The Jacobs Opera and Ballet Theater will premiere Jonathan Dove’s “Mansfield Park” beginning Friday at the Musical Arts Center as part of IU’s larger celebration of Jane Austen’s 250th birthday. The opera will have four showings, two this weekend at IU and two more Feb. 21 and 22 at the Madam Walker Legacy Center in Indianapolis.
Based on the 1814 Jane Austen novel, “Mansfield Park” made its operatic debut in 2011 with the Heritage Opera in the United Kingdom.
The novel follows a 10-year-old impoverished Fanny Price as she is sent to live with her wealthy aunt and uncle. Throughout the novel, Price navigates the complex social dynamics of early 19th century England.
Within the operatic version, Dove condensed the robust novel into a two-act opera, changing scenes and excluding characters to fit the overarching narrative of the opera. The director, Michael Shell, explained the opera does not show Price growing up. Instead, it begins when she is older, starting the story when the Crawfords move next door.
“It tries to focus the drama on the moral struggle between desire and our inner guide, our inner focus of who we are,” Shell said. “So that drama of Henry and Mary sort of infiltrating this, the calm and peace, or supposed serenity of Mansfield Park and sort of disrupting things.”
Throughout the opera, Price finds her usual calm reserve beginning to crack as her family pressures her to marry Henry Crawford. Within the novel, Austen gave readers a look into the inner workings of Price’s mind.
Yet operatic audiences cannot read Price’s mind as she gradually feels more annoyed with those around her, and Pelagia Pamel, one of the actresses playing Price, ran into this problem last November as rehearsals began.
Pamel, a second-year master’s student studying voice performance, said finding a middle ground between showcasing Price’s annoyance while keeping her shy demeanor was a large part of her preparation for the role.
“I think a lot of that comes down to body language and subtle reactions,” Pamel said. “There is a lot of meaning behind all those gestures.”
Pamel dedicated large amounts of rehearsal time to making sure she emphasized certain words, indicating her true inner emotions early on. As "Mansfield Park" continues into the second act, she slowly has bigger gestures and grander reactions.
Opposite Price’s reserved demeanor, another character named Mary Crawford serves as her outgoing, charismatic foil. Emma DiSanto, a second year master’s student studying vocal performance, will play Crawford on Feb. 14.
DiSanto said working on “Mansfield Park” has been a unique experience, differing from the seven other operas she has performed at IU. In contrast to her roles in previous operas, this one is a newly released piece, featuring modern music styles and a more whimsical tone than the other operas she has done, which have been mainly composed in the 1700s and featured heavier-toned music.
"Everything fits together like a puzzle. That’s the best way I can describe Baroque opera,” DiSanto said. “Then you have modern opera, which Jonathan Dove has now, where everything is very fitting, like a film score.”
Between each scene, Shell has actors come onstage to announce the chapters as they begin, piecing the opera together like a book. Shell credits this idea to the Greek chorus in Grecian plays, where the chorus serves as a collective voice to comment on what is happening within the play.
Additionally, Shell has characters build the simplistic set onstage throughout the show, stacking chairs together and moving the set around in front of audience.
“That allowed me to make them not only sort of living in the moments, but also creating the moments physically,” Shell said. “The characters are creating the environments.”
Shell believes “Mansfield Park” works well as complimentary piece to IU Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance’s play rendition of “Pride and Prejudice,” which opens Friday in Ruth N. Halls Theatre.
“Also, I think sort of the fact that we’re both doing Jane Austen sort of topics. It would be a really interesting thing to do if you had the time to go see that and then come see ours,” Shell said.
Tickets for “Mansfield Park” in Bloomington and Indianapolis are available at varied prices and discounted to $12 for students.
