High Notes
From Amarillo to Austin, the state’s opera companies are staging top-notch productions for longtime fans and newcomers alike. Aria ready?
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High-risk is the name of the game whenever a U.S. opera company premieres a contemporary opera. Fortunately, ALO’s American premiere of Philip Glass’s latest, Waiting for the Barbarians, with a text based on Nobel prize-winner J. M. Coetzee’s novel, surpassed ALO’s expectations in attendance and critical acclaim. Part of that success is certainly due to the fact that Glass is America’s best-known contemporary composer and has built an audience in Austin with frequent visits and concerts at the University of Texas. But it may also have been due to the subject matter: Coetzee’s imagined empire resorts to torture when threatened by an enemy it knows little about. The contemporary parallels to the underlying moral dilemma our nation faces were not lost on the Austin audience.
Austin Lyric Opera: Waiting for Barbarians
ALO finished its season with another sure crowd-pleaser, Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, but the Austin opera fan base is concerned about the future of ALO after the recent resignation of both the artistic director and the managing director of ALO. Not to worry. According to Steve Davis, the chairman of the board, the change was the result of a board decision to combine the two jobs into one, as is done in most opera companies of Austin’s size (budget $4 million). “We saw a unique opportunity with the move into the new Long Center for the Performing Arts,” he told me. The board is confident that the new $77 million facility opening in March 2008 and the opportunity to shape a season as soon as 2008 for an acoustically excellent 2,300-seat hall will attract strong candidates to the job.
Next season: Simply the Best:An Opera Concert, in the interim venue, Riverbend Center; Bizet—Carmen, to inaugurate the Long Center; and Johann Strauss—Die Fledermaus or The Bat, in an “Austintacious” version created in collaboration with Austin’s famous comedy troupe, Esther’s Follies. Riverbend Centre, 4214 N. Capital of Texas Hwy. 512-472-5992 or austinlyricopera.org.
4. The story of the San Antonio Opera goes something like this: there was the grand era of opera in the 1880s to the 1920s, when touring companies brought the latest works to town; then for decades the Metropolitan Opera toured yearly; after that the San Antonio Symphony in its glory days in the fifties under Victor Alessandro regularly performed operas, an effort later supported by an Opera Guild. Then the stages fell silent because of the symphony’s financial woes. Finally, the Opera Guild began renting busses to take fans to see opera in Houston, Dallas, and Austin—which it continues to do, by the way.
But ten years ago the bundle of energy that is Mark A. Richter started San Antonio Pocket Opera, which evolved from opera accompanied by piano in the 400-seat San Pedro Playhouse to fully orchestrated opera in the 2,200-seat Lila Cockrell Theatre. Along the way the organization’s name changed to the San Antonio Opera.
Richter, who was born and raised in San Antonio, became interested in classical music while playing the viola in school orchestras. Eventually, he studied music at the city’s University of the Incarnate Word, developed a high lyric tenor voice, and sang widely all over the city. His first foray into opera production brought Mozart’s The Impresario to the stage on a $6,000 budget. Today, the SAO budget is within striking distance of a million, and Richter hopes to make the leap to a well-staffed organization. Its two major events in June, the first with Frederica von Stade and friends and the second with Placido Domingo in the Alamodome, gave the company a boost in the right direction.
The first offering, back in September was La Traviata, Verdi’s tale of passionate love, guilt, and sorrowful death by tuberculosis. The production succeeded with good ensemble work and some powerful singing from the principals, especially the talented Mexican soprano Olivia Gorra, who sang Violetta with a minimum of histrionics—a tasteful gesture of raising the hand to the mouth to suppress a cough. Gaston Rivero of Uruguay played her lover, Alfredo, memorably. Lawrence Harris, a former offensive lineman with the Houston Oilers, also delivered a fine performance as Giorgio Germont, Alfredo’s father. By the end, I was not the only member of the audience dabbing away a tear.
SAO’s second production, The Pirates of Penzance, is usually performed by amateur Gilbert and Sullivan societies, but this company showed how a professional opera company is able to enhance the quality of an audience’s experience. Texan Kelly McClendon as Mabel sang with a rich, full operatic voice and good vocal technique, as did David Gaschen, the production’s Frederic, (who was taking a break from his other gig, as the Phantom in Phantom of the Opera on Broadway). The showstopper, however, was Alastair Donkin, a veteran of the revered D’Oyly Carte company, who rendered Major General Stanley with consummate style, delivering the most rapid patter song (“I am the very model of a modern major general”) ever. He topped it all off with a cartwheel at the end. It was nothing short of thrilling.
