TWISTED REHEARSAL DIARY # 2

Ballet Met Guys Dancing

Yesterday was my first rehearsal for Twisted.

The first thing you notice is that everyone in this show is nineteen and buff.
I hope to God the costume department at Ballet Met has a full set of spanx or man girdles handy
I expect they'll have to order out for some of us whose best dancing years were in the Carter administration.

Edwaard Liang in rehearsal

I was one of those people who said Huh? when the idea of Twisted was first explained to me. Silently I was railing. These people are negating the stories of the operas and the wishes of the composers. What is this ignoring the story just because skinny pretty people can skip around. And what about the Columbus symphony? Are they just the back up band.

No no and no. Stagecraft is the only area in my life where I am conservative. I'm learning a lot from this rehearsal process. All composers have the flexibility built in form their talent so there music and words and dramaturgy can be adapted, or not.

The trio from Mozart's Cosi fan tutte is so sublime, what's to ad? A swing, dancers and singers and the image of a Fragonard painting. Beauty added on beauty. Beautiful it certainly is, and Mozart front and center. Everything I've seen so far enhances the CSO and the music by Mozart, Puccini, Delibes, etc. The ballerinas are Mozart, lovely like flowers.

I spent time yesterday working on the bit leading up to Don Giovanni;'s Serenade as he invites a lovely to come to the window. Deh, vieni al la finestra. You listen to this music and you remember that Mozart was known to pinch his sopranos on the fanny during rehearsals.



I learned as a stage director that when else fails, get a hunky tenor to go out into the house, find an old lady and sit in her lap and sing his big aria. Never fails. We'll be selecting a lady from the audience to come on stage to be seduced. I even get to say, "Not you sir! Put your hand down!"

Then the finale to Mefistofele was rehearsed by Edwaard Liang, with  what looked like the full corps. And the singers. The music is apocalyptic. The angles wrestling Satan to the floor and winning:

From the eternal music of the spheres, in cerulean space immersed/emanates a paean to love supreme, that rises to the thee, through great and sweet harmony. Hail! Hail!



Edwaard Liang's choreography is sexy and reflects a very human chaos, movement and stillness, touching and not touching-the uncertainty of salvation delighting the bodies of the dancers. Remember there will be a large orchestra in the sections on stage and the splendid 100 voice Columbus Symphony Chorus.

TWISTED: COLUMBUS OPERA SYMPHONY AND BALLET DIARY PT 1

TWISTED is  a show. I could get all snooty, but Twisted is a show. Three of our premiere arts ensembles, the Columbus Symphony, Ballet Met and Opera Columbus will take the stage of the Ohio Theater together September 25-28. You need to be there.

Here's why. Each of the above named organizations have earned positive press nationally in the past several years. Through social media and certainly through the press. Ballet Met knocked 'em in aisles at the Joyce Theater in New York. Opera Columbus's rebirth has been celebrated in print. The Columbus symphony long ago proved they can play anything, anytime no matter who is music director. Conductor Peter Stafford Wilson leads three orchestras in two states but will home in Columbus to domin--er, conduct.  

Locally, there is  A LOT to celebrate. Twisted gives us the opportunity, while having a blast. Let's get over this prophet without honor nonsense. Three elements will be twisted together, at points of agreement and more excitingly at conflicting points.

I have some involvement with this. I'm going to be keeping a blog-diary here as the process develops. First up, what happens when you get the leaders of three different arts organization in the same room?  Wars, strikes or at least a fair amount of hissy fits. That has not happened in Columbus, yet. As rehearsals begin this week,  we are at the exciting phase. Nobody is exhausted yet. They will be, but it will a good exhaustion.

I was asked to write the script. I think they're afraid of my going "off book". No problem. Finally, weeks into this after several drafts, I was given an outline, an exact play by play. That was helpful. I just filled in the blanks. They don't want me to say "Look at these gorgeous dancers. You wanna yell EAT SOMETHING"

And you know my great line, As St Peter said to God when Joan Rivers arrived: The bitch is back! is gonna go.

Now, I could do detailed talks about the dramatury of  Figaro, Carmen and Lakme, and demonstrate some dalcroze eurythmics (that'd have them in the aisles) but you don't want a snooze-fest from the audience.

 Here's Peter Stafford Wilson:

At a meeting yesterday Ballet Met's Artistic Director Edwaard Liang explained in detail his vision for Twisted. There will be favorite arias sung by wonderful local singers. Carmen, La boheme, The Barber of Seville yadda yadda yadda. The singers will be integrated with the dancers of Ballet Met in several of the pieces. If you're familiar with these pieces you'll get a new perspective and a sexy spectacle. If not, you'll be especially enthralled. As an old hand, I 'm eager for Edwaard's take on Carmen!

