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(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Welcome to "Stanton's Garage." It's old and dingy and hasn't been kept up since its owner fled the country to escape the police. But the people are nice and friendly, if you can get a word in edgewise.\nAt 7 p.m. Saturday in T300 Studio Theatre, audiences joined the folks of "Stanton's Garage" outside Hannibal, Mo., on Route 36 for a brief two-and-a-half-hour visit. With plenty of laughs and a few touching moments, the glimpse into the garage made for a pleasant stay.\n"Stanton's" is not a place of enlightenment, nor is it a place where one can be comfortable, but for many of the play's characters it is a second home and is treated as such.\nRon, portrayed by graduate student Erik Anderson, impatiently waits to get his car and leave. Fuming in frustration, Lee and Frannie (graduate student Sheila Regan and sophomore Jennifer Bulla, respectively) have had car trouble on the way to a wedding and their Volvo needs to be serviced. Main mechanic Denny, played by senior Scott Cupper, is nowhere to be found. Silvio, an old mechanic of few words played by graduate student Jose Antonio Garcia, has little to offer in consolation.\nMeanwhile, Harlon, the garage's token 17-year-old errand boy (freshman James Bezy) exchanges looks with young Frannie. Locals Mary and Audrey, played by junior Jamie Acres and graduate student Kim Hinton, respectively, talk Lee's ear off about everything and nothing.\nBy making the set a run-down garage yellowing with age with amber lighting, designers I. Christopher Berg (set) and graduate students Rebecca Jarrell (costumes) and Morgan Brenner (lights and sound) created a familiar space for the action to take place.\nAlthough there seemed to be a lack of tension between Regan and Bulla playing the prospective stepmother and stepdaughter relationship (Lee and Frannie), each had interesting energy with the other characters in the play -- Regan with Garcia's Silvio and Bulla with Bezy's Harlon.\nGarcia's ability to capture the slow-moving, slow- and terse-talking Silvio was especially interesting to watch, not to mention funny and entertaining. Garcia's internal speed juxtaposed with Anderson's Ron moving at a reckless mile-a-minute created a wonderful clash of personalities resulting in perfectly executed comedy.\nAdd in the flavor of Acres' Mary with stories of Jackson, her third (and she doesn't say last) husband, her brash quips and over-the-top one-liners mixed with Hinton's unabrasive girlishness, and the garage is a recipe for hilarity.\nThe only problem with this production lies in the play itself. Joan Ackermann's play is a field day for actors. Although the play attempts to have touching moments, the "car talk" humor of the play brazenly dismisses it. Beyond that, the play's touching moments are highly contrived and almost soap opera in style -- the result in this production being fairly uninteresting.\nBut the play is not really about two older people realizing they're still in love, nor about a girl and her future stepmother becoming friends, or even about a demented wine importer making friends with a genius mechanic. The play is about a very American combination: comedy, ordinary people and an auto garage.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The glint in the eye of the young Winthrop Paroo as he belts out his show-stopper "Gary Indiana" marks the triumph of stubbornness in River City, Iowa by the glory and grace of music. Once Winthrop's young heart is won by the glamour of Harold Hill in Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man" the final chord is struck over the audience as well, and no one can keep from smiling ear to ear.\nThe Tony award-winning musical from 1956 (which beat "West Side Story" for the coveted prize), now currently in a reincarnation on Broadway, epitomizes American nostalgia and its love for music that is purely American by showcasing everything from the Broadway ballad to barber-shop quartet.\nIn the IU Opera production which closed on Saturday night, that same nostalgia and grinning love was also in the air as couples sat cuddled, listening to the melody of "Sweet and Low."\nFor myself, it is difficult not to love "The Music Man" for, 15 years ago, it was my introduction into Musical Theater. But, what was wonderful and disheartening about this particular production was that it was all about the music.\nThe scenes in the musical are dominated by musical number after musical number where much of the exposition is unfolded from the salesmen's "Rock Island" rap to the harmonious banter between mother and daughter in "Piano Lesson."\nFor the performers, to rap a song was as natural as to sing an aria, and with humor and color the words and story unfolded. But, when music was not played or words not spoken rhythmically, the life was lost. Scenes seemed merely to occur one at a time rather than to flow through each other in a natural progression. Each scene had its purpose of getting to the number in order to be safe -- thank goodness there was not more dialogue or the performers may have been lost in lines.\nBut, once the numbers arrived, pure magic is what occurred. The highlight of the evening's music, and most deserved its lauded applause, was the barber shop quartet/school board members performed by graduate students David Sadlier, Michael Redding, Creighton James and John Huckle. The four were tenaciously intoxicating, giving the film's Buffalo Bills a run for their money.\nThe most standout performances came from the entire Paroo family, most notably Evelyn Pollock as Marion, whose lovely voice, natural beauty and stubbornness turned amorous devotion to the dream of Harold Hill's Boy's Band stole this reviewer's heart. Rory Derryberry as Winthrop was a delight, as he not only belted his songs but also had a lovely young upper range that made the young boy much more than excitable -- he had joy.\nHarold Hill's character, a "swindler" and "two-bit thimble rigger" as his nemeses Mayor Shin and Charlie Cowel, the anvil salesman often call him, has very little merit as a character. He is a fake, "A big liar" and doesn't know one note from another. But, his infectious personality takes over the town and hopefully the audience and thus we cannot hate him, especially for what happens to the town.\nBut, much like the show's inability to play out as a smooth progression of scenes, graduate student Michael Deleget as Harold Hill was unable to be as charismatic and slick as is necessary for his character's livelihood. Though Deleget nailed down the song and dance man aspect of Hill, the complete smoothness of Hill seemed to elude him.\nThe colorful, yet very much not IU set, was lit exceptionally well by Assistant Lighting designer for the MAC, Michael Shwandt. The necessary rainbowesque color scheme was highlighted by Diane Buzzell's choreography, highly reminiscent of the film's dancing -- especially during "Seventy-Six Trombones" and "Shipoopi."\nBut, with all of the music, color, dancing and nostalgia, "The Music Man" just did not have the overall sparkle and charm that makes the show larger than life. Great singing and colorful stage pictures do not a spectacle make, and the small complement of pit instruments did not aid that fate. What the IU Opera Theatre needed for this show was the IU Opera theatre -- something that is bigger than life.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
People seem to vanish from life like steam from a cooking pot into the air. At one moment they are a potent substance, able to satisfy and invigorate like the aromas of a bakery or a Jewish mother's kitchen.\nReturning to IU for a fourth and final year is a sobering ritual from which I'm sure many of my fellow seniors are starting to feel effects. One day I woke up and realized that in nine months, hopefully, I'd have a bachelor's degree from IU. And then it's the real world, non-MTV style. I now take freshmen around the theatre department, where I show them the building I've known for three years that, in four months, will be vacated for newer facilities.\nWalking through the halls of the theater -- now as a senior -- I saw old friends as apparitions of the past, telling stories and having histories the new students would never know. I now face the fact that those who brought me through these halls and were like gods to me as a new student are all but memories -- people I've not seen or heard from in years already.\nAbsence certainly does make the heart grow fonder, and I am now realizing what an impact some of those older students had on me.\nI am now saying goodbye to the last of the upperclassmen who stayed the summer in Bloomington, now graduates, about to leave for the real world. By the spring, I think all shall be gone. \nRecently, I said goodbye to a good friend who has been not only a good friend for the two years I've known him, but has also been an inspiring person to be close to. On Sunday, Aug. 26, he left for Chicago and it shall be a long time until I see him again, if at all.\nAnother friend will also be leaving come December. He will take shelter in the City of Angels and I will lose another of my most coveted friends, who not only has helped me through life at school, but a very happy life in college theater. But these are friends to whom I've had, or shall have the chance, to say a well-wished farewell. But Xoot is gone, and no goodbye was had.\nXoot, also known as the Doctor, was a god of yore. The Doctor was an exceptional human being. To be near him was to be around all of the members of the Rat Pack at once -- dynamic, entertaining, soulful.