Roadtrip to Cooperstown!

The summer is a slow-ish time at Vancouver Opera so Tom Wright and I made our way to Cooperstown, New York in mid-August. No we were not researching a new opera on baseball hall-of-famers but going to the summer opera festival at Glimmerglass Opera.

We met at the Vancouver Airport for our flight to Toronto and connection to Albany. All went well on the trip to Toronto. We then connected to an eighteen passenger plane en-route to Albany. It was a bit of a rocky trip into Albany and both Tom and I confessed to being somewhat queasy at times. We picked up a rental car at the airport complete with GPS device to assist us on the 1 1/2 hour drive to Cooperstown. The GPS is great – definitely handy when you don’t know where you are going – however we did seem to turn right an awful lot!

Our first day at Glimmerglass was full. In the morning we listened to Young Aritist auditions and heard a few Canadians including Joslin Romphf from Victoria as well as Lucia Cervoni (London) and Adrian Kramer (Guelph).

After the auditions we headed out to the Alice Busch Opera Theater for the afternoon matinee of Bellini’s version of Romeo & Juliet – I Capuleti e i Montecchi. The theatre resembles a barn and is located about 8 miles outside of Cooperstown on the shores of Otsego Lake surrounded by trees and greenery. It would be a lovely location for a pre-opera picnic! It is an intimate theatre with just over 900 seats and has sliding side walls so that the audience can experience the great outdoors inside pre-show and during intermissions (or you can go outside during the intermission for ice-cream!).

All of the programming for Glimmerglass’ 2008 Season featured productions based on Shakespeare. Bellini’s take on Romeo & Juliet however is somewhat different than Shakespeare’s. The stories (Bellini’s & Shakespeare’s) are based on Italian tales. In the version we are familiar with Tybalt (Tebaldo), Romeo and Juliet all die. In Bellini’s Tebaldo lives to see Romeo & Juliet die. So fortunately or unfortunately for John Tessier who sang Tebaldo this summer he doesn’t get to go to the movies after the first act. This was my first experience with this work; it is a wonderful piece and is definitely worth checking out. On Sunday we saw Wagner’s take on Measure for Measure in Das Liebesverbot. This summer was the North American premiere of the work and it was great to see the lighter side of Wagner in this comedic opera. The other two works put on by Glimmerglass Opera were Cole Porter’s Kiss Me Kate and Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto.

Going to upstate New York for an opera festival is not a bad way to spend time in the summer. If you want to avoid the small planes you can even take the train from either Toronto or Montréal into Albany and drive from there. It is a beautiful trip and a great way to see countryside while seeing some opera.

~Adrianne Wurz, Company Manager

Twenty (or so) Questions with Brett Polegato

Baritone Brett Polegato last appeared at Vancouver Opera in 2006 as Don Giovanni, and has since been practicing his Eugene Onegin at places like COC in Toronto and in Tel Aviv with The Israeli Opera, all in anticipation of his performance with us this fall (of course).

1. Guilty musical pleasure?Silence. I RARELY listen to music when I’m alone. But if I do, it’s usually something that’s not completely mainstream: Joni Mitchell, Imogene Heap or my sister-in-law, Amy Bishop – who has the best pop voice on the planet! (If you don’t believe me, just pick up one of her records and see for yourself!)

2. Where do you love to sing?You mean other than Vancouver Opera, right??  I guess my answer would be in the car – on LOOOONNNGGGG trips, but I have to be driving WITH someone. After all, it’s no fun singing alone. (Unless you’re on stage!)

3. What is your idea of earthly happiness?My idea of earthly happiness is having a FABULOUS meal with the people I love most, drinking a nice bottle of wine (or two, or three, or …) and laughing and playing games.

4. To what faults do you feel most indulgent?CHOCOLATE. (If you can call that a fault.)

5. Who are your favourite heroes/heroines of fiction?I LOVE the character of Marian Halcombe from Wilkie Collins’, “The Woman in White”. Described on her first appearance in the novel as being “ugly”, she nevertheless displays an incredible “pluck”, and I greatly admire her ingenuity and fearlessness in her efforts to help Walter Hartright solve the mystery of “The Woman in White”.

