March 30, 2021 • 58 mins
This week on Key Change, Robyn and Julie invite listeners to hop into the hosting seat with a special “Ask Us Anything” edition of the podcast. With a little help from some friends, they’re tackling everything you ever wanted to know about opera and breaking down some of the mystery that can still linger around the opera-going experience.
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Episode Transcript
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Julie McIsaac (00:00):
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Key Change (00:00):
A COC Podcast, where we explore
everything about opera from afresh perspective.
Robyn Grant-Moran (00:18):
We're your hosts, Robyn Grant-Moran
Julie McIsaac (00:21):
and Julie McIsaac. Hello, everyone, and
welcome to Episode 11, our veryspecial audience mailbag
edition.
Robyn Grant-Moran (00:29):
For the past few weeks, we've been asking for
your opera-related questions.
Maybe you're just starting toget into opera, or maybe you're
a diehard opera fan. We told youto ask us anything anything at
all!
Julie McIsaac (00:41):
And whenever we felt like we couldn't answer
something between the two of us,we called up some friends to
give us a hand. Who are thosefriends? Well, keep listening to
find out.
Robyn Grant-Moran (00:50):
So, today's the day! Let's reach into that
mailbag and find out what youwanted to know about opera and
the operagoing experience.
Julie McIsaac (01:09):
Okay, so here's a good one for starting out
in Victoria, B.C. wrote in andwanted to know, "What is the
difference between opera andoperetta? Who and what defines
the difference?" Fulldisclosure, John is my father.
He's a dedicated listener andthanks for listening, dad, and
thanks for sending in yourquestion! We hope that we do it
justice.
Robyn Grant-Moran (01:30):
Julia and I could probably give you a very
textbook definition of what thedifference is. But we've got the
entire COC team at our disposal.
So, we decided to pull inJohannes Debus. Johannes has
been COC's Music Director forover a decade. He's conducted
Salome at the MetropolitanOpera, appeared on the BBC
Proms, and has led orchestraseverywhere from Berlin to
(01:50):
Baltimore to San Francisco.
Johannes began by telling usthat, for him, he usually looks
to the prominence of text for aclue.
Johannes Debus (02:00):
I would say that one main aspect to define the
difference between opera andoperetta is the element of text
or how important the text isversus the importance of the
music. Obviously, music plays akey role in both art forms, but
maybe in the operatta the textis even more so in the
foreground than in opera. Inoperatta most often no,
(02:23):
actually, I think always youhave dialogues, which, on the
other hand, is also somethingthat we see in opera repertoire
early on. However, then it'scalled "singspiel". For example,
[The] Magic Flute (02:38):
that's, sort of, a prime example for that.
Maybe we reconsider thissingspiel as an early form of
operetta. I personally do notbuy into the notion or the idea
of, "Oh, you know, operetta is,sort of, just the lighter genre
and, therefore, it's maybe notas valuable as opera can be." I
(03:03):
don't think that's true and Ithink it requires an immense
talent to entertain, at a very,very high level which maybe is
one important aspect ofoperetta, where you often have
lighter subject matter. Do youknow any operatta where someone
(03:24):
is dying? In opera,unfortunately, we encounter that
element quite often. So, thereis some truth to the idea that
operatta has a lighter touch.
Maybe also dance elementsappearing more often [in
operetta] than in operas. But Ithink it's hard to draw a clear
(03:46):
line and to say, "Okay, this isclearly operatta; this is
clearly opera."
Robyn Grant-Moran (03:57):
Yeah, I felt pretty much the same as
Johannes (03:58):
it's the "no dying thing", really. It's shorter,
lighter, and nobody dies.
Julie McIsaac (04:09):
It's funny because the no dying thing
hadn't ever crossed my mind,even though the moment Johannes
said it, I went, "Oh, of course,you're right!" In terms of the
whole temperature of the plot,it's you know, there isn't
those same high stakes that weencounter in the opera context.
So, thanks, dad, for sendingthat question and for giving us
a reason to chat with Johannesand to dig into this really
(04:29):
great topic.
Now we're going to bring backJohannes for a question a little
bit later in the episode. But,Robyn, how about you introduce
(04:51):
our next audience question?
Robyn Grant-Moran (04:53):
Pat B. is curious about voice types and
how those are assigned todifferent roles. "Why are
countertenor roles often sung bymezzo-sopranos?
Julie McIsaac (05:02):
When it comes to understanding the voice and
operatic traditions aroundcharacter and story, we knew
exactly who we wanted to reachout to. Liz Upchurch is one of
the most sought-after pianistsand vocal coaches in Canada.
She's head of the COC EnsembleStudio and, in her time at the
COC, she's helped to train anentire generation of Canadian
opera singers, including artistssuch as David Pomeroy, Krisztina
(05:24):
Szab, and Emily D'Angelo. Lizbegan by telling us what a
countertenor is.
Liz Upchurch (05:29):
Well, a countertenor is the highest male
voice. So, if we were to go inorder from the bottom up, we
will go (05:37):
bass, baritone, tenor, and then countertenor. But the
way that the countertenor sings,it's actually in their falsetto,
and falsetto literally means"false little sound." They
actually only use a very smallpart of the vocal folds. But all
(05:59):
male voices have the possibilityto sing in falsetto; it's not
just for a particular type ofvoice. If any of you are Bee
Gees fans out there, you'll knowthat that's singing in a kind of
falsetto. It's really possiblefor most male voices to sing in
(06:26):
that range, and that range isnot as high as a soprano. So,
that range, in the equivalent ofa female voice, would be similar
to a mezzo-soprano. The majorityof roles that mezzo-sopranos
sing weren't originally writtenfor them in the canon of, sort
(06:48):
of, historical, sort of, a good200 years of serious operatic
writing; they were written forthe male "castrati," and the
castrati were a totalphenomenon. In fact, we still
don't really know how that voicesounded and, of course for
those of you who don't know itwas an incredibly barbaric
ritual (07:12):
they would take a young pubescent boy who, sort of,
showed that they had a gift forsinging while they were still
singing in their boy sopranovoice, and they would literally
castrate them. And so theseyoung boys would grow up with
still their soprano boy sound,but in the body of an adult
(07:34):
male. And, actually, thisterrible thing literally went on
for centuries, but at the peakof their phenomenon was the 17th
and 18th century, when castratiwere literally like rock stars;
everybody wrote for them, theywere the king's pets, they
(07:54):
earned a lot of money, they hadextraordinary virtuosity. And
this might sound as if that's anincredibly long-winded answer to
this question but it isn'tit's actually very key to the
answer, because once thisbarbaric ritual was finally and
(08:15):
properly outlawed, they had ahuge canon of operatic roles
that nobody could sing. So, theywere left with two choices,
either (08:27):
they create that role for a male voice and probably
have it sing it down an octave,which, of course, has lost the
whole point of why it waswritten in that particular way;
or have a female sing it. And,so, these women took on what
(08:49):
they now call the "pants role"of the "breeches role." So,
[when] mezzos and sopranosstarted to sing these roles,
[it] wasn't until the 20thcentury that operatic roles for
the countertenor even reallystarted to happen. Benjamin
Britten writing Oberon wasprobably the most famous for [A]
(09:12):
Midsummer Night's Dream. Butthen, of course, the
(09:41):
countertenors could sing a lotof those castrato roles written
from 200-300 years previouslybecause there was such an influx
of getting back into the, sortof, Baroque world of opera. This
all fed into the world of thecountertenor becoming, really, a
short and certain thing in thecanon of operatic roles, and now
(10:04):
probably more excitingly sobecause many more modern operas
are being written for this voicetype.
Julie McIsaac (10:11):
And along the same line, Liz, we're wondering:
why is Rosina in [The] Barber ofSeville performed by
mezzo-sopranos and coloraturasopranos?
Liz Upchurch (10:22):
Well, this role wasn't written for either of
those voice types, okay? So,this role was actually written
for a contralto. And, if youremember, we said that it's
bass, baritone, tenor,countertenor [for the male
voice]; for the female voice,it's contralto at the bottom,
and then mezzo, and thensoprano. So, this is written for
(10:42):
the lowest of the female voices,but clearly somebody who had
extraordinary agility andvirtuosity, which is required
for Rosina's singing. The factis that Rossini was also a bit
(11:22):
of a superstar, and his musichis operas were played
everywhere. And, so, in, youknow, a little bit like today
I don't think too much haschanged you'd like to see the,
sort of, most celebrated singerdo their thing, and, so, Rosina
is really one of those rolesthat now you rarely hear song by
(11:43):
the voice that it was originallywritten for, but you can hear it
sung I mean, really, MariaCallas to Beverly Sills to Joyce
DiDonato to So, you can haveabsolute total variety of voices
and, because of the nature ofthe style, you can lift out an
aria and actually transpose it.
So, when Maria Callas would havedone, the famous singing lesson
(12:08):
scene, famously this wastransposed for her and, of
course, she was so famous ofcourse you would transpose the
scene for her; I don't thinkthey do that for everybody. But,
also, another factor in there isthere are so many different
types, and the role of Rosina issupposed to be a young ingenue,
(12:29):
and you don't often hearcontraltos sing this type of
role. So, it does make sense, insome ways, that lighter voices
have fit into this rolehistorically, particularly over
the last 100 years.
Julie McIsaac (12:50):
Really grateful that Liz spent that time with
us. I mean, she's really busytraining the Ensemble Studio,
and she's such a wealth ofknowledge.
Robyn Grant-Moran (12:56):
She really just reaffirmed for me that
voice types and ranges arereally reflective of the time
that operas were written in. So,maybe this is a challenge for
current composers since we aremore fluid right now, and we're
getting to be more open tothings. Composers, please, write
(13:19):
more music that reflects orchanging values around gender
and identity.