\nHe made an impression, and shall always be kept in my memory as a unique individual unmatched in the world, and no goodbye was said. That's how he wanted it. Open-ended was his style. Closure meant finality and nothing in life is so final.\nHe vanished like those aromas that we remember, but cannot grasp. When my class leaves these rolling hills and buildings I wonder if we, too, will be completely gone.\nAll I can hope is that I am someone's Xoot.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The resurgence of pop music in the last three years has come, sadly, at the expense of the rock and roll medium that so dominated popular culture in the early and mid-1990s.\nThe phenomenon that has transcended beyond the King of Pop and the ultimate Diva, Madonna, into a new realm of pop, has had a watershed effect on American cultural history. It's hit everything from clothing to television: most apparently with MTV's "Total Request Live."\nBut 2001 is now a resurgent year for the rock and roll medium and popular music seems to be waning once again as it did in the early 1990s. This era was when New Kids on the Block, MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and others seemed to drift into oblivion.\nBeginning with the release of "Californication" in 1999 by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, rock continued to have success with bands such as the now-famous Three Doors Down (with four hit singles). Moving into 2000 with Creed's release "Human Clay" (now in its 99th week on the Billboard top 100), a new rock regime seemed to be in the mix.\nBut pop music still had it's roots deeply set in those years as Britney Spears came out with a second album which gained more fame than her first. 'N Sync grew to super stardom with its release "No Strings Attached," which was in the top five of the Billboard charts a year ago,then having sold more than 9 million copies in 28 weeks.\nThis year, pop music is beginning to feel some sobering effects as the groups and artists see that their songs are not having as long of a shelf or radio life as was expected. Janet Jackson's new album, no longer in the top 10 and with singles suffering from radio absence, has the pop icon feeling the effects of her genre's slowdown. Mariah Carey's new album is also not doing the sales (not even in the top 100) or getting the popularity on the radio as was expected (49th with "Loverboy" from the album of the same name, barely a Gold record).\nThe greatest signs of pop's waning lies purely in the boy band phenomenon. With Backstreet Boys member A.J. McLean in rehab -- cutting their tour midway through -- the audience was not easily appeased with the cancellation (neither "Millennium" nor any of their songs are on Billboard's top 100 list). In addition, the group's innocence is now broken by the actual humanity of these men, yes men.\nBut the greatest tale is in the relative unpopularity of the new 'N Sync album, "Celebrity." The new album only hit quintuple platinum according to Billboard.com (a minor feat in comparison to "No Strings") and also faded off the top five after only four weeks with its only major single, "Pop," no longer in the top 50. \n"Celebrity" features the singers aiding in the writing of music and lyrics showing a lack of maturity and variety in their musical abilities. Also, unlike their super hit album of a year and a half ago, there is very little humility in presentation -- superstardom seems to have gone to their heads.\nFor pop music, only time shall tell. But, if Pop Princess Britney cannot score another hugely popular CD in her third time out, pop may in fact be fading. One-hit wonders and close calls like Willa Ford, Mandy Moore, O-Town and Jessica Simpson do not have the staying power of their super star sisters and brothers.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Theater at IU tends to be high quality in production, but it usually remains an untapped source by students on campus. The work is an avenue for education and entertainment, but the theater also provides its practitioners -- here, fellow students -- with the opportunity to voice important (or not so important) issues.\nThis year in particular, IU Theatre has chosen a season that will both entertain and educate. The question is, what do these shows have to say to the here and now?\nFor the Department of Theatre & Drama, the season marks the end of the University Theatre and T300 Studio Theatre, as they will soon move into the Neal-Marshall Center on 7th Street and Jordan Avenue. The building will house the new large Ruth N. Halls proscenium theater and the Wells-Metz experimental, flexible theater space. In saying goodbye to the old buildings and hello to the new, the theater department made some very engaging choices as to how those buildings will close and open.\nThe University Theatre will show "Noises Off" by Michael Frayn in early October and will drop its final curtain on Samuel Beckett's masterpiece "Waiting for Godot." T300, usually known for its more mature and experimental play choices, will open with Steven Deitz's "Gods Country" and will close with the MFA Thesis play of Angeline Larimer, "The Fish in the Desert."\nThe juxtaposition of "Noises Off" and "Godot" is a unique choice -- the former is arguably the best farcical comedy of the modern day and the latter, while a comedy of another kind, is one of this century's most poignant plays.\n"Noises Off" explores that which all of us in the theater know well -- the comedy and drudgery of what happens off stage. Opening with "Noises Off" celebrates the practice of making theater by glorifying those rituals, which we hold most dear. Though those of us who have been part of the rehearsal process know how taxing it is, we also know what a joy creativity can be. "Noises Off" also presents audiences with a front-row seat to the hilarity of the comedy that only happens in rehearsals, which we never see unless the DVD happens to include outtakes. It is saying goodbye by remembering the happiness of the past.\n"Godot" concerns two men waiting in a nowhere spot in an unspecified time for a man named Godot who never arrives (and hence, they never leave). Having the play close the doors to the University Theatre is a fascinating choice. \n"Godot" raises poignant questions about companionship, friendship and our own expectations of the future in an absurdity of Seinfeldian quality. After years of construction and waiting for what essentially was our own Godot, how appropriate it is to have this play produced at the end of a long wait, peppered with expectations of the new building.\nThe new Theatre and Drama Center opens its doors with, arguably, the 20th century's greatest American play, "Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller. The Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork about the tragedy of mediocrity is both a scorcher for the stage and juicy meat for actors. The play is a requiem for the loss of the American dream, pipe dreams once coveted, now gone.\nFor many students and professors in the theater department, a new theater and drama center was also a pipe dream. How interesting is it that a play about the death of the American dream will initiate new life in a theater that, for a long time, was just wishful thinking?\nPerhaps the boldest show of the season is the musical "Parade," by Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry. Only playing 84 performances at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center, the musical is based on the true story of Leo Frank, a New York Jew living in the South who was falsely accused of raping and murdering a young girl. The music is by a relatively unknown composer that is, in many ways, redefining the genre of the Broadway score. The book was written by acclaimed playwright Alfred Uhry, best known for his "Driving Miss Daisy." \nCertainly that show will challenge audiences and actors in a way that is not often accomplished in the musical theatre genre, and certainly rarely seen at IU. Challenging the audience is something that perhaps the theater department has also chosen to do with its T300 choices.\nThe first of the final two T300 productions is Steven Dietz's play "Gods Country," a virtual interrogation and theatrical investigation into the ways of white supremacy and racism in the northwestern United States. The play reads like an infectious trial transcript, and skillfully moves between places and people, ultimately provoking one to question how propagandized our culture has become. The piece is moving and brilliant and only 500-some people will get to see it, mostly subscribers, family, and theater students.\nSimilarly, though I've not had the opportunity to read it, "The Fish in the Desert" is a brand-new play that will premier in November. How exciting it always is to see new work being created before our very eyes.\nT300 is the place where the department allows itself to push the envelope (relative to its audience), but it is always on such a small scale. Perhaps the newer and larger Wells-Metz flexible theatre will still remain the boat rocker. One can only hope.\nBut looking at the Wells-Metz's 2002 season, there seems to be a shift of style in the play choices from T300. Rather than new plays, we are getting a classical comedy from Shakespeare, "Much Ado About Nothing," and an updated version of Moliere's comedy "Scapino." Both plays are hilarious and both come from a rich and under-tapped theatrical tradition -- classical theatre. But what boat are we rocking?\nIs it a sign to come that now with an addition of some 200 seats (over T300s 66) that we now have to be cautious as to what we bring to our audience? Or, does this just mean that in order to test the water, we're seeing plays that will benefit most from the flexibility of the new stage?\nNevertheless, theater will be created, education will occur, entertained we shall be, and perhaps something will "give us pause." IU theater contains a very strong talent pool, ranging from actors to stage managers -- all budding students ready to make their mark in the world.\nGo see a show.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
