Rural Opera in Upstate NY

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am spending the summer as the artistic intern at Glimmerglass Opera.  To recap, Glimmerglass is a summer-only opera company.  Nestled in the remote wildnerness just outside Cooperstown, New York, the company annually presents innovative and new stagings, as well as rarely performed operas.  A significant aspect of their artistic talent is comprised from members of the their Young American Artist Program (YAAP).  This program annually brings in the best of new U.S. talent.

This season’s Young Artists, or “YAAPs” as they are lovingly referred to within the company, arrived just this week.  This year there is a larger than usual number; 36 singers and 2 coaches/accompanists.  They come from all different parts of the country, with varying educational and experiential backgrounds.  The one thing that unifies them all is that they are the few chosen from an applicant pool of over 800.  In other words, their damn good at what they do.

So what of the title of this post?  What is “Opera- a rural setting” referring to?  Well, for anyone who knows the geographical area Glimmerglass is situated, they will know what I’m talking about.  To put it into perspective, the closest Walmart is 45 minutes away. There are little to no streetlights on any of the streets.  Most of the buildings one sees while driving are barns.  Even the Alice Busch Opera Theater of Glimmerglass resembles a barn.

Alice Busch Opera Theater

One could count enough wildlife on a daily basis to start their own petting zoo…. You get the picture.  So this ultimately begs the question – “Why start an opera company out in the middle of nowhere?” And furthermore, “Who is going to come to the middle of nowhere to see opera?”

I ask myself this question everyday. These questions especially come to mind when I drive the 16 miles from my residence to the opera offices, and pass road signs indicating “Cow Crossing”, “Tractor Crossing” and the rarely seen horse and cart sign indicating “Amish Horse & Cart”.  With all these speciality signs one is accustomed to seeing on country roads, it only seems fitting for the opera to have their very own “Opera Crossing” sign.  It sits about 100 yards before the entrance to Glimmerglass Opera facilities.

Opera Crossing

At first mention, it seems like creating an opera company in the middle of nowhere would be a colossal waste of time, energy and money.  However, Glimmerglass must obviously be doing something right.  As a company, they have been in existence since 1975, and their Young American Artist Program since 1988.  They have continued to garner support over the years from some of the most well respected names in opera direction, conducting, and singing.  Most recently, it was announced that come September 2010, Glimmerglass will come under the general and artistic leadership of renowned opera director Francesca Zambello.

In my short time here, I have noticed one thing in particular that Glimmerglass does differently than most other opera companies. The difference rests in the way the company utilizes and incorporates the resources of its community.  Virtually all of the rehearsal and coaching spaces are venues within the local community that have either been rented or donated to the opera.  Many of the opera choruses are comprised of local singers.  Teachers are invited to bring their classes to tour the facilities and incorporate learning about opera into their lesson plans.  The examples could go on and on, but in the interest of time and your patience, I won’t.

One last item.  I think localizing art, engaging communities, and utilizing local facilities is one of the tenets to a a successful future for opera, and classical art forms alike.  As they say, “all politics are local”.  Well, in a culture where seeing is believing, maybe having people SEE art and artists engaging their community and its resources is part of the answer to the question of how we build support, respect and value for the arts within out communities and our country as a whole.  I hope to touch on this notion of greater localization of opera companies in a future post.  Happily, seeing what I’ve seen so far, I think Glimmerglass Opera is a prime example of an organization that presents world-class talent in an accessible and intimate setting fit for its community.

Modern Music: intellectual challenge or intellectual bore? – depends on the ear

Last night saw the end of John Adams’ first week as guest conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra. It was the start of his two week guest conducting run with the NSO, and it has been “highly anticipated” by many in the community. Maybe this is why I received an offer for $29 premium orchestra seats. Highly anticipated, or highly undersold?
All cheap shots aside, I do like Adams’ work for the most part, especially his opera Nixon in China, so I for one was looking forward to the experience. The program consisted of works by Copland, Adams, Elgar and Barber.

The first half started with Copland’s “Billy the Kid Suite”, followed by a piece by Adams based on a poem by Walt Whitman called “The Wound Dresser” featuring baritone, Eric Owens, who Adams also cast in his most recent opera, Dr. Atomic. The second half began with the highly recognizable and hauntingly emotive “Adagio for Strings”, by Samuel Barber. This was followed by Elgar’s “Enigma Variations”. The “Adagio” and parts of the “Enigma Variations” notwithstanding, I was not highly impressed.