Julie McIsaac (13:23):
The COC actually recently hosted a virtual panel
conversation around gender andopera and this topic about
voice types and character tropesthat came up quite often. And
for anyone who's curious aboutthat and learning more, then you
can go to coc.ca/GenderAndOpera,where there's an archive of that
live event.
Robyn Grant-Moran (13:44):
We'll loop back to Liz for another question
later this episode, but here'sone that comes up a lot: Sandy
reached out to us on Instagramto ask us to explain, "Why is
the Phantom of the Operaconsidered a musical and not an
opera?"
Julie McIsaac (13:58):
A lot of people have strong feelings about this.
Robyn Grant-Moran (14:01):
It's amazing that, decades later, these
conversations are still beinghad and these feelings are still
so strong.
Julie McIsaac (14:10):
Exactly. And we thought, in answering this
question, wouldn't it be greatto go right to the source and
connect with someone with plentyof Phantom of the Opera
expertise? And, so, that's whatwe did reaching out to Rebecca
Caine. Rebecca is aCanadian-British soprano, who
you might recall as having sungthe role of Christine when
Phantom of the Opera firstopened here in Toronto. She's
also sung with the COC onseveral productions. Here's what
(14:33):
she had to say.
Rebecca Caine (14:36):
No, I can't think why you asked me, Sandy on
Instagram! Um, well, let's thinkthis through, shall we? So, it's
through-sung most operas arethrough-sung right? But, no,
wait! Let's think about, oh, TheMagic Flute, which you could
argue is a singspiel, right? Butthen there's Fidelio, there are
lots and lots of operas thathave dialogue, so, that doesn't
(14:57):
work. Could it be [that] you dosix day performances a week?
Well, let me see, Gian CarloMenotti premiered many of his
operas on Broadway, The Consulewon Best Musical even though it
was an opera, so, no, that's notright. It's not a matter of
[whether] performance is mikedis it because it miked? No,
(15:19):
because, originally, musicalsweren't miked. Oh, this was
an (15:22):
does it have a character who continues to sing while either
being fatally ill or mortallywounded, right? And then I
thought, "Wait a minute (15:29):
Les Mis[erables] had Fantine dying
of something either venereal
disease, or (I should know (15:38):
I was in it) or consumption very
operatic! And ponine who, ofcourse, you know, sings a duet
after she's been shot," so, thatdisproves that theory. And then
I thought, "Okay, well, let'sget serious, let's think about
this as "melisma," right? So,melisma is when you sing more
than six notes to one syllable,right? So, that's often opera
(16:00):
you often have that and Ithought, "I've got it, I got
people riff in musicals now." Ican't riff; when I riff, it
sounds like Baroqueornamentation, which is actually
what riffing is (16:10):
it's ornamentation. So, that doesn't
And then, of course, the realthing is, is I believe musicals
are text-lead and that opera'san art form where the sheer
vocal quality is all-important,basically. And musical theatre
is where the characterfulnarrative predominates through
(16:30):
the text the words come first.
And, so, to give you an example,if you go and see [Der]
Rosenkavalier, you just drown inthat gorgeous, creamy sound and
the presentation of the roseor the final scene at the end,
nobody really cares Or thefinal scene in Gtterdmmerung
for Brnnhilde and nobody reallyexpects to hear the words at the
(16:52):
end; they're just drowning inthe sound. So, for musicals,
it's text-lead. That's myanswer.
Robyn Grant-Moran (16:58):
Someone else we thought we'd reach out to on
this is Jonathan Christopher.
Jonathan actually joined us as apanelist on that Gender & Opera
event we were talking aboutearlier. He's a
Bermudian-American baritonewho's worked in opera and
musical theatre. He's alsoperformed in critically
acclaimed operas and musicals atLincoln Center, Signature
Theatre, and Brooklyn PlayhouseTheatre.
Jonathan Christopher (17:22):
It's funny because you'll talk to some
opera folk, and they'll say,"Well, obviously, it's a
musical; it's not an opera," andthen some musical theatre folk
are a bit more confused becausea show like Phantom requires
such a solid vocal technique,and a lot of the characters in
the musical itself requireoperatic training like
(17:45):
[Ubaldo] Piangi, who's a tenor;Carlotta [Giudicelli], who's the
big soprano that has to sing ahigh D and a high E every single
night. But I think, from my ownhumble perspective, it has to do
more with the styles and theconventions of the time: the
original version of Carmen hasmusical numbers just like a
(18:06):
musical that we know today does,and then there are scenes where
there was a dialogue not evensung-through dialogue. But then
when opera companies found outCarmen was quite popular, they
hired somebody to createrecitative, which for those
who don't know what that isit's, like, the dialogue within
an opera but it's still sung andsometimes there are chords
(18:28):
underneath it that are rollingby. But it's not necessarily
melodic; it just pushes thestory from the one big musical
number to the next musicalnumber. And that's, kind of,
what Phantom of the Opera islike as well. So, in a way it's
operatic in scape but AndrewLloyd Webber, the composer,
writes for the musical theatre.
I also think of the show Porgyand Bess, which was originally
(18:52):
performed on Broadway. TheGershwins called it a "folk
opera," and eventually, over theyears, it got performed in opera
companies around the world, butit didn't hit the Metropolitan
Opera in New York until the1980s, and the show was pretty
much labeled as musical theatreup until then. And then when it
(19:14):
returned to Broadway, theconvention of having a show
completely sung-through withclassically trained voices has
fallen out of favour with whatwe deem as a musical, which is,
you know, numbers, scene, spokenscene, musical number. So, they
rewrote, with the permission of
(19:35):
they changed the keys for a lotof the singers, so they were
able to sing them eight shows aweek, and they added dialogue as
opposed to the sung-through, soit was almost like the opposite
of what they did for Carmen,which we consider an opera.
Julie McIsaac (19:51):
Yeah, no, that's a really great distinction!
Thanks for pointing that outabout the frequency of
performances, where someone in amusical theatre context would be
singing that show, eight shows aweek. And, in an opera context,
they might be performing twice aweek or three times singing that
role, and how that impacts.
Jonathan Christopher (20:06):
And the demands are quite different but,
at the same time, they aredemands. So, Christine in
Phantom of the Opera (20:11):
most Christine's are contracted to
perform six shows a week. A lotof massive roles that either are
physically demanding or vocallydemanding on Broadway and in
musical theatre, they have analternate that performs the two
other shows throughout the week.
I know in "Hamilton," which iswhat I was doing here right
before the lockdown, ourHamilton was performing seven
(20:33):
shows a week and his alternateor his standby will perform at
least one show a week, becauseyou're on stage the whole time,
and those roles are quiteoperatic in the sense that it's
it's a big piece; you're onstagefrom the beginning to the end
and, even though it's rappingand hip-hop, that's almost more
demanding on your voice thanusing your full body and your
(20:57):
full sound to project out intothe house, to sing 40-45 minutes
worth of music, which mostoperatic roles are.
Robyn Grant-Moran (21:14):
I'm pretty excited about this next audio
question that comes to us fromCOC's Ticket Services.
Julie McIsaac (21:20):
And when you think about it, that team is
actually the company's frontlinewhen it comes to answering
audience questions. So, wethought it'd be really
interesting to hear what do theyget asked the most?
Nick Davis (21:30):
I'm Nick Davis with the Ticket Services team aka
The Box Office. One questionwe're asked often is whether
production is set astraditional, or modern, or some
gray area in between? What wouldyou say is the difference in
experience between thesetraditional and modern settings?
Robyn Grant-Moran (21:47):
I think this might actually be two separate
questions (21:50):
A) "What's considered traditional and what's
considered modern when it comesto a production?" and B) "What,
as an audience member, can weexpect from seeing either one of
these?"
Julie McIsaac (22:03):
Yeah, great questions. And I find myself
thinking well, asking myself,"What do I mean when I say
traditional?" When I saytraditional, do I mean, "Are
they wearing the costumes thatsomeone would have worn around
the time that that opera wascreated?" So, let's say
something was written in 1780,then is a traditional production
something that looks like what aproduction would have looked
(22:23):
like in 1780? Or, when thatperson's calling into the Box
Office to ask that question, arethey hoping to see a production
that looks like that belovedproduction that they first saw
when they first went to [The]Marriage of Figaro, for example?
Are they hoping to recreate thattraditional experience that they
had?
Robyn Grant-Moran (22:41):
Yeah, those are very different things. And
when we're talking about thingsthat are traditional, it's
really historically informed (22:48):
we don't know for sure. So, if
we're trying to recreatehistory, why are we just looking
to costumes? Should we beturning the opera house back
into a house of ill repute,where people are beer-drinking,
and gambling, and eatingpeanuts?
Julie McIsaac (23:07):
Yeah and, likewise, like, with the Mozart
example so, the operas of thattime, they were exploring, like,
contemporary foibles andchallenging societal structures
of the time. So, should we thenmount an opera that does that,
that challenges our contemporaryway of being and of seeing and
challenges the societalstructures that are in place?
Because, in that way, you'd behonoring, sort of, the original
(23:28):
impetus of the work? So, wouldthat be traditional or would
that be modern?
Robyn Grant-Moran (23:33):
To me that says, traditional, but that's
probably not what people areasking when they ask about
traditional.
Julie McIsaac (23:42):
Yeah, so, I guess the question is, "What is
traditional to you?" and thenhopefully, the person on the Box
Office side can, sort of, share,"Well, here's what the team is
doing. Here's what that creativeteam is doing," and whether we
want to label that traditionalor modern I mean, there's just
so many ways you can interpretboth of those terms.
