of music theory.  Then he hands me another book or more class notes that I am to read.  And I am honestly trying to do some reading on the subject, at my own slow pace. 

In looking at his Materials for Sophomore Music manual, page 30, I found a quote I’d like to share aboiut the Pythagorean notion of "music of the spheres": “Perhaps it [the coming together of astronomy and music] was that music was thought to bring astronomy to the level of the human soul and in this way give astronomy an intelligibility it would not otherwise possess.  Music is, among other things, the province of the beautiful in the world of sound. When we confront the beautiful we are moved to love and admiration.  If the kosmos is to merit our full admiration, perhaps this can come about only if music is present in it.  To join music and astronomy is to join ourselves to the highest beings in the sensed world in a way that touches us deeply and powerfully.  Cosmic music, if such exists, renders the whole of nature intelligible to us because we are musical.  The music of the spheres then is no romantic notion.  It binds music to the whole of nature and in this way binds the human soul to its intelligible objects.”  I never got that from my anatomy and physiology courses, did you?

Another benefit of knowing about St. Johns comes from learning about its Friday Night Formal Lecture series open to the public.  These lectures cover many liberal arts topics, often related to current events, and sometimes are instead music offerings.  Below I write about one of the ones I attended last year.  I offer it as an example.  Typically most all colleges and universities have public outreach programs that include the arts; free concerts are commonly part of the schedule.  I encourage you to check out what is available to you locally for free or at a modest fee!  And best of all, it is live music.  I listen to a lot of recorded music and love it.  However, there is something totally different about listening to music live.  Music of the spheres or the earthly variety are best heard live.

The quote above deals with the macrocosm.  In the concert I heard last October at St Johns, there was an attempt to connect music with the microcosm, our DNA.  It was a wonderful, live concert that was also thought provoking.  The Parker Quartet which provided the concert will appear at St. Johns again on September 23, 2016.  Below is my write up of last year’s performance:

Friday Night Formal Lecture, St. John’s College Annapolis

October 30, 2015

St. John’s College in Annapolis, MD offers free public lectures during the academic year on Friday nights (see 2016-2017 schedule at http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/).  These are typically educational and thought-provoking lectures by St. John’s tutors and guest lecturers.  Occasionally, they are concerts.  This past Friday night was a concert by the Grammy-award winning Parker Quartet, http://www.parkerquartet.com.  I personally would find this group worth watching if no sound was coming from their instruments.  They play with striking zest, gusto, and dramatic flair, with facial expressions that show their connection to the music and with glances among them to pass along cues and signals.  And, the music is worth hearing even if you can not see them.  Their first and last selections on the program were quartets by Beethoven and Schumann, beautiful pieces well done.  In between these two was a highly innovative piece called Helix Spirals by Augusta Read Thomas, a quartet inspired by DNA replication and celebrating the Meselson-Stahl experiment that provided the evidence leading to the acceptance of this mechanism.  This work was commissioned by the scientist Jeanne Guillemin and the program notes for the concert noted that she and the composer agreed at the beginning that “music is music and science is science” but that if “one moves into the realm of metaphor, great synergies exist.”  DNA replication is the process by which cells make new copies of DNA in a process called mitosis.  Inside the cells the DNA double helix is unwound and a copy is made of each individual strand.  The new strands each pair with one of the original DNA strands (this pairing process is called annealing).  Two copies of DNA are produced from the original copy and one each goes with the new cells when a cell undergoes cell division.  This is the process whereby molecules carrying plans for an organism interact to produce new life.  The three movements reflected this process, Loci (the location of genes in the DNA), Interlacing (the annealing process), and Spiral (the renewing life force).  The Parker quartet worked with the composer in creating this piece and a member of the quartet explained how different musical techniques were incorporated to reflect the replication process, beginning for example with a good deal of pizzicato playing to reflect molecules.  I enjoyed the music in this piece and it was considerably enhanced by understanding the flow of the music from individual molecules to life.  For a more complete description of the piece and samples of the music visit the composer’s web page, http://www.augustareadthomas.com/composition/helixspirals.html.  Helix Spirals was premiered at Harvard University in April of this year by the Parker Quartet.

Baltimore Concert Opera: Making Opera Happen, Up Close and Personal

I enjoyed reading about Baltimore Concert Opera.  I like what they are doing, and I like why they are doing it.  It’s great for opera fans and potential fans, and it’s good for opera.  What are they doing?  This year they are performing four operas in concert and offering a very enticing musical event called Thirsty Thursdays. But first, let’s talk a bit about why they are doing it.