It is a blessing to know what having no money means. That fact became crystal clear this summer when I handed out food at a mission in Indianapolis.\nThe company I worked for in Indy, United Package Liquors, owned and run by Lor Corp., is the largest liquor store chain in the city. Its owner, Leon Riggs, is a very wealthy man to say the least. But in every store there is a coin drop bucket where it tells how the company will match dollar for dollar for the "Feed the Hungry" mission.\nOne of my co-workers, Ray, a middle-aged Chicago Sicilian man of great wit and humility (who also makes the best Italian food this side of Tuscany) told me that I would meet him one Saturday morning at 9 a.m. to go to the mission with him. He didn't have to ask me -- I was going to go.\nWe drove down to the southwest side of Indianapolis, less than a mile from the IU-Purdue University at Indianapolis campus, to an open lot where we saw many parked cars and quite a few people standing around and setting up tables. This was not a mission in a building, it was just a lot of people wanting to give people some food.\nRay told me one thing before we left, "Watch with your heart."\nNot knowing what to expect, I went up to Lee's car (as Mr. Riggs told me to call him later) and was ready to shake his hand and introduce myself. Lee is a paraplegic, unable to use his legs for the last 30 some years after losing them in a stunt pilot accident. A man who had so much in life did not have the ability to walk.\nTogether, we stood and handed out bags of popcorn and chips to children, women and men. One woman had a skin disease so severe she could barely walk. These were not people you'd expect either, not a single race or creed. \nThese people were those who, even with the food we gave, couldn't keep it cold in a refrigerator or cook it in an oven. Lee gave out the bags of chips and soap and shampoo and lollipops to the kids as if his life depended on it, but also with a joyful melancholy. \nFinally, when all the food was gone and the last of the popcorn had been given, we cleaned up and preacher Lucius called everyone together -- those newest to the front for what was called "the treatment."\nLucius, a very humbled black man of many years, spoke to us in his soulful, medium-pitched voice of the great deed we'd done and gave thanks to God for all of his gifts. I looked at this man of the cloth, missing his front teeth, dying of cancer, who had given up a lucrative business to serve his Lord, tell me that I had a debt to repay. \nThe debt was a large debt, but not one to overwhelm. All I needed to do in order to redeem the debt was to go to my dad and give him a big hug and say a simple "thank you."\nThat night, I went home and did just that and felt as if I'd repaid the greatest debt I'd ever accrued. It was not so much to redeem -- a simple thank you to whomever for the knowledge that at the end of the day I had a bed, a refrigerator, an oven that works and a father who loves me.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
When viewing a theater piece of any kind that has multiple casts, one must always be conscious of separating the production from the piece from the performers. Yet, at the same time, a show also must include those three aspects without distinction. When one falters, all falter.\nI recently reviewed the IU Opera Theatre production of "The Marriage of Figaro" by Mozart where I had many problems with the production values and the way it was presented and performed. I went over the weekend to view the second cast of the opera (every IU Opera Theatre production is double cast).\nWithout retracting my view of the production, I wanted to offer a view of my experience from Friday which I know felt vastly different from the experience of a week ago.\nAs graduate students Christopher Burchett and Sheila Murphy as Figaro and Susanna began the opera, I barely paid attention to the English translation and the huge set that surrounded them (or the lunacy that placed their marital bedroom in the foyer) -- I was fixed on their performances.\nBurchett, whose natural charisma has shown in every role he's played at IU (most notably beyond his Figaro Don Basilio in "The Barber of Seville") was a perfect match for the roguishness of Figaro. He never let the music or character play him -- he made it all work to his advantage and the result was hilarious and touching.\nSimilarly, Murphy's Susanna was very endearing with a beautiful coloratura that only heightened the characters whimsicality. If she could only learn to let go of the conductor -- she continually looked to him -- she will become an outstanding performer.\nAs if it were not enough, watching graduate students Corey McKern as the Count and Chandra Egger play the Countess Almaviva was the icing on the cake. McKern, whose wonderful regality and notorious inappropriateness (as he flirts with all of his servants, one can only smile and shake their heads) also brought a humility to his character through his sonorous and fervent singing. Egger gave the Countess the longing that is the definition of her character, not only with her somber singing, but with simple looks and gestures.\nThe best moments between the two came in the second act when they transcended their characters and became Wolfy and Stanzy Mozart arguing, through music, like a frustrated married couple -- a feat only achieved with Mozart's genius and the brilliant performances.\nI must also mention Lindsey Falduto as the page Cherubino. Though I felt that Kimberly Gratland James was made to play the role last weekend, I must admit that Lindsey gave a very different, but wholly charming performance, that I can only be glad to have witnessed.\nAs always, the hand that one is dealt will often determine the way the hand is played. In the end, I put my production issues aside and let the three-and-a-half hour opera play before me in the seamless line I'd hoped for a week ago -- and this time there was no yawn.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
In four years at IU, I've never had a 4.0 GPA. Not that I couldn't; I've chosen not to. My parents consistently wonder why I don't strive for higher grades and why my GPA is never as good as they know and I know it could be. My brother, with grade weighting, will have better than a 5.0 GPA when he graduates high school in the spring. I'll be lucky to have a 3.4 GPA for my four years here.\nRecently, I was asked if I was in a lull about classes. I can see how many seniors might already be hit by senioritis -- the college version -- early. But I don't seem to be.\nOf my five classes, three are theater-related, and I work very hard to please the professors and do well. Most of the time, I don't do as well as I'd like. My other two classes are the kind that I've hated and dreaded every semester and this year was no different than any other class. In the past, I've taken many non-major courses in many fields that had cool course titles, had interesting reading lists or small class sizes. I must say that most of the University's non-major courses are designed to be complete idiotic wastes of time and money.\nFirst of all, I feel that I've received the right, after having sat in 100-plus person lecture courses during the last three years, to get some personal attention from my professors in my last year. \nI also feel that I've earned the right to a professor that will impart wisdom on me and not follow a standardized curriculum that offers the same tests no matter who one's teacher is. \nI also believe that if I don't attend class except for test or quiz dates and still get A's on those tests and quizzes that something is inherently wrong.\nAlthough I don't wish to mention the current course titles I'm enrolled in, one course I took a year ago, a TOPICS class is speech pathology, has to have been the worst class I've taken at IU. \nIt fell into the category of classes taught with more than 100 people, in a large classroom where individual attention was limited (though the professor learned all of our names quickly). The field of speech pathology (from a speech pathologist friend of mine) is a field that has little to work with at the undergraduate level, mostly speculation, that I had to endure for four months.\nAll I'm asking for from IU President Myles Brand is that, with IU's tuition hike, we students get teachers who teach us, impart wisdom and inspire us with a will to improve -- not classes with a stodgy figurehead who quotes from the book and teaches us nothing.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