The only alarming news from yesterday is the need for me to report to Ballet Met to be measured for a costume! No Snickers bars can pass these lips until then.

Look at Ballet Met in Edwaard Liang's 

The stage set up will be nothing like you've seen before. The Columbus Symphony plays the entire evening. Music from Wagner's Lohengrin and Britten's Peter Grimes will add passion to the evening. 

Peggy Kriha Dye

...has chosen the vocal selections and the singers. The 'farewell trio" from Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte is one of those moments you will remember from first hearing.

Come September the arts in Columbus will have an unprecedented extravaganza on one stage, the Ohio Theater. Chorus, orchestra, ballet and opera and me, somewhere. Look for the fat guy.

More later. Save the dates.

TWISTED!! NOT TO BE MISSED: CSO/BALLET MET/OPERA COLUMBUS

TWISTED  is a show.

I could get all snooty, but Twisted is a show. Three of our premiere arts ensembles, the COLUMBUS SYMPHONY, BALLET MET and OPERA COLUMBUS will take the stage of the Ohio Theater September 25-28. 


You need to be there.

Here's why. Each of the above named organizations have earned positive press nationally in the past several years. Through social media and certainly through the press. Ballet Met knocked 'em in aisles at the Joyce Theater in New York. Opera Columbus's rebirth has been celebrated in print. The Columbus symphony long ago proved they can play anything, anytime no matter who is music director. Conductor Peter Stafford Wilson leads three orchestras in two states but will home in Columbus to domin--er, conduct.  

Locally, there is  A LOT to celebrate. Twisted gives us the opportunity, while having a blast. Let's get over this prophet without honor nonsense. Three elements will be twisted together, at points of agreement and more excitingly at conflicting points. Peggy Kriha Dye runs the new Opera Columbus.  Some of us would pay good money just to look at her, (she sings, too) but I digress.

Edwaard Liang

Peggy Kriha Dye. Be still my heart

I have some involvement with this. I'm going to be keeping a blog-diary here as the process develops. First up, what happens when you get the leaders of three different arts organization in the same room?  Wars, strikes or at least a fair amount of hissy fits. That has not happened in Columbus, yet. Here in July we are at the exciting phase. Nobody is exhausted yet. They will be, but it will a good exhaustion.

These clips are samples from previous productions to get you salivating. Here's Peter Stafford Wilson:

At a meeting yesterday Ballet Met's Artistic Director Edwaard Liang explained in detail his vision for Carmen, La boheme, The Barber of Seville yadda yadda yadda. The singers will be integrated with the dancers of Ballet Met in several of the pieces. If you're familiar with these pieces you'll get a new perspective and a sexy spectacle. If not, you'll be especially enthralled. As an old hand, I 'm eager for Edwaard's take on Carmen!

Twisted. There will be favorite arias sung by wonderful local singers.

The only alarming news from yesterday is the need for me to report to Ballet Met to be measured for a costume! No Snickers bars can pass these lips until then.

The stage set up will be nothing like you've seen before. The Columbus Symphony plays the entire evening. Music from Wagner's Lohengrin and Britten's Peter Grimes will add passion to the evening. Peggy Kriha Dye has chosen the vocal selections and the singers. The 'farewell trio" from Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte is one of those moments you will remember from first hearing.

Come September the arts in Columbus will have an unprecedented extravaganza on one stage, the Ohio Theater. Chorus, orchestra, ballet and opera and me, somewhere. Look for the fat guy.

NEXT: Introducing our guest choreographers 

Opera is Back and Columbus Has Got It

The title may be poor grammar but the excitement is sincere. Opera/Columbus has reinvented itself as an organization dedicated to local talent, world class excellence and a damned good time. Last weekend's performances of  Madama Butterfly at the Southern Theater is the beginning of a wonderful new chapter.

The New York City Opera has shut own after seventy years. World clas opera companies are teetering. The august Met no longer plays to packed houses, whether or not Anna Netrebko is singing. (I wonder how early the standing room line begins these days. In my day it was four a.m. to hear Sutherland, Pavarotti, Domingo, Milnes, Price, Siepi...you get my drift) Opera Columbus has been shipwrecked more than once. I don't think that will ever happen again.

I've seen Madama Butterfly a hundred times. So have you. I've seen it seen it set in  a whore house, in Hiroshima after the bomb, and as a drag show I shit you not. I've heard it sung in Croatian, French and sort of English. I know my way around this show. Opera/Columbus's production outshone most of these.