The raison d’etre for concert opera is the focus on the singing and the music.  I just had an experience that brought home how this makes a difference.  I started watching a dvd of a Royal Opera production (2008) of Don Giovanni.  The overture by Mozart is one of my favorites.  What do the dvd producers do while the overture is playing?  They show video clips of the major performers, listing them by role and name.  Maybe you can look at faces, associate them with a role, and gather in the performer’s real name while maintaining your focus on and enjoyment of the music, but I can’t.  Arrrgh, what were they thinking!  I mention this only as an example of how the action you are viewing on stage can affect what you hear.  Ok, I also mention it to vent a little.  Of course there are compelling reasons to attend staged opera.  Live staged productions are what the art form was intended to be, but I suspect that when you hear a staged opera for your initial listening of an opera, you are not hearing all that the music has to offer.  At any rate, I now have a hypothesis – if you attend a concert performance of an opera and then go to the staged version, your experience of the staged version will be enhanced.  Your familiarity with the music will free you up to enjoy the other aspects more as well.  I’m still a scientist at heart and can’t resist formulating hypotheses, especially when the experimental testing looks like such fun.

Engineer's Club Grand Ballroom; photo courtesy of the Baltimore Concert Opera.

BCO has other good reasons to do this form of opera. Here is a quote from the BCO website: “Baltimore Concert Opera welcomes opera enthusiasts and future opera fans to experience timeless music and stories which bring us together. Discover our up close and personal operatic format - spectacular singers, piano, and projected English translations, just a few feet from your seat in the gilded ballroom of the Engineers Club in Mount Vernon, Baltimore. Grab a beer or a glass of wine and treat yourself to the unfiltered beauty of the human voice.”  No orchestra, but they do include a chorus.  They also offer free pre-performance talks.  You can learn and enjoy music too.  They are striving to make opera accessible to everyone.  BCO distinguishes itself by aiming for a smaller audience and venue (220 seats).  Bringing the audience and performers closer together has impact, immersing the audience in the art form, as it was intended to be.  And frankly, the ballroom looks worth a visit by itself.  Company manager, Courtney Kalbacker, in the BCO blog, sums it up poetically: “We are a vocabulary builder, a gateway drug, a community, and a dynamic option for a lovely night of live music.”

There are also very practical reasons for doing opera this way.  Again, quoting Ms. Kalbacker: “Besides the obvious appeal of hearing fantastic singers perform gorgeous music in our own neighborhood, the concert format has an important place in the operatic scene at large.  1.) BCO can produce roughly four operas in concert form for less than the cost of one grand opera.  2.) Because of this cost structure, concert opera can afford to take chances on rarely-heard works and rising young singers. 3.) Concert opera can give full productions a head start on cast cohesion through collaborative co-productions. 4.) Most importantly, Baltimore Concert Opera gives Baltimore more opera.  More singing. More operatic options.  More chances to connect with audiences.”  Now you know why I like why they are doing what they are doing.

And I am not the only one offering praise.  Tim Smith, classical music critic of the Baltimore Sun, reviews BCO productions routinely.  Last year he praised BCO’s goal of collaborating with opera companies doing staged productions of their selected operas.  He said, “It's a sensible arrangement that can give the Baltimore organization the advantage of singers with an extra degree of stage-readiness and immersion in their characters.”  He also praised a BCO performance of Edgar last year, a lesser known opera of the great Giacomo Puccini.  He viewed the opera as flawed for staging because of the plot, but still offering a chance to experience the beginnings of greatness in Puccini’s music.  Good intentions are fine, but unless high quality is there, opera doesn’t work.  Eight years of sustained success and Mr. Smith’s reviews provide confidence that the quality is there and that BCO is a company that knows its role and is appreciated by its community.

Die Fledermaus from last season; photo by Britt Olsen Ecker; courtesy of Baltimore Concert Opera.

OK, you’ve been waiting patiently to hear about Thirsty Thursdays.  BCO recognizes, like Wolf Trap Opera and too few others, the value of adding a dash of fun to opera.  In Thirsty Thursdays, “Top-flight professional opera singers will perform operatic highlights paired with energetic and informative commentary and fun facts about themselves. At the same time, each performance will feature beer, wine or spirit tastings interspersed throughout the evening specially planned to go with the music.”  Three such events (should I say parties?) are planned for the season.  The first will occur on Sept 15: “Arias, Ambers, and IPAs,” followed by "Vino and Verdi" on Nov 10, and "Love Potions" on Feb 9, suspiciously close to Valentine's Day.  Six beers and four singers are paired for the first event.  For potential effects of sound/taste pairings (tongue in cheek), check my blog post, “Want Fries With That Aria.”

