Give Me Some Men

September 22, 2007 - So today as I was processing a few more audition applications, I was struck once again by the seeming dearth of men involved in the opera business. I had really hoped that our 2008-2009 season would get men to send in their materials for auditions because the repertoire for that season has a lot of good roles for men. Here's just a quick summary.

Don Giovanni - 1 tenor, 3 baritones or bass-baritones, 1 bass
Albert Herring - 1 boy soprano, 2 tenors, 3 baritones
Coronation of Poppea - 1 or 2 countertenors depending on whether Nero is cast as a countertenor or mezzo-soprano, 1 haut-contre, 2 tenors, 1 bass

That's a lot of opportunities for male voices. And given the fact that men always make up a smaller percentage of any vocal population than say, sopranos, chances are good that a good audition for Opera Vivente would result in some kind of employment. But, day in day out, I open audition packets for sopranos, mezzo-sopranos, contraltos, etc. What gives, men? Do you think that I should have to somehow intuit that you exist? I'm sorry, but no company, but particularly a small company with limited staffing resources wants to have to beat bushes to get people to audition for them. So please, if you are a male singer interested in pursuing an operatic career, send in your materials.

Thanks. John Bowen

Multi-tasking or Why I Really, Really Want a Clone

September 18, 2007 - Okay kids, this is going to have to be a quick one, because as you can probably tell from the title, I'M SWAMPED! But hopefully a quickie will be sufficient to let all you wonderful people out there in the blogosphere know that we are, in fact, not moribund. Indeed, I was recently told by an avid blogger that, while she found the content of my posts quite interesting, they were a little on the long side for blogs. So. . .here goes! A brief synopsis of the several balls that I'm currently keeping in the air.

Ball #1 - Orpheus translation. All musical numbers are now translated and transcribed into the PV (that's short for Piano/Vocal) scores. I have also complete all the Act I dialogue translation. Goal: Have this all done and to the printer by the end of this week.

Ball #2 - Ongoing managing of the production crew for Alcina. This seems to be going well for the most part, although the set designer has gone a bit incommunicado. I think she may have had a baby, since the last time I saw her, she was literally "great with child". Hmmm, should I be good or bad impresario? Anyway, construction has begun on the set, fabric for costumes is being shopped for, lighting plots have been drawn, and I'm working on my list of props to acquire, so I guess I can let the set designer be for a while. 'Cuz that's just the sort of guy I am.

Ball #3 - Planning a trip to New Hampshire to visit the venues of Granite State Opera, where I will be directing Così fan tutte in May 2008. I'll also be meeting the production staff there for the first time. Good thing for me, my partner works in the travel industry.

Ball #4 - Performing I puritani with Washington Concert Opera. As some of you know, I occasionally get on the other side of the footlights (though in truth it's becoming evermore infrequent with every passing year). So some of the abovementioned balls have been in the air on I95 South this week.

Ball #5 - Discussing/crystallizing design ideas for my January production of Pirates of Penzance at Opera AACC. I'm thinking of going with a "theme park ride" idea. Pirate King as the seasoned, "seen-it-all" theme park entertainer, Frederick as the naive, fresh-faced, "I'm gonna be a star someday" kid, well you get the idea.

Ball #6 - Making housing and travel arrangements for some of the artists involved with Tobias and the Angel. I've secured a beautiful room at the 4 East Madison Inn for David Walker. I think it's a fitting accomodation for an artist of his high-caliber. Thanks Sandy!

Ball #7 - Getting the final bits of information to the graphic designer for our program book. This is much like moving. You never realize how much stuff you have until you try to give it to someone else.

Okay, so let's see. I think that accounts for all my balls. Must dash! Love you all and see you at the opera!

John Bowen

Why I'm Excited about Opera Vivente

September 11, 2007 - Today, while listening to me wax poetic about OV, someone asked me why I was so excited about OV in general, and in particular about our 10th season. I must say, the question completely threw me for a loop. Not because I don't think that OV is worthy of excitement, but because I couldn't imagine why someone wouldn't be excited about OV. So I thought about it and here, in no particular order, are the many things that excite me about OV.

