The DMMO Years
The 2012 Summer Season
It seems that after the 2011 summer season ended, and the fall and spring seasons proceeded, it was once again time for yet another DMMO Summer Festival. This time, it was the 2012 festival, and in its organization, this one followed the general outline of the previous seasons., which consisted of the three mainstage productions, plus the “Stars of Tomorrow” Artist Apprentice Concert. The latter was always performed near the end of the season, usually (during my tenure at least) on the last Thursday evening of the season, and it was held off campus, at Drake University’s Sheslow Auditorium. (More on this in a later blog post.) This season’s program was an interesting one, even if the timpani parts were not the most demanding, although if truth be told, playing opera is always demanding, no matter what the level of technique required for each opera. Music of Mozart, Puccini, and Tchaikovsky was to be performed, namely, Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Puccini’s La Rondine, and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin. Of the three operas, only the Mozart was familiar to me, as I had performed it on two previous occasions. The first was a small-scale production when I was a student at the Manhattan School of Music, and it was an off-campus affair. The second time I performed the opera was with the Lake George Opera Festival in1979, which was my second season with the company. Joseph Rosenstock conducted, and I remember that as being quite the production. Maestro Rosenstock was a frequent conductor at The Metropolitan Opera during the 1930s and 1940s and knew his repertory. He admonished me, politely, to” beat the hell out the timpani” during the Commendatore-Don scene in the last act, in which the Don gets his just desserts. With The Puccini and Tchaikovsky operas, I was not familiar with either of them, although we did an excerpt from “La Rondine” at the end of each “Stars of Tomorrow” concert for almost all of my tenure. Other than that, those operas were unknown to me, and I had to learn them through listening and studying the scores. Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin was mostly unknown to me, except for some orchestral excerpts such as the Polonaise and Waltz from the opera. I was looking forward to learning the part and performing it.
It was during this season that I started making videos about aspects of the timpani, calling each one a chapter from “My Little Corner of The World”. What I would do was to first make sure that the orchestra pit was empty and that there weren’t any rehearsals or stage construction going on in the theater, and then I would set up a pair of video cameras around the timpani. Admittedly, it was an amateurish attempt at making a video, but it was a start at least. I did this several times during the season, taking advantage of a free day in which there were no services or work going on in the theater. That in itself was a challenge, as there was almost always something going on the stage. I had to choose my moments carefully; I was usually able to get at least three sessions in during the season. With hindsight, I now wish I had at least two or three more sessions but was happy to get what free time in the pit that I could. I had intended to put these on my YouTube account, and had planned to do so, but in reviewing my saved videos on the account, discovered that those from 2012 had vanished. That was no tragedy, as in reviewing the ones from later seasons, I realize that they were really sketchy and done with the lack of proper equipment. In some instances, I had to do it with one hand on the camera and the other hand on the stick or drumhead. I’ll include one of them right below to give you an idea of what I was attempting. This one is actually from my last season, and it deals with head maintenance. I was using the Yamahas for the final five seasons, and this one was made during the rehearsal period for Manon, and was originally supposed to be about one of the operas that we were preparing for that season. I had just changed all of the heads during the free days before we started, and was “playing the drums in”. Despite the helter-skelter nature of my recording methods, such as they were then, you might enjoy it. There are some nuggets of information in all that! Enjoy!
The Operas
Mozart: Don Giovanni
After The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni is my favorite Mozart opera. I guess this is because I am partial to the serious “minor mode” Mozart rather than the light-hearted side of the composer, although I do enjoy that as well. I enjoyed this opera since I played it the first time during my college years (mentioned above). I learned much more about it at Lake George Opera under Joseph Rosenstock, who knew it intimately. While that was an excellent production, the DMMO’s 2012 production was greatly superior in almost every way. Back then, performance practice was a bit old-school, although very musical in its own way. The stage was much smaller – after all it was performed in a high school auditorium – namely the Queensbury High School in Glens Falls, New York. Although, by then, I had the two middle Hinger timpani from the Albany Symphony to use that summer. Nonetheless, the Yamahas at DMMO were just as good for the purpose, and the cast, production and musical staff was just first-rate. The conductor was our musical director, David Neely. He preferred the more modern approach to performance practice, and the tempos were a little on the faster side. His approach to the opera was first-rate, and he kept everything going smoothly. Tim Ocel was the producer-stage director, and everything on his end was of equally high quality. There was only one hiccup in the stage-rehearsals prior to the runup to the performance. This was a costume issue, and it had to do with the hats worn by the soldiers in the opera. I attended one of the piano dress rehearsals and noted that hats that were worn by them looked more like something from the Napoleonic era rather than late eighteenth century. Dr. Larsen, who was by now enjoying his “emeritus” status, happened to be sitting beside me, and during a pause in the action, I asked him what he thought of the hats. He quietly agreed with me. I noticed that at the very next piano dress rehearsal, the hats had been changed to be less of an anachronism. Such was Dr. Larsen’s influence was that one word from him was all it took to fix the “hiccup'” or “hiccough”, however you say it. The cast was excellent, and Tim Ocel’s stage direction was, as I stated earlier, of high quality. The stellar cast included Rod Nelman as Leporello; Marjorie Owens as Donna Anna; Micheal Mayes in the title role as Don Giovanni; Stefan Szkafarowsky as the Commendantore; Matthew Plenk as Don Ottavio; Brenda Harris as Donna Elvira; Zulimar López-Hernández as Zerlina and Edward Hanlon as Masetto. This being the first production of the season, it was performed six times, with each performance being very well-received.
