Words First: Talking Text in Opera

In the final episode of the season, Keturah speaks with director, Crystal Manich, director and General Director of Opera Memphis, Ned Canty, and conductor, Joseph Mechavich, about three texts that move them in opera.  The conversation goes from the specific text to why sounds can be so moving, to how we approach text in our practice, and these three interviews sit beautifully as a trio in thought and structure.

Texts discussed are Colautti’s Adriana LeCouvreur, Romani’s The Elixir of Love, and Maeterlinck’s Pelleas et Melisande.

This episode, nearly a year from the first episode highlighting Guerilla Opera’s first Libretto Writing Workshop with Brenda Huggins, is again looking at the virtual workshops that Guerilla Opera is offering this season.

The first interview is with Aliana de la Guardia (https://www.alianadelaguardia.com/), who is the artistic director of Guerilla Opera in Boston, and who talks about the company’s mission, as well as the virtual workshops being offered.  We spend a particular amount of time on the Libretto Writing Workshop, which is entering its second year.

The second interview is with New York based actor, director, dramaturge, and writer, Geovonday Jones (https://www.geovondayjones.com/).  We talk about his approach to the workshop, his approach to teaching writing and dramaturgy, and his background as an artist, including our Missouri connection.  Geovonday is from Saint Louis, and got his undergrad at Missouri State in Springfield, which is also where he found a love for opera.  We might also talk about how to make a good caponata.

If you’re interested in the workshops being discussed, you can find them here: https://guerillaopera.org/education

And here’s a recipe for Caponata: https://www.themediterraneandish.com/caponata-recipe/

In this episode, Keturah speaks with bass-baritone and Italian diction coach, Stefano de Peppo, as well as English diction coach, Kathryn LaBouff, about the importance of good diction.

Stefano discusses his journey from Milan to the United States, and how he started helping his colleagues with Italian diction, which has turned into a business.  He also talks about the use of dialects in Italian, and how good diction can help carry emotions across to the audience, even if they don’t speak Italian.

Kathryn discusses her technique, which is laid out in her book: “Singing and Communicating in English.”  She also talks about the rise of English dialects and accents in opera, and how she prepares to coach in dialects, as well as how her role changes from rehearsal room to stage when coaching an English opera.

Keturah begins the podcast with an interview with soprano, Alexandra Deshorties.  They start discussing Donizetti’s Roberto Devereaux, and move into Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, using each libretto to discuss how the text tells the story, and how to work within the confines of the music to find an appropriate interpretation of the text.  Alexandra is frustrated with the idea of sounding “pretty” or “cute,” and wants the text to ring true in all of its beauty and ugliness.  She is convinced that the music can help achieve that.

Keturah’s second interview is with playwright and librettist, Jacqueline Goldfinger.  Jacqueline is a friend and collaborator of Melissa Dunphy, who was on this podcast a few weeks ago.  Keturah and Jacqueline discuss this relationship, as well as the numerous other composers with whom she works.  They also talk about the differences between playwriting and libretto writing, and how she collaborates within each project.

Keturah discusses two forms of adaptation in this episode.

Her first conversation is with tenor, William Burden, who chats with her about Igor Stravinsky and W.H. Auden’s adaptation of William Hogarth’s paintings, The Rake’s Progress.  They go into detail about one aria in the piece, then speak about how text and music get to the heart of our emotional world.

Next up is a conversation with two time Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, Lynn Nottage, discussing adapting her award-winning play, Intimate Apparel, into an opera of the same name with Ricky Ian Gordon.  They go into what it was like to self-adapt, why the piece was tailor made for a musical adaptation, and what her experience of collaborating with Ricky Ian Gordon was like.

Lynn Nottage - http://www.lynnnottage.com/
William Burden - https://www.opus3artists.com/artists/william-burden/
Igor Stravinsky - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Igor-Stravinsky
W.H. Auden - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden
Ricky Ian Gordon - https://www.rickyiangordon.com/
The Rake’s Progress - https://www.opera-online.com/en/items/works/the-rakes-progress-auden-stravinsky-1951
Intimate Apparel - https://www.lct.org/shows/intimate-apparel/
William Hogarth - https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/artists/william-hogarth
A Rake’s Progress - https://www.artble.com/artists/william_hogarth/paintings/a_rake's_progress

Keturah puts together this episode from her space in San Diego, while out there working on The Barber of Seville for San Diego Opera.  Before the main interview, she shares short conversation with her cast: Patrick Carfizzi, Peixin Chen, Emily Fons, and Carlos Santelli, about their experiences singing the piece.

