Bel Canto, West Texas Style
Opera Pacific’s production of Donizetti’s Elixir of Love opened last night. Or should I say, will open tomorrow. Last night was technically a preview, but to me the preview performance always seems like opening night since it’s the first time we run the full show in front of a live audience. The production was looking a bit dodgy a week ago, but we’re running on all cylinders now and Elixir was very well received by the audience on Monday. I do believe this is the most interesting production we’ve done this season. Sadly, it does not seems to be selling very well, which is a shame because the concept is fresh and accessible. Rather than being set in a rural village, the production takes place in a west Texas diner in the 1950s....
Read MoreIrvine World News
Ah, the poor old Irvine World News. This is the Rodney Dangerfield of newsprint, a hometown paper which is printed once a week. It gets little respect, probably because they give it away for free. ”You get what you pay for” and all that. Plus, it really does confine itself to the world of Irvine. That fact alone makes the paper worthless to most of Orange County, I’d think. They don’t care about the happenings in Irvine any more than I care about the minutia of life in Brea. More often than not, the World News is “delivered” to my house by a paperboy who throws it onto the ground behind — or more often, underneath — my car. The issue typically remains hidden there until it’s crushed by the tires of my...
Read MoreSamson, Delilah, and Student Pilots
Oh yeah, I have a web site. Sort of forgot about that for the past few weeks. It’s understandable. I’ve either been out at the airport trying to keep my students from wreaking havoc on the runway, or in rehearsals for Samson et Delilah at Opera Pacific. Typically I’m flying from 9 am to 5 pm and then in rehearsal from 7 pm to 10 pm. Thankfully, the show will be over by the end of February and I’ll be able to return to some semblance of normalcy. The flying has been interesting. It’s been so long since I was a student pilot that I forgot how every little thing needs to be taught and explained. Over time, so much of what goes on in the cockpit becomes second nature, and like driving a car with a manual transmission, you perform...
Read MoreThe Virtual Orchestra
I received an email from a fellow musician that bodes ill for the future of the performing arts. It’s bad enough that the arts have essentially been eliminated in our schools. Must professional theatres go the same way? If major arts facilities don’t understand this issue…. well, I just wonder who’s going to pay $100 (or more) for a ticket to see a show that’s not even played live. On Tuesday December 21, 2004 the musical show “Oliver” will open at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. This show is traveling with a machine known as the Virtual Orchestra. This machine uses digital sampling to record and replace live musicians in the pit. This is a very real threat to the future of live music. The Virtual Orchestra...
Read MoreUpdated Colophon
I updated the colophon page to read a little more like a personal narrative and a bit less like a legal brief. The only things it was missing were the double spacing and line numbers. Hopefully it’s now more entertaining, easier to read, lower in calories, and will cause the reader to buy the world a Coke and teach them to sing in perfect harmony. I’m all about setting reasonable expectations. Speaking of harmonies, today is closing night for Turandot. Which is a bit of misnomer since we close with a matinee. Nevertheless, I’ve enjoyed this production. It’s been somewhat of a meat market backstage, but that’s what happens when the cast is young and nearly 100 in number. The audiences have given standing ovations every night, rare for...
Read MoreTurandot
Turandot has finally opened. My thirty third opera. Damn that’s a lot of singing. In keeping with the theatrical tradition of ‘bad dress / good opening’, our preview performance started off so dismally that we re-ran half of the first act after the show was over. Apparently we’re supposed to be singing behind the conductor, not with him. First time I’ve ever heard that. The opera goes by surprisingly fast. I guess that’s what happens when you’re on stage the whole evening rather than sitting in the green room for two hours between entrances, a la Mozart. I’m enjoying the show immensely. Liu’s death scene in Act III is one of the finest parts of the opera, not on in the way Puccini wrote it, but in the way our...
Read MoreSex, Drugs, and…. Mozart?
I’ve never been a big fan of Mozart operas. Now before you recoil in horror, I’ll freely admit that people far more erudite than I find his work to be the most well-crafted in the entire operatic repertoire. But to me, the stories and music of that period just don’t measure up to the more fully developed (though less structured) work of cats like Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, Offenbach, Bizet, etc. But perhaps Mozart can be compelling if you twist it hard enough: BERLIN, Germany (AP) — A Mozart opera modernized to feature prostitutes, full-frontal nudity, drugs and sadistic violence has created a storm in Berlin. The premiere of The Abduction from the Seraglio at the Komische Oper last week was met with shouts of “Scandal!” and...
Read MoreLa commedia e finita!
My ninth opera season is officially over. I’m sitting here doing a mental comparison between the 1999 production of Pagliacci & Carmina Burana and the one we just finished. This one certainly seemed like a lot more work, which is odd because I already knew the music. I think part of it was the running around. Pushing that truck around, unloading it while singing, and so on. Paul said it best: you finish Pagliacci around 9:30 pm and physically feel like you should be going home, not starting another opera. Part of the difference was also Enrique Diemecke’s unconventional conducting style. But no matter — audiences loved the production as much if not more than they did in ’99. They always ‘give it up’ for the ensemble shows,...
Read MoreA ventitre ore!
I have four free tickets available for a performance of “Pagliacci” and “Carmina Burana” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center. Anyone interested in these? We did this production five or six years ago and it was so well received that Opera Pacific decided to bring it back. Pagliacci is a one-act opera, and Carmina Burana is a dance piece — a ballet, really. But in this production, the two are thematically linked. It’s a very accessible show, so if you’re not a big opera afficianado, don’t worry — you’ll still enjoy it. The show this Sunday, April 18th, at 2:00 pm. They’re outstanding seats: 15th row in the orchestra. I hate seeing tickets to go waste, especially for a show like this. For what...
Read MoreGetting Cosi With Opera
Could it be that nothing has been added to the House of Rapp for eighteen days? Yeah. By way of explanation, I can only proclaim “Life is short. Opera is long.” Especially when it’s a Mozart opera. Nothing personal, Wolfgang… Speaking of which, it’s a pleasure to report that Opera Pacific’s production of Cosi fan Tutte is finally over and we’re moving on to more interesting fare. I’ve got some backstage photos from Cosi if you’re interested. Next up is Bernstein’s Candide–a show I was patently unfamiliar with until recently. It’s not exactly a perennial favorite on the operatic or musical theatre stage, which is a shame because the music really sparkles. I can’t think of another show...
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