Herer is a link to the EMI recording of the opera conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini and recorded by EMI, and considered a reference recording. It is wonderful! Enjoy!
Puccini: La Rondine
This opera was totally unknown to me, other than one excerpt, which was played at the conclusion of each season’s Artist Apprentice Concert (today known as “The Stars of Tomorrow” event), usually held off campus at the Sheslow Auditorium at Drake University in Des Moines. The excerpt that I am referring to is from Act II, namely, “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso”, from Act II. Listening to it again, I can see why it was used in this fashion, La Rondine held a special place in the heart of our founding artistic director, Robert Larsen. He was once called at short notice in to conduct the opera at the New York City Opera, and it was one of the first productions of the very first season of the Des Moines Metro Opera in 1973. I also found out that Maestro Coppola, my former conducting teacher and orchestra conductor at Manhattan School of Music, arranged the version of the excerpt (most likely the reduced orchestral version of the entire opera), which made it more interesting. I believe this is the version that we used in the 2012 production. The excerpt is beautiful and is typical of the opera. It has been called the “Poor Man’s “La Boheme“, which in my view does it a disservice, as the opera has many moments of beauty that make is stand apart. Puccini’s other operas may be deeper, but this is good fun with some great tunes. The production was excellent. Michael Borowitz was back in the role of conductor for the production, and he was in great form for the task. His conducting was musical, and he kept the performance flowing nicely. Dugg McDonough was back in the role of stage director, and his production was beautiful. I do not remember how many performances we had, but since it was the second production of the season, chances are it had at least five, if not the full six. All performances were well received, and the cast included Joyce El-Khoury; Sarah Jane McMahon; Harold Meers; John Viscardi and Tony Dillon. among others. By the way, Dr. Larsen would usually conduct “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso” at the conclusion of the “Stars of Tomorrow” Concerts throughout my tenure, even after he retired.
Here is the link to “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso”. It is beautiful. Enjoy!
Tchaikovsky: Eugene Onegin
This was the third production of the 2012 season and it was special in that this was the first opera that DMMO presented in its native Russian language. I was only familiar with two selections from the opera, and these were the purely orchestral Waltz and Polonaise. These are fun to play and it was nice to hear and perform them in their original context. Musically, a lot of the music reminded me textually of the composer’s Third Symphony, – known also as the “Polish” symphony, especially in its orchestration. If memory serves, this was the third production of the season, and it received the usual four performances. While i wished it had at least one more performance, I wasn’t that disappointed. It was an excellent production and had much beautiful music, as a whole I remember it being not totally to my taste. There were fun moments and dramatic moments – especially the duel scene, it which Lensky is killed. The throbbing A’s on the 32 inch have to be precisely placed, and I remember that being a highlight. A most poignant scene. Nonetheless, the four performances were extremely well performed and received by the public. David Neely conducted, and Kristine McIntyre was back in the tole of stage director/producer. I attended the piano dress rehearsals and was impressed with the production as a whole.
The cast included John Moore as Onegin; Cody Austin as Lensky; Jan Cornelius as Tatyana; Elisa Quagliata as Olga; Tony Dillon as Zaretsky, among others. As I said, the high quality of the production and cast, as well as the musical preparation and the fact that this was the first DMMO production sung in Russian made this one stand out, and while not my favorite opera, I was glad to have participated in it and recommend it to my readers for their enjoyment. Here is a link to the opera. Enjoy!
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