The DMMO Years
The 2013 Summer Season
The 2013 summer season of the Des Moines Metro Opera was the most challenging of my nineteen seasons with the company. By this time the company’s new leadership had had time to grow into their roles (although, if truth be told, they were at the top of their game from the day they stepped into their positions). Michael Egel was by now General Director as well as Artistic Director, and David Neely was into his third season (officially) as Music Director and Principal Conductor. The season’s repertoire was of the type that I usually referred to as of the “blockbuster” variety. When I referred to an opera this way, I usually meant that it had a very substantial timpani part in addition to being one of the so-called “heavies” with regard to reputation and difficulty. Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette led off the season with six performances, followed by Benjamin Britten’s epic Peter Grimes, with five performances. Richard Strauss’s Elektra completed the bill with four performances. In addition, we had the annual “Stars of Tomorrow Concert” for the Artist Apprentices the final Thursday of the season up at Drake University. What a season! Every one of the operas was weighty and had substantial timpani parts. There were several seasons prior to this one which were also of the “blockbuster” variety. The 2002 season, under Dr. Larsen’s leadership was one such season, what with Puccini’s Turandot, Richard Strauss’s Salome and Bernstein’s Candide the offerings for that season.
This season even topped that one as far as musical challenges go. Richard Strauss is a composer who liked to push the limits of the timpani in his compositions, and both Salome and Elektra are excellent examples of that, as well as being one act operas that are in the case of Elektra, one hour and forty-eight minutes playing time. The playing time of Salome runs to about the same – roughly one hour and thirty-nine minutes. That’s a lot of music to play without a break, and the parts to each are extremely hard to read. The publishers could have certainly (in my opinion at least) cleaned up the parts a bit to make them easier to read. Thankfully, Elektra was better in this regard than Salome. Nonetheless, both operas require even more concentration than normal (and opera in general requires much more concentration than in orchestral performance.). I remember my mentor Fred Hinger saying that making the transition from orchestral performance to opera was one of his biggest challenges. To that, I add an “amen”.
In addition to the challenges presented by the operas themselves, I had a particularly busy season during the whole of 2013. In the run up to the DMMO season, I had to make an excursion to Carbondale, Illinois to take part in performances of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake as part of the Southern Illinois Music Festival. This meant that I left home about six days earlier than usual and spent a week down there thoroughly enjoying myself in the music of Tchaikovsky. It was a successful run, and the end of it, I drove straight to Indianola with a full load of drums, music and household goods.
While I arrived in Indianola safely and got myself situated in usual Room 100 in Kresge Hall, and drums, stand and stool safely deposited in the lobby of the Blank Performing Arts Center for the preliminary rehearsals, I realize now that this did not leave enough time to adequately prepare all of the operas. I did prepare Romeo and Juliette and Elektra (particularly the latter, as I was going to have to play both timpani parts in the last scene of the opera due to the small size of the pit. We were only able to fit one set of timpani into the pit, and yours truly was going to have to do the best he could to make it work with one player.) With Peter Grimes, I figured that I knew much of it through listening to selected scenes and performing the Sea Interludes, and that would have to suffice. BIG MISTAKE!! More on that later.
The Operas
As I may have mentioned previously, I had decided to use the Yamaha 6000s for the DMMO seasons while the Light Mark XIs were undergoing repair, and such was the case for 2013 season. As a matter of fact, I traveled to the Southern Illinois Music Festival for the performances of Swan Lake with the Yamahas just prior to the DMMO season. While I had ample room in my 2005 Astro for the drums and assorted musical paraphernalia, when I took into account my household items, it was a pretty tight fit, but my “Old Reliable” van was up to the task. The Yamahas served me well for this season, as they had incredibly good pitch and a clear tone, something I always loved with those drums.
