Opera B!NGE Fest 2017!

"I've had a great idea." -- PJH about a year ago

This past March, Opera McGill celebrated its 60th anniversary by presenting an entire season of opera - seven operas - in just 24 hours. In order to truly celebrate Montreal's 375th anniversary, Opera McGill set off to present opera not just on our campus, but in Montreal proper. Our first foray actually happened this past January with our production of Die Fledermaus at the wonderful historic theatre Monument National located in the heart of the Quartier des Spectacles. During the 24 hours, in addition to putting on three operas at on-campus venues (Pollack Hall, Redpath Hall, and Wirth Opera Studio), Opera McGill presented a double-bill of French opera at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur and a double-bill of operas by Garner and Bartok at the Theâtre Paradoxe. It stretched us, literally, to be able to figure out the logistics of this project, but wow was it worth doing!

This was an idea that popped into my head while binge watching on Netflix over a year ago. Binge watching - for those who may not know what that is, or who may not do it - is sitting down in front of the telly and watching a season (or two, or three) or a TV series on Netflix in one stretch. Because we live in the country and don't have cable tv channels, only wifi limited internet, our use of the tv is different than many other families. Lots of DVDs and lots of Netflix. Usually we start on a Friday night choosing some show (my wife and I heartily recommend: "Grace and Frankie", "Last Tango in Halifax", and any BBC murder mystery from "Midsomer Murders" to "Death in Paradise") and then getting comfortable and watching show after show after show until we can't take any more of it.

So I thought, could this be a way to take in opera? Create a whole season of opera - in this case 7 one-acts - and then present it in 24 hours in such a way as to bring in audiences. New and old audiences, from across a wider range of Montreal perhaps? Would people take to the idea and join us on an operatic binge of sorts?

The planning phase was huge. Picking operas that would compliment the pool of students usually involved in opera; picking operas that represented something important was also very important to me. It was important for me to show audiences the Past, Present, and Future of opera. I also wanted a variety of production styles - historic, traditional, non-traditional, venue-based, and abstract styles that audiences see nowadays. This Binge Fest was going to try to show our audiences different ways to present operas in 2017.

I chose Dido and Aeneas as the first opera for Friday night because it was the first opera presented 60 years ago in 1957 by Opera McGill. That seemed appropriate, as was the venue: Redpath Hall. We decided to present it with a small baroque orchestra and with beautiful period costumes, sort of a nod to the history of Opera McGill. Stephen Hargreaves conducted and it was directed by Jessica Derventzis, one of two guest directors for the B!NGE. The second opera was to be presented in the morning of the following day. I picked my adaptation of Mozart's The Impresario mostly because it was updated to a NYC "audition space" and Wirth Opera Studio is a perfect audition space as is. In order to entice people to come in early, we offered complimentary Tim's coffee and Timbits with the price of admission. (Huge success, btw). This one was tricky to cast because the two sopranos needed have to have exciting extensions beyond the staff (going up to high F!), and I added two extra sopranos to the show in the adaptation.  Plus the pianist is also an onstage character who has lines, has to act, has to sing, and play the entire Mozart score brilliantly. Boy did we get lucky with Jack O! Both Dido and Impresario sold out days before, (there were actually people posting on FB trying to Dido tix!)

The early afternoon opera I wanted to be for kids. I had tons of great experiences performing for kids on various tours down in the US and one of the great operas written for kids is called "Sid the Serpent Who Wanted to Sing". We presented it in Pollack Hall with a rock-style lighting design and a very colourful set and costume design. I played the piano for this one (I'd played it hundreds of times on tour back in the 90s) and the cast of four delivered the 45 minute piece with tons of energy. At the end, when I invited the kids down to the edge of the stage, we had a rush of hundreds of kids eager to meet the Juggler, Clown, Strongman, and Sid as well as get their pics taken with them. One of the singers said she "felt like a Disney Princess". It was nice to collaborate on the show with my wife, Elizabeth Koch, who helped direct it. (She had performed the role of the clown about a hundred times back in the early 90s on a different tour.) Hopefully, Sid will live again sometime soon for more Montreal children.

The late afternoon show was a double-bill of two lovely French one-acts: Massenet's Le portrait de Manon and Ravel's L'heure espagnole. We presented these two very different pieces in two very different areas of the same venue at the Chapelle historique du Bon-Pasteur east of McGill's campus. The Massenet was performed in the regular recital hall venue and then at the intermission the audience was invited to move to the other side, get a complimentary glass of wine (another big hit) and watch the second show in a pseudo-immersive style area. The audience had to stand, sit on the floor, move up to the balcony gallery overlooking the space, or sit in the two dozen or so chairs that were provided. It created a whole different atmosphere to take in an opera. Both were brilliantly performed to sold out audiences, with the amazing Olivier Godin as guest music director and pianist. The inspired direction was by another guest, Jonathan Patterson, who really had a challenge directing the Ravel in the Art Gallery space (check out the video below to see why!)

After a great dinner with some VIP guests at the Pullman (what a wine list!), I traveled to the last venue and got there in the nick of time to do my somewhat lengthy thank-you speech before the start of the last two operas: James Garner's East o' the Sun, West o' the Moon and Bela Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle (sung in the original Hungarian!). I chose these pieces for a couple of reasons. James Garner is a young English composer (24 years old) and I'd been looking for new "voices" in the opera world for quite some time. I've often thought that too many opera composers are a bit long in the tooth by the time they get to writing an opera and I was thrilled to find out that James was already writing numerous operas in his early twenties, plus he's a singer himself so his pieces really showcase voices in a way I've not heard in awhile. He understands voices and that is rare in a composer of opera nowadays. I thought his piece would make a sort of bookend to the Purcell - who wrote the earliest opera we have in the repertoire, Dido. The Bartok is simply my favourite opera written in the 20th century and I've been waiting to do it at Opera McGill until the right singers came along. Luckily, two graduating masters students were a perfect fit and the opera was a great project for both; certainly demanding vocally and musically, but also it's a very dark opera that demands a lot from the singers dramatically. The end result for both pieces was fantastic. The students gave terrific performances, Stephen conducted both with aplomb, the venue itself became part of the set and lighting designs, and I have never been more happy as a stage director.  The venue also came with a bar in the back, beer on draught, and we had the audiences seated "cabaret style" at rounded tables where they could enjoy their drinks and the opera at the same time.