Robyn Grant-Moran (23:57):
Yeah, I always kind of considered maybe
this question should be more"minimalist" or "present day
costuming" or "avant-gardedirection" for those really
challenging at timesproductions.
Julie McIsaac (24:14):
When someone's asking that question of
traditional or modern, are theyactually wondering, "Is this
going to be something that I canjust go and listen to and not
have to think about very much,or is it going to be something
that, sort of, upsets what I'vecome to know as my beloved Tosca
or my beloved [La] Traviata, andI don't want to be" They just
(24:34):
want to, kind of, go and wrapthemselves up in that cozy
blanket of the piece that theyknow and love without having to
think about it differentlywhich is legit! That's fair,
that's completely fair!
Robyn Grant-Moran (24:43):
Absolutely. I was just going to say or is it
one of those productions whereyou just have to close your eyes
and enjoy the music?
Julie McIsaac (24:49):
[And] just listen! Yeah, but I love that
question about thinking back tothose original audience members
who attended that firstproduction or the early run of a
production, when it was createdin whatever century it was
created, and to think about howcan I get close to the
experience that they would havehad when that thing was new, and
that thing wasn't known to themyet. And, to me, in that
(25:09):
respect, I like it when thedesign team and the director do
something kind of crazy andmodern with the production,
because then I'm on the edge ofmy seat not knowing what's going
to happen the way thoseoriginal audiences would have
been.
That was a great question for usto think on. Thank you so much
for sending that in, Nick. Andwe hope this was helpful for
(25:31):
anyone who has perhaps called into Ticket Services to ask that
kind of question in the past.
Robyn Grant-Moran (25:35):
Now, all of this talk about traditional
versus modern dovetails reallywell into our next topic, which
actually comes to us from musiccritic Anne Midgette. We spoke
to Anne for part one of ourepisode on opera and criticism,
and she wanted to know about thedriving considerations when
programming an opera house.
Anne Midgette (25:53):
I would love to hear an administrator's view on
deciding whether a show shouldhave a more traditional or a
more interpretive approach. I amvery interested in interpretive
director's approaches, and Iknow a lot of audiences are
horrified at excesses that comeout of that and I would be
curious to know how programmersthink about that.
Julie McIsaac (26:15):
Excellent question, Anne. And when it
comes to planning out an operaseason, who better to offer up
those insights than the newestGeneral Director of the Canadian
Opera Company, Perryn Leech. Nowyou may recall, we chatted with
Perryn and outgoing COC leaderAlexander Neef at the start of
2021, in Episode Six. And Perrynwas immediately on board with
helping us to answer Anne'squestion. Here are some of his
(26:37):
thoughts.
Perryn Leech (26:38):
Things that appeal to me, the things that I like to
see myself as an audience memberand to program are things which
have a strong narrative, or withreally well thought through
reason for changing the setting,if that's the case, or changing
the period sometimes. And Ithink one of the ways that you
do that is when something startsto fall apart completely after
(27:00):
First Act, that's when you knowthat it was a concept that was a
good idea but just didn't reallytake through. Those are the sort
of productions which annoy me asa as a patron, because you
think, "Well, okay, it was agood idea for maybe 20 per cent
of the show and then it justfell apart and I've forgotten
about it." So, what I'm alwayslooking for is that the way of
(27:20):
asking me new questions about apiece: if it's a piece I know
really well, it's asking me newquestions, framing the story in
a different way, telling thatstory in a different way. And I
think that if you leave onlytalking about the shock value or
production, then production hasfailed because, at some point,
you've taken people out of thatnarrative's storytelling and
just gotten into the stage ofmindset a mind space, at least
(27:43):
of questioning why you madesome decisions.
Julie McIsaac (27:46):
Do you have any recollections or cherished
memories of seeing that donevery well, where there was a
concept that steadily made itsway through the entire piece and
resonated strongly as a newinterpretation of the whole?
Perryn Leech (28:00):
Sure. I think that there are many examples of it. I
think that there was aproduction of Jephtha, which was
a Handel oratorio, which had aconcept put onto it, but the
concept was thought all the waythrough, and characters were
added some singing, somenon-singing that made the
story and that concept work, andat no point did you feel that
(28:24):
the concept wasn't there, thatthe narrative wasn't central to
the concept. And then there aremany more examples where it
doesn't work and something hasbeen outdated. I think some of
the Peter Sellars updates of theMozart operas, for instance,
I've only seen them on videobut I think that Don Giovanni in
a CEO role, I would say, itdidn't completely work but you
(28:48):
didn't question it enough,because 95 per cent of it did
work, and therefore you're ableto just lose yourself in this,
"Oh, he's got that power. He'snot the Count; he's the CEO of
an organization, thereforepeople have to tolerate the way
he treats people, the way heinteracts with people, and the
rights that he believes he hasare all set within the context
(29:08):
of a corporate CEO." That made ahuge amount of sense to me, as
someone, at that point, isrelatively young starting and
working for the corporateclients.
Julie McIsaac (29:18):
Is there anything that inspires you in particular
when it comes to highlyinterpretive choices of
canonical rep?
Perryn Leech (29:25):
No, I think each piece is different. I think once
you started to say "one sizefits all," it has to be, though,
driven by stuff that's withinthe narrative of the libretto
and the writings. So, we did avery modern version of the Ring
Cycle in Houston, Texas, but itall held together because it was
all based in what the originallibretto and story was, and
(29:48):
nothing was added. And peoplesay, "Well, it was all
modernized up and everything,"and that's definitely true but
the reality of it is thatnothing was added that wasn't in
the original story. And,actually when you look, Wagner
is so specific about how hewanted things doing and setting,
and people, sort of, try andrebel against that. But in real
terms, the story of The Ring isincredibly clearly laid out, and
(30:13):
it is open to interpretation onhow you tell that story, but
[if] you lose the story, then Ithink you've lost your audience.
Robyn Grant-Moran (30:31):
I mentioned earlier that we received a whole
range of submissions when we putthe call out for questions for
this episode. I think it's fairto say this one is coming from
someone with a fair bit of operaexpertise. Zane wrote in to ask,
"What is the company's officialfavorite selection from the '24
Italian Art Songs and Arias [ofthe 17th and 18th Centuries]'
(30:51):
book?"
Julie McIsaac (30:51):
Now there's probably way too many people
with very divergent thoughts onthis answer to get you one solid
one, Zane. But we did want todig into this for you, and so
we're going to go back to two ofthe COC team members that we
spoke to earlier. Let's bringback COC Music Director Johannes
Debus and Liz Upchurch, Head ofthe COC Ensemble Studio.
Johannes Debus (31:10):
Yes, mine is "Amarilli, mia bella." The
simple reason for that is it'sprobably one of the first songs
in Italian that I got to learnor that I encountered when I was
a little boy. And it is abeautiful song. There's always
this name of "Amarilli"Amarilli, of course, is also
(31:31):
this flower, the amaryllis, andalways at the end of the verse,
there's this beautiful melismaon this name, and it's, kind of,
embellished almost likebeautiful flowers it's a love
song, obviously. Later on, Iremember I played a concert with
a friend of mine who was or isa fabulous recorder player,
and we played some sets ofvariations on that song because,
(31:55):
at that time, it was was a bitlike I would say like Lady Gaga
I don't know other artists ofthe genre of that time! It was
really the popular repertoire,everyone must have known it and
sang it.
Liz Upchurch (32:28):
I can tell you that my favourite is "Caro mio
ben," which was written by[Giuseppe] Giordani and the
poet, I believe, is anonymous.
But every voice type has sungthat. If you want to see
Pavarotti sing it which I'dprobably say has to be one of my
absolute favorite renditions ofthis. You can hear basses sing
(32:50):
it, you can hear high sopranosing it, you can hear it with
orchestra, you can hear it withguitar, you can hear it with
piano, there's even a recordingonline going back to 1903. I can
play you a little bit. Just thattune it's so simple! But just
those three little notes, it'sso simple and yet so beautiful.
(33:16):
And with an operatic core to thepoem, which is, you know,
"Dearly beloved, you make myheart languish after you." Does
it get any more operatic thanthat? But it's not actually an
operatic song; it was written byan Italian for a concert, I
believe, in London. Caro mio benenjoy it!
Julie McIsaac (33:38):
Excellent. Well, thank you! And thank you, Zane,
for the question. And HappyBirthday, Zane. We're told that
today, the premiere of thisepisode, is your birthday.
Liz Upchurch (33:46):
Oh, and happy birthday, yes! I could probably
do a version of [plays "HappyBirthday to You"] Happy
(34:07):
birthday, Zane!
Julie McIsaac (34:19):
Now we talk a lot about the COC's mainstage work
and the history of the company,but, presently, the company is
also heavily involved in schoolsand communities through musical
programs taught by a wonderfulstaff of COC Teaching Artists,
often in partnership withdifferent community leaders.
And, as we're planning thisepisode, we wanted to hear from
students about the things theywonder about and their
(34:39):
experiences with opera.
Robyn Grant-Moran (34:41):
Here's a really great one from the grade
9 MID class at Haydon ParkSecondary School in Toronto.
They wanted to know, "How do youcome up with a costume for the
opera?" Julie, is this maybe oneyou'd like to put your
director/dramaturg hat on for?