Going to an IU Opera Theater production is often a brilliantly crushing experience. Opera regulars know the majority of the repertoire is tragic or melodramatic, with heavy singing and a mix of lighter comedic works from the world's most lush and exquisite composers.\nSettings at the Musical Arts Center are often feats of spectacle in themselves. Towering over the stage, they often heighten the emptiness of the lives of the characters they house.\nBut this season, the opera's shattering sensation from these dramatically impressive achievements is often delivered in shambles. The latest IU Opera Theater production of Jules Massenet's "Manon," which opened Friday night, fell victim to a lack of creative cohesion.\nNevertheless, shining moments do exude from beyond the shortcomings, and new voices to IU are truly proving the opera's season motto that we are viewing the vocal "Stars of Tomorrow Today." \nIn the title role, graduate student Maija Lisa Currie's delicately powerful voice shimmered in every note sung. In three-and-a-half years of IU operas, hers is among the top three voices I've heard and certainly the greatest female student voice to sing on the stage in that time. \nAble to project to the third balcony with a mere sliver of sound, she could also maneuver through the very top of the coloratura and dramatic soprano range. It was her voice alone that allowed me to stay put for three-and-a-half hours.\nBut in a show that long, Currie alone could not fully deliver the evening, and coming to her aid was a cast and production that seemed a far cry behind her.\nProfessor David Effron conducted the Concert Orchestra as a master craftsman, shaping the pre-impressionist score to fit both its most amusing and climactic moments. The rousing overture opened the stage to a light and airy set from professor emeritus Robert O'Hearn, but as the opera continued, it was to be the first of five sets -- each with its own distinct style. What was puzzling was that none of the sets seemed to be part of the same show.\nOne act seemed to take place in the same quaint village of "The Elixir of Love" or a promenade garden from "The Marriage of Figaro," while other acts seemed to take place in the house of Franz Wozzeck or even the grove of expressionistic trees behind his home. Not to mention that in the fourth act, James Bond could have walked right in on the casino and played a scene from "Goldfinger."\nSimilarly, the opera does not lend itself well to an easily told story. Originally produced by the Opera Comique in France, the opera presents itself as a story about love, lust, greed, innocence, the military or the plebeian versus the upper crust -- it could be a tragedy or a comedy. Simply stated, it's not quite clear from Massenet, his librettist Henri Meilhac or the IU Opera Theater as to what the opera is about.\nThe story seems to have been told by guest director David Gately with his hands tied behind his back. The sets are less than acknowledged -- simply dealt with hastily, and the staging reflected that notion. No distinction seems to have been made: characters enter (gradually and in numbers of three for the chorus), stand in their various spots and sing. The movements remain the same throughout with some minor changes. \nVisuals aside, Manon's lover de Grieux, played by graduate student Eric Small, has shown incredible vocal improvements since his last engagement. But Small's voice pales in comparison to the mesmerizing vocals of his co-star, and his acting cannot make up for the difference. The rest of the cast also followed suit by being very caricatured, not characters. \nVocally, the piece is highly demanding (especially since it's sung in French) -- only the three actress characters, played by senior Marcy Richardson, graduate student Jacqueline Burchett and sophomore Elizabeth Kincaid, seemed to have a knowing grasp on the intricate, close three-part harmonies. \nFor Currie, "Manon" is a role of a lifetime and she sings it with fervor, fury and festivity interlaced with an angelic vibrato. As for the rest, "Manon" never quite figured out what it wanted to be -- and one would think that three-and-a-half hours would be plenty of time to figure it out.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
It seems this year that IU Opera Theater productions are mixed packages, delivering both the exquisite along with the dreadful. The same also seems true of the stories of the operas.\nIn Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel And Gretel," the two children realize the indulgence in sweet things and forbidden treats can often lead to unhappy outcomes. Similarly, IU Opera Theater's current production, which opened Saturday night, delivers both the sweetness, which is what IU Opera is known for, along with the variable toothache that it can also cause.\nHumperdinck's work was originally written for his sister's children as a Singspiel (German folk music) and then was added to and orchestrated as a full opera rediscovering the Marchenoper (fairy tale opera) style moving away from Verismo -- down and dirty -- operatic modes of Italy and Wagnerian Germany. \nBut the opera is stylistically very Wagnerian, using similar passages and motifs in the music to help create different atmosphere. Humperdinck also ingeniously created original German folk music even though it sounds hundreds of years old.\nSunday afternoon, music professor Thomas Baldner, along with the IU Philharmonic Orchestra, seemed right at home with the lush yet airy score, molding it to a heightened euphoria when the music was jovial and to a mysterious glimmer when dreary.\nBy far, this opera was Baldner's most comfortable conducting experience in a long time -- the music seemed to just pour out of him and splash into the Musical Arts Center -- refreshing from the usual struggles with both orchestra and audience.\nIt is always a joy to see a Max Rothlisberger, a professor emeritus of music, set design. The Musical Arts Center was his baby and he knew how to design for it. In an opera that calls for the very Wagnerian precepts of picture box staging, Rothlisberger designed sets that enraptured from the moment light spilt onto them. \nThe quaint home of Hansel and Gretel is reminiscent of the German huts one might see in old \n"Frankenstein" films of the 1930s. Towering above the hut are trees -- mysterious and in a way safe from harm, reminding one of the forest in the film "E.T." Finally, in the second act, the playground of a forest clearing is coupled with both an angelic stairway to angels -- reminiscent of something from "The Magic Flute" -- and then with a gingerbread witch's house.\nThough dimly lit by first time lighting designer Damen Mroczek, a graduate student, who added to the mystery with his lights (but, yes, quite difficult to see), the sets were true treasures of IU opera scenic design.\nThe performances from the principles were a mixed bag. English was obviously not a first language for a few of the cast members and the language became muddy to the point of incomprehensible -- thank goodness for the supertitles.\nOverall, the performances were interesting, though not particularly acted well, especially during long passages where the action of the story is put on hold for musical purposes. The opera became sluggish because the performers became so caught up in the music that they forgot about the audience watching them. Such is always the difficulty when operas contain long passages where nothing furthers the story -- the first scene, for example, where the children are procrastinating their chores.\nGraduate students Hyoun-soo Sohn as Hansel and Kinga Skretkowicz as Gretel were very spirited and seemed to enjoy themselves onstage, despite their characters slipping into silliness. Sohn's mezzo-soprano was teeming and made her difficult to understand while Skretkowicz's soprano was a buoyant contrast and made the two together a refreshing pair.\nGraduate student Jackson Ross Best as Peter, the children's father, though only on the stage a short time, gave into the absurdity of his character and made the comedic caricature of an inebriated yet jubilant father work. His stentorian baritone was also a great aid.\nThough the audience ate up graduate student Michael Deleget's whimsy take as the witch (a role written for a female voice, played an octave lower), Deleget's prancing made him look like a ridiculous drag queen with a penchant for molesting and eating children -- can we say bizarre?\nIn the end, the set and spectacle kept the show from being visually bland and the wonderful orchestra accompaniment to the delightful (albeit incomprehensible) singing allowed for Humperdinck's masterpiece to thrive. One need not be a child to enjoy this opera.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
An IU tradition for more than 50 years, the Madrigal Feast is perennially presented in Alumni Hall to patrons wishing for good cheer, hot wassail and seasonal songs.\nOften unknown to students or seen as something archaic and uninteresting, the Madrigal Feast is usually well attended by families, IU faculty and Bloomington residents. But students usually do not know of the joy that the event can bring.\nThis being my fourth Madrigal Feast at IU, not only do I know what to expect and what not to expect, I also know what constitutes a good show, something special and worth the $35 that it costs. Knowing that budgets are tight, seeing a $35 ticket would fright nearly any student from attending. But, when taking into account what the Feast offers, the price of a ticket does not seem as daunting. \nBut, that does not mean that the Feasts are perfect. Union Board, the producing body, has a large yearly budget for their arts and it would not be a bad idea to, perhaps, shift their budgeting and give more money to the Madrigal Feast to further its returns in terms of quality.\nOne thing that this year's Madrigal Feast excelled in was the music. Musical director and graduate student Charles Prestinari chose both traditional and modern music as most would, but his choices gave an extra treat. His decision to bring John Rutter's "What Sweeter Music" and Benjamin Britten's "New Year Carol" added a majestic quality to the concert section.\nAs is usual, the meal at the Feast was filling and plentiful. Consisting of bread, salad, wassail cup (mixed fruit juices with savory spices), yorkshire pudding, vegetables and a thick prime rib of beef (vegetarian dishes also available), the meal could satiate any palate. Topping it off was the traditional figgy pudding replete with rum sauce -- a treat to bring anyone into the holiday spirit. \nThis year's setup in Alumni Hall, as usual, was decorated and created the atmosphere of a quaint, yet enchanting castle. The ambience of the feast is definitely the largest component to making it work and this year's feast definitely pulled it off.\nThe only part of the feast that was not completely wonderful was the revelers. While all were quite lovely and were unashamed to come around to all and make utter, yet lovely fools of themselves, they did not seem to be as funny as they had in the past. But, it must be said that this year they were lacking a Jester and they did not take themselves too seriously, which made it even less funnier in previous years.\nAll in all, the feast was a very nice success -- so much so that I had to pull out my 50th anniversary CD and look up recipes for various dishes featured at the feast for upcoming holiday gatherings. It is a tradition that should be viewed by all students wanting to get into the holiday spirit.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