To get a feel for the Festival, simply watch the following wondrous 15 minute documentary made by our videographer, Anne Kostalas. I think the audience interviews are really insightful and there is a palpable excitement about the 24 hours that she captured.

Here's the link: BingeFest Documentary

Anne also did a really cool "trailer" video for the Binge that she and I concocted one afternoon. The idea was to follow Bluebeard and Judith from venue to venue as if they were going to the Binge Festival as a date; in costume, with a soundtrack provided by the two singers and Stephen Hargreaves at the piano. Some people were confused by what it was all about. Perhaps now would be a good time to look back at it and see if we did a good job showing what to expect.

Here' the link: BingeFest Trailer

A huge project like this B!NGE Festival doesn't happen by itself. First off, you have to have the idea and convince others that it is a viable idea. My previous blog touches upon that kind of challenge.

Here's the link: Blog: Creative Conversions!

Then you have to put the right people into place, specifically the one person charged with getting everyone to the right place at the right time. That would be Russell Wustenberg, Opera McGill's production stage manager. He and I have now done over a dozen shows together (12 in the last year) and he has tremendous skills at organizing people. We couldn't have survived without him! The design team had to collaborate with four different directors and find a way to get to 14 tech and dress rehearsals over two days leading up to the Binge. Florence's makeup designs for Bluebeard -- wow! Serge's lighting in the Paradoxe -- wow! Vincent's numerous sets and set pieces that popped up all over Montreal -- wow! Ginette's costumes that ran the gamut from Trojan Aeneas to Steampunk Bluebeard -- wow! Then there were the multiple teams of students recording the operas led by Martha de Francisco (the unsung heroes of Schulich's research and performance departments -- recording hundreds and hundreds of concerts, recitals, and operas every season), the genius George Massenburg who did the video archiving of the actual performances you see on Anne's documentary, and the tireless Maureen Leaman Matulina who coordinated all of the various box offices and ticket requests as well as showing up to the shows themselves. All of these amazing professionals went above and beyond the norm and were the reason the festival succeeded so "effortlessly".

But the biggest kudos have to go to the students themselves. This wasn't your ordinary opera production schedule. We started the week after Fledermaus closed - no rest for the weary. Each show was given only a handful of staging rehearsals and coachings. Because there were seven shows, most of which had separate unique casts with just a few overlaps, we had to start stagings a month and a half before the B!NGE itself. That meant that some shows (like Impresario) got staged in February and weren't looked at again until the week of the Binge. This meant that many students took it upon themselves to continue rehearsing without a creative team -- which frankly is a terrific way to learn and work on your own ideas about character and physicality. They also were singing music written in a wide variety of styles and historical periods as well as in four different languages (English, French, German, and Hungarian).

Creating that schedule was a labor of love and could not have happened without my years of work at Glimmerglass Opera where we rehearsed four operas concurrently as well as running a young artist program with hundreds of added private coachings on top of the MainStage production schedules. When people ask me how the Binge happened, I have a hard time answering them. I smile and say something like "planning is everything." Well, the truth is is that planning actually is everything. But planning takes time and experience and willing participants.

Another question I get asked is "will you be doing it again next year?!" Well, the answer is yes! I've decided that binging on opera is a good thing and a cool way to create a buzz, find new audiences, and gain performance opportunities for the Opera McGill students. So next year, in March of 2018, we will be Binging on Bernstein! To celebrate the 100th birthday of Lennie, Opera McGill will be presenting three performances of Candide in collaboration with Boris Brott and his McGill Chamber Orchestra. Additionally, we will be presenting an afternoon titled "Arias and Barcarolles" which will be scenes from his many theatrical pieces - both opera and musical. It'll be a lovely weekend of Bernstein and I hope all will join us!

By the way, Opera McGill has a Youtube channel. Check out all of our numerous other videos here: Opera McGill YouTube .
As well, Anne Kostalas, videographer, has a blog. Check her out here: DivaFilms

A Prescription for Operatic Prescriptionists!

The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.  - William Shakespeare

WARNING: This is a long blog but I was not willing to divide it into parts. (Apologies if you were looking for a little quick read!)  
SPOILER ALERT: I also reference a song by the Beastie Boys in "Star Trek Beyond"

First a few definitions…  
Prescription A recommendation that is authoritatively put forward.  
Prescriptive [Linguistics]: Attempting to impose rules of correct usage on the users of a language; Relating to the imposition or enforcement of a rule or method.  
Prescriptionist A person who makes up or dispenses medicines in accordance with prescriptions; an assistant to a pharmacist.  
Prescriptionism [Philosophy]: The theory that moral and other evaluative judgments have prescriptive force similar to that of imperatives.  

Description A statement that tells you how something or someone looks, sounds, etc. ; words that describe something or someone  
Descriptive [Linguistics]: Denoting or relating to an approach to language analysis that describes accents, forms, structures, and usage without making value judgments. Often contrasted with prescriptive.  
Descriptionist Originally: a person who describes something or someone; specifically one who gives (mere) descriptions that are free from evaluation, explanation, etc. Later chiefly: a person who believes in the importance or priority of description; an adherent or advocate of descriptivism.
Descriptionism The doctrine that the meanings of ethical or aesthetic terms and statements are purely descriptive rather than prescriptive, evaluative, or emotive.

