The Young Artists’ fall tour is off to an exciting start. The singers played to a sold-out house on Wednesday night at Walla Walla Community College—and closed to a standing ovation. “It was a fantastic show,” said Maya Lahyani, the mezzo who sings Dorabella in Così fan tutte. “Our energy was really high, and it was so rewarding to have a full audience and see how well they responded to us.”
Maya loves performing in both casts. “It’s fascinating to have a different sister and a different pair of lovers each time,” she said. Plus performing with alternating groups of singers helps keep her performance fresh, which she admits can be difficult. “It’s easy to go on autopilot, but you have to listen to the other singers like it’s the first time you’re hearing their characters say things, and react as if it’s the first time you’ve heard that,” she said. “The show is new for each audience, and they deserve to see the most fresh and honest version of it.”
Maya is about to wrap up her time with the Young Artists—she leaves the Program once the Così tour ends to head to San Francisco, where she will be a 2010 Adler Fellow. If you don’t get a chance to see Maya in Così, you can catch her back in Seattle in February competing at the regional level of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
On another note, everyone knows you don’t wish a performer “good luck” (which, any superstitious star will tell you is actually bad luck); instead you tell actors to “break a leg,” and, Maya tells me, you tell an opera singer “toi, toi, toi,” which comes from an old German phrase intended to ward off evil spirits.
So “toi, toi, toi,” to our singers at Western Washington University in Bellingham tonight and Sunday at Kirkland Performance Center. Will we see you there?
In this latest audio-only bonus edition of Speight's Corner, General Director Speight Jenkins and Young Artists Program Manager Aren Der Hacopian discuss Il Trovatore's music and some of the past artists that have been featured in this exciting Verdi opera.
The first round of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions took place October 24. This series of competitions for young opera singers begins at the district level and culminates in a Grand Finals Concert on the Met stage. (Last year, former Young Artist Noah Baetge was one of the national finalists and Midsummer Night's Dream guest artist Anthony Roth Costanzo was one of the winners).
David McDade, Seattle Opera’s head of coach-accompanists, played the piano for the auditions and noted proudly that three of the five winners of the Western Washington/Alaska District are associated with Seattle Opera: current Young Artist Maya Lahyani, former Young Artist Michael Anthony McGee, and Jonathan Silvia, a former guest artist with the Young Artists Program, who recently sang the Marquis in La Traviata. Ksenia Poppova, a former music intern here, won an Encouragement Award.
“I’ve always been proud of our Young Artists Program,” McDade said. “And when our ‘guys’ do well I am always happy.”
McDade rehearsed with each of the singers, but spent the most extensive sessions with Silvia, who sang “Come dal ciel precipita” from Macbeth and “Schweig! Schweig!” from Der Freischutz. McDade said his performance was “the best I’ve ever heard Jonathan sing, he took risks and gave 100%”
Lahyani sang arias from Massenet’s Werther and Bellini’s Norma. McGee performed arias from Rachmaninoff’s Aleko and Rossini’s Semiramide.
Don’t miss the next round of the competition, when the five district finalists participate in the regional auditions on February 7 in Seattle!
Last night, the singers in the “red” cast—Marcy Stonikas, Bray Wilkins, and Eric Neuville, along with Maya Lahyani, Erik Anstine, and Sarah Heltzel, who sing with both casts—had their final rehearsal. (The “blue” cast, which features Vira Slywotzky, Alex Mansoori, and Michael Krzankowski, rehearses tonight.)
Marcy Stonikas, who sings Fiordiligi in the “red” cast, said everything really gelled at last night’s rehearsal. “It felt like we all were singing as a group, like a unit,” the soprano said, adding that it was great to finally rehearse in front of an audience. Erik Anstine, who sings Don Alfonso in all performances, agreed: “With an audience we can see which jokes land, where to pause, and what adjustments we should make.”
Marcy, much like Bray and Alex, noted the benefits of having a role that’s double-cast. “Vira is an extraordinary actress, and it’s really refreshing and educational to watch her character choices.” But while the two are inspired by each other, Marcy noted that they still have to make their performances their own. “I am not Vira, and if I tried to be her, it would just bomb,” Marcy said, with a laugh. “But I can take what she does in certain places and figure out how to make it work for me.”