Let's talk about the lineup of operas for the BCO 2016-2017 season:

• Tancredi by Gioachino Rossini…..Sep 30, Oct 2
• Rigoletto by Giuseppe Verdi…..Nov 18, 20
• Susannah by Carlisle Floyd…..Feb 24, 26
• Semiramide by Gioachino Rossini…..Apr 7, 9

All but Rigoletto are in the rarely performed category.  I did not spot any of the other three in the top 200 operas in Operabase.com’s list for the 2014-2015 season.  However, they are reasonably well-known.  Opera Philadelphia will be staging Tancredi next February, a great chance to hear the music first at BCO and see the stage version in Philly.  Tancredi was Rossini’s first attempt at serious opera.  In my report on OP’s upcoming season I noted “Tancredi is based on a play, "Tancrede," by Voltaire; it tells the story of star-crossed lovers caught in family and historical conflict between Syracuse (Sicily, not NY) and the Saracens.  Rossini actually wrote two endings, a happy one and a sad one.  The opera seria form of the day required a happy ending, but keeping true to Voltaire’s play required a tragic ending.  The tragic one seems to have survived the test of time.”  Personally, I wish somebody would give us the happy one.  In reading, I found this interesting nugget about Tancredi in the Milton Cross Encyclopedia of Great Composers and Their Music:  “It’s principal aria, “Di tanti palpiti” (the finest love song he was to write) spread like a contagious disease.  On one occasion the Venetian law court had to order its citizens to desist from singing, humming, and whistling it continually!”.  Nice tune, but also says a lot about the popularity of opera and Rossini in Venice in his day.  Rossini’s Semiramide bears a relationship with Tancredi; both had the same librettist, Gaetano Rossi and both were based on a play by Voltaire and both involve royal love turned tragic.  In Semiramide, murder most foul must be avenged leading to the thrilling climax.  Rossini uses dramatic singing to project the drama, which makes it an especially good fit for concert opera.

Susannah by Carlisle Floyd is an American opera, the first presented by BCO, that deals with the difficulty of beauty and innocence surviving in a world where evil lurks in the hearts of men.  Floyd wrote the libretto himself and based the plot on the biblical story of Susanna and the Elders.  It takes place in backwoods Tennessee and involves a licentious preacher.  Having grown up in Georgia, this touches close to home, and I can’t wait to hear opera sung with a southern accent (I’m joking). 

Rigoletto, the most famous of BCO’s season of four tragedies makes just about all top ten opera lists. It’s in my top three.  A philandering duke, a sheltered young daughter, what could go wrong?  Power, lust, innocence, and mistaken identity once again prove to be a deadly mix, but on the way you get to hear the tenor sing “Donne e mobile” (hear leading tenor Jonas Kaufman sing it here) and the soprano sing “Caro nome“ (hear young soprano Nadine Sierra have a go at it here.    Rigoletto provides some of my favorite music in opera. 

Each opera is performed on Friday at 7:30 pm and at Sunday at 3:00 pm on the dates given above.  Individual tickets are $27.50 to 71.50; three and four opera packages are available at discounts.  The seats are not tiered and the price depends mainly on how close the seat is to the stage.  Note that their new website just went live and a 2016-2017 season Study Guide is promised on this page by Sep 5.  You are advised that before the performance, you may come early for a meal in the Engineers Club dining room (by reservation only, please). Then move upstairs to the Grand Ballroom for an expert lecture on the great operatic work to follow (included in your ticket price).  A section will soon be added to the Your Visit section of the website describing dining options in the Engineer's Club.   A First Time at the Opera section provides helpful info for newbies and maybe more seasoned fans as well.  Recommended attire is business casual.  I had hoped T-shirts and cutoffs would be ok, but they are not.  You have to remember this is a night out at a Grand Ballroom, not the lawn seats at Wolf Trap.

P.S. - In a comment received after this report was posted (see below), Ms. Kalbacker adds that BCO will perform both endings of Tancredi.

Weekend Round Up – Opera in the Outfield, FFJ, Left-Handedness, Opera as Anti-Depressant, and Ex-iPhones

Opera in the Outfield,

Want to see The Marriage of Figaro with Lisette Oropesa and Amanda Majeski at a cheaper price?  You can.  The Washington National Opera and the Washington Nationals have teamed up to make it possible with “Opera in the Outfield.”  On Saturday, Sep 24, Figaro will be simulcast from the Kennedy Center to the Nats Park’s jumbo screen.  And the price is free; how’s that for a cheaper price!  Gates open at 5 pm and the opera starts at 7 pm.  There is also a contest online you can enter right now to win free tickets to the next Kennedy Center production, Donizetti’s The Daughter of the Regiment.  Seating is available in the outfield and the stands.  If you haven’t been to Nats Park, parking is available, but the Green Line’s Navy Yard-Ballpark subway stop is right beside the park.  You will have to pass through security to enter the park;  I recommend checking the Nats’ Guest Conduct Policy’s 'prohibited items' list before attending if you are thinking of carrying more than a sweater and blankets with you.