Here’s a short video to describe these ideas in musical terms:  Why You Should Learn Music Theory!

Yes, it is a great discussion of why prescriptionism is important to music theory. I agree. However let me get right to the point:

I am an operatic descriptionist. 

The above statement is one of the fundamental differences I have with some – not all, mind you – of my exceptional colleagues, both in the professional and academic worlds. I believe that the philosophical differences between musical prescriptionists and descriptionists are at the root of our current pedagogical dilemmas surrounding a singers’ initial education at college or a university, and their subsequent training and preparation to enter the profession life out in the real world. I additionally believe that it is one of the causes for why some opera companies are failing to reach new audiences while others are succeeding so well at it. Furthermore, I believe that the highest quality of summer/resident young artist programs are already moving forward along these lines but that many others are still trapped in a 1980s world of presenting yet another Carmen quintet with other opera “highlights” during tired scenes programs, thinking this is some sort of “training”.

Most importantly, I believe that if descriptionism becomes the guiding force in our musical world, it could bring a paradigmatic shift to the opera world and, deep breath, prevent its collapse.

Dire words. I do not type them lightly.

Almost all young opera singers are trained in a classical setting, at an academy, conservatory, university or college by voice teachers working within a prescribed curriculum that is part of a larger performance area or program. Prescriptions are put into place to maintain accordance with a larger University’s curricular standards, and/or to create an equanimity among the students’ examinations, aka their recitals.

There are certain things a singer must do to get a degree in voice. One of the biggest is their final Recital – in graduate programs there are usually multiple recitals. These recitals are a singers’ thesis or their final exam as it represents the culmination of their education in the classical vocal arts. Oftentimes these recitals are worked on for multiple semesters in order to present between 50 and 70 minutes of music for voice and piano accompaniment.

Now these recitals all have guidelines and rules, often in place for decades, handed down from what I’d imagine were all prescriptionist committees. Among other things, these rules oversee what can be sung and for how long. Most recitals at the undergraduate level are, rightly so, pretty prescriptive in their constraints. Multiple languages, historical perspectives, and genres are very tightly controlled by the voice teachers who judge and grade the student singers. Again, a pretty understandable idea. Typically in graduate programs, the reigns are loosened to allow more freedom for the singer to decide what they’d like to sing on their various recitals. Usually the length is still dictated and there are still, in most schools, guidelines for what constitutes these graduate voice recitals. For instance, at McGill every graduate recital is proposed to a committee of faculty who approve its content and length.

This all seems very normal and good.

But the problem is is that these voice recitals tend to all look and sound the same. Allow me to over-generalize: A guy walks out in a tux or a lady walks out in a gown, they open up with some nice Italian ditties from the baroque period, then move into a Schubert set auf Deutsche, perhaps something more Romantic, then into a French Impressionist set, infrequently making sense of the dense symbolist poetry, and then burst into an English set by Barber or Britten or Bolcom or Beach. Maybe, if they’re lucky, they get to end with something to “entertain” the audience, usually some piece of musical theatre they’ve been wanting to sing for years but haven’t been allowed to actually study in any way. They stand and deliver thoughtfully, taking breaks between “sets”. Applause follows. If they’ve prepared well, a passing grade is usually conferred by a chosen panel of voice teachers.

What’s the problem, you might ask? Do I have some grudge against the current recital format?

Yes, I do. I believe that there is more to a young singer’s training than learning to stand still while singing through an hour’s worth of song literature. I think that recitals should only be a part of a young singer’s thesis, not its sole culmination. I believe that students should be allowed much more flexibility and freedom when choosing repertoire, venue, length, order of songs, and even their dress. Hey - Why not ungroup a cycle and splatter it throughout other songs to create a more unique connection between the poetry or the music?

Why do I write these things on such a public forum? Because I’m concerned and too many others in the professional opera world have voiced their concerns directly to me as well. We are concerned about the type of preparation happening in many of the academic programs in North America. Most were developed in the last century before huge shifts in our world made new demands on our young singers - from needing video auditions for most programs, having up-to-date websites with media capabilities, knowing a much broader range of repertoire, navigating through social media, dealing with a saturated market of singers faced with a declining chance of being cast - just to mention a few. It is time to reboot opera at its roots.

This will be tricky for there exists a difficulty among prescriptive academics: how to stay in touch with current trends happening out there in the wide world. Sometimes, if they are aware of shifts and trends, they passively or aggressively ignore them because they have their proven methods to form singers. Sometimes it’s literally “my way or the highway”, and students are denied even thinking about new repertoire outside of the prescribed parameters, let alone learning or studying unfamiliar pieces from new or evolved genres. For the ones who do want change, they can be met with a wall of tenured professors who may or may not be interested in change.

So what makes one a “prescriptionist”? Well, it’s when one decides what classical music is and is not. That subsequently creates a prescription on the “is not” music, preventing a student from learning, studying, researching, or performing it during a most critical time – their early years learning to sing.

And let me add: To decide what constitutes “music” is an awfully difficult thing. Absolutely, totally, and simply, impossible. Let’s give it a try: What is music? Try to answer that. Go ahead.

Now imagine putting your answer into a prescription for a classical voice recital. This prescription creates the bibliography for what a singer will study and learn for their four years, and perhaps beyond. It will affect how they learn to sing (repertoire does that), what sorts of technical difficulties they will take on and hopefully conquer. The repertoire that is chosen as their course of study will have a huge impact on their burgeoning technique.

Let me be clear. I believe in the classical training of the human voice. Whole-heartedly. Even though I’d be hard-pressed to describe exactly what that is, or is not.

