Mixed Media

Listen Again: From page to stage, The Bonesetter's Daughter bursts into song

Novelist Amy Tan has turned The Bonesetter's Daughter into an opera, which premiered at the San Francisco Opera on Saturday. Transforming the book into a libretto wasn't easy for Tan, nor was resurfacing the painful stories of her family's past.

When composer Stewart Wallace began to travel to rural China with Tan a few years ago, they were in search of an answer to a question that had been haunting them: "What does it sound like for a ghost to talk to a living person?"

The question of how a ghost sounds, feels, moves and is brought back to life is essential to the opera, which Wallace and Tan created over the course of many trips to China.

Tan is known for novels that delve into Chinese-American life. Here, the pair was on a quest to bring the novel — and elements of Tan's own life — to the stage. Wallace would write the music, Tan the libretto. But she'd never written one before, and it wasn't easy.

"You know, the key was really to cut out the words and let the music stand for the emotions, because that's what opera is," Tan says. "It's music, it's performance, it's great voices. And the story was a framework in a way."

The Bonesetter's Daughter begins with three characters emerging from a mist. One is a Chinese-American daughter, like Tan; the second is a mother, like hers, born in China. The third is a haunted and haunting ghost named Precious Auntie. The three entities make their way through a fog and sing about the things they know to be true.

Listen to the full story here.

Glimmerglass teams up with New York Festival of Song for a free concert

Critically-acclaimed pianist Steven Blier, Artistic Director of the New York Festival of Song, will  accompany members of Glimmerglass Opera’s Young American Artists Program for We Open in Paris, a concert of selections from French operettas and Cole Porter’s Paris musicals. The free program will be presented Friday, August 15, at 4:30 p.m. at the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown, New York.

We Open in Paris marks the inaugural collaboration between Glimmerglass Opera and the New York Festival of Song. “2008 marks the 20th anniversaries of both Glimmerglass Opera’s acclaimed Young American Artists Program and the renowned New York Festival of Song. Mr. Blier’s support of and passion and advocacy for the song recital mirrors Glimmerglass Opera’s own enthusiastic pursuit of innovative and exciting recital programming for its Young American Artist Recital Series,” said Don Marrazzo, Glimmerglass Opera’s Director of Artistic Operations.

Joining Blier are sopranos Caitlin Lynch and Katrina Thurman, mezzo-soprano Liza Forrester, tenor Gennard Lombardozzi, and baritone Adrian Kramer.

“As the 2008 Festival Season also marks Glimmerglass’s first foray into the world of musical theater with Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate, We Open in Paris is the perfect complement to the company’s 2008 repertory,” Marrazzo said.

Free tickets may be reserved by calling the Glimmerglass Opera Box Office at (607) 547-2255. We Open in Paris is made possible by a grant from The Aaron Copland Fund for Music, Inc.

Glimmerglass opened its 2008 Shakespeare-inspired Festival Season July 5 with Cole Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate and July 6 with Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto. The American fully-staged premiere of Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot opened July 19 and Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi opened July 26. The 2008 productions run in repertory through August 24 at the Alice Busch Opera Theater in Cooperstown, New York. For additional information and tickets, call (607) 547-2255 or visit the Glimmerglass Opera website.

Mozart's ‘La Finta Giardiniera’ at Ithaca College

Ithaca College Theatre and School of Music will mark their annual collaboration with a lively production
of Mozart’s Italian comic opera, La Finta Giardiniera. Performances will be held at 8 p.m. on February 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 27, and 29, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, February 24. All performances will be held in the Clark Theatre at Dillingham Center. The production will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Written in 1775 when Mozart was just 18 years old, La Finta Giardiniera tells the story of Count Belfiore and Violante, who were lovers until Belfiore stabbed Violante in a quarrel. Mistakenly believing Violante to be dead, Belfiore has become engaged to the very jealous Arminda. Violante, meanwhile, has disguised herself as the gardener Sandrina in order to confront Belfiore. As more complications arise, lunacy ensues, ensuring fits of passion of which only Mozart’s Italians are capable.

