Thanks a lot for the stereotypes, Wagner.

Reading the book, I felt like I could have been watching one of the Real Housewives shows or looking at a tabloid at the supermarket checkout. I stopped counting the number of times I wanted to bash my head against the wall because Des Grieux was being stupid — again — for love of this woman.

And that’s when I started thinking of Britney Spears.

I know, I know! I'll be nice.

How is Britney like Manon? Both are beautiful and charismatic young women who have made many bad choices. Manon enjoys the riches and attention her new lifestyle affords her, and she (in the novel, at least) chooses wealth over love time and time again. Britney, too, has enjoyed her superstar lifestyle rather publicly, too…as chronicled in her one-season reality show, Britney & Kevin: Chaotic.

(I may or may not have watched one episode of that show. I hope you don’t think less of me because of it.)

And the lyrics in Britney’s Gimme More sounds quite a bit like something Manon would say. Check it out:

So there’s my comparison, for what it’s worth. If you want to find out more about the Opera Company of Philadelphia’s production, listen to the podcast below (I’m co-hosting).

If you are in Philadelphia, come see me in it! I’m one of the fruit sellers in the first act (and a very snooty townswoman in the third act). It’s a fabulous cast and an amazing production.

Manon Lescaut by Puccini
at the Academy of Music
Friday, April 20, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Sunday, April 22, 2012 at 2:30 pm
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 at 7:30 pm
Friday, April 27, 2012 at 8:00 pm
Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 2:30 pm
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE TICKETS

An opera is being written about your life. Summarize the first act.

I’ve put the challenge at the top this time because I wanted to explain a little bit about what I decided to do with this totally exciting and incredibly daunting task. An opera about my life?? How in the world would anyone be able to put my complicated life into approximately three hours? I mean, heck, Harry Potter’s life had to be told in almost 20 hours, and they left out huge chunks of plot from the book. Not that I’m anything like Harry Potter, but you know what I mean.

Most opera plots paint pictures in very large brush strokes. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at some of this year’s Twitter #operaplot contest submissions, where you have to summarize an entire opera plot in 140 characters or fewer.

The whole medium of opera necessitates skimpy plots because most of the stage time is taken up with arias about how a character is feeling. Often, action will take place off stage and explained in exposition by one of the characters as a storytelling tool to move the plot forward.

In addition, the characters portrayed in opera are usually larger-than-life archetypes who make stupid, stupid mistakes. It makes for great storytelling, but terrible living…and I decided at a very early age that I had had enough drama in my childhood to last a lifetime, so I tend to avoid the stupid, stupid mistakes as an adult. (Not that I don’t make mistakes, mind you; I just don’t make monumentally stupid, opera-worthy mistakes. At least I try not to).

With that in mind, I decided to create my own autobiographical opera synopsis in the style of Les contes d’Hoffmann, which is a collection of stories in which the poet E.T.A. Hoffmann is the protagonist. Each act is a fantastical tale that deals more in metaphor than reality. (This way I can also protect the identities of the innocent and not-so-innocent…but the overarching story is still autobiographical in nature)

I also decided that if I was going to create an opera synopsis, I couldn’t just stop at the first act; I had to finish it. Also, I decided my opera was going to be sung in Italian. Just because. Clearly I had way too much fun with this challenge!

My challenge went out to Penny, who will post her answer to my prompt here before the end of the week.

The Adventures of Supermaren: the opera

Cast

Maren – mezzo-soprano
Teresa, her friend – soprano
Gianmarco, a suitor – bass-baritone
Giotto, a lawyer – tenor
Stefano, his friend – tenor
Raimondo – baritone

Chorus – friends, party-goers, wedding guests

Dancers
The Puppeteer
Young Maren (child dancer)
The Mother
Puppets

Synopsis

Prologue: Ballet-Pantomime

The Mother and The Puppeteer dance a pas de deux. Young Maren enters, and The Puppeteer begins a puppet show for Young Maren. During the show, The Mother leaves, and the Puppets begin to play with Young Maren. At first she is delighted by the attention, but soon tires and looks for her mother. The Puppets do not allow her to leave. She begs The Puppeteer for release, but instead, he attacks her and forces her to dance a twisted variation of the first pas de deux. The Puppets carry her off the stage.