Florence Foster Jenkins,

I went to see this film out of curiosity and because there is an opera connection with FFJ.  Ms. Jenkins became a celebrity by singing notoriously out of tune.  I think it is a good movie, though it raises some strong feelings in some viewers concerning how she was treated in real life, a point of some debate.  The movie will not convert any new fans to opera, but there is no question that Ms. Jenkins aided many young opera stars in developing their careers.  I liked the view of the 1940s world of the well-to-do in NYC, which Hollywood is good at recreating.  The scene featuring a young Lily Pons, played by soprano Aida Garifullina (winner of the 2013 Operalia competition), is an opera highlight.  And of course, it has Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant.  The very balanced review by Ann Hornaday can be found at this link. 

Musicians and Left-Handedness,

Nicola Benedetti at Royal Albert Hall by Allanbeavis, Sep 2013.

This article on left-handed classical musicians caught my attention because I saw Twitter posts saying that two of our greatest composers were left-handed (Guess who? See the article. Ok, their last names begin with B and M), and I always wondered how musicians deal with being left-handed, or if it matters.  The data is not exact, but about 10% of the world’s population is left-handed.  President Obama is left-handed.  According to a CNN report, the scientific basis for handedness is yet to be established, but involves more than simple genetic differences and seems to occur early in fetal development.  Sports seems to be one area where it can be a clear advantage.  If I am reincarnated, I pray I will return as a left-handed Washington Nationals baseball pitcher who can sing.  The last example of musician left-handedness in the article above is concert violinist, Nicola Benedetti, who clearly had a rough time initially dealing with hers: “The Scottish violinist claims she doesn't have any memories of before she played the violin, but she shared this early one in a 2010 interview: "I couldn't stop crying because, being a shy, small girl and left-handed, I kept holding the instrument the wrong way and felt terribly self-conscious."”  Ouch, it certainly matters, but it didn’t stop her and she will be the featured violinist with the NCO at the Kennedy Center, Oct 27-29.  The CNN report states that over a lifetime, handedness doesn’t seem to have much of a measurable impact.

Opera as an anti-depressant,

Ok, now for a little foolishness and fun. Take a look at this James Corden Youtube clip when he is visited by soprano Ailyn Pérez and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni of the Metropolitan Opera.  It cheered a sad James up, and I hope it does as well for you.

Ex-iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches,

This has nothing to do with opera, unless you use your Apple products to view and/or listen to opera.  However, the new iPhone 7 is expected to be announced on Sep 7, and I always wonder how to clear my old phones before disposing of them.  Maybe you do too.  At the following link, Apple provides their recommendations for what to do before getting rid of your old device: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201351.

Washington Concert Opera: It’s All About The Music

Image courtesy of Washington Concert Opera.

Suppose they gave an opera where there were talented, accomplished singers, a full chorus, and a full orchestra, and the singing was with emotion and in character, with supertitles overhead, but there were no costumes, no sets, no dancing, and no action on stage.  Well, that would be called ‘concert opera’, a form of opera that is enjoyed by many fans.  And you don’t have to choose.  In the mid-Atlantic region you can have both; in addition to our many first-rate staged opera companies, there are several prominent concert opera companies in our region.  In Washington DC, we have the highly regarded Washington Concert Opera, and that is the company I will be discussing in this blog report.  I plan to report on Baltimore Concert Opera and ConcertOPERA of Philadelphia in future posts.  And full disclosure – I have not as yet attended a concert opera, thus I spend some time below examining the genre.  My bottom line is that attending concert opera is now on my opera to do list.  I think after reading my report you may as well.

You might ask why give up costumes, sets, dancing, and action?  The Washington Concert Opera (WCO) has a motto of “It’s all about the music.”  And therein lies the primary basis for this form of opera’s appeal.  The performers do not have to be concerned with their costumes and makeup, how they fit and changes; they do not have to be concerned with dancing and movement and being in the right place at the right time, or physical interaction with the other singers, and managing to control their breath while moving around.  It’s like listening to studio recordings of opera except it’s live music.  The performers can focus on the music and on their connection with the audience.  You get the singers full attention. They are placing themselves before you for your scrutiny, as well as enjoyment, and the results are immediate.  The audience must also stay engaged.  There are no do overs for either the performers or the audience. The two are in an intimate relationship for the evening.