Julie McIsaac (34:58):
Yeah, I would love to! So, there's a lot of
collaboration involved. So, forexample, if I'm directing a
work, then I'm going to chat alot with the costume designer,
and I'm going to compile a wholebunch of images like, maybe
create a vision board orsomething like that, maybe use
Pinterest or some other means todo that so that we can all get
on the same page in terms of"What is the world of this show
that we're creating?" Forexample, "Where's it set
(35:20):
geographically?" "Where's it setin time?" "What is the era that
this piece is set in?" And, inthat case, you might do some
research around "What did peoplewear?" And then you want to,
sort of, know, "What wascommonplace for people to wear
at that time?" "Was it a timewhere women often wore skirts?"
or "Are we transitioning into atime where women would wear
trousers?" or "What does it meanto wear skirt? What does it mean
to wear trousers?" and thingslike that. So, what are your
(35:42):
costume saying in addition toeverything else that's going on
in your production. And what'sreally great is that, in terms
of collaboration (35:49):
there's the designer, there's also a team of
builders, and people whosupervise all the wardrobe
stuff. And, if you're interestedin knowing some intricacies of
that, you could go back toEpisode Four, where we spoke
with Sandra [Corazza], who'shead of wardrobe here at the
COC, and she's got lovelyinsights.
Robyn Grant-Moran (36:04):
And I imagined comfort is really
important to you as well.
Julie McIsaac (36:08):
Absolutely!
Robyn Grant-Moran (36:09):
Like, you have to have comfortable shoes.
When famous Swedish sopranoBirgit Nilsson was asked how she
prepared for the role of Isolde[in Tristan und Isolde], she
said, "Comfortable shoes!"
Julie McIsaac (36:23):
So important!
Robyn Grant-Moran (36:25):
A funny little anecdote
Braun's kneepads in the LouisRiel production he was not
using them for his role; it wasfrom a past production.
Julie McIsaac (36:36):
Opera companies have their store of costumes and
they might reuse pieces, so, youmight find yourself wearing a
costume piece that anothersinger wore maybe two years ago
or five years ago. And I thinkthat's lovely because then you
find that you're part of thistradition, you feel like you're
participating in something thatgoes beyond the single
production that you're in andconnects you to all these other
artists. The other thing I thinkabout, Robyn, is about, like,
(36:56):
"What [does] the singer have todo when they're wearing that
usually you need that when youhave to be down on your knees or
down on the ground and thinkingabout "What does that mean for
their pants that they'rewearing? Do they have to be
reinforced in the knees?" forexample.
Robyn Grant-Moran (37:09):
Hmm, yeah, I hadn't even considered that!
But, now that you said, it makesperfect sense.
Julie McIsaac (37:15):
And undergarments like, what someone's wearing
under their and that mightcontribute to the silhouette,
so, the line of the costume andhow that looks on stage. But,
also, maybe they have sceneswhere they need to be intimate
with someone else, or wherethere's nudity or something like
that. So, there's a lot ofthought that has to go into
undergarments and quick changes.
So, "How quickly do they have tochange between one costume piece
and another?" And, actually,there's one more question that
(37:37):
we received from Haydon Park'sgrade 9 MID class, and it's a
really excellent one. Theywanted to know, "How do opera
singers get their voice totravel so far?"
Robyn Grant-Moran (37:47):
You know, it's still a big surprise to a
lot of people that the sound youhear when you go to an opera
doesn't rely on the use of micsor amps. Since we were already
speaking with vocal expert LizUpchurch, we asked if she could
break it down for us in 60seconds or less.
Liz Upchurch (38:05):
The operatic voice is somewhere between it's half
athletic and half artistic. Butthere's a scientific reason why
you can hear them (38:13):
it's not that they're singing louder than the
amount of people playing in theorchestra [you] can have over
100 people in the pit, there'sno way that one person can sing
louder. This is a very goodquestion: why can we hear them
sing over or through thisenormous amount of sound? It's
(38:35):
because of actually thefrequency that the human voice
resonates at. And so basicallyoperatic voice is trained to
live to the full extent in thatfrequency or the "formant" I
believe it's called and thistakes a lot of passion and
commitment. Yes, a lot oftraining but, as I said, it's
(38:58):
not about singing louder; it's,kind of, learning to make your
entire body the resonator foryour instrument. I mean, that's
a very brief little way ofputting it but it's somewhere
between science and what thecomposer writes.
Julie McIsaac (39:15):
It's so interesting, that idea of the
human body as a resonator,because when we asked the same
question to professionalvocalist, Jonathan Christopher,
he almost mirrored Liz'sresponse in comparing the human
body to an instrument all itsown.
Jonathan Christopher (39:30):
So, you have your whole body your body
is your instrument when it comesto singing. And when you sing in
so many different styles, whichis for me, very important as
much as I love opera I lovemusical theatre, as much as I
love musical theatre I lovegospel music, as much as I love
gospel I love pop music andmany of my teachers along the
way have told me that I shouldprobably focus on just one thing
(39:53):
in order to be fully successfulin it. But I myself am too
passionate about music ingeneral, so, I'm happy that I
had training in opera that didprepare me for musical theatre,
but then I did learn somedifferent techniques in order
for my voice to sustain eightshows a week. So, in opera, you
(40:14):
know, our support comes from ourabdomen and, depending on the
teacher that you study with,it's whether or not you release
[your abdomen]. Your abdomen isfilled, it's like a big barrel
and you kind of or you have arubber tube around your stomach
and you try to press out to,kind of, get that support and
(40:34):
feel like a buoy that's wadingin the water. And then you have
to use the muscles in your faceas, kind of, like a resistance
in order to get this big fullsound out. And when you're
walking into a theatre, you knowthat your sound has to get from
where you are, up to the verylast balcony, where the cheap
(40:56):
seats are they're up there,so, you want to sing to them.
So, you learn the musculatureand, kind of, the anatomy of
your body to know what it takesto sing to those people out
there. And it's a lot of work,you don't necessarily have to
have a big booming voice. Itdepends on what we call "the
(41:18):
resonators," which are in yourskull. Like, there are all these
different holes and cavities inyour head, which make it like a
big speaker at a concert likeat a Beyonce concert or
something that amplifies hersound so she can get out to the
cheap seats. We use our ownbodies to do that and, through a
(41:39):
lot of studying, you figure thatout. Whereas in musical theatre,
you still have to support thesound that you're creating, but
you also have a microphone tohelp amplify, especially
nowadays. Maybe back in the1930s and 40s, you hear a singer
like Ethel Merman where she hada loud sound because she had to
(42:00):
there weren't microphones atthat time! So, you use these
different parts of your face to,kind of, [mimics performing on
stage by speaking louder] makethat sound go from where you are
and all the way through theback. But we don't have to play
with that these days, and youstill have to project, but you
also want to make really goodfriends with the sound
engineers, especially whenyou're on tour with the musical
(42:22):
because it's almost that you areat their mercy: when you're
doing a musical, they mix yoursound, they make sure that the
sound is balanced between theband that's playing underneath
the stage, the ensemble, theprinciples, so, everything
sounds, like, a beautiful rockconcert in a way. That's at
(42:42):
least what Hamilton is.
Robyn Grant-Moran (43:04):
Thanks again to the grade 9 students at
Haydon Park's MID class forthese great questions. We hope
you've got a better sense of howopera production and performance
works. You know, it'sinteresting that, a lot of the
time, people think that if youwork in opera, you must know a
lot about opera. But that's notalways true.
Julie McIsaac (43:21):
Learning is definitely a lifelong journey
and, in planning this episode,we got some opera questions from
a few COC staff members,including members of our own
production team. One questionthat comes to mind in particular
is, "Why does it feel likethere's so few English language
operas?"
Robyn Grant-Moran (43:38):
Since we were already talking to Johannes
Debus, we posed this question tohim as well. Here's a little bit
of that conversation.
Johannes Debus (43:46):
In terms of the amount of repertoire that has
been produced in English inopera, there's a bit of a gap. I
mean, after Henry Purcell,you'll find some things, of
course, in the 19th century,late 19th century, [Frederick]
Delius and others and, yes,Benjamin Britten. I mean, we did
(44:08):
A Midsummer Night's Dream at theCOC at least in the last 10-11
years, Peter Grimes, the companyhas done [The] Rape of Lucretia,
[The] Turn of the Screw, and Ithink those are all yeah,
absolute masterpieces based ongreat stories, it's always
(44:30):
extremely exciting and it'sextremely well written. Then
there's something likeStravinsky, The Rake's Progress
and, of course, now you have ahuge amount of repertoire from
the U.K. but also from otherEnglish spoken countries North
(44:50):
America in particular. I thinkthere's a lot happening and I'm
sure that we will see and hearmore. Obviously I'm not a native
speaker but, from what Iunderstand, it's actually very,
very tricky to perform/to singin English well, and that might
also be one aspect why peoplehave the impression and the
(45:12):
notion that this repertoirerepertoire in English is a bit
neglected.
Robyn Grant-Moran (45:18):
Do you have a favorite English-language opera?
Johannes Debus (45:21):
It might be Peter Grimes. I think Peter
Grimes is one of those piecesthat it has it all. You know,
it has the large scenes, it hasalso the focus on the
individuals and their tragedies,so to speak. The music is of
(45:46):
such variety and mastery, thescore writing is so powerful.
chorus, soloists, but then alsothe orchestra with those
interludes it's reallybreathtaking! And you go from,
like, at the very end, you onlyhear a foghorn and basically,
(46:08):
you know, you go from very, verylittle to the largest storm
scenes. Yeah, so, it's a piecethat somehow showcases the
possibilities, the range ofopera and the immediacy. You
know, it can hit you and it hitsyou then right in your heart.
Julie McIsaac (46:53):
Our next question came to us from theatre critic
Karen Fricker. We'll actually bechatting further with Karen on
an upcoming episode about thefuture of arts criticism. But
when she found out that we weredoing this mailbag episode, she
thought it'd be the perfect timeto learn the answer to something
she's always wondered about.