First of all, and maybe most irrationally, I'm excited about OV because it's my love child, born out of the union of my absolute love for this music and my distaste for the reputation that opera has come to have with many people in the modern era. Contrary to popular opinion (and the sort of behind closed doors discussions heard at many companies), opera is not, and was never intended to be, proper, stuffy, elitist, obscure, boring, stupid or what have you. Opera has from the beginning set out to be entertaining, moving, relevant and revelatory, cathartic, and universal. OV has at its core the mission of returning those qualities to the genre and like any proud parent I love OV wildly, profligately, and unconditionally. I love it and am proud of it because it's reached 10 years in an environment that is hardly kind to the arts. But there are other things that excite me.

I'm excited about OV because an agnostic audience member who saw our very first production (Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia) told me that her concept of redemption had been irrevocably changed by the experience.

I'm excited about OV because of the 8 year old, who after having sat riveted through a 3+ hour production of a Mozart rarity called La finta giardiniera, decided to do a diorama of the second act for his school project and has sought every opportunity to see opera since that time.

I'm excited about OV because of the many singers who tell me that the experience of doing a role in their own language and in such an intimate space has changed and deepened their concept of that role forever.

I'm excited about OV because of Nick Pazdalski, a 14 year old singer who performed the role of Miles in our production of The Turn of the Screw and then presented me with a $50 donation (which represented a number of months' allowance) as a thank you for the opportunity.

I'm excited about OV because of the dozens and dozens of first-time operagoers who come up to me after the performance and say "Wow! I had no idea that this is what opera was like".

I'm excited about OV because of the audience member who wrote me a letter telling me that our production of Tamburlaine (an opera written almost 300 years ago) had made him seriously think about the morality of America's presence in Iraq.

I'm excited about OV because of the ever-growing number of supporters who tell me that they give because they know how much their money directly impacts what they see on stage, and that they want to make sure that this unique type of performance continues.

The list goes on, but I don't want this blog post to turn into some kind of country-western anthem. So, let me just say a few words about why I'm particularly excited about our 10th season.

Our season opens with a sublime Handelian masterpiece. Alcina is a brilliant examination of the nature of reality, the all too often tension between outward image and inner intention, all set to music of such profound beauty as to almost defy description. We've lined up an amazing cast featuring the return of several of our audience favorites (Ah Hong, Zachary Stains, Monica Reinagel - all of whom regularly perform with companies throughout the United States and Europe) as well as significant company debuts (Colleen Daly in the title role). Add to that the OV signature updating (this time to the hallucinogenic 1960s) that has proven so popular with our previous Handel operas (Agrippina in the 1980s a la Dynasty and Tamburlaine in present day Iraq), and I feel confident that we have an opening show worthy of the occasion.

We then proceed to a truly history-making production with the North America premier of Jonathan Dove's church opera, Tobias and the Angel. Dove is one of the leading contemporary composers of opera, whose works have been performed at Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, The Almeida Music Festival, and Boston Lyric Opera to name just a few. This incandescently beautiful, spiritually probing work is further illuminated by the presence of world-renowned countertenor David Walker in the role of the Angel, providing a chance for Baltimore audiences to hear one of the truly great vocal artists of our time. The setting for this production is the exquisite and historically significant Nave of Emmanuel Episcopal Church, which features Tiffany and Lafarge stained-glass windows, wood-carving by Kirchmeyer, and a baptismal font by William Chester French. Truly a once in a lifetime cultural experience, and I'm excited that OV is the catalyst for bringing this to Baltimore.

And, just to show that we haven't lost sight of the aspect of opera as pure, unadulterated, and not necessarily edifying entertainment, we're closing our 10th season with Jacques Offenbach's hilarious romp through the foibles of image vs. desire Orpheus in the Underworld. I've often said when defending opera that opera was not only the TV of the 19th century but the FOXTV of the 19th century. And to bring that point home, our production is going to rampage through all the imagery currently flickering on millions of screens across America: celebreality TV (e.g. I Love New York, The Simple Life), soft-core titillation TV (e.g. The Girls Next Store, Girls Gone Wild - though for Orpheus perhaps Gods Gone Wild is more appropriate) and televangelism (come on, nobody needs examples of that) are all going to be there, so if you're just looking for an evening of hysterical, mindless entertainment but you're tired of always clicking the remote, you won't be disappointed with this one.