Act I

A Victorian Mansion.
Maren is in a tower, singing of her romantic ideal and wondering if there is someone out there to sweep her off her feet (“Chi sarà il mio principe?”). Her friend Teresa enters, with news that the guests are arriving for her birthday party, and that the very rich Gianmarco is expected to attend. They sing a duet about the potential of a rich mate (“Non mi dispiacerebbe”). They descend the stairs to find a party in full swing. Gianmarco arrives with his friends and immediately declares his love for Maren (“Non riesco a respirare”). While he is singing, however, The Puppeteer arrives and Maren becomes afraid. She is the only one who can see him. The Puppeteer begins moving Maren around the room, throwing her first at Gianmarco, then making her spurn him. Embarrassed, Gianmarco becomes angry and tells her how worthless she is. She begs him to understand, with a reprise of “Non riesco a respirare,” but The Puppeteer makes it so that she cannot sing the right words.

Gianmarco laughs cruelly at her antics and says that two can play at that game; he picks a random woman, kisses her in front of everyone, and announces that the party will continue at his house. Laughing and cheering, the crowd follows him out the door, leaving Maren alone.

Act II

A library.
Giotto and his friend Stefano are arguing over a legal point and having a great time with their debate. Maren enters, singing sadly, with The Puppeteer not far behind her. Giotto asks who she is. Stefano replies that she is a singer who has been cursed to be unlucky in love. Giotto then asks who the man is behind Maren, and Stefano does not know what he is talking about.

Curious, Giotto approaches Maren and the two start a conversation about their love of books (“I libri possono cantare”). Giotto points out The Puppeteer behind Maren, and she becomes frightened. When Giotto addresses The Puppeteer directly, he does not answer, but gestures menacingly at Giotto. Giotto encourages Maren to confront The Puppeteer, using some of the most powerful words in the world: Shakespeare’s Hamlet (“Difenderci, O angeli e ministri della grazia!”). Defeated, The Puppeteer disappears and Maren is released from his clutches.

Filled with gratitude, Maren declares her love for Giotto, who sadly informs her that her love can never be requited because he only has eyes for Stefano. He leaves her, quoting the holiest of books, Winnie the Pooh: “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”

Act III

A Renaissance Faire.
Maren and Teresa sing bawdy songs about how they don’t need a prince anymore: just someone who will please them. Raimondo, who has been watching them sing, stands up and applauds. He will please Maren quite well, he boasts, and takes her into his arms. As he does so, The Puppeteer appears, and attempts to capture Maren once again. But she is no longer afraid of The Puppeteer, and she joins hands with Raimondo and Teresa to banish him once and for all (“Basta, basta!”). Defeated by the power of love, The Puppeteer loses all his magic, and his Puppets, now freed, surround him an devour him.

Epilogue

Maren and Raimondo are married, and for a wedding gift, he gives her a red cape and tells her that she has the power, through her words, to reach others who have been abused or held captive by their own fears. As she puts on her cape, Maren pledges her love to Raimondo and they declare that they shall conquer the evils of the world together, to the cheers of the throng (“Evviva, evviva!”).

• Exiled prince meets tyrannical queen who decapitates her suitors. Of course he’s got to have her now. Typical. [Turandot]
• Don’t you hate it when your boss is after your daughter and you try to assassinate him but you kill your daughter instead? [Rigoletto]
• Bad-ass dude is taken down through paranoia by a disgruntled worker. Though strangled, his wife sings for a while before dying. [Otello]
• Hey girls: saved by a hot guy in a swan boat? Do you want to marry him? Then listen carefully: DON’T ASK HIM WHERE HE’S FROM. [Lohengrin]
• Ugly monster gets bullied by children, grows up to be an existentialist. [Grendel]
• If you love someone, stab her in Act IV. [Carmen]

When I’ve worked really hard to sing my best and look my best, but I get passed over for someone who sings better and looks better than I do, I don’t really feel jealous. However, if I see lazy people get further than me that jealousy sets in. That little voice in the back of my head starts to whine, “Why do they get all the glory when they didn’t do anything?”

I have to take a deep breath when I hear that voice. I remind myself that I should rejoice in that person’s success. Anything less would make me a petty person.