David Lefkowich, director of last season’s Ithaca College Theatre production of Handel’s opera, “Acis and Galatea,” returns to guest direct La Finta Giardiniera. Lefkowich has directed productions for companies around the country, including the New York City Opera, Florida Grand Opera, and Glimmerglass Opera. An experienced stage combat director, Lefkowich graduated Northwestern University’s School of Speech with a degree in theater and holds a certificate from Ecole-Jacques Lecoq in Paris.

The musical director is assistant professor of music and director of opera and musical theatre Mark Kaczmarczyk. His credits include “Grendel” at Lincoln Center’s “Mostly Mozart” Festival and
conductor of Handel’s Semele and Acis and Galatea at the Detroit Institute of the Arts. He has also performed as a bass soloist in productions around the country.

Two casts of La Finta Giardiniera will alternate performances. The cast includes vocal performance majors Danielle Edwards ’08 and Diana Yourke ’08 as Violante and musical theatre major
Daniel Greenwood ’08 and music education and vocal performance major Dan Prior ’08 as Belfiore. The cast also includes Christina Boosahda ’09, Hilary A. Bucell ’09, Garry McLinn ’09, Sara Mowery ’09, Alexis Murphy-Egri ’08, Megan Palange ’08, and Michael J. Quinn ’08.

The artistic design team includes assistant professor of theatre arts Brian Prather as set designer, Samantha Yaeger ’08 as costume designer, and assistant professor and chair of theatre arts Steve TenEyck as lighting designer.

Ticket prices range from $4.50 to $10 and can be purchased at all Ticket Center outlets, including the Ithaca College Theatre ticket office in Dillingham Center and online at www.ithacaevents.com. Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more by calling (203) 260-9508. For more information call (607) 274-3224, (607) 273-4497 or visit www.ithaca.edu/theatre.

A New Kind of Diva

Anna Netrebko is a gifted opera singer who at 36 has already mastered many of the roles — Mimi, Violetta, Lucia, Manon — that used to go to the queenly, temperamental sopranos of the old school, with their furs, their atomizers, their entourages. She is also a media-savvy entertainer from the new school, with the knockout looks, the fans, the celebrity of a pop star. Her “Traviata” at Salzburg two years ago was such a hot ticket that scalpers were reportedly charging $7,000 a seat, and her records regularly top the charts in Europe. In the summer of 2006 she was part of a concert in Berlin that filled a stadium.

Netrebko, whose appearance at the Metropolitan Opera on Dec. 15 in Gounod’s “Roméo et Juliette” will be broadcast live in movie theaters around the world, has a captivating voice that is both high and deep, lustrous and velvety, and she is one of that growing breed of opera singers who can actually act. She is sometimes compared with Natalie Dessay, the French singer whose face has been on posters all over New York this fall, advertising her mad scene in the Met’s “Lucia di Lammermoor,” and who may in fact be technically superior. But Netrebko is the larger presence. She has an earthiness and impishness — a daredeviltry — that may prevent her from ever attaining the kind of rarefied, disembodied sainthood that has been awarded, for example, to the American sopranos Renée Fleming and Dawn Upshaw but that also makes her more fun to watch.

Read the full article here.

You can listen to Anna Netrebko's performance in Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette" on WSKG Radio, December 15th at 1 p.m.

Update: Opera great Pavarotti dead at 71

Luciano Pavarotti passed away this morning after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. The online news sites are full of articles about his life and his death, and many memories are pouring in from fans around the world.

A few links that caught my eye and might be of interest to those of you reading this:

AFP's Obituary

U2's Bono Pays Tribute to Pavarotti

Quotes by Pavarotti (taken from his 1995 autobiography "Pavarotti: My World)

Tributes from around the world

NPR's Tribute to Pavarotti

And, of course, an example of the great man doing what he did best:

Pavorotti reported in 'serious condition'

Opera star Luciano Pavarotti's health has worsened in his battle against pancreatic cancer. The singer, now 71, has been released from the hospital and is now being treated at home, although his condition remains 'very serious.'

The full article reporting this news can be found here.