There are other benefits as well: you will likely get to hear operas that the full opera companies can’t or won’t do; the orchestra is on the stage, not in a pit, playing a more prominent role; the tickets are likely cheaper because concert opera is less expensive to perform; and you will be better able to employ the creative role of imagination.  You will follow the story through supertitles or not, but your imagination will provide form and color to the play in your head.  You will not have to split your concentration with questions like why is Senta strangling herself on the bed instead of taking the leap off the cliffs?  You will provide your own interpretation of the opera without dealing with a director’s conception.  In a sense, it is an audio book.  Or, you can forget the story and just enjoy the live music.

I will talk more about concert opera in future posts, but let’s get back to DC’s company, Washington Concert Opera. I first became aware of this opera company a few years ago and have seen them praised in critical reviews and by word of mouth.  They employ both established singers of renown and young and upcoming ones.  Ann Midgette of the Washington Post regularly reviews WCO performances; here is a quote from one of her reviews: “Concert opera companies often end up specializing in a form of opera akin to an athletic event: The focus is turned from the drama onto the physical feat of producing the sound.  The Washington Concert Opera is a fine purveyor of this manifestation of the genre, often focusing on bel canto opera, which is not much done by major opera companies (too long, too esoteric) but which, when you get the good singers and an involved audience, can move the crowd-pleasing needle high up into the green.”

This quote was in a review of Semiramide from last year, in which the critic found the performance itself lacking in some ways, but in their second production of the season, La Favorite by Donizetti, she found much to favor.  My point here is that this company’s productions are considered significant enough to the Washington DC opera scene to be consistently covered by the Post’s chief classical music critic.

WCO’s mission statement includes “provide a secure home for rarely performed operatic masterpieces” as one of its goals.  The 2016-2017 season includes two such operas and a 30th anniversary celebration concert:

September 18        WCO 30th Anniversary Concert

Novermber 20       Jules Massenet’s Herodiade

March 5                  Ludwig van Beethoven’s Leonore

The performers for 30th Anniversary Concert, a celebration of the company’s legacy and success since its inception in 1986, will feature international opera star, Angela Meade.  Massenet's Herodiade (premiere in 1881) is based on a story by Gustav Flaubert about the historical character, Salome; librettists are Paul Milliet and Angelo Zanardini.  This opera enjoyed a good deal of staged success until Richard Strauss’ Salome (premiere in 1905) offered a version based (and sensationalized) on the biblical story of Salome as written in a play by Oscar Wilde.  Strauss’ Salome is a tense psychological portrayal and offers the provocative dance of the seven veils.  Herodiade portrays Salome in a very different, rather noble, light and offers the calmer, more seductive music of Massenet, but is still edgy due to its portrayal of a suggested romance of biblical characters.  The cast is impressive, starring Michael Fabiano, Joyce El-Khoury, and Michaela Martens.

Leonore by Beethoven may raise a few eyebrows. We are told that Beethoven wrote one opera, that one named Fidelio.  True or not?  Well, yes and no.  Ludwig worked over ten years on his sole opera, premiering his original version in 1805 named Leonore, and nine years later in 1814, premiered the final version named Fidelio.  Interesting, over that period he wrote four overtures, Leonore #1, Leonore #2, Leonore #3, and Fidelio.  I don't know which WCO will be using.  Here is a hook to try to attract the younger demographic to this one (I would like to see more young people at operas).  I read that millennials are having less sex and moving more slowly in seeking commitment and marriage.  Millennials, Leonore is for you!  The original name for the opera was a little longer -  Leonore, oder Der Triumph der ehelichen Liebe;  English translation – Leonore, or the Triumph of Marital Love.  It’s about a woman who demonstrates extraordinary commitment and bravery to save her husband, and also gives Beethoven a chance to make a political statement about freedom.  What more could you ask for?  Great singers, maybe?  They got’em: soprano Marjorie Owens, heldentenor Simon O'Neill, and soprano Celena Shafer.  As a special treat, they even throw in Alan Held, Wolf Trap Artist in Residence, and Washington National Opera’s Wotan in its recent Ring Cycle.

All performances are on Sundays at 6 pm in Lisner Auditorium on the George Washington University campus in Washington DC.  Tickets for the two operas range from $40 to $110 for single tickets and $72-200 for a season subscription covering both.  Tickets for the 30th Anniversary Concert are $15-90.  Tickets to all can be purchased online at this link, or call the box office at 202-364-5826.  Pre-performance talks are held one hour prior to the performance in Lisner. 