But then again, what if that person is more than just lazy? What if he or she is lazy and incompetent? Or lazy, incompetent, and difficult to work with, and he/she still is more successful than I am? That’s when I can’t stop the jealousy from coming out. And then I start getting catty. What can I say? Nobody’s perfect.

I just had an interesting discussion (okay, okay, more like rant) over email with my dad over some up-and-coming Italian pop/opera crossover kids called Il Volo. I call them The Three Menudo Tenors. They’re okay, I guess, if you like that kind of music (which I don’t), and they’re all very cute (one of the guys reminds me of Ralph Macchio in the Karate Kid years), so I’m sure they’ll be very popular.

The Three Menudo Tenors

The reason I bring this all up is that I noticed a few similar comments on Charlotte Church’s and Jackie Evancho’s YouTube videos: reasonable people who clearly know a thing or two about the voice lamenting the fact that Idiot America is rewarding this harmful behavior with praise and fame. Of course, I’m sure you can guess the reaction to said comments: they were called haters, rude, and jealous.

Meow!

Frankly, I think I’d rather just be where I am now: I am continually working on my craft; I’m well-known and respected (I think!) among my peers; and I am making money doing what I love. I’m surrounded by people whom I love and who love me back, and I get to make lots and lots of beautiful music.

I guess I might be more successful than I thought.

Last month’s Opera Company of Philadelphia’s Random Act of Culture (the “flash mob” Hallelujah Chorus at Macy’s in Philadelphia) made such a splash on the internet that a whole bunch of similar events are popping up from Toronto to Jacksonville. The Toronto group made such a splash that Fox News did a segment on it yesterday, only to be barraged with emails telling them that OCP was the originator of the idea…which led Fox decide to air another piece about Philadelphia’s flash mob today.

Hence the phone call.

Fox had asked to speak to someone from OCP administration as well as a singer, and I guess my laughing face in the Philadelphia Inquirer photo made me a good candidate to be the face of such a joyful event. “They’ll be sending a car service to pick you up,” OCP told me. “You will be on the air at 6:50 AM.”

When I got the car service confirmation email, I saw that the car would be picking me up at 5:20. Sheesh. Good thing I didn’t have a late night rehearsal.

So I went to bed early and woke up at 4:30, took a shower, put an inordinate amount of product in my hair to make it do the pretty curly thing, and slipped into the outfit that I had painstakingly picked out the night before. I made sure my make-up was just so (I had no idea what to expect: would there be hair and make-up people there? Probably not, I figured; after all, my segment would probably be less than 5 minutes long), and was wide awake and ready for the car to pick me up.

5:20 came and went, but no car. At 5:25, I called the car service company, only to find out that dispatch for the company was in Los Angeles. They patched me through to New York, where dispatcher knew who I was right away because apparently my driver was lost. That didn’t bode well, I thought. Worst case scenario, I could drive myself.

At 5:30, a sedan pulled into my driveway and idled for a while. I knew the driver was supposed to call me, but I couldn’t wait any longer, so I stepped outside. He saw me and stepped out of the car — he was wearing a tuxedo! — to open the car door for me. What service! He apologized profusely for being late and blamed it on his GPS (I’ve never had a problem with GPS finding my house before, but okay). He kept apologizing the entire 40-minute ride to the television station! I managed to get him to talk about something else eventually, but he even apologized as he was letting me out of the car. Oy.

We finally got to the station, which wasn’t the major Fox outlet that I thought it was going to be. I was expecting a bustling news room and a table full of pastries and coffee (I was getting hungry). Instead, it was just a small video company that does satellite links to news stations (among other things). They had a tiny bit of coffee left, which OCP’s Executive Director, David, shared with me, and about a dozen large jars of candies and pretzels. I popped a mint into my mouth while we were waiting.

Fox and Friends was playing in the waiting room, and we heard the first teaser to our segment: “Coming up: we talk to the pastor that started the Messiah in a mall trend.” Pastor? I looked at David.

“I think he must have said ‘master,’” David said. We both shrugged it off.

All too quickly, they were ready for us to get set up for our interview. The actual show was going on in New York (where I’m SURE there were pastries and coffee!), and we would be joining them through the magic of television. We were ushered into a dark, windowless room with nothing but two chairs, a backdrop of the Philadelphia skyline and a remote-controlled camera. The woman who was running everything (the only person in the office!) helped us put our microphones on and earbuds in, but she would be controlling the audio and visual feeds from outside the room.