Her main interview is with conductor and artistic director of Opera Southwest, Anthony Barrese.  They discuss the lives and work of numerous librettists who wrote for Rossini, including Cesare Sterbini, Gaetano Rossi, Jacopo Ferretti, and Vincenzina Vigano-Mombelli, one of the few female librettists during that period.

San Diego Opera Barber of Seville: https://www.sdopera.org/season/2020-2021-season/the-barber-of-seville
Patrick Carfizzi: https://www.patrickcarfizzi.com/
Peixin Chen: http://www.peixinchen.com/biography-1.html
Emily Fons: https://www.emilyfons.com/
Carlos Santelli: https://www.carlosenriquesantelli.com/

Anthony Barrese: https://www.anthonybarrese.com/
Rossini: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Gioachino-Rossini
Librettists of Rossini: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_operas_by_Gioachino_Rossini

Keturah starts with a conversation with baritone, Robert Wesley Mason, about learning and performing the role of Jan in Royce Vavrek and Missy Mazzoli’s Breaking The Waves, based on the film by Lars Von Trier.

Keturah’s next interview is with Michael Mori, the General and Artistic director of Toronto’s Tapestry Opera, a company that champions contemporary work, and has been operating LibLab, a “speed dating for librettists and composers” since 1995.  They talk about LibLab, creating contemporary opera, what the field looks like now, and what it should look like in the future.

Keturah begins this episode speaking with conductor, Karen Kamensek, who talks to her about a moment in Verdi and Boito’s Otello that moves her.  They also talk about Falstaff, and the frustrations of being an artist during Covid.

Keturah’s second interview is with librettist and playwright, Greg Pierce, who collaborated with Gregory Spears on Fellow Travelers, Nico Muhly on The Glitch, and is in the process of collaborating with Kevin Puts on The Hours, which will premiere at the Met.  They discuss adaptation, as well as the differences between writing plays and writing libretti.

Karen Kamensek: https://www.karenkamensek.com/
Arrigo Boito: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arrigo-Boito
Greg Pierce: https://www.lyricopera.org/about/company/artists-musicians/composers-librettists/greg-pierce/
Gregory Spears: http://www.gregoryspears.com/
Nico Muhly: http://nicomuhly.com/
Kevin Puts: http://www.kevinputs.com/

Iranian-German director and librettist, Mina Salehpour, is in the midst of her second opera with composer, Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei.  He’s just received an IDEA Grant from Opera America to help them finish the piece, tentatively titled “The Three Shapes Opera.”  Mina and Keturah speak about this, their first creative work together, and her thoughts on libretto writing as a director who specializes in devised work.

Before that, however, Keturah shares interviews with two formidable sopranos, Alexandra Loutsion and Alexandra Lo Bianco, both dissecting the strong female characters in Puccini operas.  For Lo Bianco, they discuss the end of Turandot, and for Loutsion, they talk about the meaning within “Vissi D’Arte” from Tosca.

Mina Salehpour, Daniel Reza Sabzghabaei, Yashar Saghai: https://www.operaamerica.org/get-involved/about-us/press-room/2019/opera-america-awards-first-ever-idea-opera-grants-for-composers-and-librettists-of-color/

Alexandra LoBianco: https://imgartists.com/roster/alexandra-lobianco/

Alexandra Loutsion: https://www.alexandraloutsion.com/

In this episode about politics and political figures in opera, Keturah starts with an excerpt from her interview with Director, Daniel Kramer, about Pat Nixon’s aria in John Adams and Alice Goodman’s Nixon in China.

Daniel Kramer - http://danielkramerdirector.com/bio
Nixon in China (Opera) - https://www.britannica.com/topic/Nixon-in-China
Nixon in China (History) - https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/china-visit/

Keturah’s next interview is with conductor, Steven Osgood.  They discuss one moment with Jackie Kennedy in the David T. Little and Royce Vavrek Opera, J.F.K.

Steven Osgood - http://www.srosgood.com/
J.F.K. (Opera) - https://www.altnyc.org/operas/jfk

Lastly, Keturah interviews Australian composer, Melissa Dunphy, about why she considers herself a “political composer,” and what it was like composing to actual hearing transcripts for her piece, The Gonzales Cantata, about George W. Bush’s disgraced attorney general, Alberto Gonzales.

Melissa Dunphy - https://www.melissadunphy.com/
The Gonzales Cantata - http://www.gonzalescantata.com/
Jacqueline Goldfinger - http://www.jacquelinegoldfinger.com/
William Butler Yeats - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-butler-yeats
Alberto Gonzales - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alberto-R-Gonzales
Arlen Specter - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arlen-Specter
Cantata - https://www.britannica.com/art/cantata-music