Because I have not attended a performance in Lisner as yet, I cannot comment on acoustics or seat selection.  I'm planning for this to change. 

La Boheme at Wolf Trap, the Missing Act, and a Lesson in Seat Selection

Public domain - 1908 photo of Giacomo Puccini

Public domain - Original 1896 poster by Adolfo Hohenstein.

Nothing more highlights the difference between the experts and practitioners of an activity and its fans than the case of Giacomo Puccini.  La Boheme is exhibit A.  My reading reveals that a surprising consensus among critics, musicologists, and musicians is that Puccini is considered a very good composer, but not a great one.  He is not considered a musical genius with contributions to music on the level of Wagner or Verdi, for example.  Yet, among opera fans, he is considered one of the greatest composers of all, as judged by fans voting with their feet; La Boheme may be the most performed opera of all time.  For me personally, La Boheme is the opera equivalent of the movie, Casablanca.  Somehow, all of the elements in both works came together in this crazy world in just the right proportions and just the right construction to make a great work of art. Both of them work because they work, and just about perfectly.  Was that genius or just a lucky shot, like that one photo that you take in a few thousand that you know is special?  I am willing to let the experts work it out, as long as they keep performing this enchanting opera. 

This report will be distorted because of my seat location relative to the stage at last night’s (Aug 5) performance, which affected my ability to see and hear the opera.  More on that later, but before my tale of woe, let us examine that of La Boheme’s and the case of the missing act.

The missing act,

I have seen two live performances of La Boheme now and watched one HD video recording.  I’ve enjoyed them all, including last night’s version by Wolf Trap Opera.  However, I have been puzzled by the break in story line between Acts II and III.  I heard someone leaving the performance expressing the same sentiment; so I investigated further.  Puccini leaves Mimi and Rudolfo rapturously in love at the end of Act II; yet, begins Act III with the couple estranged.  There was friction between Puccini and his librettists, Giuseppe Giocosa and Luigi Illica over the telling of the story.  It turns out that the original libretto had five acts and Puccini cut one, sort of tightened it up.  It would be difficult to argue now with the wisdom of that decision, but the missing act sheds some additional light on the story.  In the deleted act, Musetta throws a party at which Mimi dances with a Viscount making Rudolfo jealous, revealing her to also be a woman who, like her friend, Musetta, lived by her wits and charms; Rudolfo makes reference to the Viscount in Act III.  There are theories why Puccini cut the missing act.  Boheme is not long by opera standards.  I wonder if the decision to trim it was at least somewhat influenced by the fact he was in a race with Leoncavallo to compose an opera based on bohemian stories by Henry Murger.  Leoncavallo lost the race; premiering his version of La Boheme a year later than Puccini, it had limited success and the competition created a rift between the two.  However, don’t feel sorry for Leoncavallo.  He is widely known for his popular opera, Pagliacci. I wish Puccini had written the music for the deleted act so we could compare versions, or maybe because I wish there was even more Puccini music out there.

My personal favorites from the WTO performance,

In general, the singers carried the night for me; each had their moments:

D'Ana Lombard as Mimi; Yongshao Yu as Rudolfo; photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera 2016.

D’Ana Lombard – last night’s Mimi was excellent; this is Ms. Lombard’s second year as a Filene Young Artist; she played Rosina in last year’s Ghosts of Versaille; I always feel a little tension at an opera until I hear the lead soprano sing; if she is good, I relax and enjoy it.  Ms. Lombard is very, very good. Her singing was expressive and her voice has a beautiful tone.

YongzhaoYu – I had not been especially impressed with Mr. Yu in Aria Jukebox; I am now impressed; he has a lyrical tenor voice with a beautiful tone that was perfect for the romantic Rudolfo and sang the melody with apparent ease, a pleasure to hear.  He could work on facial expressions for his acting, but in the third and fourth act he seemed to loosen up and show more emotion.

Shea Owens as Schaunard; Yongshao Yu as Rodolfo; Timothy Bruno as Colline; Reginald Smith, Jr. as Marcello; photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera 2016.

Reginald Smith, Jr. – a very good Marcelo with a colorful baritone, especially effective in the early playfulness with Rudolfo that got the opera off to a good start.

Shea Owens – his voice and the professionalism of his singing almost stole the show for me. 

Summer Hassan – she showed the verve and fire one expects of Musetta.

Timothy Bruno – with a distinctive bass voice, his aria to his overcoat was a highlight.

Yongshao Yu as Rudolfo; D'Ana Lombard as Mimi; Shea Owens as Schaunard; Timothy Bruno as Colline; Reginald Smith, Jr. as Marcello; Summer Hassan as Musetta; photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera 2016.