When an opera is done in this town I switch right into I know more than you so how you gonna impess me mode. Well, slap me on the ass and call me Sally!

This production markrs the beginning a collaboration with the Ohio State School of Music. Truth to tell, this is not new but has now been made o-fficial. The scene shops, orchestra musicians, singing musicians, and stage craft will all blossom with such a collaboration. I hope they involve Dan Gray and Kristine Kearney.
Rebecca Turk made bautiful costumes for this Butterfly.

But the audience doesn't care. Were they moved? Did the show look beautiful? Was the singing wonderful? How was the conductor? Did the stage director actually know the opera?

Yes. Yes. Oh, yes.  Terrific. Absolutely.

Olga Perez Flora, Espen Elfers, Priti Gandhi

Conductor Kostis Protopapas eschewed the Karajan-esque sentimentality that can drench and cheapen this opera. He gave us a brisk, unsentimental reading. The chours twice began to veeroff course. Protopapas firmly righted the ship, immediately. This maestro did something new to me: He conducted what Puccini wrote. No extra layers of musical psycho babble-unwanted retards, shifts in tempi, or cliff hanger note lingering were. Protopapas was Riccardo Muti was heart.

Harold Meers as Pinkerton

Likewise stage director Crystal Manich told the story of Madam Butterfly. She trusted the work to do its magic, by offering a clear, motivated and beautifully looking production. Manich offered several new touches: The prelude to Act III was staged with several Pinkertons and Butterfly fruitlessly searching for the real thing. There was a nice touch in Act I where Pinkerton was blocked by Butterfly's formidable mother. Little touches like this add up to originality.

Ron Kadri's multi screen set was attractive and functional and never became boring. Special congratulations to Christofer Popowich for his warm lighting, the sun reflected off the sea ('spira sul mare...')

John Nevergall

Okay, yadda-yadda yadda how was the singing? Soprano Priti Gandhi is a a fine musician.  Priti is what we on the old standing room line called a kunst-diva (say that carefully) meaning she is riveting and effective with more than a voice (think Anja Silja or Catherine Malfitano) What about her voice? She's more Callas than Tebaldi (bullshit, she's Priti and she's great) Hers is not the Butterfly voice I most want to hear. The voice lacks spin and a bit of float. She is the Butterfly I most want to see live the role. What do you do with Pinkerton, a naval lieutenant played as asshole deluxe? Harold Meers is a good looking man who sang it beautifully. You can't like the character, but it was good to have a handsome tenor with a fine voice and a good stage presence.
born actress and

Robert Kerr

More to the OSU connection, my boys Robert Kerr (Sharpless) and John Nevergall (Goro)  were front and center terrific. Kerr's was the voice of the show. He needs to go sing in New York and Chicago. His voice often moves me to tears. Yesterday I just set and kvelled.  Nevergall has developed into a character actor of great talent with a voice continuing to grow into leading roles. Full disclosure: I've worked with both of them and am crazy about both of them.

Olga Perez Flora made Suzuki very much a leading role. Her solo opportunities in Act III showed a voice that will one day sing Amneris and Carmen . The smaller roles were  well filled. Everyone created a character and every one down to the one-lines made an indelible impression-no doubt helped by Ms. Manich. There were no small artists in this show.

I despair of published music criticism in this town. I won't do it myself except on my own blog. Conflict of interest and all that. But believe me when I tell you, Opera Columbus is back, with a Madama Butterfly that had Puccini weeping with joy and counting his money  in heaven.

Gianni Schicchi Diary pt. 13

 GIANNI SCHICCHI THIS WEEKEND JUNE 15-16....www.operaprojectcolumbus.org

Last night was the final dress rehearsal.
There I was, pretty in pink, imaging I could put my feet up, watch the show, make a few notes and enjoy.
Be the daddy. My work is done.

I'm so naive. I'm not aware of any creative endeavor anywhere that doesn't suffer agony at the last minute. We did. Or at least I did. The old adage, "bad dress rehearsals equal great performances" is a comfort.

Not that we had a bad dress rehearsal. We were to run the opera twice, with a short break in between. Start cues were straightened out. The orchestra was sounding great in the warm ups. All of the players weer accomplished and professional. Some of very young. It is a band of winners.

Curtain call!

We hung around on stage, the singers partially dressed (No, no, no...get your mind out the gutter. Jeez) The overworked and under loved volunteers were continuing to stitch costumes, often in the dark. There was a delay as everyone was dressed and adjusted. Then phew! The show began.

