SmARTy Pants

Once again this summer, Opera Cleveland is part of The Cleveland Foundation's SmART in the City program.

We're leading a site for the 6-week arts day camp for 5th and 6th grade students from the Cleveland Municipal School District. I'll no doubt be stopping by and hanging out with the campers this summer (if just to escape my menial office tasks...cleaning the fridge, really, guys???)

We also have three Opera Cleveland artists that will be visiting each SmART site with a educational (but fun!) performance.

I can personally vouch for the fun aspect, as the staff sat in on their final rehearsal yesterday.


Singers Adele Karam and Michael Ryan showed us how to write a song. (I'm sure this will be useful for the kids, but I'm quite familiar with musical construction, given the work I've done on my original opera Il Pollo.)


Actor Sean Booker is the animated narrator.


His cutie-pie daughter filled in as a camper, as Adele sang.


What's opera without a love song?
(Nixon in China, perhaps? We'll give the 5th and 6th graders a few years before we introduce them to that one.)

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ON WITH THE SHOW

Headline writers love a story that is ripe for potential puns. I'm sure they were all over this story about soprano Joyce DiDonato breaking her leg during a performance of The Barber of Seville. (Hence, the title of the article: All-star cast: Opera fans to see DiDonato perform with plaster.)

"DiDonato, who sings the lead female role of Rosina in the Covent Garden performances, slipped on stage during a scene change towards the end of the first act on Saturday night.

She completed the performance with the aid of a stick and a crutch. An announcement was made after the interval that she had sprained her ankle, but was determined to complete the performance. When she reappeared singing Rosina's line 'I've a cramp in my foot', the audience's applause briefly halted the show."

My sympathies to Joyce and her broken fibula, but you know how I love stage anecdotes like these. It made me think of the interview with Falstaff's Production Stage Manager Valerie Wheeler. She shared some opera follies:

"A singer portraying a nun accidentally got her wimple caught in the door as she entered because I called the cue to close the door too soon. The wimple actually jammed the door. After several attempts at discretely getting her wimple free, she gave up and simply sang the entire scene with her head caught in the door. What else was a nun to do?

In another production, the main curtain got stuck on the way out (read, not my fault). It only got as high as the singers waists before snagging. The music had started, the singers were singing, but all the audience could see were the singers legs. Some of the singers actually squatted down to sing under the curtain. We had to stop the show, fix the curtain, and start over."

I feel like this post deserves a hearty ba-dum-ching.

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MEET GIACOMO

Someone from my (admittedly, large) fan base thought I might be a little lonely now that Falstaff is done and Don Giovanni doesn't start until the fall. (Is the pile of empty Jack Daniels bottles and Schlitz cans in my coop some sort of indication??)

So he brought me a peep to hang out with. (A peep that is not constructed of corn syrup and gelatin, thus preventing any more peep tragedies.)



His name is Giacomo. (Actually, his name is Ron, but I think it's clear by the photo here just who is alpha friend in this relationship. So I shall call him whatever I choose, and I choose Giacomo.)

G and I will be painting the Cleve red, white and blue this weekend; Happy Fourth of July!

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THE SWEET LIFE OF AN OPERA-LOVING CHICKEN

There is a documentary all about ME! (Well, about my people anyway, and by people, I mean chickens.)

The Natural History of the Chicken is a PBS program and it is utterly fascinating. I am particularly fond of the segment about Cotton, the opera-loving chicken, who is gratuitously pampered. (I really don't understand why I don't get that sort of treatment.)

You can see Cotton starting at minute 5 in this part of the video:



See him watching Pavarotti around minute 8:30.

That's the life.
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GREAT SHAKES

(photo by: Eric Mull)

All the Shakespeare fans in the house, say "Heyyyy!"

Where would we be without Bill? Not only would legions of students be deprived of learning just what the heck iambic pentameter is. Our cultural lexicon would be devoid of "to be or not to be..." and "out damn spot!" And the millions of other artistic works that appropriated and purloined plots, characters and inspiration from Shakespearean writing would not be.*

Alas, Leo DiCaprio would have never debased the character Romeo and Kenneth Branagh's filmography would be decidedly shorter.

And there would be no Falstaff!

Falstaff was not based on just one Shakespearean work. The character Falstaff appears in different forms in three works: Henry IV (part 1), Henry IV (part 2), and The Merry Wives of Windsor. While the opera's plot stems mostly from The Merry Wives, elements from Henry IV are also incorporated. (Interestingly, Henry IV is set in medieval England, while The Merry Wives is set in the Elizabethan era when Shakespeare wrote--his only contemporary play.)