The singers definitely bring a bit of themselves and their own interpretations to their characters, but for the most part, all the staging is the same. Even when there are slight differences, Erik says he’s not thrown off when performing with the different casts, because everyone is making choices in character, so he can easily react in character. “It’s not ‘oh, Marcy turned right [where Vira turns left],’ instead it’s ‘Fiordiligi does this, so Don Alfonso does that,’” he said.
Tomorrow the Young Artists pack up and head out to Walla Walla for their sold-out performance on Wednesday night. Will we see you there? If you miss out, you still have four more chances to see these exciting young singers this fall!
Join us 7 pm, Tuesday November 17th, to discuss issues of liberal and conservative lifestyles in the operas of Verdi and Wagner. Hosted at Seattle University's Wyckoff Auditorium. For a full list of programming in this free series, click here.
This blog post is republished from Richard Kessler's ArtsJournal blog, Dewey21C. The original post can be read in full here. ____________________ A few tidbits I have come across recently and not so recently; most in person and a few in writing:
"You arts people think that all principals have to do all day is think about arts education." -- School District Official
I would rather kids have nothing than have arts education of low quality." -- School District Administrator
"The integration of the arts cannot be done at the high school level." -- School District Administrator
"I am only really interested in a broad arts education that is integrated across the curriculum." -- Principal
"The integration of the arts has no quality and no sequence and cannot be accounted for." -- Professor of Education
"When is the arts program going to include us?" -- A non-arts subject area teacher in middle school
"Parents are the key to arts education." -- Foundation Staff Member
"Parents are a waste of time." -- The very same Foundation Staff Member
"Parents in low income areas don't care about the arts." -- Arts Education Consultant
"Parents in low income schools understand that the arts are part of a well-rounded education." -- Grass Roots Organizer.
"Low performing students shouldn't be required to have the arts." -- School District Official
"Music Saves Lives." -- Arts Advocate
"There would be no arts education without cultural organizations." -- Arts Administrator
"There is no arts education in our schools." -- Elected Official
"This year is going to be another great year for arts education." -- City Official (in the same school district as the elected official)
____________________
What is Seattle Opera's part in arts education? Seattle Opera’s Education department has programs designed to reach virtually every age group. In order to make opera irresistible to young people, we have tailor-made our education programs for grade schoolers, middle schoolers, high schoolers, and college students. Through exciting programming, engaging lectures, and thrilling live performances, we are preparing the opera audiences of tomorrow – today. Grade School: Opera Goes to School Grade School: RingFest 2009 Summer Program Middle School: Backstage Tours High School: Experience Opera College: Student Group Sales, Front & Center Program Teacher Training: Seattle Pacific University Wagner Class
Plus all the pre-performance lectures and free community lectures at various venues around town. But back to the blog post - what have YOU heard about arts education? Chime in in the comments!
As La Traviata came to a close last week, our Facebook page recently saw some posts by familiar faces...both Nuccia Focile, our Wednesday/Saturday Violetta, and Francesco Demuro, our Friday/Sunday Alfredo, wrote on our wall to express their love and thanks to all the Seattle audience members and fans that made their time here so wonderful. We had to pass along their warm thoughts! Their comments, along with their Facebook profile pictures are posted below:
Nuccia Foccile: To all my friends at Seattle Opera: Thank you ever so much for being sooooooo wonderful. I miss you all!!!!!!!! Lots of love, Nuccia
Francesco Demuro: ..E' stato un onore lavorare con tutti voi..avete reso meraviglioso il mio debutto negli Stati Uniti...con infinita gratitudine...a presto!!!!!
(Translation: It was an honor to work with you all. You have made my United States debut wonderful ... with infinite gratitude ... see you soon !!!!!)
If you're not already a fan of Seattle Opera on Facebook, come join us and see these comments as they happen in real time. Connect with other Seattle Opera fans, see behind the scenes photos and videos, and now (just added yesterday!) write your own reviews of the operas you see on stage.
Last night, Seattle Opera’s Adult Education series continued with a presentation on “Verdi: Parents & Children”, given by me, Jonathan Dean, at Seattle University’s Wyckoff Auditorium. I surveyed a series of Verdi operas, including La traviata, Il trovatore, and Falstaff, and followed Verdi’s use of the images of sinfully arrogant parents, disobedient children, and the curse that smites generation after generation of a family. Verdi never puts romantic love front and center in his operas; his tenor-soprano love duets, lovely as some of them are, are never as compelling, or sexy, as the tenor-soprano duets in Puccini’s operas. Instead, Verdi’s best scenes showcase the love between parents (particularly fathers) and children, and his many baritone-soprano father-daughter duets are really where it’s at.