Hissy fit number one when the coordination was thought to lag between orchestra and singers. Adjust, adjust, Move around. Some singers wherever they were had eyes glued to the Maestro. Not a way to perform. Hissy fit number 2. Done to blow off steam, not meaning much, certainly nothing personal, but may be disconcerting to some. Not to me. Hell, it was like Thanksgiving dinner with my parents, may they rest in peace.

But I could tell the singers were getting annoyed. I was getting the snarls and WTF out in the house. They shoulda seen my mug out there in the dark. Thee were a few tempi problems as a few were in a s-----l-----o---w mood . About that I will need to speak up and will  have done so by the time you read this.

Curtain call!

Gianni Schicchi's pants fell off. Best part of the show was when he took the god damned things off under his nightie and flung his pants and undies into the audience, Well, not quite. But I woulda done that. My Schicchi handled everything with aplomb, as did the entire cast all night, giving the audience the music, performances and the show-through a good bit of muttering and gnashing of teeth (me.)

Nice press coverage thus far.  There were a couple of audiences members over the past two nights. I was on my way to passing a hat to them. (Not you, Ryan) Cough up. No free rides. I wish I had but it's not my job, tactful guy that I am.I'm going to a wake this afternoon and a funeral in the morning. No, no my own. Don't get excited. For the rest I'm eating pizza and chocolate and doing two live broadcasts. And so it went. The shows themselves will be capital W Wonderful. This thanks to the artists and staff of Opera Project Columbus. Give them money.

P.S. To singers. This is one of my all time favorites. Helen of Troy after her wedding night In one of the great great great performances. Too bad she can't sing with all of YOU!

LA BOHEME FOR COLUMBUS

Opera Columbus continues its renaissance with a new way to present La boheme.

You know the drill. Impoverished students in Paris circa 1850 live in cold and want but manage to find wine, women and (obviously) song.  Puccini used Henri Murger's Scenes de la vie de boheme as the basis for his opera. So did Leoncavallo, composer of Paglicacci, who also wrote a La boheme, a wonderful opera never heard. That's another story. Call me up on the phone.

La boheme. The cold, the poverty, the wine, the muff, the death:




Along comes Opera Columbus wanting to do something new. Rent is based on La boheme and its been a smash for years. Can Puccini build a new audience?

YES!

Last night  I went to see Opera Columbus's new production of La boheme at Shadowbox, a venue in the Brewery district reminiscent of the shoe-biz 'rooms' of an earlier time. It's a lovely restaurant and bar, and a performance space with its own company, led by Stev Guyer (no 'e' at he end, please.) Stev's a favourite guest of mine on All Sides Weekend. So is soprano Peggy Dye, Opera Columbus's new Head Diva in Charge.

Together, Shadowbox and Opera Columbus are presenting La boheme, in English, sung by attractive young local artists.  (Last night the baritone had a wardrobe malfunction giving the audience a bonus.) The show is performed in the restaurant, and I do mean performed. Shadowbox has long been the home of the most creative and entertaining revues, with its artists encouraged to work the room. Musetta sang her waltz (beautifully) five feet from me. If several gentlemen nearby had coronaries, I'm here to tell you the died happy.

La boheme. Intimate, musical, sexy, lovey and in English. Almost in your lap. Don't miss this Sundays at 5 PM through November 18. FREE.  Shadowbox is at 503 S. Front St.

No excuse. you don't need to watch another presidential debate or reruns of The Real Housewives of New Jersey. The baritone has probably bought a new belt by now for his britches, but Musetta and company remain potent and wonderful. They, with their formidable, multi-tasking pianist, will delight you. As will Puccini..

Welcome back, Opera Columbus. 

OPERA IN COLUMBUS OHIO

The meanest Buckeye linebacker is no match for a prima donna. Columbus's Southern Theatre had a packed house  on a January night in 1914, waiting for diva Mary Garden, Debussy's first Melisande and the toast of Paris and Chicago, to appear in recital. But Mary was eight hours away, leaping at the chance to sing a favorite role, Massenet's "Jongleur de Notre Dame" in the Windy City. A wire was dispatched to the hapless crowd in the Southern. Mary was a no-show. The audience wasn't amused, nor was the Columbus Citizen: "Mary, Mary quite contrary/How does your garden grow?/An opera date/will surely bring/more kale in the spring, y'know." Just for good measure, Mary cancelled her make up date, scheduled for four days later, to sing Manon in Chicago.

