Opera Think Tank 2.0

We're back! And wow, what a different world we have now. New York City Opera is gone, San Diego Opera barely survived shuttering, and the Met just mud-slung its way through some interminable union negotiations. Some say we're dragging behind in every way, if you read the comments here. Meanwhile there is a growing number of young leaders in opera and new work being made everywhere you look.

In the eight years I've been in NYC, however, it seems like opportunities have dwindled for singers to actually develop and perform here in the city. Meanwhile I find myself in amazing theatre spaces set up by actors and comedians - artists who work at their craft to a point that they can perform any where, any time - places like the PIT and Magnet and spaces that not only have a great theatre spaces, but great bars where people can hang out and have a good time on a Friday night. Why don't these spaces exist for opera?

The PIT, or People's Improv Theatre, has great spaces for performing and hanging out

There was recently a great article picking apart the many ways that the Met makes going to the theatre unnecessarily cumbersome and difficult. It's a theatre house stuck in a century-old tradition of entertainment. But hey, let's not pick on the Met - they are the nation's largest performing arts organization. I just wish there was more middle ground, especially in New York, where you might trip over a singer, a director, or a designer every three feet.

So I decided to do something about it and launched OPERA THINK TANK this summer. We've only just begun, but we have a packed schedule for the fall in an amazing new theatre space in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

The stunning staff of Triskelion in front of their new free-standing theatre building!

So here's how it all works, at least for now:

OPERA THINK TANK's goal is to get an ensemble of singers making theatre together on a regular basis, creating regular performance opportunities that singers can join whenever they are available.

Led by director/choreographer Heidi Lauren Duke and guest coach/conductor Carmine Aufiero, the THINK TANK also includes includes guest coaches, directors, and designers.


The flexible session schedule includes private coaching, ensemble work on skills and dramaturgy, and public presentations. No new music to learn - all a singer needs to prepare is her current rep - either her 5 audition arias or other arias/duets that a singer wants to brush up or get in front of an audience. We will use principals of improv comedy, theatre composition, and reinterpreting the classics to create a vocabulary and process we can use again and again to create engaging opera theatre.

Throughout the 2014-15 season, singers may join ongoing weekly sessions whenever they are available. Performances will be monthly and will be cast from new singers that have attended at least 3 sessions total, and singers who are already part of the roster but have attended at least one session in the current month.

So experienced singers could work with us a bit, then leave town, come back for two weeks (or six months), and perform in quality shows in NYC with limited rehearsal time. Younger or less experienced artists can come every week and continuously work on their skills and craft, performing as they wish. Meanwhile singers can invite their friends and fans to see them perform in a gorgeous space in a fun neighborhood with amazing views of Manhattan.

Sunset earlier this year at East River Park, an easy walk from Triskelion

So save the dates for our Saturday night fall shows - come have dinner before at Adelina's, Jimmy's, Calexico, or just come wander around this booming neighborhood:

Saturdays at 10pm

October 18th, November 15th, and December 13th

Triskelion Arts, 106 Calyer Street, Williamsburg / Greenpoint, Brooklyn

And donate here to Triskelion's valiant efforts to provide a home for so many artists!

Airline Tix for Opera? (Thanks, Hugh Jackman!)

The New York Times just reported about rather 'interesting' pricing strategies, helping to keep the lights shining brightly down on the Great White Way.

Turns out, theater owners and producers can look at past sales figures and predict exactly how much people will pay for certain seats. Some seats get discounted at first, but when reviews come in or some sections sell out, prices skyrocket. In effect, it's pricing performance seats similarly to airline fares.

Imagine how that pricing has influenced the way we buy airline tickets (or at least, the way I do!): I try to buy early, compare the possibilities, scanning my computer screen hungrily, until the moment I find the perfect date, price, and location and BAM! I review the itinerary with lusty caution...hit the PURCHASE button with apprehension-soaked courage, and the blessed confirmation screen finally arrives as I shudder with relief and gratitude. Ahhh...that's better.

If only buying opera tickets carried so much DRAMA!

Because of course, just as airlines are now catering to the profitable customer, so should performing arts organizations. There will always be the discount shoppers like me, but considering the number of deep-pocketed Puccini fans, opera companies could stand to make some serious dough if they get with the program.

How much will you pay for the best seat in the house?

The other pricing strategy that goes along with this: the affluent customer wants things that are expensive.  In fact, I think our current economy is unique in this trend: cheap things are getting cheaper and more disposable, and expensive things are getting more costly and more lasting -- there is little in between. Does opera want to be the former or the latter? It's a tricky question, and the answer is that it just has to pick one and not stay in the middle. (Brilliant example: seeing the Met Live is expensive and extravagant and time-consuming; Met HD is cheap and disposable, and people buy both because they are getting the extreme on the pendulum, and those extremes are what sell.)

But let's follow-through with the fact that the affluent customer wants things that are expensive...in another life I worked in the copyediting department of a major entertainment company that shall remain nameless.  Needless to say they ran both the most famous circus in the world, and also the most famous ice skating show in the world. On their ads for the circus, they sold the show as a fun but casual event for the family.  They had tiered pricing. They listed the cheapest prices first and then went up from there.  On the contrary, for the ice show, they were marketing it more like a ballet or a Broadway show -- an epic, fancy, family event, so they listed the most expensive seats first. And guess what? The most expensive ones were the first to sell -- always. And remember...the two different productions were sold by the same company, so they reaped the profits from both extremes, just like the Met!

I still feel that opera is stunted by the albatross of non-profit-bleeding-hearts. Yes -- we can still be accessible, and also exclusive; 'cheap' to some and 'extravagant' to others...we have to provide both products.