When you look at Verdi’s biography, it becomes evident why the composer responded so powerfully to stories about parents and children: as son, and as father, he was unusually blessed and cursed. (Look at our Seattle Opera Verdi Spotlight Guide for details!) After the decimation of his first family, Verdi’s career got going with Nabucco, an opera about an insanely arrogant father and his sadistically wicked daughter. He wrote Rigoletto, Il trovatore, and La traviata a decade later, at the time of his second family meltdown, and it’s easy to see how these operas all build on each other. Rigoletto closes with the image of the broken parent cradling the dead child, the grotesque Rigoletto with the daughter who was killed when he attempted to play God and be avenged upon his enemy; but in Il trovatore, Verdi’s next opera, that same story played long before the opera began, when Azucena murdered her own son in an attempt to be avenged upon her enemy. It’s fashionable to ridicule the complicated plot of Il trovatore, but the music Verdi wrote for Azucena’s nightmarish flashbacks, mental agony, guilt, panic, and frustration always impresses me with its unflinching, unbearable sincerity: what it must feel like to be responsible for your child’s death.
Azucena La mano convulsa stendo... stringo La vittima... nel foco la traggo, la sospingo... Cessa il fatal delirio... L'orrida scena fugge... La fiamma sol divampa, e la sua preda strugge! Pur volgo intorno il guardo e innanzi a me vegg'io Dell'empio Conte il figlio... Manrico Ah! Che dici! Azucena Il figlio mio, Mio figlio avea bruciato! Manrico Quale orror! Azucena Sul capo mio le chiome Sento rizzarsi ancor!
Azucena I reached out my trembling hand…grabbed the victim…shoved him into the fire… The deadly delirium stopped…the horrid scene fled [my eyes]… But the flames grew, and devoured their prey. I turned away, and saw before me the son of the wicked Count… Manrico Ah! What are you saying? Azucena My son, I burned my son! Manrico What horror! Azucena On my head I feel the hairs rising up again!
Conflict between parents and children drives most of Verdi’s operas. But the important thing is, they aren’t all like Nabucco and Abigaille, arrogant, obnoxious, and cruel. Many of Verdi’s characters, including the grotesque Rigoletto and Azucena, are wonderfully sympathetic. Verdi’s parents and children may have their problems, but we in the audience care about them because they love each other so much. Gilda and Rigoletto have their beautiful, moving scenes, Azucena and Manrico care enormously about each other, even Germont is a loving father to the two young people whose happiness he destroys in La traviata. My favorite Verdi opera, Simon Boccanegra, is almost a wish-fulfillment fantasy, for Giuseppe Verdi, about the best possible father he could be, with the best possible daughter. We listened to much of Boccanegra’s redemptive, healing music last night, and to some of the tender parent-child scenes from Verdi’s other operas: here’s a moment from Luisa Miller (written immediately before Rigoletto) in which father and daughter fantasize about escaping from their problems, together, into a world where every day is Daddy-Daughter Day:
Al nuovo albore noi partirem. Andrem, raminghi e poveri, ove il destin ci porta. Un pan chiedendo agli uomini andrem di porta in porta. Forse talor le ciglia noi bagnerem di pianto, ma sempre al padre accanto la figlia sua starà. Quel padre e quella figlia Iddio benedirà!
We’ll leave at dawn. We’ll wander, aimless and poor, Wherever destiny takes us. Begging our bread from men, we’ll go from door to door. From time to time we’ll bathe our eyes with tears, but the daughter will always be beside her father. Such a father and such a daughter God will bless!
Join us on November 17, at Seattle University, for a night of Wagner vs. Verdi and the great nineteenth-century Bohemian – Bourgeois tug-of-war!
When New York City Opera opens its 2009-10 season this weekend in the newly-renovated and renamed David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center (formerly known as the New York State Theater), things will sound a little different to audiences. The voice amplification system that was added to the theater in 1999 has been removed; now operagoers will only hear the singers’ live, unfiltered voices. (Via Robin Pogrebin on New York Times' “Arts Beat” column)
Opera fans, do you enjoy the amplification-free sound of operatic voices that you hear at Seattle Opera and other companies? Would it impact your experience or enjoyment to listen to those voices if they were amplified? Is it strange for you to attend other theatrical performances where the performers use microphones?