I think you'll agree--if you've seen the opera--that there's much more to Falstaff than his belly and his ribaldry. In this chicken's humble opinion (okay, so none of my opinions are really humble, per se), he is one of Shakespeare's most interesting and deep characters.

I'm actually a little surprised and disappointed that Falstaff hasn't been appropriated more often in the arts. But he DID get a [now-defunct] beer named after him. Oh, the glory.




*Of course, there is speculation that Shakespeare was a purloiner himself...

THEY LOVE US, THEY REALLY LOVE US!

Apparently I'm not the only one who is gushing about Falstaff. Our opening weekend audiences loved it, too!

We got the critical validation, in Don Rosenberg at the PD: " On both dramatic and musical levels, this is a 'Falstaff' of fine imagination, grace and vibrancy."

And at ClevelandClassical.com: "Falstaff was memorable for the general vocal excellence of its singers and their tight interaction as an ensemble. This show was well cast, well rehearsed and well executed."

Then there's comments from patrons like:

"Your orchestra was splendid. I could hear the gold clanking, the wine coursing throughout Falstaff's body and so much more magic that Verdi created."

and more to the point:
"THE BEST PRODUCTION OF "FALSTAFF" I HAVE EVER SEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A great way to start the week!

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BLOGGING ABOUT BLOGGING

We are getting so meta around here.

Last night's dress rehearsal was a pioneering social media experience for Opera Cleveland. A few handfuls of area bloggers/Twitter users came out to enjoy and comment on the opera. We gave them full access to the house and to backstage, (where they hopefully met me!)

I spent the morning reading their Twitter updates and blog posts about their experience, and it was so fun to see everything through different eyes.

If you have a Twitter account, you can read the updates here.

Adam Harvey at Organic Mechanic posted a cool blog post about the evening, along with photos, including a sketch by Debbie Gill that she did while watching the opera:



John Heaney at Orange Envelopes tweeted with this backstage image:


Kevin Cronin over at RealNeo posted this and noted "a great opportunity, to see the behind the scenes wrangling and appreciate both the backstage and on stage professionalism."

John Farina was the prolific Twitter-er of the evening, whose tweets included: "I was very excited to actually see Carl the Opera Chicken tonight!" (duh, who wasn't?) and "This feels like I'm doing a 'pop-up video' on VH1." (oooh, great idea--Pop-Up Opera!)

Scott Piepho and his daughter hiked up from Akron. (Click here to read perhaps the only blog post to reference both opera and Chumbawumba.)

We also had Eric Purcell, Tech Czar Michael DeAloia, Alexa Marinos at Cleveland's a Plum (no, you are!), Stacy "I told you no Pantone colors!" Mallardi-Stajcar and Rick Pollack--and their guests--hanging out.

Thanks to everyone who came!
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LIVE FROM THE STATE THEATRE...

Falstaff bullies Bardolph.



The Merry Wives. (I want some of whatever makes them so merry.)

LIVE FROM THE STATE THEATRE...BACKSTAGE

My dear Valerie, working at the Stage Manager Booth, with the ever-present stopwatch.


Hmmmm...props or singers' everyday accessories?


Milena's stage right booth and her cues. (Stage managers keep Post-Its in business.)

LIVE FROM THE STATE THEATRE...

This is what rehearsals are for, troubleshooting things like backward surtitles.

LIVE FROM THE STATE THEATRE...IT'S FALSTAFF!

Before the downbeat of the production, we have a "Pre-show," in which all the cast gradually comes onto stage--as themselves.


It helps establish the blurring of reality and fiction that underlies Falstaff.



In the pre-show, the singers even interact with the audience.


A really cool way to start the show, eh?

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AROUND NOON WITH CARLSTAFF

Today I joined Dean, Anya, Gaetan and Victor at 90.3 WCPN (go NPR!) for their interview on Around Noon. I met a fellow opera fan, Dan Polletta, who interviewed the singers.


If you tune in on Monday at noon (natch), you'll get a sneak peek listen at Anya's and Victor's fan-frickin'-tastic voices and hear an interesting interview.

If you miss it, you are clearly a slanderous, dread-bolted, mildewed ear, but you can catch it at your leisure online.


Are you wondering why I look a little...different in the group photo? Take a closer look:

I'm Carlstaff!! Anya made me my own fat suit and antler hat. (Doesn't this mean I'm officially his understudy now??)

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