The key to me for La Boheme is creating the mood and sustaining it in each act, especially by establishing in Act I the rapport among the young men who have chosen the bohemian life, sacrificing comforts for the sake of art.  The principal players, the minor players, and the supernumeraries in the performance all did an excellent job of this in each act.  Kudos all around, not the least to the director, Paul Curran.

Chorus; photo by Scott Suchman; courtesy of Wolf Trap Opera 2016.

Once again, the average age of this opera crowd was substantially lower at the Filene Center than typically seen at opera houses.  I suspect many were there for their first opera and I also suspect some young converts were made.  I believe that the reason for the lack of young people, especially young families, at our opera houses has to do with the need to dress up, painful commutes, high parking prices, the formality overall, and high ticket prices.  Opera at Wolf Trap is an enticing alternative.  Lower the barriers and they will come.

Low points, including a lesson in seat selection,

One low point was the humidity.  We can’t control the weather, but requiring the performers to wear overcoats and wraps in August at Wolf Trap is hardship duty; perspiration was in evidence on stage and in the crowd.  If Wolf Trap Opera does this one again in the Filene Center, move the setting to the French West Indies and let them wear bathing suits.

A more serious low point for me personally was the acoustics from where I sat.  I was two rows from the stage and on the very right side facing the stage.  The Filene Center is a very large house with a very wide angle stage.  When you are far right or left and very close to the stage you are almost looking directly across the stage.  The view from the center stage you do not have at all.  When the singers faced me I heard them clearly in their natural tone, but when they turned away, I could hear distance in their voices. On the positive side, when the singers came over my way and they were close to me, those moments were thrilling. 

I think that the Filene Center is a difficult venue for opera in terms of sound anyway.  There are no enclosed sides or back wall for the sound to bounce off and the lawn seats are a long way from the stage.  It appeared the singers were wearing microphones, and I would guess that to reach the lawn seats amplification and speakers are needed, not traditional in opera.  I don’t mean to discourage opera productions at the Filene Center; far from it.  Just an observation to take into account.

The orchestra also seemed a bit distant to me.  Part of the problem was that the orchestra was seated behind the stage during the performance and for two acts a huge set structure blocked them from the audience.  I find myself unable to comment on the playing or sound received by a center cut of the audience.  Being on the far right side created an unevenness in the sound volume in my area depending on which section of the orchestra was being emphasized.   My bad for seat selection, but it was an unusual set up as well.

I also cannot comment much on the staging due to the placement of my seat.  However, it seemed true to the story and was a new adaptation by Mr. Curran, moved up in time to 1917 and the end of World War II.

The Washington Post review by Grace Jean was laudatory and covers the orchestra and staging, though rather briefly.

an unfortunate development,

Compounding the undesirable effects of my seat choice was an unfortunate development.  In choosing seats this time I wanted to be up close to the performers and took the closest seats available in the prime orchestra section.  I knew which seats I was purchasing and the trade-offs I was making.  However, to my surprise a railing for steps and a landing had been constructed on the right side of the stage directly in front of where I was sitting.  It gave the set the impression that the performers were ascending apartment stairs as they entered and exited.  For me, it meant I was viewing the performance through a fence with cross railings.  It was frustrating the entire evening.  I contacted Wolf Trap patron services the day after and received a call explaining there was internal miscommunication about the railing and an apology with an offer of restitution in the form of tickets to a future performance.  Stuff happens and it was nice of Wolf Trap management to try to make amends.

Summing up,

One conclusion to offer is that at Wolf Trap’s Filene Center choose seats as close to center as you can for opera, especially for the best sound; I got a lesson in seat-manship that I hope will benefit OperaGene’s readers.  A more important conclusion is that La Boheme is worth seeing, yet again and again.  I can also whole-heartedly recommend seeing and hearing Wolf Trap Opera’s 2016 Filene Young Artists wherever they go in the future.  What a pleasure this season has been (including The Rape of Lucretia and L'Opera Seria).  I wish them all the best going forward in their careers.  And I hope the Filene Center will continue to offer opera and make new opera fans, especially within the younger demographic.  So, in the final analysis, I can honestly say, even with issues noted in my report, I enjoyed the performance overall and am glad I was at the opera.