I thought for sure we would see ourselves or the anchors on a monitor, but everything was turned off. So I stared into the black hole of the camera and listened to the newscast through my earbud. We heard another teaser for our segment: “Coming up next: we reported on the flash mob Messiah yesterday; now we meet the pastor who started it all. Filled with God, he joins us live.”

David and I looked at each other and giggled.

Every once in a while, the audio would be interrupted by a producer asking us to count or say our names for a sound check. David made sure to mention he was the Executive Director of the Opera Company of Philadelphia, not a pastor. And about a minute before our segment started, the anchor who was interviewing us (Steve Doocy) asked us a few questions about ourselves and the Random Act of Culture at Macy’s.

And then we were on. It went by so fast. Keep smiling, Maren. Keep your answers short. Be yourself. I had a few things that I had already planned to say in my head, and they came out almost exactly the way I wanted them to.

Success! Three minutes later, we were done, and the producer was burning a DVD. I got back in my black sedan, resisted the urge to say, “Home, James,” and arrived at my house before my husband had even gotten out of bed.

Not bad for an early morning, if I do say so myself.

Until this summer.

That’s when Mike Bolton (no, not that one) from the Opera Company of Philadelphia asked me to co-host In Tune, the podcast for OCP’s upcoming productions.

So I sat down in the studio and recorded podcasts for the operas in the 2010-11 season: Otello, Romeo & Juliet, Tosca, The Cunning Little Vixen, and Phaedra.

What fun I had! Mike and I were very comfortable around each other, and we managed to get everything recorded in two sessions.

Anyway, if you are interested in listening to the podcasts, go to the OCP website and download the sound files. I guarantee you’ll learn some cool things about opera!

C.A. Thayer

From Ghirardelli Square, I walked down to the waterfront, and took in the view of the C.A. Thayer, a three-masted schooner that is a part of the Maritime Museum at Fisherman’s Wharf. I spent the night on the C.A. Thayer with my class when I was in third grade. We all pretended that we were whalers on the way to Washington, and we learned sea shanties and how to tie knots. She sat there in the harbor, calm and proud, as I viewed her from the hill. I hope elementary classes still spend the night on board; it was a wonderful experience that made me appreciate ships greatly.

War Memorial Opera House

I had some appointments downtown, so I drove towards the Civic Center and parked in another lot (street parking in San Francisco is about as scarce as it is in Philadelphia). I walked to Davies Symphony Hall and the War Memorial Opera House, where I spent so much of my time singing in the San Francisco Girls Chorus. Circumnavigating these structures, I realized that in my childhood memories, everything was so much taller! Not that any of these buildings are small, mind you…but they certainly looked much less intimidating as an adult.

View from the opera house stage door

I remember everything about that opera house. While I was in the SF Girls Chorus, I got to be in the children’s chorus for Carmen, La Boheme, I Pagliacci, Cavalleria Rusticana, Werther (where I made my SF Opera debut and performed with Alfredo Kraus and Renata Scotto) before I grew taller than the five-foot maximum height. I also remember exiting the stage door by the courtyard and seeing my mom’s car waiting for me, all prepped with pillows and blankets so I could sleep on the way home.

After my trip down memory lane, I met with a friend from Philadelphia who had just moved to the Bay Area, and then I went to sing at a performance class at the San Francisco Conservatory. The class was run by Marcie Stapp, a renowned vocal coach (and the wife of a colleague of mine), and it was an opportunity for students and professionals alike to work on their audition skills.

If you are in the San Francisco area and are interested in working on your operatic rep, you should come to this class. It’s very informal, informative, and the group is supportive. Because it was summertime, the class was pretty empty (only 6 people), but it apparently gets very full once the regular season begins.

Somewhere, hidden in the fog, is the Golden Gate Bridge.

Now that I’m back home, I feel like it’s apropos that I am ending my SF tour with a story about singing…after all, I left San Francisco to sing in college, and this time I left to come back to Philadelphia and my singing career here. But I’ll always love San Francisco, and I will miss the smell of eucalyptus and salt air. As I swelter in this humidity back on the East Coast, I will miss the cool, cool fog most of all.