But let’s move forward and think about what that question (“What is music”) creates from an operatic perspective. For you see, the recital experience is part of the basic and essential training that goes into making a young opera singer. However, none of them make a living just singing recitals. If successful, they make their living singing opera, oratorio, recital, musicals, concerts in bookstores, giving masterclasses, and/or private teaching. Opera should be an essential component of all young singers’ training because it offers the first lucrative engagements that lead to management and bigger paying gigs. Yet it isn’t an essential component in many undergraduate programs outside of either some opera scenes or an annual production. The bigger the programs, the more opera productions, the bigger the budgets, the more opportunities to sing with orchestra, and lots more competition to get cast. That last bit’s probably another blog.

A few fun questions:
What is opera?
What constitutes some piece of art being called “opera”?
What makes one piece an opera and another piece not an opera?
Who gets to decide?

To get really down and dirty: What makes Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte an opera when it’s clearly a “Singspiel” (a German musical that has dialogue between its musical numbers.) Why do classical musicians think that Offenbach’s operettas are operettas, but his Les contes d’Hoffmann is more of an opera? What puts Carmen or Die Fledermaus decidedly in the opera camp, but other German operetta in the “Light Opera” arena along with Gilbert and Sullivan, Lehar, and the early New York musicals?

Speaking of musicals, the distinction between musical and opera is now being blurred by, of all things, opera companies. Recently major North American houses have joined the Europeans (who’ve been presenting musicals in their opera houses for decades) to present operas by a wide range of American composers. Leading the way were the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Glimmerglass Opera, and Ash Lawn Opera (a Charlottesville, Virginia company presenting opera and musicals in repertoire for the last 30+ years). Now they are being joined by Houston Grand Opera, L’opéra de Montreal, Central City Opera, Vancouver Opera, Chautauqua Opera, Des Moines Metro Opera, LA Opera, NYCO, and Mill City Opera up in Minnesota (run by two young geniuses, the director David Lefkowich whose training is in theatre and stage combat and the conductor Brian DeMaris who runs the Arizona State University program which is a unified musical theatre and opera program – singers can study one or the other or both. IMAGINE.)

Another question: Is a musical still a musical when an opera company produces it and casts opera singers?

Many people I’ve discussed this question with go right to “mic’ing” for the answer. If it’s mic’d, then it’s obviously a musical because opera is an acoustic art form. Sure. Go there. Try that argument. Then head into any number of opera companies across North America (shall we all name names?!) and see the sound engineer in the back of the house maintaining floor mic levels “just to enhance”, or adjusting lavalier microphones attached to the singers’ costumes. If an opera singer sings opera in a house but mics are used, is the piece still an opera? I thought opera was an acoustic art form.

Using mic’ing as an answer is no longer viable because of the new technologies available, the fact that sound engineers are able to manipulate the singers’ voices live, and that too many new operas employ non-acoustic sounds in both the orchestrations and in the productions themselves. The genres (musicals and operas / acoustic vs engineered) blurred many moons ago. Way, way, way back. Even “classic” musical theatre, a genre that many opera folk think was an acoustic one, was mic’d. Yes, even that great belter Ethel Merman was mic’d. In shows as old as Gypsy. [Shocked?]

Here's a quick article mentioning this history: Acoustics-And-Electronics

But didn't we all agree, at some point, that certain pieces were operas – like Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess – didn’t we? Was the recent Broadway show a musical derivation of it, which starred many operatically-inclined singers like Audra MacDonald or was it a devolved operatic version?

The elephant in the room, besides Porgy, is Sweeney Todd by that great musical theatre composer Stephen Sondheim. Today, Sweeney is presented all over the world by opera companies with opera singers in every role. So, it’s an opera then? Even if they have to mic it because the orchestration is way too present right in the ranges of the singers? Arguably, the piece was written to be mic’d, just like Nixon In China (really? Yes!) What about when Sweeney is performed by non-opera folk (you know, those people who act first and sing later, who may not really have any classical training but have figured out how to sing thousands of times a year)? Does Sweeney revert back to being a musical?

For that matter, was La bohème an opera when it was on Broadway being sung by mostly opera singers, albeit very young ones, but mic’d?

What about Sondheim’s homage to operetta: A Little Night Music. Is it an operetta? Sounds like one, looks like one. It has more waltzes in it than Die Fledermaus, yet are young opera singers putting Henrik’s song ("Later") onto their audition lists as a legitimate aria (much more difficult to sing than, say, “New York Lights” or “Lonely House”)? Or are any mezzos putting “A Miller’s Son” onto their lists instead of “What A Movie!”? The latter, by Bernstein, sounds just as Broadway as the former. I’ve coached Petra’s aria with mezzos who have a decidedly heavy mix and can easily make the piece their own, yet they think they can’t put it on their list which oftentimes already has “What A Movie!” or Orlofsky’s aria or any number of Offenbach arias. God, Petra’s aria is even strophic, so it’s like a Schubert song! But the prescriptionists haven’t agreed to A Little Night Music being brought over from the dark side yet, even though other “operettas” by Offenbach and Bernstein (think Candide) were declared operatically worthy decades ago.

Menotti “operas”, like The Consul, The Telephone, and The Medium were all first presented on Broadway yet they are never, ever, discussed as modern-day musicals. The Consul even received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama the year it debuted – something normally given to musicals and plays, but rarely operas. Bernstein’s Trouble In Tahiti or Candide are sometimes debated, but their excerpted arias definitely make it onto the Met voice competition from time to time, as do a handful by Sondheim. Yet few classical singers are presenting stuff from The Music Man or Camelot. Why?