So there's a few reasons why I'm excited about OV. Hopefully they've excited you a little bit too. If they have, or even if they haven't, let me know. Send me a comment about the blog. It will certainly make it more enjoyable to write knowing what you're all thinking and wondering about, and hopefully that will ultimately make it even more interesting (and dare I say, exciting) to read. And having said that, I think I'm going to go watch some mindless TV. Hey! It's research for Orpheus!

Thanks for reading and - See you at the opera!

John Bowen

What I Did on my Summer Vacation

September 8, 2007 - Okay, so first off, I didn't really have a summer vacation. Unlike when I was the child of not one, but two educators, summer was indeed a blissful, unscheduled sequence of days. Even when I did my brief stint in the special kind of hell known as a "9 to 5" job, there was still the sense of vacation being a set aside (and predictable) period of time that one was guaranteed by contract. If you had cleared it with your boss or supervisor it didn't matter what happened during the agreed upon time of your vacation, you were not expected to fix it. Ah, who would have thought that one day I would be nostalgic for a "9 to 5" job? I'm not really all that nostalgic for it, but the one element that increasingly gets lost in the life of people involved in the arts (particularly those involved in any kind of executive capacity) is the idea that you can actually a) take the attitude that no matter what happens during your vacation, you're off the hook or b) find a time in which your organization is actually not in any way in need of you. So, during this time of "back to school" which was almost genetically ingrained in me by those two aformentioned educators, I'm often left wondering where the summer went and if it actually has any impact on me any more. I think that most artist reach a point in their lives where they realize that our basic modus operandi is "We work when there's work". And we all hope that there will always be work, and consistent work at that, or otherwise we wouldn't be able to actually support ourselves as artists. And don't even get me started on the idea of retirement. That will be fodder for a later blog, a much, much later blog.

But enough of these philosophical musings. I'm sure you're all just on the edge of your seats wondering what's been happening here at Opera Vivente since the last post. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but if you're reading this, you're probably at least mildly curious. So. . .here's the scoop:

Design work for Alcina is virtually complete at this point. The carpenter has been given his first installment so that he can begin work on the set, the costume designer is in the process of getting measurements for everyone, the lighting designer is pondering options for creating light boxes (BTW as a sidebar you might be interested to know that a big part of being a lighting designer is sitting observing the wonderful world of light. I know a fantastic husband and husband team of lighting and set designer, and the set designer has often remarked that it appears his partner is not working at all until production week. But I digress), and I'm working my thoughts about blocking out in evermore detail. The conductor has already had individual coachings with several of the singers, and the chorus will have its first rehearsal on Monday. Speaking of the chorus, we're still in need of one more soprano, so if you're a soprano reading this and you're interested, send me an email.

The first production meeting for Tobias and the Angel has also taken place. This piece continues to challenge us all to think outside the box so be prepared for many things which you may not have seen at OV before: puppetry, abstract choreography, surreal lighting, self-illuminating fabric, well the list goes on. But more on that in ensuing months.

AND - here's my own personal point of pride at the moment - this morning I finished translating the last musical number of Orpheus in the Underworld. WOOHOO! Now to whip through the dialogue, a task so much easier since dialogue doesn't have a rhyme scheme, a meter, or any of those other annoying things mentioned in my previous post about translation. So things look good for the October 1st deadline that was put in all the singers' contracts.

Finally, singers continue to send in their materials to be considered for an audition. Since my blog about that whole ball of wax, the packets have been complete and professionally appropriate. Behold, the power of the blog! Just kidding, it might just be complete coincidence, but whatever the cause, it's very nice.

So that's about it on the OV front. I hope that all of you are transitioning into the "back to school" mode with a minimum of melancholy and regret. Perhaps a trip to the local 5 and dime (now there's a phrase that certainly dates me) to buy a new notebook, some colored pencils, a fresh tub of paste and a protractor will take the edge off. It always worked for me, but then again, I was kind of a "learning geek". Anyway, I hope this post finds everyone reading it engaged in something energizing, empowering, and enjoyable, and, as always, See you at the opera!

John Bowen