Airline travel used to be something reserved for the wealthy, but now the product has changed to offer something for both the well-heeled elite, and also the great unwashed. Or people who can pass for both, like me.

Opera Patron 2.0: Sue, from Brooklyn

On Monday I took advantage of the ecstatic September weather and caught operamission's Figaro performance, which was presented as part of the Bryant Park Fall Festival.

It was idyllic: sparkling sun, cool breezes, amazing food and beverages, and bustling energy surrounding a park with Mozart flowing through the speakers.  As I walked from the south side of the park to the north, tables of lunchers gave way to sunbathers, which gave way to rows of seats in front of the white-tented stage.

At the end of the performance, around two o'clock, I was surprised by the woman near me, who leapt to her feet, clapping, shouting,

BRAVOOOOO! BRAVOOO! THAT WAS AWESOME! 

She admonished her friends, some of whom had fallen to napping in the sunshine: "You missed the best part!  There was a ton of action!  They were really goin' attit!!! (referring to the Figaro Act II Finale Throw Down)

She looked around....

Why aren't more people standing??  That was AWESOME!

I spoke to her afterwards.  I was too shy to ask for a picture, but she looked something like the picture above, except very excited. Her name is Sue and she's from Brooklyn.  She'd seen opera before, but had never subscribed to anything. She liked Mozart, Handel; Beethoven not so much. She was also excited because, at that same moment, her daughter was expecting to give birth to a baby girl by way of c-section.  She gave me a hug and said God Bless.

So I was surprised by her not by her age, but her energy.  She stood up and hollered. She knew she was seeing something special.  And she had a busy life, with babies being born any second -- she had a lot on her mind.

So how we get her into the Hall to hear singers on a regular basis?  I don't know.

But that would be AWESOME.

P.S. the awesome singers from operamission included bass CORY CLINES (Figaro) • soprano SHARIN APOSTOLOU (Susanna) • baritone MICHAEL WEYANDT (Count) • soprano INNA DUKACH (Countess) and countertenor TYLER WAYNE SMITH as Cherubino - led by Jennifer Peterson and directed by Peter Kozma

I Hate Comic Opera. Sometimes.

As an actor, I learned comedy through improv theatre, but fell in love with opera for the epic, the heroic, the transcendent. And I've seen a lot of comic opera that is just not, well...funny.

But I just spent three months submerged in the best Italian buffa ever written. If I've learned anything, it's that even comic opera, even with all its iron-clad notes, timing, and traditional schtick, must have an absolutely ridiculous improvisation to it: the actors have to feel like asking,

"Are people actually watching us have this much fun?" 

and the audience has to feel like asking,

"Am I allowed to have this much fun?" 

Otherwise if it is practiced and cute -- if it only qualifies as 'charming' -- we're only imitating what comedy in the theatre is actually supposed to be.

And the difference between a good joke and a bad shtick is that a joke has to come from something the character would actually do, even in their own absurd logic. Schtick uses a logic outside of the characters - it's something superimposed onto them.

I learned this from a fart joke in Pasquale.  At least a fart is good for something.

This is Glenn Seven Allen, being very funny in a Barber directed by Benjamin Wayne Smith, who is also very funny. Credit to Wildeye Photography, whom I hope got some good laughs.

Sir Falstaff, Reviewed and Relished

Here are the best quotes from the four reviews of Falstaff!

"campy, raucous, sleazy, self-mocking, groovy, tacky, immoderate, compatible with beer and ice cream...All of these adjectives were applicable in the best possible way..."

"Dongkyu Oh [revealed] Falstaff’s true nature -- not merely a clown but an unapologetic embodiment of social vice."

"...the real scene-stealer...was Desiree Maira as Mistress Quickly, sporting impressively evocative facial expressions..." 

"Energy was abundant...Duke justly deserves the dual credits of director and choreographer. Cleverness of movement pervaded...from ostentatious disco to a simple turn of hand or head."

- Boston Music Intelligencer - Second cast opening review 

Now then a different person from the same journal saw a completely different cast but said a lot of the same things:

"...fluid, well-timed"

"...Brooke Larimer as Mistress Quickly was the quintessential contralto-soubrette, Italian-American sexpot...the most convincing physical realization of character...

"solid and entertaining"

- Boston Music Intelligencer - Opening night review 

"Delightful...spirited...funny"

- Boston Pheonix - review   

"...like something Diane Paulus would do..."

"...some of the best 'Shakespearean' acting I've seen all year."

- The Hub Review - review

Bravi tutti!

The wicked wives of Windsor. Photo by J.J. Bates.

Falstaff Bursts through Boston - July 15-24!

Set in the 'Me" decade of the 1970s, this hilarious farce is an ode to mafia dons, feminine mystique, boogie nights, and the dusk of Aquarius.  And it all goes down in a 1914 vaudeville house with full orchestra, where you can bring the beer into the show and even have your own cupholder! Just keep the concessions away from Big Belly!

The magic of Mischa Santora's baton will light this firecracker!  And I've had such a ball working with these irrepressible singers and my wacky and wise designers, Scott Bolman, Ada Smith, and Andrea Lauer!

Designing Pasquale: Pearls and Chrome

I'm ramping up for Don Pasquale with the amazing folks at Hubbard Hall -- Alexina Jones and Jason Dolmetsch -- and my design advisor, Zane Pihlstrom.  Here are some research images of early Hollywood and Art Deco splendour:

 Norina in her garden...from Walter Crane's charming illustration...

Chorus girls in their dressing room...we're juxtaposing black/white with technicolor to highlight all the roles the characters play...

Madame widow Norina, lost in her world...