To make matters worse, the new “operas” are being written in a style that can’t easily be distinguished from the new “musicals”. Take a listen to much of Jason Robert Brown (Parade) or Richard Rodger’s grandson, Adam Guettel who’s writing song cycles ("Myths and Hymns") and a Tony Award winning opera, sorry – musical – The Light in the Piazza. Then compare them to the other, “serious” side of things. Operas by Jake Heggie (particularly At the Statue of Venus), Torke, Puts, or Bolcom; all were preceded onto the opera stage by the likes of Barber, Argento, and Pasatieri who wrote in very tonal, jazz-influenced American style first created by Weill (Street Scene) and Blitzstein (Regina). Okay, Blitzstein wrote musicals, including the infamous Cradle Will Rock, but also wrote one of the great 20th century operas with lots of dialogue: Regina. What about the most popular new opera written in the last 25 years, Mark Adamo’s Little Women? It’s through-composed and completely sung. Absolutely an opera. But anyone who listens to the final quartet, the big tune “Kennst du das Land”, or analyzes its formal structure, can’t help but think that it would be quite at home on the Broadway stage.

Gosh, so confusing when one tries to nail down this repertoire!

Here's Anne Midget's take on a recent Sweeney Todd at Glimmerglass Opera this summer: When Musicals Become Operas

And then there are the singers who perform this rep! We used to talk about “cross-over artists”. Allow a quick digression: The first Horace Tabor in The Ballad of Baby Doe was Walter Cassell. He and I both graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Granted, he graduated at the end of WW1; I still claim him as TJ's most famous alumni. He set out for NYC to become an opera singer but initially this didn't work out. He spent time in Hollywood acting, and then back to NYC to star on Broadway. Finally the old Met contracted him and he ended up performing in hundreds of operas during his career. He was crossing over, back and forth, from the 1930s until the early 1970s (SEVENTIES!) upon his retirement. So perhaps I can be forgiven for wondering what the hell is wrong with people thinking that opera singers shouldn't sing outside of their opera repertoire, or if they do, they need no help, instruction, coaching, or training to do so because it's not as "challenging".  An example that comes to mind about what's challenging: I give thee two songs about marriage, Schumann's "Du Ring an meinem Finger" vs Sondheim's "(Not) Getting Married Today".

[evil smile]

Both are masterpieces in their own right. Both undeserving of comparison. However, how many classical musicians look down their noses at musical theatre thinking that it, in no way, compares to the heilige Kunst of art song or opera? Why do they do so? I think many, coaches in particular, have little experience with the literature and do not realize the extent to which it has changed in the last 25 years. To quote a friend of mine who conducts both opera and musicals: "Sunday in the Park is fucking hard. It makes Die Zauberflöte look like a walk in the park!" I concur, one summer spent conducting Cosi fan tutte, The Sound of Music, and Cenerentola in rep convinced me that the difficult piece to stay consistent on, the one that challenged both the orchestra and singers to keep all that underscoring in balance and on time, was the piece where the audience liked to sing all the bits they knew. And the casts were comprised of opera singers who might one night sing Dorabello, then Mother Superior, then Cenerentola, then Mother Superior, then Thisbe, then Mother Superior, etc.

There were many cross-over artists back in my student days. Formally trained opera singers who ended up making six figures singing JVJ in Les Miserables, or operatic “character” mezzos who did a year or two on tour with Phantom. Nowadays we drop the term "cross-over artist", even when a typical season for a barihunk might look like this: Escamillo (Carmen) in some city in Texas, followed by a Verdi Requiem and/or a Messiah, then singing Anthony (Sweeney) over in Oregon, then heading over for a world premiere at Ft. Worth Opera tackling cannibalism in a dystopian post-apocalypse future, then a recital tour of the Dakotas, followed by a summer gig at a prestigious festival singing two baritone supporting roles in South Pacific and Manon, performed in repertoire of course.

Today the successful singing actor must have a very wide range of rep and abilities in genres that encompass all of classical and popular music in order to have a fighting chance at creating a career. Where do these singers get the training to handle Handel and Hahn and Humperdinck and Henze and Hamlisch?

Perhaps these working performers are now experiencing the "rep" in a much different light. Perhaps they know something that we do not. Perhaps the operas that they’ve been performing in over the last decade or so have changed – from the directors’ expectations to the production values – influenced by a new generation of designers, conductors, directors, and audiences.

In a world where this training costs so much, and where there are so few business opportunities for the myriad and extraordinary talent that’s put out every year by music schools, I ask everyone the same question: Shouldn’t we be giving young singers the best possible education we can? Shouldn't their education and training encompass not just the 19th century, but give them a head start in knowing how to deal with everything from the early 1600's to the latter months of 2016?

Singers no longer can ignore the bulk of the dozens and dozens of new operas premiered this year, let alone in the last ten years. They can no longer refuse to learn musical theatre repertoire. Many young artist programs demand MT lit on the audition repertoire (and you can’t just shove “If I Loved You” onto your list and think you’ll be taken seriously), and too many companies are casting young singers in these musical theatre roles -- young roles. As acceptable as it is to hire a 50 year old Mimi, it is not possible to hire a singer who looks 50 as Johanna in Sweeney Todd. Therefore, young singers have MORE ROLES lying in wait for them! Why lose out? It’s tough enough out there! Young singers should use their youthful looks, their abilities to mix/belt, their high school knowledge of musical repertoire, or their local tap lessons as a child to increase their products’ viability in this crazy market!

But back to the philosophical argument…

Shouldn’t the 20th century musical theatre repertoire be given the same seriousness of training as, say, “Lonely House” from Street Scene and then included on recitals? How about a set of songs from, as Joyce DiDonato calls it, “The Great American Songbook” (okay, another problem, what committee decides which songs go into this book?). Hundreds, if not thousands, of songs by Kern, Gershwin, Gaudio (look him up), Arlen, or Sir Elton John totally qualify. What’s the difference between the Britten or Bolcom “cabaret” song cycles and actual cabaret songs sung by Edith Piaf or Ella Fitzgerald or Tony Bennet? Or songs by today’s popular singers?