6. Who are your favourite heroes/heroines in real life?My mother, who died when I was 10. She has been a constant source of inspiration in my life.From all accounts, she was a saint. Not bad for someone who never saw her 40th birthday.

7. Who is your favourite author?Okay, you’re asking a book-aholic to pick ONE author – that’s NEVER GONNA happen! My top three favs, in no particular order are: Ian McEwan, David Mitchell and Gil Adamson. (Gil’s a Canadian and her first book, “The Outlander”, is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. Period.) Oh, and if you like young adult fiction, check out Philip Pullman. Amazing.

8. Your favourite musician?Joni Mitchell. I have to admit, I certainly don’t know all of her songs (by a longshot!) but the ones I do know never fail to make me stop and listen when I hear them.

9. Your favourite composer?Seriously? Well, if you’re forcing me to pick, I guess I’d have to say Vaughan-Williams. His choral / symphonic works leave me speechless. (Check out his “Serenade to Music”, a setting of text from “The Merchant of Venice”.)

10. What quality do you most admire in a person?Patience. I have very little of it. I guess that means that SOMEONE out there got an extra-large helping!!

11. Your favourite virtue?Love.

12. Your favourite occupation?Duh – being a singer. There is nothing I would rather do.

13. What did you want to be as a child?Ugh. An astronomer. How original is that?

14. Your most marked characteristic?My stubbornness. Hey, give me a break; I’m a Taurus, after all!

15. What do you most value in your friends?Honesty.

16. For what would you like to be remembered?I hope to be remembered as someone who was never too busy to help out a friend in need.

17. What natural gift would you most like to possess?The gift of writing: I am CERTAIN there’s a book inside me WAITING to get out!

18. What is your motto?Of late, it has been one that was sent to me in an email: "Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."

19. What non-opera song do you rock?“Hide and Seek” by Imogene Heap

The man behind Carmen

(Not the guy in jail; that's Don Jose.)

Vancouver Opera’s poster art has been admired for years. It’s part of our distinctive “brand”. Each season, we commission an artist to create images that are used throughout the season as graphic enticements for the productions. Prominent artists such as Joe Average, Tiko Kerr, Murray Kimber, Heather Caldwell, and Marco Tulio have immersed themselves in the stories and music of opera, and have created works that leap off the page or the poster to attract even the most casual of viewers.

This season we are delighted to be working with Michael Abraham. His work is in demand by discerning art lovers in Vancouver and beyond; his recent exhibition, “Water Works”, at Gallery Jones, featured VO’s images for 2008-2009. At least three of the four have been sold, along with many others in the show.

Michael’s work is extraordinary: it’s painterly, thoughtful, intriguing, often very funny, sometimes a little disturbing, and technically virtuosic. When we approached him about a commission for the season, he was very enthusiastic. As with all the artists with whom we have worked, Michael was inspired by the richness of the operas’ characters and the possibilities inherent in the dramas. He dived into the work and produced four wonderful images.

The Carmen image, above, is my favourite, because it’s so unexpected, and so delightfully humorous. I particularly like the fact that Escamillo, the bullfighter, is shorter than Carmen, that he is holding her fan, and that he is so scrupulously groomed. I love the shadow beneath his neatly trimmed moustache, his pursed lips, and his blue/grey Spanish eyes. Clearly he is enthralled, as all men are, by Carmen’s ample charms. Yet he is a careful, fastidious man. Too bad Carmen doesn’t live long enough to test his meticulous mettle with her cruel fickleness.

That is not to say that I do not like all the works, because I do. The detail in the jester’s toy in the Rigoletto image is breathtaking. Onegin’s elegant elongated fingers beautifully convey his aristocratic bearing. And each of Salome’s seven veils has an almost electric life of its own. See all the images, and much more, at Michael’s website, http://www.michaelabraham.com/

The humour and humanity in Michael’s works are more than evident in the artist too. When he was part way along in his creative process, I went with my family one weekend to see the works-in-progress. Michael lives in a modest house and paints in his attached garage, which he has converted to a comfortable studio. It was a cold day in December. Michael and his family welcomed us into their home as if we were old friends. It felt good to be there; the warmth and laughter was in inverse proportion to the frostiness outside. We had hoped to take a walk along the Ladner dyke, to look for Snowy Owls and Bald Eagles. Michael and his wife very kindly offered to look after our 10-year-old son, who had just met their two young children, while my wife and I went walking. When we returned, snacks and a good time had been had by all.