Robyn Grant-Moran (47:09):
I'm curious about what opera singers eat on
the day [of a performance]because, you know, you hear a
lot about, like, how to run amarathon and the pasta stuff
and, I'm just wondering, ifyou're going to sing a big, big
role, what's the philosophy? Andis there a philosophy or is it
(47:31):
completely dependent on theperson? Is it dependent on what
register they sing in? Is itdependent upon their physical
size? So, that (47:39):
what do you eat?
This is such a great question.
And this is so different foreveryone. I know I don't like to
feel too full, but I don't wantto be hungry either.
everyone's gonna have their ownlittle tricks of the trade and
what makes them feel good andconfident going out on stage.
Robyn Grant-Moran (47:58):
We decided to widen our nets on this and bring
you some answers from a range ofperformers working across opera
and musicals. Our friends atAmplified Opera wanted to weigh
in. Here's co-founder TeiyaKasahara.
Teiya Kasahara (48:11):
I typically eat something that is quite hearty
and nutritious. So, energy thatI can pull from for quite a few
hours. So, something withcomplex carbs, a lot of protein,
no spice I don't want any acidreflux or any kind of acidic
things, usually no tomato,anything dairy. It depends, but
(48:33):
I think everyone is different.
That's what I eat.
Julie McIsaac (48:36):
Here's what Jonathan Christopher had to say
when asked about his pre-showeating rituals.
Jonathan Christopher (48:42):
It really does depend on the person and it
also depends on theidiosyncrasies and the neuroses
of a person. I know when I wasin my master's degree at least,
there were a lot of us that werejust, kind of, freaking out
about the next steps of whathappens after you receive your
master's degree, and I worriedmyself so much I did start to
(49:05):
get acid reflux, and there weredays when I couldn't sing I'd
go into my voice lesson and itwould just be [imitates scratchy
throat] or I was doing I forgetwhich opera I was doing but at
the same like, the muscles inmy throat would start spasming,
and I was like, "Okay, thisisn't great. So, what do I do to
make sure that this doesn'thappen in a performance?" and
(49:27):
most of it does come down todiet but, at the end of the day,
too, it, kind of, just comes towhere you are physically,
mentally, emotionally, andspiritually as a performer, and
you learn that through time. Interms of opera. I don't
necessarily want to have a fullstomach before I go on stage
(49:47):
or in musical theatre as well.
Like, I'll have an energy drinkor not necessarily a cup of
coffee but something, kind of,that wakes me up but also gives
me enough energy to do athree-hour show. Well, I'm
vegan, so I, kind of, eat vegan
junk food (50:05):
I love falafel but I try to have stuff that's not too
acidic. But also, the more Iworry about it, the more I
become neurotic about whether ornot the food affects me. And
since I don't eat dairy anymore,that doesn't really factor into
what I eat. But I know a lot ofpeople that have very strict
(50:27):
diets in order for them to makesure that their throats are as
prepared, and as clear, and asclean as possible. I was just
watching an interview withLeontyne Price earlier today
and, if you don't know whoLeontyne Price is, she was one
of the most prolific voices ofthe 20th century. As a Black
(50:48):
opera singer, she was aninspiration to me and to so many
others; the adversity that shewent through paved the way so I
can be where I am today. Shesaid something about [that] her
private life was free fromvarious temptations, whether it
was, you know, the night beforea show, going out to a party or
having a big, big meal thatmight affect her voice the next
(51:10):
day for that concert or for thatopera. Our job as artists is to
give our best selves to thepublic in the theatre, so,
throughout your years of studyand throughout your young
career, you figure out whatworks for you and what doesn't
(51:30):
work for you, and if that comesdown to someone eating a big
piece of lasagna before they goonstage to do La Traviata, then
that's what it is, you know. Andif it means not necessarily
having a meal from noon on untilafter the show, then that's that
person's convention. But itreally does depend.
Julie McIsaac (51:51):
Well, thanks for sharing your particular
experience on that and alsopulling in, sort of, the wisdom
of artists who have come beforeus in previous generations.
That's great, too! Thank you.
Robyn Grant-Moran (52:02):
There's one final question that came through
to us on Twitter and it's from aperformer who's no stranger to
the COC's mainstage.
Julie McIsaac (52:10):
Audiences might remember soprano Keri Alkema as
the Foreign Princess in theCOC's Rusalka in 2019, or as
Giovanna Seymour in COC's 2018production of Anna Bolena. She
also co-hosts a weekly YouTubeshow [Screaming Divas] with
soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, andit's a lot of fun, so do check
it out! She tweeted, "With thepandemic or possibly endemic
(52:32):
I wonder what our art form as awhole will look like in 3-5-10
years from now?" So, we thoughtthis might be a nice one to
ruminate on as we wrap up. Whatdo you think, Robyn three
years from now?
Robyn Grant-Moran (52:43):
Oh, my gosh, even just three years from now:
will we have the ability to allsit together and commune in an
opera house together? Will we bedistanced in that? Will we have
intermissions? All of thesethings are going to really
change the landscape the answersto these.
Julie McIsaac (53:02):
Right! Like, will I have people sitting on either
side of me, and will we be inthere, sort of, in that
beautiful, tight compactexperience altogether or not?
And also thinking ahead, youknow, three to five years, you
know, we had Cherie [Dimaline]and Ian [Cusson] who shared with
us about their collaborations(it's on Episode Five of the
podcast) and I'm hoping that,three to five years from now,
(53:22):
we're seeing that productioncome to the stage, and that it's
really indicative of this wealthof Canadian storytelling that's
beginning to take over ourmainstages not take over our
mainstages but really have itsplace, its rightful place on the
main stages of the country.
Robyn Grant-Moran (53:38):
And I expect hybridisation is going to become
the norm; that live performanceswill have a lot of digital
content for accessibility,whether it's unpacking themes,
seeing backstage bonus things,even getting to see performances
(53:59):
when you're not able to get tothe theatre itself.
Julie McIsaac (54:03):
Yeah, I agree with you that opera isn't just
about what happens in the operahouse; but opera is this thing
that can connect us and that wecan all be connected to
regardless of whether or notwe're able to gather together in
the opera house but thatthere's many different pathways
in and ways that the art form isevolving and percolating.
Robyn Grant-Moran (54:22):
Yeah, I'm really excited to see how the
use of technology that we'vebeen incorporating since the
pandemic stays and how it growsover the next few years.
Julie McIsaac (54:39):
One it's exciting, too, to think right
now, Robyn, we're having theseconversations that are a bit
removed from mainstage operaactivity just because there
really isn't any, but to thinkthat this is a place that we
could talk about productions ifthey were happening, and we
could chat with people who areworking on their productions
and, sort of, have a place toadd to people's experience or to
(55:00):
expand the experience ofattending the opera.
Robyn Grant-Moran (55:04):
I love the idea of us having episodes that
act in support to productionsthat are happening at the Four
Seasons Centre.
Julie McIsaac (55:15):
And I love what you're saying about all those
different things that cansupport that experience, whether
that's insight into what'shappening backstage, or getting
to know one of the performers,or getting to know what's going
on in the pit and getting abetter sense of connection to
those individual musicians whoare making the magic happen down
there. A lot is possible andwe've been forced to explore and
to innovate, and, hopefully,we'll bring it along with us
(55:38):
when we also bring back thatthing that we miss so much.
Robyn Grant-Moran (55:41):
One final thought. I mean, the
conversations that we're havingabout identity, and gender and
opera, and racial identity. Theywere conversations that were
happening before but not at thedecibel level they are right now
because of the pandemic. That'sreally exciting! How is that
going to change productions inthe future? I expect for the
(56:05):
best, much of the time.
Julie McIsaac (56:07):
I remember Rena [Roussin] saying on Episode
Seven, she said, "I just wantmore opera, and more people who
feel represented, and feelincluded, and feel like they can
come and enjoy the art form."Speaking of more, that's all the
time we have for today. Butthank you so much for joining
us.
Robyn Grant-Moran (56:28):
We also want to extend a special thanks to
all of our guests (56:31):
COC General Director Perryn Leech, COC Music
Director Johannes Debus, Head ofthe COC Ensemble Studio Liz
Upchurch, actor and singerJonathan Christopher, Amplified
Opera co-founder Teiya Kasahara,and soprano Rebecca Caine.
Julie McIsaac (56:49):
We loved hearing your questions and we hope that
we were able to satisfyinglyanswer a few of those
head-scratchers. But please feelfree to keep sharing your
questions and feedback at anytime. You can tag us on social
@CanadianOpera, or email us ataudiences@coc.ca. You can also
send us a voice memo and there'sinstructions for how to do that
(57:09):
at coc.ca/KeyChange.
Robyn Grant-Moran (57:13):
We appreciate all of the feedback we've
received so far, and the reviewsyou've left on Apple Podcasts.
And remember, if you're a COCsubscriber or member, you have
access to exclusive bonuscontent and extended interviews.
Next week (57:26):
we'll have more from our chat with Rebecca Caine.
Julie McIsaac (57:30):
So, if you're a COC supporter, keep an eye out
for a link in your supporternewsletter on Thursdays. Coming
up next episode (57:36):
we're diving into our Spring season with an
exploration of opera andcontemporary art. Icelandic
artist Ragnar Kjartansson willjoin us in conversation along
with Adelina Vlas of the ArtGallery of Ontario, where
Ragnar's work is currently ondisplay.
Robyn Grant-Moran (57:51):
See you then.
Be the first to find out aboutfree events and concerts from
the COC by signing up for ourmonthly eOpera newsletter at
coc.ca/eOpera.