Where’s the line? Is it as simple as how the music is written? Would composing music in mixed meter with sprinkles of dissonance here and there make a piece "better" or deem it more "worthy"? If that were the case, a bunch of Sting’s songs from the late 80s should enter the recital repertoire now. Is it that pop songs repeat text all the time or that they have a formal structure unlike the strophic songs? Is it the poetry? Is Heine somehow better than Miranda? Where does one get off dismissing certain types of poetry? Does that disqualify Hip-Hop? Calling all Hamilton fans…

So where and how does that whole “I’m a descriptionist” statement come into play with all these questions?

Well, descriptive types do not try to proscribe something. For instance, in linguistics, there is the whole argument about the use of the word “they” in its singular form: “Somebody left their umbrella in the office. Would they please collect it?”

Prescriptionists know there’s an old rule about singular plurals. Descriptionists know that this usage is common and therefore the rule no longer exists except in a few old-fashioned minds. There are also prescriptionists who want to prescribe how words are to be used. They are the grammar police.

If you missed it, take the time to watch this incredible video: Baltimore Sun John E McIntyre goes on...

Prescriptions are important for language and the study of language, absolutely. However, descriptionists only follow the language and current usages of words, their pronunciations, and grammatical structures. It is how a language evolves. These types of people make dictionaries, for example.

In classical music, descriptionists are sometimes the public, oftentimes producers, and many times the professionals creating the shows – from the singers to the designers. They know what succeeds with audiences (it’s easy to tell because they do or do not buy a ticket.) They see trends, they actually try to predict where these trends will head, or they help to establish them. They are the ones affecting change, and are the ones who understand, oftentimes, why these trends are taking place. Isn’t it time, then, that the Descriptionists have more of a say with what is going on in the music schools?

Isn’t it time that the academics who are passionate about teaching get together with the professionals (for lack of a better word, all academics are professionals too) to discuss OPERA IN THE 21st CENTURY? But even more, perhaps it is time for the academics to walk away from trying to dictate what music is, or what distinguishes one type of music from another and why one can be studied while something else can’t – oftentimes because of a marketing label. Perhaps it is time to allow a wider range of repertoire that works for individual student voices and not cookie cutter all students into the same repertoire.

This is a generational issue. Trust me. The older, and it’s got to be said, wiser, generation needs to become more flexible in their ideas, and try to realize that their notions about opera (and recital) repertoire are at least half a century outdated, if not more. The younger generation needs to step up and lead. They need to demand that centuries old ideals be reexamined and new ideals established.

I believe this is imperative to make sure that the future of our art form continues beyond the second half of this century. Classical music’s death knell has yet to chime, but warning bells are ringing – not that far away.

Classical Music has changed and can’t really go back lest we find ourselves curators of museums where singers perform ala paint-by-number. And it is in danger of dying if we continue to box it in and say what it is or what it is not. Our public no longer cares and others simply can’t distinguish between Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom and Puccini’s Fanciulla. [2nd evil smile]

We need to take back music. ALL OF IT. Claim it. Teach It. Perform It.

In J.J. Abrams’ cinematic future, a question is asked while the Beastie Boy’s punky rap-rock song “Sabotage” is wiping out evil aliens: “Is that classical music?” The answer, from Spock no less, “Yes, I believe it is.” Classical music, centuries from now, will not just be Bach, Brahms, or Bernstein. It’ll include the Beatles, the Beastie Boys, the B52s, and Babs singing “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered”.

Recitals need to change to reflect our current world and to prepare singers for a life communicating text through music – all texts, all music.

While we’re at it, no more recitals on big stages with singers wearing sad echoes of period dress from the late 19th century. Let’s put recitals in the round or in spaces where audiences can be very CLOSE. Where they can see the spit, get the intimate connection with the text and the singer’s facial expressions. Find a salon sized space (where most classical songs were meant to be sung), or fill a small hall with fifty people instead of a huge hall with fifty people (a few dozen people in a large concert hall gives one the feeling that there are only four people in attendance.) Move about while you sing how ‘bouts? Recite the poetry beforehand, translate it so the audiences can contemplate the texts while you sing. Gosh, why not demand all recitals have projected texts? If opera must have them, then why don’t recitalists demand these? It’s not like there’s stuff to watch onstage. No one’s going to miss a bit of stage business reading a recital text projected near the singer. How is this not a thing already? Why are we subjected to reading small font translations of the songs in horrid lighting? It’s tough enough to be an aging audience member nowadays.

Here's a recent NYTimes article about "getting intimate": Big Music Doesn't Need Huge Halls

Opera companies have already jumped on the small venue bandwagon. San Francisco Opera has created a smaller space for their alternative titles, Fort Worth Opera performs in both their regular large opera house and in much smaller venues; Boston Lyric Opera is doing the same, as are companies from Philly to Des Moines. If you’ve not gotten out recently, it’s clear that almost all opera companies in America are changing venues in some manner, rapidly and aggressively. This is changing the repertoire, allowing for a plethora of world premieres. Sometimes I think there are so many new operas being performed that we are reliving what it must have been like in the mid-19th century!

And now we come to an important point -- These new venues, being smaller and/or non-traditional, have changed the types of singers that are being hired. You don’t have to find the largest voiced soprano to push her way through the Countess because your house seats 3000+; now one can find practically any sized voice and cast them into age-appropriate roles where they look like their characters. Guys singing the role of a Vietnam prisoner in a venue where the audience is a few feet away must look like it – from their army haircuts to their bodies. Ladies must look the part, particularly when it is a world premiere and there’s no precedent for “the voice needs to be this or that” in the role. Casting directors have their choice of fantastic actors who can sing and are crackerjack musicians. There is an emphasis on naturalized acting, removing many of the older notions of histrionics, gestures, and “stage deportment” and replacing them with modern acting techniques rooted in physical theatre or the Method.