The Pro Arte Singers, the premiere chamber ensemble of the IU School of Music, will perform Wednesday evening with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of the choir's conductor Paul Hillier.\nThe concert is part of the Basically Baroque Series, sponsored by Barnes and Thornburg, and will be performed in Indianapolis at the Hilbert Circle Theatre.\nThis is the first collaboration of the Pro Arte Singers and the ISO. They will combine their talents along with four IU soloists -- graduate students in voice Jolaine Kerley, Andrew Hendricks, Kevin Skelton and Seth Keeton, and the ISO's Concert Master Hidetaro Suzuki and principal oboist Roger Roe.\n"This is really a new opportunity," Tim Northcutt, media relations director for the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, said. "It not only gives us an opportunity to present a wider range of music, it gives our musicians an opportunity to grow artistically."\nThe ISO is currently searching for a new music director after Raymond Leppard, the music director for the last decade, has stepped down. Northcutt said the search for a new music director gives the orchestra a unique chance to play some music they would not usually have an opportunity to play, both with many of the world's up and coming conductors and some of the world's foremost musical interpreters such as Hillier.\nThe concert will include a chamber work by Stravinsky from the modern period: Concerto in E-flat Major, "Dumbarton Oaks." Two cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach (Nos. 131 and 140) and his Motet, "Jesu meine Freunde," BWV 227, will also be performed. Both cantatas are from Bach's religious music repertoire.\nBach wrote over 300 cantatas (works for one or more voices and instruments composed of duets, solos, recitatives and choruses) -- only one of which was published during his lifetime and only 190 of those remain today.\nAt times composing one cantata per week, Bach had liturgical music for every major holiday on the Christian calendar, as well as weekly mass music. He also wrote secular cantatas. Much of Bach's liturgical work was never meant for the concert stage but for congregational uplifting, Robert L. Marshall said in his work, "On Bach's Universality."\n"I just think that there's something in the music of Bach -- it doesn't always grab the audience, it's more subtle, that I think many people appreciate, both intelligent audiences and performers," Skelton, who will sing tenor solos in the cantatas, said. "It's like you can keep working on the same piece of music for a long period of time, but it will never become boring because there is always something new that can be found."\nThe other two works on the program will feature either the voice alone or the instruments alone. Bach's motet, for choir only, was written in 1723, possibly for the memorial service of Johanna Meria Kees. Stravinsky wrote his concerto for 16 wind instruments in 1938, during his neo-classic period.\nJan Harrington, the chair of the choral department in the IU School of Music, said the Pro Arte Singers were founded in the 1970s to sing early music. Thomas Binkley, the first director of the Early Music Institute, developed the group.\nThis concert will be Hillier's first conducting experience with the ISO. Hillier, originally from England, has earned international acclaim as a scholar, performer and conductor of early music and also founded the Hilliard Ensemble. He has headed the IU School of Music Early Music program since 1996.\n"[Hillier] just has a clear understanding of the music -- he knows it off the top of his head," Kerley, who is singing the soprano solos and duets, said. "We are always having to listen to every other part. There's always something interesting happening in every voice. I just love to sing it. The voice sings Bach so well"
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
What composer/librettist Mark Adamo understands about opera is that it is theater. The great masterworks of operatic literature that are perennially produced in opera houses across the world were written in a time when opera (as all theater) was meant as a star vehicle for its performers.\n"Little Women," Adamo's first opera, is written as a theater piece -- it is dramatically sound, has well-developed characters and is meant to be seen as well as heard. It is thus appropriate that the star in this performance was Adamo, and his opera was the vehicle.\nAided indelibly by both an able cast and the Chamber Orchestra under guest conductor Ted Taylor (like Adamo, new blood and full of life), Saturday evening's opening could have been an exceptional evening of Opera Theater. But the stylistic clash between Adamo's work and the IU Opera Theater production made that prospect impossible.\nThe opera uses two specific musical motifs throughout as Jo March recounts her story to us through flashback. These motifs illustrate the struggle between the "frightened" girl inside and the tough exterior she portrays to all. \nIn an interesting reversal, Adamo composed the role (the lead for the opera) as an alto. The lower register allows for a more mature and stronger sounding character, but the lightness of the lines and its vulnerability brings out the romantic inside her.\nAs the ages of the sisters go down, the registers go up. Thus, Meg is a mezzo, Beth a soprano and Amy also a soprano but singing a descant compared to Beth's line. Adamo also uses the music to help further his dramatic motifs; the close-knit harmonies of the sisters at the beginning, symbolizing their sorority, are then broken and spread across the stage as they grow apart. \nSimilarly, the composer also understands humor in music, as he simulates a baby's crying with oboe reeds played outside of their instruments. He also takes a crack at modern opera productions and their use of supertitles.\nAdamo's opera is smart, works as a piece of operatic theater and leaves one feeling as though there is hope for the future of contemporary opera. It also can be quite moving, but it could have been more than it was.\nThe production design (created in conjunction with the Minnesota Opera) makes use of a small space and is not as grandiose in stature as other IU Opera productions, which in this case is a blessing. \nBut even in its chamber-like setting, bringing the opera to the audience was difficult. More than half of the staging was on a raised platform about 10 feet in the air and at least 15 feet from the edge of the stage -- essentially, the opera took place as far away from the audience as it could get. While stage director Vince Liotta conjured up Jo's past by introducing her sisters in silhouettes or shadows, he did not allow the fullness of the drama to take its complete toll on the audience. \nDramatically tense moments became timid when the performers failed to play against each other. There was also too much standing and singing and not enough listening and reacting. Where a moment between a suffering lover and his unremitting beloved became a set of pacing back and forth, the tension was lost.\nThis is not to say that all was lost emotionally. Three times in the opera, partially because of the performers and partially because of the score, the audience sat in complete silence, floored by the passion and longing displayed on the stage. Graduate student Kate Mangiameli who played Meg delivered a harrowing aria in the first act as she told her sister (upon her engagement to John Brooke) that "things change, Jo." \nIn the second act, graduate student Sam Spade sang a love song to Jo that was to make her character swoon after their night at the opera. Spade, through color and shading, was able to make the audience swoon, as well. \nBut, in perhaps one of the most touching quartets ever to grace the Musical Arts Center stage, graduate student Leslie Mutchler (Jo), Mangiameli, senior Tiffany Rosenquist (Beth) and graduate student Anita Rollo (Amy) came together to beautifully sing "One Soul." In bringing the three ghosts of her sister's past, Jo confronted the trial that had been plaguing her since Meg's first meeting with John Brooke -- were they perfect as they were, or can things change?\n"Little Women" may not be as masterful in composition as a Verdi or Puccini opera or even Adamo's own contemporaries -- in fact, Adamo's music may resemble Stephen Sondheim more in tonality and theatrical shaping than it does most composers of operatic literature. But this piece is one that shall continue to please audiences around the globe, even when its productions cannot match the artistry of the composition.