But until now, I’ve been fortunate enough to not have to drive in a winter storm. Usually by the time the weathermen are predicting the coming of the ice age, I am already well-ensconced in my cocoon of blankets, sipping on hot tea. Not so last night.

I was on my way from work to pick up a little dinner before heading into Philadelphia to sing the roles of Flora and Annina in La Traviata at the High Note Cafe, when I skidded on some black ice and ran into a telephone pole. But it didn’t end there; hitting the pole only sent me back into the street to end up facing the wrong way on the shoulder.

Now, before you start worrying, I wasn’t really going that quickly, so the impact was really not bad at all.  I’m fine, I didn’t hit anyone, and the car doesn’t even have a dent (you’ve gotta love those plastic Saturns!).  But it did shake me up a bit.

After making sure my car was, indeed, okay, I made my way SLOWLY to the place I was planning on grabbing some dinner.  I phoned Ray and told him what happened, and he told me I should ask whether or not the show was still on.  I had never thought of that.  Why would someone cancel a show because of weather?  And why would I not continue on my journey?  I mean, don’t they say “the show must go on” for a reason?  I inwardly guffawed, but I called the guy in charge just to make sure.

The show manager said there was no change, and that the show would go on.  He seemed concerned when I told him I ran into a telephone pole, but not so concerned, obviously, to tell me to go home.  I expected that reaction and ordered my food and studied my music.

About 20 minutes later, Ray called again and told me that NJ emergency management was telling everyone to get off the roads and go home.  He said I should call the show manager again and tell him I wasn’t coming.  Although I was loathe to do it, Ray convinced me by telling me the traffic was so bad that it would have taken me 2-3 hours to make the normally 30-minute trip in (and besides, he said, I was worth a lot more to him in one piece than any money I could have made on this gig).  I called the show manager, who was very clearly upset.  But in the end, he understood, and told me that depending on who showed up, they might just do a concert of highlights from the opera.  Good idea, I thought, as I packed up my things and started my journey home.

In the ten miles between the restaurant and my house, I don’t think I drove faster than 25 MPH.  It’s possible that when I got on the highway, I was cruising at 30, but that was definitely my top speed.  And when I got home, Ray told me he was happy I was safe, and I wrapped myself in my cocoon of blankets and sipped hot tea.

I’d never done anything like this in my life, which is odd, because I have done a lot of bizarre stuff to further my career, including singing sea shanties on a tall ship, unknowingly impersonating a Sephardic Jew, and unwittingly auditioning for a “gentleman’s club” revue. This opera gig ranks up there in the top ten adventures for sure.

Not that the gig itself was bizarre. It was incredibly straightforward: a read-through, with piano, of the opera in its entirety (okay, with a few of the chorus bits cut) for the audience who had come for an evening of Italian food and opera. What a great combination!

And for a singer, this is a wonderful no-pressure opportunity to learn a role and sing it all the way through, knowing that you’ll get accolades from an appreciative audience, even if you didn’t sound like you just won the Met competition.  And you get paid, so it really is a win-win situation.

I had been asked to sing this role last week, and I was told that it really was an easy role and incredibly low pressure.  I didn’t even have to show up to the rehearsal, I was told (which was good, because I was out of town the weekend of the rehearsal). And because I’m very confident in my sight-reading skills (and Alice is not a large part at all) I don’t think I really spent a whole lot of time learning the part, even though I had a week to prepare.  Oh, I listened to a recording and looked through the music, but that’s about it…I didn’t really learn any of it at all.

So when I arrived backstage at the “green room” (the apartment above the restaurant), I was not surprised that everybody was relaxing.  Then someone mentioned cuts in the score that they had gone over in the rehearsal that I missed, and I started to panic a bit.  I tried to write down all the cuts that the pianist had in his score, but while he was doing that (and going over tempi with me), the guy who hired me was going over staging (well, okay, entrances and exits; it’s a teeny tiny space).  And I’m not too good with multi-tasking, so I know I missed a few cuts and a few staging bits, but I figured I’d just wing it.

And wing it I did.  No, it was not my best performance, but it was certainly fun, and if I got a chance to do it again, I would (although I would be more comfortable with the music next time). I think I messed up some of the “staging,” and I sang one of Lucia’s lines in the recitative accidentally, but nobody cared.  There was even a woman in the audience that wanted everyone’s autograph afterwards.  All in all, a pretty nice night.