Doug Tuck

This Is Your Brain On (Opera) Music

This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession is a book by Daniel J. Levitin that I recently stumbled across and which explains why people like certain kinds of music, or music at all for that matter. As an opera producer I thought it might offer some insight as to why people seem to have an infinite appetite for some music and little or none for others.

First off, it seems we are hard-wired for music. Our ears are not only wired to the parts of our brain that "hear" but also to centers in our brain that control movement, emotion, speech, timing, analysis, and even our pleasure centers. Not only that, but it seems our brain is "listening" to music on a number of different levels simultaneously; dividing music into its base components like pitch, rhythm, tempo, contour, timbre, loudness, and reverb. And on top of that, it is also listening for meter, key, melody, harmony, as well as familiarity. And that's on top of processing the lyrics!

Levitin shows that we all know far more about music than we know or can articulate, and that unless one suffers from a unique form of autism, everyone can experience and enjoy music. The world, in other words, is filled with very astute music listeners, even if they don't know it.

Moreover, this ability to listen to music (and express a preference)appears very early in life. Levitin points to studies that show that babies just a few months old can show they heard and prefer music played for them repeatedly in the womb (rather than unfamiliar music, noise, or common household sounds). In addition, humans from a very young age and without cultural exception seem to naturally be able to discern the "rules" of music such as key signature and chord progression. In other words, even as kids, we know the rules of music and like music that plays by those rules (sort of -- more on that later).

Of particular interest to me as someone who relies on people liking certain types of music, was the question of why people like certain types of music and how they make that decision. Levitin proposes something called multiple-trace memory theory, which assumes that every experience is potentially encoded in neurons throughout the brain. Then when any group of neurons that store this memory are set to proper values and in a particular way, they will cause a memory to be retrieved. The key to being able to remember something is whether or not you can find the right cue to trip the settings of your brain into the right configurations.

What's this got to do with liking or not liking a certain type of music? Well, two reasons, first it turns our our brains like things that are familiar, but not too familiar. In fact, the pleasure centers in our brain get tripped when our brains can get into sync with a piece of music and can start correctly anticipating what the music will do next. It also turns out that our brains get a kick out of the variations that real world musicians put into music. Says Levitin, "Music breathes, speeds up, and slows down just as the rest of the world does, and our cerebellum finds pleasure in adjusting itself to stay synchronized." How much and how well we can remember music is the basis for our ability to determine how familiar what we are hearing now is, and how well it is playing by the rules.

Second, our brains love a good musical work-out. With respect to particular types of music, this book points out again that early exposure to music makes us more open to musical novelty in the future, even if we don't like the piece we are currently listening too. Our brains, to a certain extent, need something to compare what we are listening to, so they can determine if it is noise or music. Also, Levitin points out that as we get older we tend not to be as adventuresome unless our brain has been given regular doses of new things to tackle and consider - regular musical work-outs if you like. The more music you listen to (even if you dont' like it), the more points of reference you have for both your memory function and your ability to process what you are hearing now.

Finally, there is a real biological basis for "being swept away" by music. In an actual biological sense, music is processed on so many levels and at both an "intellectual" and "emotional" level, that it is in fact, an activity that can transcend the normal every day experiences most people have. Listening to music, particularly if you find what you are listening to enjoyable, can in fact create a mental state unlike your normal waking state. You can literally be swept away by the music as various areas of your brain, especially the non-verbal, emotional, and pleasure centers light up like the Los Vegas strip.

That tells me that as opera producers, when people show up at the theatre, we have a responsibility to treat them to something familiar (without boring them) as well as give their brains the challenge that they need by offering something new - either in new composition or new interpretation of something familiar.

This only scratches the surface of this book, which also goes into why it takes 10,000 hours of practice (not genius) to be an 'expert', why certain songs get stuck in your head, why listening to and performing music is likely a basic survival instinct (not a luxury!), and why and how the songs of our youth stick with us forever (and why we think they are awesome).