(07/25/02 8:23pm)
St. Valentine's Day -- that most precarious holiday in our popular culture -- approaches us this week. For those who will either partake in the festivities or hope to, there is a special ingredient to a perfect evening: a perfect meal. It is said that the way to a man's or woman's heart is through his or her stomach, and this holiday, one need not venture further than the streets of Bloomington to find a variety of bistros ready to cater to the most varied of palates.\nTo begin with, I'll share some of my own favorite experiences from Bloomington's dining selections. As a disclaimer, I must say that while these are restaurants I would recommend, they are certainly not the only viable choices. If one desires, for example, to impress his or her love by choosing a unique cuisine (Burmese Gems or Anyetzang's Little Tibet for example), they will not appear in detail here.\nPerhaps the most outstanding of Bloomington's fine dining is the Scholar's Inn Café and Wine Bar, located at 11th St. and College Ave. The quaint atmosphere of this turn-of-the-century house with a sleek and posh interior makes this a haven for dates. The menu is a creative twist on continental styles ranging from seafood to duck. Even their lunchtime sandwiches look irresistible.\nTo top it off, they have an extensive and impressive wine list ranging from American coastal vintages to Australian Varietals to Bordeaux and Burgundy. While they are open for lunch and Sunday champagne brunch, their dinner menu is a marvel. And as if matters weren't already incredible, their dessert menu is not to be beaten. But be warned, on even a modest dinner for two, look to spend upwards of $80.\nOn Kirkwood is another bearer of American delectables. Michael Cassady, owner of the Uptown Café, has been a Bloomington restaurateur for 30 years. Uptown is a cool place -- it's not so fancy that you feel awkward if you're not in a coat and tie, yet it's much too nice to wear jeans. One need not feel bad if wine's not the preferential libation, though they have a very respectable wine list -- they do carry on-tap beer, but it's mostly imports. And as far as their food -- well, any restaurant that has a gumbo of the day is great in my book.\nBut that says little of what they can do. If you like steak, they have steak. They do fish very well, and it's not like fish you'll have anywhere else. Chicken is no problem. Neither is meatloaf and mashed potatoes (regular or Cajun style) -- and who ever said that meatloaf had to be a layman's dish? If Uptown Café were to only succeed in one thing, it's that they make the mundane interesting. And as if it were not enough, their service is top notch, and they're very knowledgeable about what's on the menu, especially those choices that seem foreign. What's andouille? Don't worry, they'll tell you.\nFor those who would like something a bit more exotic in nature, Bloomington is the epicenter for multi-cultural dining. Three of those most special of restaurants are Puccini's, an Italian bistro on Fourth St., Mikado Japanese restaurant and sushi bar on College Mall Rd. and Samira, an authentic Afghani restaurant on the Northwest corner of the Square at Seventh and Walnut.\nPuccini's, as its reputation precedes it, is the best Italian restaurant in town. Its Fourth St. location gives it the panache of a great date place and its menu and atmosphere do the rest. While it has been quite a while since I ventured there, I remember loving all of the food immensely, especially the broiled lamb chops cooked to perfection with pine nuts and rosemary baked in to support its flavor.\nEating sushi is not just a dining experience -- it is a ritualistic experience as well. Making sushi is an art, but eating sushi and enjoying the meal are also an art. Mikado, in the last few years, has come into its own as a premiere locale for sushi. Rated by Indianapolis Monthly as the best sushi in Indianapolis with the most variety, their Bloomington version is not quite as varied, but is by far the best in town. Look for friendly service, many menu choices (especially for non-sushi lovers) and a saki list that I can't even begin to understand. The saki subculture is foreign to me, but ask them -- they know what they're doing.\nSamira is almost a surreal experience in light of last fall's tragedy. Going in there for the first time a little over a month ago, I didn't know what to expect or how to go about the evening. But, luckily, the gentleman who served me was the kindest, sweetest server I've ever had. He made my guest and I feel as if we were his privileged guests and was eager to explain anything on the menu to us. I saw it as a cross between Moroccan and Indian food, having curries and spicy sauces, yet also with a sweet side that made one's eyes feast equally to their tongues.\nFinally, though I consider it to be more of a "first date" restaurant, Café Django on Grant St. between Kirkwood and Sixth is by far the most unique restaurant in Bloomington. Their food is as varied and unique as is the jazz idiom from whence they claim their name, after the great two-fingered jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt. Live jazz music on the weekends, American, Tibetan and Italian-esque styles of their food, and their atmosphere and friendliness equate them with the most interesting restaurant Bloomington has to offer.\nBut if one desires to leave the confines of Southern Indiana, there are a few choice establishments not far North. If Bloomington is not your idea of a good time but you don't want to go into the myriad of places Indianapolis and Louisville have to offer, there is a gem hidden within the confines of Camby, Indiana. Located 15 minutes South of I-465 on US 67 (take US 37 North to Martinsville, US 39 West to US 67, US 67 North on route to Indianapolis) is Chez Jean. Marked by Indianapolis Monthly as the best French dining in the state, chef Carl Huckaby has taken all of the traditional favorites from Jean, the place's founder, such as duck a l'orange, pate's and Chateau Briande, and added a few of his own specialties.\nThis is the kind of restaurant where one is likely to shell out $250, but it's also the kind of place one proposes marriage.\nAlthough the upcoming holiday is not everyone's favorite, and not everyone has a special someone to treat, one can always find a friend or take out the best person you know -- yourself -- and enjoy a wonderful meal from Bloomington's finest.
(04/16/02 4:32am)
I do not walk around campus wearing a yarmulke -- at least not anymore -- but I do go to Hillel on Fridays and sometimes during the week. I am a Jewish studies student. I am a Jew. And I now have a fear that I never dreamed I'd know.\nI've been taught all my life that the State of Israel is the Jewish homeland and that no matter what happens in the world, I could go to Israel and feel safe as a Jew. Now, the world has turned upside down and I don't even feel like Israel is a safe place to be a Jew. One may say that I am an American (and proud to be), why should I worry? Just stay here, where it's safe! There's no worry about anti-Semitism here in the U.S. -- and Sept. 11 had nothing to do with Jews.\nI am not speaking about the conflict in Israel, though it springs from that topic. Politics aside, the Jews of the world are no longer safe anywhere -- I do not feel safe here. The musical "Parade" playing at the theater department and the Thomas Hart Benton murals show us that anti-Semitism and racism are not far removed in this country from our time.\nTwo years ago, hate literature found its way to the homes of the citizens of Bloomington and from the hate, a group rose above to preach tolerance and diversity: Bloomington United. Today, I again need to know that I am safe here.\nThe reason we study the Holocaust is because of one phrase: "It can happen again." This past week in Europe (France) and in North Africa (Tunisia), bombs have gone off destroying synagogues: is this my generation's Krystalnacht?\nThese were not Israeli Jews who are in conflict with Palestinians. The voices of the world are so busy assigning blame to either the Israeli position (which, while a Jewish state, has plenty of Christian, Muslim and other citizens of various religions) or the Palestinian position (also, not just Muslim people) that no one seems to see the underlying world-wide effects it has brought on.\nIf you want a political position it is this: I am anti-killing -- be it Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu or however a person chooses to believe or not believe in God. And I will not allow a holocaust in the 21st century, especially not over a land/political conflict.\nJews in the world are being killed or attacked by assailants that have not been wronged and no one is saying anything. The U.S. knew about Auschwitz three years before it was liberated and we did nothing. Must it happen in the U.S. before people see that an inhuman wrong is occurring? Or are we too close to our own shameful past (that has remnants as close as the '60s) to recognize a wrong as it occurs?\nFor 50 years, world-wide anti-Semitism on a fatal scale was on hiatus. Until I can see an end, I now fear my life simply because I was born a Jew. I pray everyday that it stops; I pray that no one should ever fear their life for having a faith. I pray that anti-Semitism is not on hiatus, I pray that it is deceased.
(04/11/02 5:43am)
One of the most unique times of the school year for IU Theatre and Drama students is the end of the department's producing season. It is the time when theater students produce, direct and act in independent projects. Students flock to work together every semester whether or not these productions are sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Drama.\nThis weekend, one such independent project will open at the John Waldron Arts Center. Frank McGuinness's three-character play "Someone Who'll Watch Over Me" will mark senior Peter Gerharz's directorial debut with a show he said he's had close to his heart since he began working in the theater.\n"It's a play that I've loved for as long as I can remember reading plays," Gerharz said. "It's a play that I've loved as long as I've been in the theater. So I figured the best way to be involved with it was to produce (and direct) it and I thought it was a good capstone for my time here."\nThe play takes place in a terrorist prison cell in Lebanon and brings together three men -- an American named Adam, an Irishman named Edward and an Englishman named Michael. The three are held hostage by unknown and unseen assailants and strive to keep their wills alive in hopes of being freed.\nBecause two of the characters in the play come from western countries where terrorism is also alive (England and Ireland), there is an interesting parallel to the notion of Arab-world terrorism. The two are brought together with all of their prejudices. With the third character -- the American -- the dynamic is even more interesting because of America's role in world affairs. But throughout the play, the cell forces the characters to forget their culture and remember their humanity.\nGerharz said he chose to do the play before the events of Sept. 11 and before the recent conflict in Israel. But he said he believes the play is only made more interesting and topical because of the conflict, while maintaining that the play is important away from those world events.\n"I chose it before because I thought it was incredibly touching and very interesting -- I was very moved by it," Gerharz said.\nHe related that the setting in the play creates a vacuum for the characters within it.\n"Without the institutions that have guided (the characters) throughout their whole lives, in that vacuum that they create in the cell, they're able to see what makes them similar as opposed to what makes them different," Gerharz said.\nThis production allows Gerharz to work with actors he has befriended and worked with before and those he trusts. Senior Blake Bowen, who plays Adam, has been involved with many IU productions in his four years as a student. But this production brings him to the stage with two actors -- graduate students Ira Amyx, who plays Michael, and Erik Anderson, who plays Edward, whom he also trusts.\n"The three of us really feel a vibe together," Bowen said. "With Pete as well, we think we can organically build something with trust. This is a chance to really do that with people we've known and worked with for three years now."\nAmyx and Anderson said they also share the sentiment of working with Bowen and Gerharz as well as doing a production independently.\n"It's nice to be away from the pressures of the university and be able to act with people I want to act with -- work with people I want to work with," Amyx said.\nWhile this is Gerharz's first time as a director, that has not hindered Bowen's experience at all -- rather, it has enhanced it.\n"He knows this play more than any director I've seen know a play -- he loves it," Bowen said. "We all can see that and through that we develop a trust in the fact that he knows what he's doing with this. And because it's his first time, he allows us to help him through just simple questions in a very open environment. It's very comfortable and I think he's a good director."\n"Someone Who'll Watch Over Me" will play Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m. at the John Waldron Arts Center, 122 S. Walnut St.