Julie McIsaac (58:11):
Thank you to all of our supporters for making Key
Change possible. This week wewant to especially thank every
COC member, subscriber, anddonor for coming on this journey
with us as we explore new waysto share opera's unique power.
Robyn Grant-Moran (58:25):
So, to make sure you don't miss an episode,
subscribe to Key Change whereveryou get your podcasts.
Julie McIsaac (58:32):
Key Change is produced by the Canadian Opera
Company and hosted by RobynGrant-Moran and Julie McIsaac.
Robyn Grant-Moran (58:39):
To learn more about today's guests and see the
show notes, please visit ourwebsite at coc.ca/KeyChange.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Key Change (00:00):
A COC Podcast, where we explore
everything about opera from afresh perspective.
Robyn Grant-Moran (00:18):
We're your hosts, Robyn Grant-Moran
Julie McIsaac (00:21):
and Julie McIsaac. Hello, everyone, and
welcome to Episode 11, our veryspecial audience mailbag
edition.
Robyn Grant-Moran (00:29):
For the past few weeks, we've been asking for
your opera-related questions.
Maybe you're just starting toget into opera, or maybe you're
a diehard opera fan. We told youto ask us anything anything at
all!
Julie McIsaac (00:41):
And whenever we felt like we couldn't answer
something between the two of us,we called up some friends to
give us a hand. Who are thosefriends? Well, keep listening to
find out.
Robyn Grant-Moran (00:50):
So, today's the day! Let's reach into that
mailbag and find out what youwanted to know about opera and
the operagoing experience.
Julie McIsaac (01:09):
Okay, so here's a good one for starting out
in Victoria, B.C. wrote in andwanted to know, "What is the
difference between opera andoperetta? Who and what defines
the difference?" Fulldisclosure, John is my father.
He's a dedicated listener andthanks for listening, dad, and
thanks for sending in yourquestion! We hope that we do it
justice.
Robyn Grant-Moran (01:30):
Julia and I could probably give you a very
textbook definition of what thedifference is. But we've got the
entire COC team at our disposal.
So, we decided to pull inJohannes Debus. Johannes has
been COC's Music Director forover a decade. He's conducted
Salome at the MetropolitanOpera, appeared on the BBC
Proms, and has led orchestraseverywhere from Berlin to
(01:50):
Baltimore to San Francisco.
Johannes began by telling usthat, for him, he usually looks
to the prominence of text for aclue.
Johannes Debus (02:00):
I would say that one main aspect to define the
difference between opera andoperetta is the element of text
or how important the text isversus the importance of the
music. Obviously, music plays akey role in both art forms, but
maybe in the operatta the textis even more so in the
foreground than in opera. Inoperatta most often no,
(02:23):
actually, I think always youhave dialogues, which, on the
other hand, is also somethingthat we see in opera repertoire
early on. However, then it'scalled "singspiel". For example,
[The] Magic Flute (02:38):
that's, sort of, a prime example for that.
Maybe we reconsider thissingspiel as an early form of
operetta. I personally do notbuy into the notion or the idea
of, "Oh, you know, operetta is,sort of, just the lighter genre
and, therefore, it's maybe notas valuable as opera can be." I
(03:03):
don't think that's true and Ithink it requires an immense
talent to entertain, at a very,very high level which maybe is
one important aspect ofoperetta, where you often have
lighter subject matter. Do youknow any operatta where someone
(03:24):
is dying? In opera,unfortunately, we encounter that
element quite often. So, thereis some truth to the idea that
operatta has a lighter touch.
Maybe also dance elementsappearing more often [in
operetta] than in operas. But Ithink it's hard to draw a clear
(03:46):
line and to say, "Okay, this isclearly operatta; this is
clearly opera."
Robyn Grant-Moran (03:57):
Yeah, I felt pretty much the same as
Johannes (03:58):
it's the "no dying thing", really. It's shorter,
lighter, and nobody dies.
Julie McIsaac (04:09):
It's funny because the no dying thing
hadn't ever crossed my mind,even though the moment Johannes
said it, I went, "Oh, of course,you're right!" In terms of the
whole temperature of the plot,it's you know, there isn't
those same high stakes that weencounter in the opera context.
So, thanks, dad, for sendingthat question and for giving us
a reason to chat with Johannesand to dig into this really
(04:29):
great topic.
Now we're going to bring backJohannes for a question a little
bit later in the episode. But,Robyn, how about you introduce
(04:51):
our next audience question?
Robyn Grant-Moran (04:53):
Pat B. is curious about voice types and
how those are assigned todifferent roles. "Why are
countertenor roles often sung bymezzo-sopranos?
Julie McIsaac (05:02):
When it comes to understanding the voice and
operatic traditions aroundcharacter and story, we knew
exactly who we wanted to reachout to. Liz Upchurch is one of
the most sought-after pianistsand vocal coaches in Canada.
She's head of the COC EnsembleStudio and, in her time at the
COC, she's helped to train anentire generation of Canadian
opera singers, including artistssuch as David Pomeroy, Krisztina
(05:24):
Szab, and Emily D'Angelo. Lizbegan by telling us what a
countertenor is.
Liz Upchurch (05:29):
Well, a countertenor is the highest male
voice. So, if we were to go inorder from the bottom up, we
will go (05:37):
bass, baritone, tenor, and then countertenor. But the
way that the countertenor sings,it's actually in their falsetto,
and falsetto literally means"false little sound." They
actually only use a very smallpart of the vocal folds. But all
(05:59):
male voices have the possibilityto sing in falsetto; it's not
just for a particular type ofvoice. If any of you are Bee
Gees fans out there, you'll knowthat that's singing in a kind of
falsetto. It's really possiblefor most male voices to sing in
(06:26):
that range, and that range isnot as high as a soprano. So,
that range, in the equivalent ofa female voice, would be similar
to a mezzo-soprano. The majorityof roles that mezzo-sopranos
sing weren't originally writtenfor them in the canon of, sort
(06:48):
of, historical, sort of, a good200 years of serious operatic
writing; they were written forthe male "castrati," and the
castrati were a totalphenomenon. In fact, we still
don't really know how that voicesounded and, of course for
those of you who don't know itwas an incredibly barbaric
ritual (07:12):
they would take a young pubescent boy who, sort of,
showed that they had a gift forsinging while they were still
singing in their boy sopranovoice, and they would literally
castrate them. And so theseyoung boys would grow up with
still their soprano boy sound,but in the body of an adult
(07:34):
male. And, actually, thisterrible thing literally went on
for centuries, but at the peakof their phenomenon was the 17th
and 18th century, when castratiwere literally like rock stars;
everybody wrote for them, theywere the king's pets, they
(07:54):
earned a lot of money, they hadextraordinary virtuosity. And
this might sound as if that's anincredibly long-winded answer to
this question but it isn'tit's actually very key to the
answer, because once thisbarbaric ritual was finally and
(08:15):
properly outlawed, they had ahuge canon of operatic roles
that nobody could sing. So, theywere left with two choices,
either (08:27):
they create that role for a male voice and probably
have it sing it down an octave,which, of course, has lost the
whole point of why it waswritten in that particular way;
or have a female sing it. And,so, these women took on what
(08:49):
they now call the "pants role"of the "breeches role." So,
[when] mezzos and sopranosstarted to sing these roles,
[it] wasn't until the 20thcentury that operatic roles for
the countertenor even reallystarted to happen. Benjamin
Britten writing Oberon wasprobably the most famous for [A]
(09:12):
Midsummer Night's Dream. Butthen, of course, the
(09:41):
countertenors could sing a lotof those castrato roles written
from 200-300 years previouslybecause there was such an influx
of getting back into the, sortof, Baroque world of opera. This
all fed into the world of thecountertenor becoming, really, a
short and certain thing in thecanon of operatic roles, and now
(10:04):
probably more excitingly sobecause many more modern operas
are being written for this voicetype.
Julie McIsaac (10:11):
And along the same line, Liz, we're wondering:
why is Rosina in [The] Barber ofSeville performed by
mezzo-sopranos and coloraturasopranos?
Liz Upchurch (10:22):
Well, this role wasn't written for either of
those voice types, okay? So,this role was actually written
for a contralto. And, if youremember, we said that it's
bass, baritone, tenor,countertenor [for the male
voice]; for the female voice,it's contralto at the bottom,
and then mezzo, and thensoprano. So, this is written for
(10:42):
the lowest of the female voices,but clearly somebody who had
extraordinary agility andvirtuosity, which is required
for Rosina's singing. The factis that Rossini was also a bit
(11:22):
of a superstar, and his musichis operas were played
everywhere. And, so, in, youknow, a little bit like today
I don't think too much haschanged you'd like to see the,
sort of, most celebrated singerdo their thing, and, so, Rosina
is really one of those rolesthat now you rarely hear song by
(11:43):
the voice that it was originallywritten for, but you can hear it
sung I mean, really, MariaCallas to Beverly Sills to Joyce
DiDonato to So, you can haveabsolute total variety of voices
and, because of the nature ofthe style, you can lift out an
aria and actually transpose it.
So, when Maria Callas would havedone, the famous singing lesson
(12:08):
scene, famously this wastransposed for her and, of
course, she was so famous ofcourse you would transpose the
scene for her; I don't thinkthey do that for everybody. But,
also, another factor in there isthere are so many different
types, and the role of Rosina issupposed to be a young ingenue,
(12:29):
and you don't often hearcontraltos sing this type of
role. So, it does make sense, insome ways, that lighter voices
have fit into this rolehistorically, particularly over
the last 100 years.
Julie McIsaac (12:50):
Really grateful that Liz spent that time with
us. I mean, she's really busytraining the Ensemble Studio,
and she's such a wealth ofknowledge.