Watch the latest episode of Speight's Corner, as Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins and Young Artists Program Manager Aren Der Hacopian discuss the music and artists of this exciting upcoming Verdi opera, Il Trovatore. Performing at McCaw Hall January 16 - 30, 2010.
Another Seattle Opera production closed last night, and all the captions are in. Our final contest winner is Pat Palmer for their caption, "Evel Knievel's Great,Great Grandfather." Thank you to everyone who played along in our silly contest!
As we relish fond memories (and tunes in our head) from La Traviata, here are all the winning captions throughout the production in review. Enjoy!
"They're really going all out in the donors' lounge this season!"
"If Scarlet O'Hara can get drapes to fit, so can I!"
"Violetta...I just saved alot of money by switching to Geico."
"SHE SAYS: Raise the roof.. HE SAYS:OH yea!!"
"Where are my car keys? I left them right here!"
"Lavish costumes still predominate in Sir Mix-A-Lot's otherwise thoroughly modern interpretation of "La Traviata." In this still, Violetta (Eglise Gutiérrez) plays coy as Alfredo (Francesco Demuro) sings, "LA face with the Oakland booty," from the "Un dì, felice, eterea" remix."
"Dude, I TOLD you counting cards doesn't work in this game..."
"I told you I was going to wear that dress tonight!"
"Your face is going to freeze that way."
"My dear, are you SURE eating all that garlic was a good idea?"
"All the single ladies....all the single ladies...."
"Why oh why did I have that triple shot macchiato after dinner? I'm never going to get to sleep."
Happy Halloween, Traviata fans! Today is the final day of our caption writing contest for this production, and the final chance for you to win a Traviata poster with our compliments. Yesterday's comments were great - we never knew that Nuccia Focile lying on her deathbed could be so funny!
The winning caption goes to Matt Meyers for his comment left on Facebook, "Why oh why did I have that triple shot macchiato after dinner? I'm never going to get to sleep."
Without further delay, it's time to unveil the last Traviata snapshot. Now is the time to pull out all the stops and submit all the funny captions you can think of. Only one poster remains...who will win it?!
Today, I ran into tenors Bray Wilkins and Alex Mansoori during their lunchbreak, and we chatted about the past week in the Young Artists Program.
Alex and Bray are alternating in the role of Ferrando in Così. They both say that playing a role that's double-cast actually improves their performances, rather than creating any competition between them. "It gives us each a chance to sit back and watch someone else up on his feet trying things out and working on the character," Alex said.
Bray agreed, and noted that working with Alex—who recently sang Ferrando in Così as a member of San Francisco Opera's Merola Program—has led him to rethink a lot about his character choices. "Alex brought a lot of ideas about the character," said Bray, who adds that the two have talked a lot about Ferrando's motivations and actions.
By now, the singers know their music well so they can really start getting into character onstage. They try things out, see what works with the other singers' character choices, and make changes if necessary. "It’s really collaborative," Alex said. It’s also a very physical show—Alex can often be seen around our offices wearing a pair of kneepads—and this week while rehearsing a fight scene with baritone Michael Krzankowski (Guglielmo), Alex was knocked down and suffered a concussion. Luckily, everyone is OK. "Michael was just teaching me a lesson: tenors are wusses," Alex joked.
Only two days remain of caption writing along with only two more performances of La Traviata! Yesterday saw several comments submitted both here on the blog and on Facebook, and the winning caption appeared in both places (not necessary, but we loved the enthusiasm of the author!).
Hats off (and a free poster!) to Christina Bystrom for her Beyonce shout out, "All the single ladies....all the single ladies...."
There are still captions to be written and posters to be won, so keep the creative and funny one-liners coming! Our next-to-last Traviata photo-of-the-day is below:
Maya loves performing in both casts. “It’s fascinating to have a different sister and a different pair of lovers each time,” she said. Plus performing with alternating groups of singers helps keep her performance fresh, which she admits can be difficult. “It’s easy to go on autopilot, but you have to listen to the other singers like it’s the first time you’re hearing their characters say things, and react as if it’s the first time you’ve heard that,” she said. “The show is new for each audience, and they deserve to see the most fresh and honest version of it.”
Maya is about to wrap up her time with the Young Artists—she leaves the Program once the Così tour ends to head to San Francisco, where she will be a 2010 Adler Fellow. If you don’t get a chance to see Maya in Così, you can catch her back in Seattle in February competing at the regional level of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. 
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