If Columbus had no resident opera company until 1981, Central Ohioans traveled to hear the

Royal Hughes in 1926

Metropolitan Opera on tour in Cincinnati, braving a flood for an opening night "Faust" at the Music Hall in 1884. Special trains were run from Columbus, and the New York Times reported, "There were some strangers present, who came into the city early in the day on trains that ran through long stretches of water, and who heartily wished they had not ventured from home." Cleveland was a favorite Met tour stop, from "The Barber of Seville" in 1899 to "La traviata", with Granville born Barbara Daniels as Violetta, eighty- seven years later. Not that Columbus lacked for operatic glamour. Adelina Patti appeared at the Auditorium Theatre on Town and Front Streets in 1893, but not before receiving her $5,000 fee in gold coin. Our large German population demanded Wagner, inviting Angelo Neumann's touring company to present its potted Ring cycle in 1899. Memorial Hall opened on Broad Street in 1907 to make a home for touring orchestras and artists from Rachmaninoff to Jan Peerce.

Mary Garden (1874-1967) blew off Columbus

Mary Garden finally arrived, with the touring Chicago Opera to triumph in Alfano's "Resurrection" in 1928. She returned the following year for Thais and Fiora in Montemezzi's "The Love of Three Kings." Garden was not the only star to come through Columbus. Rosa Raisa, Puccini's first Turandot, appeared as Aida with Alexander Kipnis. Charles Hackett was a big name in radio. Maria Olczewska, Richard Strauss's favorite contralto in Vienna, sang Carmen in Columbus. The Columbus Auditorium later became a Lazarus annex. "If you want to stand on the very spot where Mary Garden thrilled 5,500 opera lovers in 1929, you can", writes Phil Sheridan in his 1978 Those Beautiful Downtown Theatres. "Climb either of the two short stairways to the range and refrigerator display, walk to the center, face east, and you're there."

Full scale opera productions came through Columbus between 1935 and 1950 via the touring San Carlo Opera. Organized by a Brooklyn born impresario called Fortune Gallo ('lucky rooster') the San Carlo's "Aida" could play on any stage, the public seldom bothered by the chorus of six and whatever elderly camel could be rented from the local zoo. Dorothy Kirsten, James Melton, Richard Tucker and contralto Coe Glade all played Columbus with the San Carlo, usually at the Hartman Theatre. Beverly Sills began her career at seventeen with the touring Charles Wagner Company, visiting Columbus in 1949 and 1950. Mees Hall hosed a 1954 tour of Mozart's "Cosi fan Tutte" starring Phyllis Curtin. Miss Curtin, America's loveliest soprano, remembers Columbus fondly. "I felt myself really growing and changing as an artist during those performances at Mees Hall." Maria Callas sang one of the last concerts of her career in the Ohio Theatre in 1974, repairing to the Kon-Tiki for a late dinner. Broadcaster Mary Rousculp (Hoffman) had caught La Callas Port Columbus earlier that morning for a pithy, impromptu interview, one of the the diva's last.

The Ohio State university presented staged opera going back to the days of Royal Hughes ,whose

voice students included Ruby Elzy, the original Serena in "Porgy and Bess".  Irma Cooper, long a beloved local artist and teacher, sang a sinister Herodias in "Salome" at Mershon Auditorium, with Grace Bumbry in the title role. Evan Whallon's love for singers led to a series of operas with the Columbus Symphony, including "Die Fledermaus", "La boheme", and "Don Giovanni".  James King and Pablo Elvira co starred in Verdi's "Otello", and Christian Badea led one of the most complex of all opera scores, Richard Strauss's "Elektra" with Johanna Meier and Barbara Conrad.

Michael Harrison put Opera Columbus firmly on the cultural map, following a "Tosca" in 1981. The thrills were not all on stage. "Jack Hanna brought all sorts of animals for our Aida" remembers Harrison, today General Director of the Baltimore Opera. He brought two llamas into my office, and they relieved themselves in the elevator! That was the production where the tenor threatened to have me killed for firing him. The Columbus Police protected me admirably." Harrison points to the world premiere of Pasatieri's "The Three Sisters" with pride, and "I loved coming back to sing the Simpleton in "Boris Godunov" with the great Jerome Hines. That was a role to which everyone thought I was ideally suited!"

Irma M. Cooper

"Opera Columbus went under for four days in January, 1991, but Irma Cooper, Phil Jastram and Rocky Morris raised the money to keep it going," remembers former General Director John Gage, now with Dallas Opera. "Phil was not going to let it go under." Bill Russell brought bel canto elegance back to the Palace Theater with "Anna Bolena" and "Lucia di Lammermoor", along with another world premiere, Leslie Burrs's "Vanqui".

Today, Opera Columbus moves into a new era with performances at Ohio State's Mershon Auditorium. Opera IN Columbus is different than Opera/Columbus, but our hometown company continues to set a high standard.

see also www.operacolumbus.com prima donna. On a cold