Robyn Grant-Moran (12:56):
She really just reaffirmed for me that
voice types and ranges arereally reflective of the time
that operas were written in. So,maybe this is a challenge for
current composers since we aremore fluid right now, and we're
getting to be more open tothings. Composers, please, write
(13:19):
more music that reflects orchanging values around gender
and identity.
Julie McIsaac (13:23):
The COC actually recently hosted a virtual panel
conversation around gender andopera and this topic about
voice types and character tropesthat came up quite often. And
for anyone who's curious aboutthat and learning more, then you
can go to coc.ca/GenderAndOpera,where there's an archive of that
live event.
Robyn Grant-Moran (13:44):
We'll loop back to Liz for another question
later this episode, but here'sone that comes up a lot: Sandy
reached out to us on Instagramto ask us to explain, "Why is
the Phantom of the Operaconsidered a musical and not an
opera?"
Julie McIsaac (13:58):
A lot of people have strong feelings about this.
Robyn Grant-Moran (14:01):
It's amazing that, decades later, these
conversations are still beinghad and these feelings are still
so strong.
Julie McIsaac (14:10):
Exactly. And we thought, in answering this
question, wouldn't it be greatto go right to the source and
connect with someone with plentyof Phantom of the Opera
expertise? And, so, that's whatwe did reaching out to Rebecca
Caine. Rebecca is aCanadian-British soprano, who
you might recall as having sungthe role of Christine when
Phantom of the Opera firstopened here in Toronto. She's
also sung with the COC onseveral productions. Here's what
(14:33):
she had to say.
Rebecca Caine (14:36):
No, I can't think why you asked me, Sandy on
Instagram! Um, well, let's thinkthis through, shall we? So, it's
through-sung most operas arethrough-sung right? But, no,
wait! Let's think about, oh, TheMagic Flute, which you could
argue is a singspiel, right? Butthen there's Fidelio, there are
lots and lots of operas thathave dialogue, so, that doesn't
(14:57):
work. Could it be [that] you dosix day performances a week?
Well, let me see, Gian CarloMenotti premiered many of his
operas on Broadway, The Consulewon Best Musical even though it
was an opera, so, no, that's notright. It's not a matter of
[whether] performance is mikedis it because it miked? No,
(15:19):
because, originally, musicalsweren't miked. Oh, this was
an (15:22):
does it have a character who continues to sing while either
being fatally ill or mortallywounded, right? And then I
thought, "Wait a minute (15:29):
Les Mis[erables] had Fantine dying
of something either venereal
disease, or (I should know (15:38):
I was in it) or consumption very
operatic! And ponine who, ofcourse, you know, sings a duet
after she's been shot," so, thatdisproves that theory. And then
I thought, "Okay, well, let'sget serious, let's think about
this as "melisma," right? So,melisma is when you sing more
than six notes to one syllable,right? So, that's often opera
(16:00):
you often have that and Ithought, "I've got it, I got
people riff in musicals now." Ican't riff; when I riff, it
sounds like Baroqueornamentation, which is actually
what riffing is (16:10):
it's ornamentation. So, that doesn't
And then, of course, the realthing is, is I believe musicals
are text-lead and that opera'san art form where the sheer
vocal quality is all-important,basically. And musical theatre
is where the characterfulnarrative predominates through
(16:30):
the text the words come first.
And, so, to give you an example,if you go and see [Der]
Rosenkavalier, you just drown inthat gorgeous, creamy sound and
the presentation of the roseor the final scene at the end,
nobody really cares Or thefinal scene in Gtterdmmerung
for Brnnhilde and nobody reallyexpects to hear the words at the
(16:52):
end; they're just drowning inthe sound. So, for musicals,
it's text-lead. That's myanswer.
Robyn Grant-Moran (16:58):
Someone else we thought we'd reach out to on
this is Jonathan Christopher.
Jonathan actually joined us as apanelist on that Gender & Opera
event we were talking aboutearlier. He's a
Bermudian-American baritonewho's worked in opera and
musical theatre. He's alsoperformed in critically
acclaimed operas and musicals atLincoln Center, Signature
Theatre, and Brooklyn PlayhouseTheatre.
Jonathan Christopher (17:22):
It's funny because you'll talk to some
opera folk, and they'll say,"Well, obviously, it's a
musical; it's not an opera," andthen some musical theatre folk
are a bit more confused becausea show like Phantom requires
such a solid vocal technique,and a lot of the characters in
the musical itself requireoperatic training like
(17:45):
[Ubaldo] Piangi, who's a tenor;Carlotta [Giudicelli], who's the
big soprano that has to sing ahigh D and a high E every single
night. But I think, from my ownhumble perspective, it has to do
more with the styles and theconventions of the time: the
original version of Carmen hasmusical numbers just like a
(18:06):
musical that we know today does,and then there are scenes where
there was a dialogue not evensung-through dialogue. But then
when opera companies found outCarmen was quite popular, they
hired somebody to createrecitative, which for those
who don't know what that isit's, like, the dialogue within
an opera but it's still sung andsometimes there are chords
(18:28):
underneath it that are rollingby. But it's not necessarily
melodic; it just pushes thestory from the one big musical
number to the next musicalnumber. And that's, kind of,
what Phantom of the Opera islike as well. So, in a way it's
operatic in scape but AndrewLloyd Webber, the composer,
writes for the musical theatre.
I also think of the show Porgyand Bess, which was originally
(18:52):
performed on Broadway. TheGershwins called it a "folk
opera," and eventually, over theyears, it got performed in opera
companies around the world, butit didn't hit the Metropolitan
Opera in New York until the1980s, and the show was pretty
much labeled as musical theatreup until then. And then when it
(19:14):
returned to Broadway, theconvention of having a show
completely sung-through withclassically trained voices has
fallen out of favour with whatwe deem as a musical, which is,
you know, numbers, scene, spokenscene, musical number. So, they
rewrote, with the permission of
(19:35):
they changed the keys for a lotof the singers, so they were
able to sing them eight shows aweek, and they added dialogue as
opposed to the sung-through, soit was almost like the opposite
of what they did for Carmen,which we consider an opera.
Julie McIsaac (19:51):
Yeah, no, that's a really great distinction!
Thanks for pointing that outabout the frequency of
performances, where someone in amusical theatre context would be
singing that show, eight shows aweek. And, in an opera context,
they might be performing twice aweek or three times singing that
role, and how that impacts.
Jonathan Christopher (20:06):
And the demands are quite different but,
at the same time, they aredemands. So, Christine in
Phantom of the Opera (20:11):
most Christine's are contracted to
perform six shows a week. A lotof massive roles that either are
physically demanding or vocallydemanding on Broadway and in
musical theatre, they have analternate that performs the two
other shows throughout the week.
I know in "Hamilton," which iswhat I was doing here right
before the lockdown, ourHamilton was performing seven
(20:33):
shows a week and his alternateor his standby will perform at
least one show a week, becauseyou're on stage the whole time,
and those roles are quiteoperatic in the sense that it's
it's a big piece; you're onstagefrom the beginning to the end
and, even though it's rappingand hip-hop, that's almost more
demanding on your voice thanusing your full body and your
(20:57):
full sound to project out intothe house, to sing 40-45 minutes
worth of music, which mostoperatic roles are.
Robyn Grant-Moran (21:14):
I'm pretty excited about this next audio
question that comes to us fromCOC's Ticket Services.
Julie McIsaac (21:20):
And when you think about it, that team is
actually the company's frontlinewhen it comes to answering
audience questions. So, wethought it'd be really
interesting to hear what do theyget asked the most?
Nick Davis (21:30):
I'm Nick Davis with the Ticket Services team aka
The Box Office. One questionwe're asked often is whether
production is set astraditional, or modern, or some
gray area in between? What wouldyou say is the difference in
experience between thesetraditional and modern settings?
Robyn Grant-Moran (21:47):
I think this might actually be two separate
questions (21:50):
A) "What's considered traditional and what's
considered modern when it comesto a production?" and B) "What,
as an audience member, can weexpect from seeing either one of
these?"
Julie McIsaac (22:03):
Yeah, great questions. And I find myself
thinking well, asking myself,"What do I mean when I say
traditional?" When I saytraditional, do I mean, "Are
they wearing the costumes thatsomeone would have worn around
the time that that opera wascreated?" So, let's say
something was written in 1780,then is a traditional production
something that looks like what aproduction would have looked
(22:23):
like in 1780? Or, when thatperson's calling into the Box
Office to ask that question, arethey hoping to see a production
that looks like that belovedproduction that they first saw
when they first went to [The]Marriage of Figaro, for example?
Are they hoping to recreate thattraditional experience that they
had?
Robyn Grant-Moran (22:41):
Yeah, those are very different things. And
when we're talking about thingsthat are traditional, it's
really historically informed (22:48):
we don't know for sure. So, if
we're trying to recreatehistory, why are we just looking
to costumes? Should we beturning the opera house back
into a house of ill repute,where people are beer-drinking,
and gambling, and eatingpeanuts?
Julie McIsaac (23:07):
Yeah and, likewise, like, with the Mozart
example so, the operas of thattime, they were exploring, like,
contemporary foibles andchallenging societal structures
of the time. So, should we thenmount an opera that does that,
that challenges our contemporaryway of being and of seeing and
challenges the societalstructures that are in place?
Because, in that way, you'd behonoring, sort of, the original
(23:28):
impetus of the work? So, wouldthat be traditional or would
that be modern?
Robyn Grant-Moran (23:33):
To me that says, traditional, but that's
probably not what people areasking when they ask about
traditional.