Gounod: Romeo et Juliette
The first production of this “blockbuster season” was as I stated earlier, Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette. While his opera Faust is the better known of his operas, Romeo et Juliette is very in the international operatic repertory even today. It is based on the Shakespeare play, with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carre. Also, while Faust is a personal favorite of mine, and will always remain so, I admit that I fell in love with this opera from the first rehearsal. I had done my homework on this one, having obtained Alain Lombard’s excellent recording with Mirella Freni as Juliet, and practically wore out the tracks on the CDs during my musical preparation. The timpani part is much like that of Faust – weighty and just plain fun. The Introduction and opening scene are a good example of that. There is a lot of beautiful and atmospheric music
The production was conducted by Kostis Protopapas, and the stage director was Linda Ade Brand. This was the first time (at least during my tenure) that we had a guest conductor and new stage director open the season, and with a major production yet! Both acquitted themselves extremely well, and Kostis’ knowledge of the opera was first-rate. The stage direction was also excellent, more than up to the DMMO’s usual exacting standards. The cast was, as usual, excellent and featured Sara Gartland as Juliette and Jason Slayden as Romeo, as well as Craig Verm as Mercutio;
Stéphano, page to Roméo: Sarah Larsen as Stephano, page to Mercutio; Tony Dillon as Capulet; Heath Huberg as Tybalt; Susan Shafer as Gertrude, Juliette’s nurse; as well as Kyle Albertson as the Duke; Christopher Scott as Paris; Kenneth Stavert as Gregorio; Stefan Barner as Benvolio and Anthony Udrovich as Frere John. The opera was given six performances, and each one was a gem.
I am taking the liberty to insert a YouTube video of the setting of the stages for the productions of the 2013 season, with the audio of the Prelude and Opening Scene from Romeo et Juliette. While not ideal sound wise, it conveys the intensity of the production and the music in general.
Here is a link to a playlist of the opera with Michel Plasson conducting; it is quite excellent.
Britten: Peter Grimes
Occasionally, there is a musical work, be it an orchestral work or an opera that teaches one humility and causes one to take stock of his or her strengths or weaknesses. A course correction is needed, and the lessons learned are applied to future endeavors. For me, such a work is Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. This opera is, in the opinion of many, perhaps the composer’s finest opera. It is and remains one of my favorites, despite it teaching me a hard lesson.
Earlier in this blog post, I’d mentioned that I had made a BIG MISTAKE! Well, it occurred in this production. It was not in the actual performances themselves, but in my attitude towards preparing for the production itself. Here’s what happened.
Normally, I would prepare for each opera rather thoroughly. I would try to get a score and recording, or at least a copy of the part as well a recording and would listen to the opera several times to get a feel of it and develop a good sense of the music. I would then practice the most difficult parts and by the time I arrived in Indianola, I would be ready for the first rehearsals.
Due to the fact that I had been super busy in the spring of 2013, what with my gigs with the Illinois Philharmonic (Beethoven Ninth in May), the Elmhurst Symphony (Le Sacre du Printemps), I allowed myself to fall into a trap; I told myself that since I was familiar with the opera and had played the Sea Interludes on several occasions, that this would be enough to get me through. In addition, I had the Southern Illinois Music Festival gig just prior to the start of the DMMO season, and this left me little time to attend to business. Well, I was wrong: there is once scene towards the end of Act I : “Old Joe Has Gone Fishing.”
This occurs towards the end of Act I, and what makes it remarkable is that it is in 7/4 time, with a repeated rhythmic figure on the 26-inch timpano – tuned to E-flat. It acts as the ostinato underpinning the soloists and chorus. It is repeated many times – which makes it difficult, in addition to the complexity of the rhythm. On top of that you have the soloists and chorus executing their very different and difficult parts. All in all, a very interesting situation. The mistake I made was in overlooking this scene, and it caused a lot of frustration. I did indeed have 99 percent of the opera pretty much under control, but this one percent was going to bite me big time. My problem was to get up to speed as fast as possible, and I practiced these passages for hours and actually had the rhythm down cold, However, at the early rehearsals, it didn’t click. I had no idea of the complexity of the voice parts and how they interrelated with the timpani ostinato, which by the way is the only instrument playing much of this passage. Things got a little better, but not enough to fully satisfy the conductor and singers. Needless to say, I felt like two cents, as the fault was largely mine. I violated the tenants of a good musician – proper preparation! (Which was also mine.) I could have lost the job right there. But before things got to that point, I decided to be part of the solution and consulted with the conductor and our principal percussion, Mark Door. He had played the opera before and knew that section cold. I asked Mark if he could come over and play that section – I would step aside for those few minutes, and he would play that scene, and when those bars were done, I would step in and close out the act. Mark agreed to help out, and David Neely thought that this would work, as it did. It got the whole show going again, and while I was grateful that it did work, I was mortified that I had committed such a “newbie’ mistake at my age! However, I wasn’t about to let my ego get in the way. Like I said, I could very well have been sanctioned at the least or fired at the worst. Being part of the solution (despite the blow to my ego) helped give me some credibility. The thing is, all concerned got past it, and in the end, we had some pretty excellent performances. My lesson: Prepare, Prepare, Prepare!!