Why Singing Opera Could Be An Olympic Event

Image in Public Domain

AP Wire Photo - Public Domain

Opera is a “performance” art.  In fact, one that involves a lot of physicality, exemplary muscle control, and total body awareness.  The singers in the photo are icons of modern operatic history, the great soprano, Dame Joan Sutherland, and one of the greatest tenors of all time, Luciano Pavarotti; their singing power and acumen was truly extraordinary.  Let’s consider the challenge they faced when singing in an opera house: they project their voices such that they are heard clearly, without amplification, in the back seats, which might be 150 feet from the stage, and do so over the sound wall made by a full orchestra.  Their lowest and highest notes must be heard clearly using their softest and loudest intensities.  They must carry the melody with excellent diction.  And they may need to sing in musical keys outside their comfort zones.  They often must sing in languages not their own.  Oh, and they must sound beautiful while exhibiting the emotion in the story.  All of this is subject to evaluation by human judges, similar to many Olympic events that will begin this weekend.  Young opera singers will often compete in voice competitions in developing their careers.

How hard is it?  Think you can sing opera?  In fact, most people can’t, and for those who can, it is not natural.  Popular music singers have rarely received training.  They sing in whatever fashion is effective for them, possible because they typically are singing into a microphone.  Singing opera has to be learned, much like learning to play a musical instrument.  The muscle control and body awareness that allow singers to project and control their voices in this way is both an art and science, and must be tweaked for individual bodies.  The process is called technique.  You may hear the phrase that a singer is working on their technique.  It involves a number of terms that I don’t fully understand.  For example, there is a throat voice, a chest voice, and a nose voice.  Singers must be aware of and relax any tension in their bodies, because tension can affect voice sound and breathing.  They must be aware of their body alignment, and perhaps most important, their breathing and how to control it.  Good health through proper diet and fitness are high on the agendas of opera singers.  They also must pursue their careers with awareness of what their voices can withstand.  There are risks.  The vocal folds, more commonly referred to as vocal cords, may not be fully developed until college age and attempting strenuous arias before their development is ready can cause permanent damage, as can overuse later in their careers.  And voices change over time.

The San Diego Opera webpage has a sub-page titled “Music and Science Curriculum” that discusses the biology and physics of opera.  Five lessons are offered in Biology Connections, four in Physics Connections, and two in Physical Science Connections (the second one appears to have a broken link).  Some of the topics are the anatomy of the human voice, how singers use their body to produce sound, the physics of music, and emotional responses to music.  One interesting tidbit I learned from Physics Lesson Two:

“Can a singer shatter a wine glass with the pitch and intensity in their voice? The answer is yes and modern physics prove it.  This takes a combination of pitch and intensity. To find the frequency of the glass, run your fingers around the rim and listen for the sound it creates. Chances are good that this is a High C flat. Now the singer must be able to match that pitch, which is about 105 dB and 556 hertz, and hold that pitch and intensity for at least 3 seconds.  If the pitch and intensity are correct, and constant and if the wine glass has any type of microscopic flaw in it, the glass will shatter.”

I thought it was just a cartoon cliché, but it could be an Olympic event by itself, though I doubt many serious opera singers would risk their voice to it, and according to the Myth Busters video the competition from heavy metal singers could be vibrant.  For a more scientific discussion of how singers sing over the orchestra by focusing their power on a singing range above the orchestra and by use of vibrato, click here.

Why do we enjoy watching Olympic Events?  For one thing, it is a competition, and that builds anticipation and excitement.  For another, it is people who are the best in the world at what they do that are competing and have been preparing for this competition for many years, often their entire lives.  We know that the performance level will be extraordinarily high.  We expect that new world records will be set in some events.  All of this makes the Olympics fun to watch.  There is, however, another element to consider, our knowledge of the events.  We know what the athletes are trying do and how they are going about it and the broadcast announcers go to great lengths to inform us of special preparations the athletes make and detailed explanation of what the athletes must do in their events.  Our brains are ticking off accomplishment of these sub-aims as an event proceeds and we feel our excitement or disappointment wax and wane as the a performance progresses.  The anticipation creates tension in our bodies and the results resolve that tension, and pleasure is released. 

In performing, both opera singers and Olympic athletes come to know the thrill of victory (a standing ovation) and the agony of defeat (not hitting that High C).  And we their fans, thrill and suffer with them.  All of these things keep us coming back to the Olympics over and over every four years.  Opera fans also keep coming back, but it is of course not going to become an Olympic event, even though I think its athleticism would qualify it.  Opera’s ultimate purpose is different from athletics.   First, the higher purpose of neither the Olympics nor Opera is to entertain us.  I think that the Olympics’ purpose is to inspire us with human achievement and its potential.  Opera’s is to touch our hearts, minds, and souls by re-connecting us to our humanity.

Still, most people do not realize the physicality involved in singing opera.  Fans familiar with opera understand what the singers are trying to accomplish, but those not familiar with opera do not.  I think if more people understood the Olympic-sized challenges of singing opera their appreciation for and interest in opera might increase.