(04/09/02 5:30am)
One of the reasons that Geatano Donizetti's opera "Lucia di Lammermoor" has been successful throughout the last 170 years -- beyond its star-making soprano role -- is that its music is perhaps the most beautiful ever composed in a bel canto opera.\nDonizetti's opera is a precursor to Verdi and immediately follows Rossini's heyday. It is thoroughly light while incorporating phrases of delicious dramatic pulp and embellishments to challenge any Rossini run. The score itself has many of these ornate incantations and also allows for its performers to add their own -- such was the nature of the composition.\nSaturday evening at the Musical Arts Center, the IU Opera Theater production of Donizetti's opera showcased a rare unified production with five brilliant settings and a lead performance that transcended a scholastic endeavor. But as Donizetti's music leaves a sweet yet disturbing feeling lingering, so did the overall aesthetic from IU Opera Theater's final production of the school year.\nThe preludio marked "maestoso" began tentatively by maestro Imre Pallo and the Symphony Orchestra. It began mysteriously with just timpani and horn, but when the strings arrived, it was as if the orchestra was unsure of itself and the balance suffered -- a condition that unfortunately did not fully alleviate itself as the opera progressed. Tempo choices also fluctuated between perfect and very fast, especially during the Act I duet "Verano a te sull'aure," which sped by before anyone could even enjoy the lingering notes.\nStaged behind a scrim, the atmosphere was brilliantly realized by the set from designer and Professor of Music C. David Higgins. The lighting, designed by staff member Michael Schwandt, used cooler, corporeal colors to highlight the underside of humanity.\nLights washed from the sides and water effects trickled against the rear projections of the Scottish countryside and a larger-than-life moon. The sets looked as though they were all part of an illustrious ruin, from a large hearth and gathering place to a garden with a very ornate fountain to the tombs surrounding Raveneswood castle. Witching woods, creating a thoroughly dark and enchanted atmosphere, surrounded the set throughout the opera.\nThough the use of the scrim seemed to show the haziness and instability of Lucia's mind, it was taken away during the bridal scene -- the scene that finally sends Lucia into the depths of madness. To take away the scrim during that scene minimized the convention, making it seem that it was either not meant for any specific purpose or that it was a mistake to remove it during that scene.\nThe staging of the opera created some effective stage pictures, especially during the mad scene where the chorus and supporting characters became part of the set design and only a solitary spotlight isolated Lucia. But there seemed to be very little actual drama occurring on the stage. And beyond the stage pictures and Lucia's mad scene, the movement seemed too grandiose and stylized.\nFor the most part, the singing of the opera was quite beautiful. The supporting characters were all strong vocally, including senior Andrew Oakden as Lucia's brother Enrico and graduate student Christopher Burchett as Raimondo Bidebent. The difference between the two was that Oakden did not have as much feeling to his singing as Burchett, whose role as a vicar did not allow for much strong emotion. Burchett was able to find those rare moments while Oakden allowed them to wash by.\nGraduate student Alex Vicens was perfectly cast as Lucia's lover Edgardo, looking like a Don Juan tragic lover, but his singing Saturday gave the impression that he was forcing many of the higher and sustained notes. Pushing through the notes rather than letting them float out made him go sharp at times and become out of sync with the orchestra. Though he did this to try and reach more drama with the character, it served to mar Donizetti's tragically haunting death scene in the opera's finale.\n"Lucia di Lammermoor," for all of its wonderful music and supporting roles, is a piece for the soprano playing Lucia. Saturday night, Leah Hunt transcended her status as a doctoral student to become prima donna for the MAC stage. Last seen as Cunegonde in "Candide" -- her only other IU Opera appearance -- Hunt's mastery of the coloratura reached an ultimate zenith during her mad scene in the third act. \nShe sang in a gloriously poignant duet with a piccolo and reached the spectrum of soprano notes. She spun frantically, covered in the blood of her husband and reaching for her lover who had chided her. It is one of the most unforgettable moments in all of opera and Hunt milked it for all it was worth, displaying one of the greatest soprano performances in the last four years.\n"Lucia" for me is a bittersweet opera in all vicinities. As the opera itself is prone to do, this production left me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth.
(04/05/02 3:35am)
To close out the 2001-2002 IU Opera Theater season, the IU School of Music will present a special production of Donizetti's tragic opera "Lucia di Lammermoor," opening 8 p.m. Friday at the Musical Arts Center. Beyond the fact that "Lucia" is considered one of the great operatic master works of all time, or that it is Donizetti's own personal masterwork of Bel Canto dramatic opera, it will be a rare occasion for a new production to be conceived and executed all for and at IU.\n"Lucia," which will be sung in Italian, is based on the Sir Walter Scott novel, "The Bride of Lammermoor," and is set in Scotland. Though the libretto removes much of the novel's detail and many of its characters, the essential story is one of a tragic love between Lucia and Edgardo. \nEdgardo is the sworn enemy of Lucia's brother Enrico, and thus their love is not condoned. To make matters worse, Enrico is preparing to marry Lucia off to Lord Arturo Bucklaw to save himself from financial ruin.\nLucia, who is in a state of mental anguish because of her mother's death, does not wish to marry Arturo because she does not want to cause harm or disobey her brother. Enrico forges a letter to Lucia from Edgardo declaring Edgardo's love for another woman, thereby forcing Lucia to marry Arturo and sending her into depraved madness in the opera's most famous scene.\nThe opera, which dates from 1835, is still a Bel Canto -- loosely translated as beautiful singing -- opera, and it predates the heavy Romantic works of Verdi and later Varismo.\n"It's just a very logical continuation going from Donizetti to Verdi and then going from Verdi to Puccini," said Imre Pallo, who will conduct the Symphony Orchestra in the pit for the opera. "It's Bel Canto, so it catches the audience. It's dramatically correctly constructed; musically it's very special; it has a unique scene -- the mad scene of Lucia -- so all of that together makes for a good opera."\nTo direct this opera, IU brought in the talents of guest director Tito Capobianco, who directed last year's "Rigolleto." He has directed "Lucia" and other Donizetti operas across the world. Capobianco,in addition to being a professional director of operas, has also done much work for academia, most notably the establishment of the Juilliard Opera Center, where he also teaches.\nBut Capobianco also has a special place for IU in his heart.\n"(IU's) the only place in the world that you have this facility," Capobianco said. "Not only do you find this vocal talent, but equal talent in the orchestra, equal talent in the chorus, and the physical facility only Bloomington, Ind., has. It's a unique, unique place."\n"Lucia" has been said to have survived mostly because of its magnificent soprano role in the character Lucia. Even beyond the opera's mad scene, the role is vast and has been a star vehicle for every major soprano from Maria Callas to IU professors of voice Patricia Wise and Virginia Zeani.\n"In each production, I try to use the element I have with me, especially in cases where you have young people," Capobianco said in his fluid Italian dialect. "You transfer ideas to them, and after you take from them also, they are ready to show you emotionally the role. In this case, for example, (the singers playing) Lucia have no limitations at all. I went as far as I can go with a soprano -- you will see watching the performer. They do a magnificent job singing any possible way."\nBecause mounting operas is such a large feat, often the set and costumes for an opera will be built and used several times in production or will be leased to other opera companies. Twice this season IU has produced new productions done at the Musical Arts Center -- "Marriage of Figaro" and "Little Women." In the case of "Figaro," the set was designed with the purpose of being used often at IU with many directors, and for "Little Women," IU is sharing the set with another opera company.\nFor "Lucia," guest director Capobianco worked with designer and IU professor C. David Higgins and lighting designer Michael Schwandt to create a production specifically for this cast, this theater and this production. Such a collaboration is a rarity in the opera world.\n"We spent a great deal of time trying to make the opera and the literature from which the opera comes part of the overall visual impression of the stage," said Higgins, who has woven different visual images such as the moon and water into the design. "It really is a production which has been mounted specifically for and specifically by Tito Capobianco, so it's definitely his interpretation of the work, and that's been unique. Our theater is very well-equipped, we've got a lot of abilities for creating interesting environments, and he's tried to capitalize on all of those, tried to make the most out of our stage as is possible.\n"And I think the results are good. I think that this is something we can be proud of as a school."\n"Lucia di Lammermoor" plays at 8 p.m. today and tomorrow, as well as April 12 and 13 in the Musical Arts Center. Tickets are $9 to $28 and are on sale now at the MAC Box Office (open 11:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday), all TicketMaster outlets, by phone through TicketMaster at (812) 333-9955 and online at www.music.indiana.edu/boxoffice. "Informances" will be held in the MAC Mezzanine one hour before curtain time at all performances.