The Performances
Peter Grimes was given five performances during the season, and it was a first-rate production from the get-go. David Neeley conducted, being especially sensitive to the nuances of the score. Kristine McIntyre was back as stage director, and her production was equally sensitive to the many nuances of the opera.
The cast included Roger Honeywell in the title role, and his performance was his own. Sensitive and highly thought out, he sang and acted as though he were Peter Grimes himself. Truly a memorable performance.
Sinéad Mulhern was cast as the widow and schoolteacher Ellen Orford. Her performance was also of a
very high quality. Todd Thomas was cast as Captain Balstrode. I enjoyed his performance immensely. He had that beefy, bluff personality in his acting and the right voice to bring the role of Balstrode to life. Susan Shafer was cast in the role of “Auntie. She was also first-rate. The rest of the large cast included Sara Ann Mitchell; Dana Pundt; Corey Bix; Jeffrey Tucker; George Ross Somerville; Craig Verm; Kyle Albertson and Dan Jacobsen. I do not know why we only performed it five times that season. Perhaps it had to do with the complexity of the entire season. Our last production of the season was about to take the season by storm.
Here is a link to a series of videos of the Colin Davis/Jon Vickers performance, which is one of my favorites.
Richard Strauss: Elektra
This opera was no stranger to me. I had seen the opera twice – once at the Metropolitan Opera in a performance with Birgit Nilsson in the title role and Leopold Ludwig conducting, and other was a concert performance by the Cleveland Orchestra under Lorin Maazel. Both performances were from the early to mid 1970s. Both were first-rate. And both of my mentors were involved: Fred Hinger at the Metropolitan Opera, and Cloyd Duff with the Cleveland Orchestra. That was a treat. I also had the honor of performing the opera in a pair of concert performances with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Klaus Weise conducting. It is another favorite of mine and I was really excited to have another go at the opéra, even though I had to play both timpani parts in the final scene of the opera.
Space limitations dictated the use of a smaller orchestra. I believe we had sixty-nine players in a pit that comfortably accommodated about forty-six to fifty. Like Salome, there is a version of Elektra for a reduced orchestra. The original version calls for one-hundred and eleven players; we got by with sixty-nine and it worked fine. There was no way we were going to get another set of timpani into the pit, so I adapted the final scene for one player. In the end, there was very little I left out, and I was satisfied with the result.
I had put a lot of time into preparing Elektra, and the results showed it. In retrospect, I have often wished since that season that had put even a tenth more time into” Old Joe” from Peter Grimes. But I learned a necessary lesson – painful though it was at the time. Elektra
was a different story, and I reveled in it.
The Performances
Since this was the last production of the season, it was allotted only four performances. Difficult as it was, I wish we did at least two more. The cast was fabulous! David Neely conducted supremely well, and Dugg McDonough was the stage director, and he did a superb job! The cast included Brenda Harris in the title role – she was splendid! Julie Makerov was Chrysothemis, and the redoubtable Joyce Castle was cast in the role of Clytemnestra. She was unbelievably good! Philip Horst was cast as Orestes; the rest of the cast was excellent. I will remember for the rest of my life the ovations all received after each performance. This was one of the high points of my DMMO tenure. It will be long remembered.
Here is a link to a performance conducted by Karl Bohm and featuring Leonie Rysanek and Astrid Varnay! Enjoy!
Recent Comments