I listen to this kind of music all the time. By “this kind of music” I mean orchestral, classical, symphonic.. whatever you want to call it, music. All eras;  all composers. I don’t discriminate. So, I always think, if my highly committed musical ear is struggling to hear harmonies and find context and meaning, I can only imagine what the average listener must be thinking.  This was the case for Adams’ piece, “The Wound Dresser”.

The piece was set around a poem Walt Whitman wrote towards the end of his life.  It reflects on his time during the Civil War when he helped care the thousands of wounded Union soldiers on what is now the National Mall.  This large piece of land in Washington, D.C. was used at the time as a makeshift medical station, and the sanitary conditions were so awful many of the soldiers died not from their wounds but from infection.  Whitman was so touched by his experience, and so loved these men he cared for, that he wrote “The Wound Dresser”.

Clearly, the emotional story is there within Whitman’s poetry, and could lend perfectly to a musical setting.  However, I am not entirely pleased with how Adams’ constructed the music around the words.  The music is definitely Adams’.  One can hear that immediately.  And there were moments where I felt, “Yes, that harmonic structure matches that emotion in the text.”, but the majority of the time, I felt the text’s meaning was lost in the tonal clusters and complex textures of a highly talented composer.  The words spoke of guttural, raw emotions and ugly situations, yet I did not feel those emotions from the music most of the time.

Most interesting for me was what my friend who accompanied me said afterwards.  When I asked him what he thought of the Adams’ piece, he simply said, “I didn’t get it.”.  I think that sentiment speaks to what most average or occasional classical music listeners think when they hear many works by modern composers.  The composer’s intent is lost in the over complexity of his/her work.  Is tonal complexity necessary nowadays in order to be respected as a musician?  Maybe I should rephrase that… is tonal complexity necessary in order to be respected BY musicians???  Are composers trying to create pieces that they find intellectually challenging or that appeal to average auditory experience?

Year one complete – commence with summer opera extravaganza!

A little over a year ago, I began this blog in an effort to better prepare myself for my leap into graduate studies in the Arts Management at American University.  Well, as the idiom goes, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” Okay, it’s either that one or the one that goes, “The older you get, the faster time goes.” I’m not really sure, but I like to think it’s the former.  Either way, last week I completed my first year of the program, quite successfully I might add, and now begin the summer and my adventures into the world of opera festivals at the Glimmerglass Opera festival in Cooperstown, New York.

A few months ago, I happily accepted a three month stint as an arts administration intern at Glimmerglass.  I wasn’t terribly familiar with the festival prior to applying, not mention Cooperstown.  However, the opportunity came highly recommended by a friend of mine who did the internship last summer and absolutely loved it.  Despite what the surveys say, my interest in opera has only increased over the last few years, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to break into this field I find so fascinating. In all honesty, however, my first exposure to Cooperstown was the movie “A League of Their Own“; Gina Davis, Madonna and Rosie O’Donnell included.

Upon further research, I learned that every summer the sleepy little town of Cooperstown, (population of just over 2,000 and home of the Baseball Hall of Fame), becomes a northeast retreat destination for opera lovers.  Staging four operas each summer, many of which are original productions, Glimmerglass prides itself in being a well respected venue not only for great opera, but also for helping to develop the future of opera with its Young American Artists Program.

Alice Busch Opera Theater - Cooperstown, NY

This summer’s productions include Tosca, The Marriage of Figaro, The Tenderland, and the U.S. professional premiere of Handel’s Tolomeo.  I am particularly excited about the opportunity of working on the Tolomeo premiere.  It is not everyday one can say they have worked on a premiere.  Certainly, I will blog about this and all my interesting experiences this summer, time permitting, of course.  However, I will be careful and mindful not to have any Leonard Slatkin blogging moments like he did with the Met this past Spring.

On a side note, I have also been asked to guest blog for the Americans for the Arts blog, Artsblog.  Sign-up and be part of the Artsblog conversation.  Look for my posts on there in the coming two weeks.

Bravo to a great first year!  Next stop, Cooperstown.