(02/26/02 4:27am)
What seems plainly obvious when viewing Bedrich Smetana\'s opera "The Bartered Bride" is that the composer was using Mozartian opera as his model.\nThe opera, which opened at the Musical Arts Center on Friday, has a similar Renaissance Comedy story line in which the two lovers cannot marry, but in the end the witty, handsome, poor lover triumphs -- he also ends up being rich. Musically, the opera is similar in form, using duets, arias, choruses and recitatives in alternating sequences.\nThe difference between Mozart and Smetana opera is that Mozart knew how to fuse true emotion, light and hilarious comedy and social commentary much better than Smetana ever could. \nBut Smetana's opera is important for other reasons. Many agree that "The Bartered Bride" is the beginning of Czech opera, using melodies that, while a creation of the composer, have the flavor and rhythmic style of Czech folk music. It is the beginning of Czech nationalistic opera.\nIU's current staging took Smetana's colorful, light music and delivered a production that reflected the Czech folk flavor with some strong performances and well-executed music.\nUnder professor David Effron's baton, the orchestra dove headfirst into the driving rhythm of the overture. Effron and the concert orchestra had a difficult job on two fronts. Having to serve as an accompaniment with such a large company in the orchestra for such light music was no easy task, but not once did they overpower the singers. Rhythmically solid with the feel of a small band rather than a full pit orchestra, they played Smetana's difficult score -- full of 16th-note runs that seem to never end -- as if by only one seamless instrument played by one hand.\nOnce the curtain rose on Professor Emeritus Max Rothlisberger's design, senior Anne Wright's lighting allowed all of the rainbow colors of the set and costumes to become a precursor to the joyfulness of the opening chorus.\nUsing a simple single set on a turntable, all of the opera's locales were effortlessly shifted, leaving no downtime for scene changes and keeping the opera continually moving. Guest Director Jay Lesenger's staging utilized all of the set and kept the eyes continually moving, especially when the character Vasek popped out of nowhere.\nThe chorus is a large part of this opera and they did not fall into the trap of being monotonous on stage. They were bright, alive and interested in what was happening. When they sang, much like the instruments in the orchestra, it seemed to come by one choral voice. Graduate student Charles Prestinari, who served as the Chorus Master, shaped his troupe into a finely-tuned ensemble which director Lesenger could easily mold.\nThough the arias and duets from this opera cannot hold a candle to those in Smetana's inspiration, the singing was quite lovely for the most part. Graduate student Stephanie Dawn Johnson as the ingenue Marenka had a lovely soprano, while perhaps a bit thick for something this light. Nevertheless, her tone was always crystal and her phrasing was varied so that it was always interesting to hear.\nTenor and graduate student David Sadlier as Marenka's lover Jenik was like a swashbuckling Errol Flynn promising his love she'd be well, with a smile to which one cannot say no. When not troubled by his upper register, his voice cut through like raging water and then sprinkled over the MAC like a light shower.\nThe role of Kecal, the patter singing marriage broker, was played by graduate student Quincy Roberts, a full rich baritone/bass. But the role was not suited for his voice. Though Roberts used everything in his arsenal to make it work, his voice and his stage presence are better suited for heavier roles with lush arias.\nPerhaps the two most entertaining parts of Saturday night's performance came from graduate student Sheldon Hughes (who played the role of Vasek in place of Jacob Sentgeorge) and the circus act which opens the third act. Hughes's aloofness and child-like innocence mixed with the stuttering music and movement was hilarious to watch. Whenever he was on stage he was loved and his character playfully pitied.\nThe Bloomington High Flyer Family Circus performed during the "Furiant" dance which opens the third act. Senior Nathan Bick, the director, announced his troupe, which included a real American bear and a real American Indian. Bick's hilarious introduction led to a unique spectacle unseen at IU opera in the last four years.\n"The Bartered Bride" is not the world's greatest opera and it is understandable why it is not performed more often. But if given an innovative production, it could easily transcend its own musical and dramatic fallacies to once again entertain audiences. While this current production is not new, it certainly was innovative and clever when it was created and IU's current orchestra, conductor, director and cast have added their own respectable flavor in creating this piece of operatic theater.
(02/22/02 4:12am)
IU Opera Theatre produces parts of the opera repertoire that one may never see again in a lifetime of opera viewing. Giving life to works rarely seen in the commercial world and showcasing new productions is a facet of IU's highly-acclaimed Opera.\nAt 8 p.m. Friday at the Musical Arts Center, "The Bartered Bride" by Bedrich Smetana will open for four performances, continuing Saturday and closing March 1 and 2 at 8 p.m.\nThe opera first opened in Prague in 1866, but it did not become the opera that it is today until 1870, when it became the first Czech opera to receive international attention. It then began to receive worldwide esteem in 1892, when it was performed at the Vienna Music and Theatre Exhibition.\nIn recent decades, it has begun to fade again and has not received major productions in the U.S. But those who are on the creative team for this production believe it still deserves the same recognition it had when it was first lauded by the Czech people in the 19th century.\nThe opera, which is based on a folk story and contains many invented folk melodies and dances, concerns the marriage of Marenka, a young peasant woman, and Vasek, the son of a rich man. The dowry will pay off her family's debt, but Marenka does not love the Vasek; she loves Jenik, a poor man whom her parents dislike.\n"What's fun about this is that this piece tends to run into a lot of different styles -- there's a little bit more 'Broadway' to it," guest stage director Jay Lesenger said.\nLesenger received a master's degree in opera direction from IU and has since directed many productions across the United States, including the New York City Opera.\n"(This production) is very light; it's operetta like," he said. "It's full of melody that sounds Czech -- there's a lot of these peasant dances and things. It's great for young singers to work on because it does make them work on style. It makes them work on an acting style that they may not work on necessarily in other ways."\nWorking with this style of opera was a welcome change for cast member Jeremy Hunt, who just began his doctoral degree in voice after completing a masters degree in voice at IU.\n"It's fun to do something kind of different," said Hunt, who will play Marenka's father, Krusina. "It is still classically based, (but) it's almost like musical theater for the entertainment value of it. It's a chance to branch out and do something that is not as serious as opera typically is."\nEven with all of the training that IU voice students receive, the work is still tough -- especially on a lighter piece such as "The Bartered Bride."\n"The difficulties are letting go and just having fun," Hunt said. "I started (in) musical theater, and I gradually moved to opera; now it's a different direction.\n"For me, (this is) a smaller role…so it's more of an acting role. It's a chance to expand my horizons as a singing actor without having to worry about difficult vocal riding, which tends to inhibit a performer."\nProfessor David Effron, who will conduct the symphony orchestra for the production, said he believes it is something that all audiences will enjoy because of its rarity and light-hearted nature.\n"It's a very tuneful, audience-friendly, funny opera," he said. "Lots of ballet, lots of chorus and lots of melodies that you can go out of the opera house whistling. If you want a fun time in the theater for two hours, then you should come, because you'll feel much happier when you leave than when you came in"