All of this recent activity has re-described what opera seems to be nowadays. But has this activity impacted where one finds the most opera singers per capita: our music schools?

I’m not too sure. The programs that adapt to these new trends will be the ones that thrive. The ones that refuse to change their curriculum, refuse to add new ideas to their training programs, or refuse to follow the repertoire trends will eventually be left behind and fade away, like Galadriel. She was radiant and powerful once, but her kingdom of immortals eventually had to disperse into the winds. I don’t want Handel, Debussy, Strauss, or even Menotti to disappear from our culture, or become artistic refugees lost in some western civ diaspora where few know their genius or appreciate the impact they can have on a human heart.

This is too important for ego or for an “it’s always been this way” attitude to stop new dialogues from happening.

It is time that the academics take notice and alter their prescriptions in order to save the health, and ultimately the life, of all our precious classical music. If prescriptionism stands in the way, then it’s time to adopt a much more progressive descriptionist stance.

It is clear that in language, descriptionists end up on the winning side of history. Let's hope that this is the case in music.

As Will Shakespeare said, those without music in them are fit for stratagems. And in case you were wondering, the descriptionist online resource, the Merriam-Webster online dictionary has a few definitions for "stratagems".

1. a :  an artifice or trick in war for deceiving and outwitting the enemy
   b :  a cleverly contrived trick or scheme for gaining an end
2.    :  skill in ruses or trickery

Prescriptions are artifices that have no place in Music or Art, nor should they be the causation for what ultimately educates and creates the next generation of singers, conductors, collaborative pianists, coaches, or teachers.

A Serenade to Shakespeare

Most of the big Shakespeare celebrations have come and gone. In case you missed it, 2016 is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Just a few years ago, we were celebrating the 450th anniversary of his birth (a date not quite as fixed as his death) in 2014. If the math fails you, that's 1564 - 1616 for good ol' Will Shakespeare.

I spent a whole year back in 2014 celebrating the 450th. Productions connected to Shakespeare's works on the stage: Giulio Cesare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I Capuleti e i Montecchi, a huge scenes program featuring excerpts of both the Shakespeare plays and their operatic treatments: scenes from The Tempest, Othello, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and The Merry Wives of Windsor with the opera versions by Hoiby, Britten, Gounod, Nicolai, and Verdi, and a special evening of "Songs and Sonnets" focused on songs with Shakespeare texts by Tippet, Finzi, Quilter, Korngold, Thomson, and Vaughan Williams (his Serenade to Music was the finale.) We documented the whole year via the talents of videographer Anne Kostalas. The documentary, which is fascinating in all that it encompasses, is viewable here (highly recommended!): Shakespeare at Opera McGill

This year, I missed the big celebration in London, England (by just a few days) put together by The Globe. It looked amazing and I hope it was a huge success. Here's a link to that site: Shakespeare400 at the Globe

There were, are still, many more celebrations ongoing. One of them is happening toward the end of July at the Toronto Summer Music Festival. Again, another link: July 27th Shakespeare Serenade at the TSMF

This is a combination of the Shakespeare scenes program and the evening of songs and sonnets from the Opera McGill 450th celebration and I'm really looking forward to putting these two evenings together for a Toronto audience. It's such a huge program that I couldn't play the whole thing, so I invited the wondrous Michael Shannon to share the program with me at the piano. It's all happening at the University of Toronto's Walter Hall on July 27th. Check that link out for ticket info and don't miss it!

Putting this program together has been a rather huge challenge. There are 16 singers involved, most of whom live in the Greater Toronto Area and are leading very busy lives this summer. The scenes program is slightly easier because it involves a trio or a quartet of people -- that's easy to schedule. The Serenade second-half of the program, however, is staged with all 16 singers moving about as individuals. There's only one way to do this and that's to have everyone present in order to make the interactions work. We're basically doing it in one night, so wish us all luck.

Not that I'm worried because the talent of the performers is huge, as is their experience. These singers have graced Canadian stages from Vancouver Opera to the Canadian Opera Company to L'opéra de Montreal as well as performing in hundreds of opera productions at their schools (yes, the majority did go to McGill but, hey, I wanted to work with my former students again!), summer training programs throughout Canada and the United States, and Indie opera companies like Opera5, Compagnie Baroque Mont-Royal, and Stu&Jess Productions. Michael Shannon, who is also a former student, has been spending his time learning his operatic trade at places like the San Francisco Opera and the C.O.C.; not too shabby!

It's a concert inspired by the Bard, with a traditional kind of opera scenes program yet with the twist being that the audience will first watch the singers act the original Shakespeare scene and then watch and hear what it looks like when adapted for the operatic stage. Truly a unique way of presenting these scenes and one that informs both the Shakespeare and the operatic version. It's also quite challenging for the singers to act the Shakespeare!

The second half is a non-traditional approach to a song recital. Normally, a singer walks out onto the concert stage with a pianist in tow, bows to the audience and then sings through a cycle of songs by someone, with the emphasis being on the text and the music. Dramatic energy and action is typically frowned upon (god knows why…) by many who view the recital as something quite conservative and stolid for, um, serious people. The audience sits in silence and reads translations of texts while they listen. (Sometimes I think I might as well be listening to a recording at many of the recent recitals I've attended.) When taken to its extreme, a singer can take away any original perspective on the piece, giving up any sort of personal stamp on a set of songs in order to give, I don't know, some sort of justice to the purity of the composer perhaps? This drives me crazy because, of course, with the great recitalists that is the last thing they do.