So, shameless plug time: This Is Your Brain On Music, by Daniel J Levitin, pick it up at your local Book Warehouse. We're passing our copy around the office.

Christopher Libby
Managing Director

World Premiere Workshops in Banff

“The Banff Centre – inspiring creativity.” Anyone who has visited Banff and experienced the sheer cliffs, crisp air and rushing blue-green glacial waters of the Bow River knows that accompanying feeling of exhilaration and inspiration. This stimulating environment has been masterfully captured by The Banff Centre and its performing arts programs. So when The Banff Centre offered us a two day mini-workshop for composer John Estacio and librettist John Murrell to work with stage director and dramaturge Kelly Robinson and students from the opera program on our new opera Lillian Alling, we leapt at the chance. The creative team was eager to look at the first large chorus scene when Lillian arrives at Ellis Island along with thousands of others seeking a new start.

Having 14 singers to work with gave John E. the chance to hear multiple voices while Kelly could begin to visualize the staging. Our first music workshop is not scheduled until mid-September so this was a sneak preview of what would follow – the first time John M. would hear the music to his words!

Over the next two days repetiteur Adam Burnette would work with the singers breaking down each section note by note and then, along with John E. and Kelly, rebuilding them into a nuanced whole.

Day 1. Fourteen of Canada's finest young voices gather to tackle Greek, Italian, Spanish and German as they enter the world of Ellis Island, New York in the 1920s – the same entrance made by Lillian Alling and the starting place of a journey that would lead her across the US mid-west and into Canada along the Telegraph Trail. Adam leads the singers first in their individual groups and then truly as a chorus. Once the singers have grasped their vocal roles, Kelly works on staging. By the end of the day there is a vocal and physical map but everyone is feeling a little shaky.

Day 2. Gathered around the piano the singers rehearse and record a working audio file for John E. to take back with him. To give the singers some context to this scene, Kelly has brought us a dvd of Golden Door by Emanuele Crialese. It's a series of 'ah hah moments' as we are visually transported to Ellis Island and the trepidation of arriving in a new country speaking a different language. Full of hope but also of fear – the fear of not being understood and not understanding.

When we stage and videotape the scene for reference, we are all slightly amazed at the singers: it is as though the music and movement has seeped into their bodies and brains overnight. John E. and Kelly are beaming at the recording we capture: from chaos to united optimism, the soprano singing ‘Lillian’ soars above the cacophony.

On break I ask John M. if there is any musical comparison to what we're hearing. He thinks a moment and then replies: Strauss' Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Woman without a Shadow) – the underperformed masterpiece – but smiling, he adds he doesn't think there is a long list. Estacio's Ellis Island is as clear, crisp and exhilarating as a late summer's eve by the Bow Falls and we have only just begun.

~ Jennifer Lord, Special Projects Manager

Chair Bruce Wright in OPERA America Trustee Link

Part of our goal as a organization is to be leaders in the field of opera. We have an excellent example of that in Chair Bruce Wright's service to the field in the form of his contribution to OPERA America's Trustee Link newsletter.

In it, Bruce discusses the engagement of consultants and the ways to ensure their success. Here's an excerpt:

Facilitation to improve governance
Wright is currently considering the use of outside facilitators to replicate a program he experienced at Canada's Institute of Corporate Directors, an organization dedicated to the promotion of excellence in governance. The program helped participants analyze their own unspoken roles and understand the underlying board dynamics. "This type of exercise deepens a board's knowledge of itself as in the roles we sometimes unconsciously play on boards. We should be more inclusive of those who think and process things differently. By so doing, our decisions are richer and better informed," Wright said.

For the complete article go to the following (copy and paste into your browser):

http://www.operaamerica.org/Content/Archive/Publications/ENewsletterArticles/trusteearticle080408.aspx

OPERA America is the world's largest national service organization for opera, located in the United States. Vancouver Opera is a member of this organization, as well as Opera.ca, it's Canadian counterpart. Trustee Link is their international publication aimed at Trustees of opera companies worldwide.