Next season: Puccini—La Boheme, Donizetti—Elixir of Love, and Puccini—Tosca. Lila Cockrell Theater, 200 E. Market. 210-225-5972 or saopera.com.
5. I arrived in Amarillo early to see what the buzz about high culture on the High Plains was all about. Last year the town opened a $32 million, 1,300-seat venue to display its symphony and ballet companies and the Amarillo Opera, the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts. Assuming that it would be open a few hours before the evening performance of Donizetti’s comic masterpiece Don Pasquale, I went straight to the building. After admiring the roller-coaster roofline and attractive stone, brick, and colored-glass façade I wandered inside and took a brief tour.
Amarillo Opera: Don Pasquale
The sandstone building material, my guide told me, imitated the stratified geology of nearby Palo Duro Canyon. Gazing up in the lobby at the gleaming metal plates on the ceiling high above us, she pointed out that they were actually cattle-car paneling, a nod to the ranching traditions of the Panhandle. I looked inside the Carol Bush Emeny Performance Hall into a brilliant orange shell. Its geometrical wood paneling reminded me of a geodesic dome structure. A proud board member later told me that was a tune-able feature of the building’s acoustic design and added that he “just couldn’t say enough good things about Mila.”
Mila Gibson, the founder and general director of Amarillo Opera, is the powerhouse behind Amarillo Opera. In 1988 she starred in the company’s first production, Madame Butterfly. She also directed the other singers, the chorus, the costuming, and the marketing, and even helped build the sets. Since then she has assembled a full professional staff and rallied the city behind her. Gibson was a voice teacher at Amarillo College at the company’s founding, and has maintained the AO’s ties to that institution, which shared credit for this production of Don Pasquale.
Don Pasquale ranks as one of the funniest of comic operas—Pasquale is an old bachelor who decides to take a young wife, have children, and disinherit his ne’er-do-well nephew, but is thwarted by a doctor friend who pulls a complicated practical joke on him. This production featured some excellent singing and comedic acting by local favorites. Jeryl Hoover, who also serves as the mayor of Fredericksburg when he’s not onstage, played Don Pasquale appropriately broadly, evoking chuckles throughout the evening. Eric Barry, “the Pavarotti of the Panhandle,” embodied Ernesto, the lazy nephew, lounging about while gnawing on a chicken leg, a clever bit of acting that made the audience laugh. A high point of the evening was his limpid singing of the third act serenade, “Com’ e gentil.” John Dooley, who played Dr. Malatesta, kept up the high energy level. And Nicole Franklin, from nearby Borger, was a delight as Ernesto’s clever girlfriend, Norina, singing the demanding arias with such a contagious smile that my facial muscles almost gave out. Everyone in the audience was thoroughly entertained.
Next season: Musica Variada, Bizet—Carmen, Lift Every Voice, Floyd—Cold Sassy Tree. The Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts, 500 S. Buchanan. 806-372-7464 or amarilloopera.org.
6. Houston’s valiant little Opera in the Heights celebrated its tenth season this year with an ambitious four-opera program—including two by Mozart—each presented by alternating casts. I caught up with the company for the first evening of its final production of the season, Don Giovanni. With sunset illuminating the large stained glass windows of the three-hundred-seat Lambert Hall on Heights Boulevard, artistic director William M. Weibel thanked supporters who had hosted singers in their homes, then asked his Donna Anna, Donna Elvira, and Zerlina—Victoria Tralongo, Vanessa Salaz, and Clea Nemetz, respectively—for their impressions of the ladies they were to sing. Then, under Weibel’s direction the 23-piece orchestra gave a solemn reading of Mozart’s great overture.
When the curtain went up, I was first impressed with the lavish sets and costumes, and then, over the next three and a half hours, with the high level of singing. Andrew Nolen as Don Giovanni and Jorge Ocasio as his servant Leporello especially distinguished themselves, but the whole cast performed well. Throughout the evening, I noticed that Weibel appeared to be singing silently along with each voice. Finally the stage’s trap door opened up, demons dragged the wicked Don down to perdition, and the triumphant cast sang the grand finale.
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