Well, this second half won't be like that at all. There'll be over a dozen singers on the stage, casually drinking and listening to each other express their love, anger, betrayal, dismay, or hope via the most amazing texts by Shakespeare set to music by some of the greatest composers of the 20th century. The idea is that these people onstage have just left some sort of summer dinner party and have entered the garden to enjoy more of each other, while some are inspired to recite poetry (via a number of the Sonnets) and fall in and out of love.  It all ends with all of the singers performing the magical Vaughan Williams Serenade To Music, which if you've never heard it sung by soloists with piano accompaniment is sure to please. In fact, my favourite song - ever - is featured on the evening's program and I can't wait to perform it live!

And make sure to check out the other amazing evenings at the Toronto Summer Music Festival. Here's the link to their home site: Toronto Summer Music Festival website

Don Giovanni at Opera McGill

January finds the Opera McGill students spending most of their time in staging rehearsals, preparing for the "mainstage" production which typically opens the last weekend of January.

The fall prep for the students involves learning their music, understanding the meaning of their texts, thinking about character choices, and putting their individual parts together with the other roles during musical rehearsals. My fall prep varies depending on the opera production. For instance last year, La Boheme was being produced and I'd directed it before so there was less to think about where the details of the staging were concerned. This year, Don Giovanni is the opera - an opera I've known and worked on since the mid '80s. Normally that would mean very little "prep", but this production is SO different from any other I've ever done that the prep time has been enormous!

First off, the designers and I had come to an initial idea about the production way back in May of 2011 (that's typically when we design the January production). However, those plans were put on hold due to the McGill strike -- since it was impossible to produce the planned production without stage management. When it looked like the strike would continue through January and perhaps even longer, we re-designed the production top to bottom and came up with the idea of doing a staged concert version; i.e. the orchestra onstage with the cast acting their roles in costume but without theatrical lighting. For a "set" we thought of the idea of creating artistic "installations" that would frame the orchestra and provide an interesting look for the show.

THEN, the strike was suddenly over -- however not until December rolled around -- and by then it was way too late to design a full set and get it built (these things don't happen in a week!) So, the designers and I once again got together and re-designed the re-design trying to keep to the initial idea/inspiration from the original design.  I found it interesting that many people I spoke with in mid-December thought that we'd simply just have a full production. It showed me just how few understand that in order to get a production fully realized and designed and then built, takes an enormous amount of time, planning, and frankly, thought.

So in my role as producer, that was a lot of work to focus on when generally I'm out and about on my Brevard audition trips down in the states with David Gately (and of course, during the holiday break one isn't normally putting in 60+ hours of work unless you are in retail.)  However, in my role as the stage director for Don Giovanni this meant I really couldn't "block" the opera until I had an actual ground plan and set design.  That happened a few days before Christmas.

Blocking an opera happens in many ways. Sometimes the director lets the cast create their blocking with very little intervention or guidance. Ask most people in the business and they'll tell you that this sort of process - an "organic" process - is interesting for the first few days but quickly becomes infuriating because no one is minding the store and many become frustrated with the "lack of plan". With students, this sort of process is not helpful. Many, if not most, are creating these characters for the first time. All are inexperienced, and very few have had acting training that might allow them to be self-motivated -- or better put, self-directed.  With a new production (and all of the productions presented by Opera McGill are brand new productions!), it is vital for the director to know a show inside and out, have very clear ideas about where the singers are going to be in space, and be able to tell the casts (and most of our operas have TWO casts) quickly and efficiently how to move about in space.

Additionally, I'm there training young singers how to balance the many challenges that come with singing an operatic role: collaborating with the other cast members, remembering blocking, creating physical characterizations that work in the context of the production and period, learning how to focus on a conductor, helping to synthesize all the various production elements (handling props, walking in heels with a long dress on, stage combative elements like slapping someone onstage, moving set pieces while in character, keeping the Italian text's meaning clear both from a vocal standpoint and a visual standpoint, acting the meaning of the text, acting the meaning of the subtext, etc. -- the list goes on and on.)  Because of this, I tend to block in GREAT detail how everyone is going to move onstage, most of the time down to specific measure numbers, words, or rests in the vocal score. This really helps give the singers something concrete to hold onto. I call it the structure of the show.

Structure is something that Opera needs in order to work. First off, the score is structured, as is the libretto. Obviously there are structures onstage, structures of light and dark, and physical structures on the singers' bodies called costumes. It is really necessary for the singers' physical and kinesthetic choices onstage to also have structure. From within this structure, artistic choices can be made and from those choices, actual art can come into being for an audience to witness.

I blocked Don Giovanni during the period between Christmas and New Year's Eve, something that was challenging because of ill health as well. But with that said, I'm very pleased with the results thus far. Creating a show in your head is something akin to composing a symphony, or choreographing a ballet in your head. You have to write stuff down in order to create it, but then it really doesn't live until you get live human beings in a room to rehearse what was once in your head.  For me, the process of writing down the "stuff" that's in my head is "blocking".

Of course, it isn't always what I want and when I get to the process of staging in the rehearsal room I often times find myself changing the blocking that's written down in my score.  That's when the real process of staging happens - when better ideas happen either on the spur of the moment, or because someone else in the room (from the pianist to the conductor to the stage manager to any of the singers) has a different idea. I've always thought the best directors were the ones that could totally dump their initial plan when a better one showed up, or at least try out someone else's ideas to see if they worked better.

Right now (moving into the 2nd week of January), the cast and I are still in the process of building the structure of staging, creating characters through physical, vocal, and musical choices (these are made in collaboration with the singer, the director, and the conductor), and getting to know the "show" -- what works and what the challenges are. The set is also being built as we speak (it's due to be delivered next week), and the costumes are getting finished (these were started back in early December and are INCREDIBLE!)

The process for the next week is to finish staging the opera in Wirth Opera Studio (we're half-way through), start running the opera in larger sections so that the students can get experience singing their roles from beginning to end, hold initial orchestra rehearsals with the MGSO, and get the program to printing as well as the poster.

Lots to do, gotta go!