Julie McIsaac (23:42):
Yeah, so, I guess the question is, "What is
traditional to you?" and thenhopefully, the person on the Box
Office side can, sort of, share,"Well, here's what the team is
doing. Here's what that creativeteam is doing," and whether we
want to label that traditionalor modern I mean, there's just
so many ways you can interpretboth of those terms.
Robyn Grant-Moran (23:57):
Yeah, I always kind of considered maybe
this question should be more"minimalist" or "present day
costuming" or "avant-gardedirection" for those really
challenging at timesproductions.
Julie McIsaac (24:14):
When someone's asking that question of
traditional or modern, are theyactually wondering, "Is this
going to be something that I canjust go and listen to and not
have to think about very much,or is it going to be something
that, sort of, upsets what I'vecome to know as my beloved Tosca
or my beloved [La] Traviata, andI don't want to be" They just
(24:34):
want to, kind of, go and wrapthemselves up in that cozy
blanket of the piece that theyknow and love without having to
think about it differentlywhich is legit! That's fair,
that's completely fair!
Robyn Grant-Moran (24:43):
Absolutely. I was just going to say or is it
one of those productions whereyou just have to close your eyes
and enjoy the music?
Julie McIsaac (24:49):
[And] just listen! Yeah, but I love that
question about thinking back tothose original audience members
who attended that firstproduction or the early run of a
production, when it was createdin whatever century it was
created, and to think about howcan I get close to the
experience that they would havehad when that thing was new, and
that thing wasn't known to themyet. And, to me, in that
(25:09):
respect, I like it when thedesign team and the director do
something kind of crazy andmodern with the production,
because then I'm on the edge ofmy seat not knowing what's going
to happen the way thoseoriginal audiences would have
been.
That was a great question for usto think on. Thank you so much
for sending that in, Nick. Andwe hope this was helpful for
(25:31):
anyone who has perhaps called into Ticket Services to ask that
kind of question in the past.
Robyn Grant-Moran (25:35):
Now, all of this talk about traditional
versus modern dovetails reallywell into our next topic, which
actually comes to us from musiccritic Anne Midgette. We spoke
to Anne for part one of ourepisode on opera and criticism,
and she wanted to know about thedriving considerations when
programming an opera house.
Anne Midgette (25:53):
I would love to hear an administrator's view on
deciding whether a show shouldhave a more traditional or a
more interpretive approach. I amvery interested in interpretive
director's approaches, and Iknow a lot of audiences are
horrified at excesses that comeout of that and I would be
curious to know how programmersthink about that.
Julie McIsaac (26:15):
Excellent question, Anne. And when it
comes to planning out an operaseason, who better to offer up
those insights than the newestGeneral Director of the Canadian
Opera Company, Perryn Leech. Nowyou may recall, we chatted with
Perryn and outgoing COC leaderAlexander Neef at the start of
2021, in Episode Six. And Perrynwas immediately on board with
helping us to answer Anne'squestion. Here are some of his
(26:37):
thoughts.
Perryn Leech (26:38):
Things that appeal to me, the things that I like to
see myself as an audience memberand to program are things which
have a strong narrative, or withreally well thought through
reason for changing the setting,if that's the case, or changing
the period sometimes. And Ithink one of the ways that you
do that is when something startsto fall apart completely after
(27:00):
First Act, that's when you knowthat it was a concept that was a
good idea but just didn't reallytake through. Those are the sort
of productions which annoy me asa as a patron, because you
think, "Well, okay, it was agood idea for maybe 20 per cent
of the show and then it justfell apart and I've forgotten
about it." So, what I'm alwayslooking for is that the way of
(27:20):
asking me new questions about apiece: if it's a piece I know
really well, it's asking me newquestions, framing the story in
a different way, telling thatstory in a different way. And I
think that if you leave onlytalking about the shock value or
production, then production hasfailed because, at some point,
you've taken people out of thatnarrative's storytelling and
just gotten into the stage ofmindset a mind space, at least
(27:43):
of questioning why you madesome decisions.
Julie McIsaac (27:46):
Do you have any recollections or cherished
memories of seeing that donevery well, where there was a
concept that steadily made itsway through the entire piece and
resonated strongly as a newinterpretation of the whole?
Perryn Leech (28:00):
Sure. I think that there are many examples of it. I
think that there was aproduction of Jephtha, which was
a Handel oratorio, which had aconcept put onto it, but the
concept was thought all the waythrough, and characters were
added some singing, somenon-singing that made the
story and that concept work, andat no point did you feel that
(28:24):
the concept wasn't there, thatthe narrative wasn't central to
the concept. And then there aremany more examples where it
doesn't work and something hasbeen outdated. I think some of
the Peter Sellars updates of theMozart operas, for instance,
I've only seen them on videobut I think that Don Giovanni in
a CEO role, I would say, itdidn't completely work but you
(28:48):
didn't question it enough,because 95 per cent of it did
work, and therefore you're ableto just lose yourself in this,
"Oh, he's got that power. He'snot the Count; he's the CEO of
an organization, thereforepeople have to tolerate the way
he treats people, the way heinteracts with people, and the
rights that he believes he hasare all set within the context
(29:08):
of a corporate CEO." That made ahuge amount of sense to me, as
someone, at that point, isrelatively young starting and
working for the corporateclients.
Julie McIsaac (29:18):
Is there anything that inspires you in particular
when it comes to highlyinterpretive choices of
canonical rep?
Perryn Leech (29:25):
No, I think each piece is different. I think once
you started to say "one sizefits all," it has to be, though,
driven by stuff that's withinthe narrative of the libretto
and the writings. So, we did avery modern version of the Ring
Cycle in Houston, Texas, but itall held together because it was
all based in what the originallibretto and story was, and
(29:48):
nothing was added. And peoplesay, "Well, it was all
modernized up and everything,"and that's definitely true but
the reality of it is thatnothing was added that wasn't in
the original story. And,actually when you look, Wagner
is so specific about how hewanted things doing and setting,
and people, sort of, try andrebel against that. But in real
terms, the story of The Ring isincredibly clearly laid out, and
(30:13):
it is open to interpretation onhow you tell that story, but
[if] you lose the story, then Ithink you've lost your audience.
Robyn Grant-Moran (30:31):
I mentioned earlier that we received a whole
range of submissions when we putthe call out for questions for
this episode. I think it's fairto say this one is coming from
someone with a fair bit of operaexpertise. Zane wrote in to ask,
"What is the company's officialfavorite selection from the '24
Italian Art Songs and Arias [ofthe 17th and 18th Centuries]'
(30:51):
book?"
Julie McIsaac (30:51):
Now there's probably way too many people
with very divergent thoughts onthis answer to get you one solid
one, Zane. But we did want todig into this for you, and so
we're going to go back to two ofthe COC team members that we
spoke to earlier. Let's bringback COC Music Director Johannes
Debus and Liz Upchurch, Head ofthe COC Ensemble Studio.
Johannes Debus (31:10):
Yes, mine is "Amarilli, mia bella." The
simple reason for that is it'sprobably one of the first songs
in Italian that I got to learnor that I encountered when I was
a little boy. And it is abeautiful song. There's always
this name of "Amarilli"Amarilli, of course, is also
(31:31):
this flower, the amaryllis, andalways at the end of the verse,
there's this beautiful melismaon this name, and it's, kind of,
embellished almost likebeautiful flowers it's a love
song, obviously. Later on, Iremember I played a concert with
a friend of mine who was or isa fabulous recorder player,
and we played some sets ofvariations on that song because,
(31:55):
at that time, it was was a bitlike I would say like Lady Gaga
I don't know other artists ofthe genre of that time! It was
really the popular repertoire,everyone must have known it and
sang it.
Liz Upchurch (32:28):
I can tell you that my favourite is "Caro mio
ben," which was written by[Giuseppe] Giordani and the
poet, I believe, is anonymous.
But every voice type has sungthat. If you want to see
Pavarotti sing it which I'dprobably say has to be one of my
absolute favorite renditions ofthis. You can hear basses sing
(32:50):
it, you can hear high sopranosing it, you can hear it with
orchestra, you can hear it withguitar, you can hear it with
piano, there's even a recordingonline going back to 1903. I can
play you a little bit. Just thattune it's so simple! But just
those three little notes, it'sso simple and yet so beautiful.
(33:16):
And with an operatic core to thepoem, which is, you know,
"Dearly beloved, you make myheart languish after you." Does
it get any more operatic thanthat? But it's not actually an
operatic song; it was written byan Italian for a concert, I
believe, in London. Caro mio benenjoy it!
Julie McIsaac (33:38):
Excellent. Well, thank you! And thank you, Zane,
for the question. And HappyBirthday, Zane. We're told that
today, the premiere of thisepisode, is your birthday.
Liz Upchurch (33:46):
Oh, and happy birthday, yes! I could probably
do a version of [plays "HappyBirthday to You"] Happy
(34:07):
birthday, Zane!
Julie McIsaac (34:19):
Now we talk a lot about the COC's mainstage work
and the history of the company,but, presently, the company is
also heavily involved in schoolsand communities through musical
programs taught by a wonderfulstaff of COC Teaching Artists,
often in partnership withdifferent community leaders.
And, as we're planning thisepisode, we wanted to hear from
students about the things theywonder about and their
(34:39):
experiences with opera.
Robyn Grant-Moran (34:41):
Here's a really great one from the grade
9 MID class at Haydon ParkSecondary School in Toronto.
They wanted to know, "How do youcome up with a costume for the
opera?" Julie, is this maybe oneyou'd like to put your
director/dramaturg hat on for?
Julie McIsaac (34:58):
Yeah, I would love to! So, there's a lot of
collaboration involved. So, forexample, if I'm directing a
work, then I'm going to chat alot with the costume designer,
and I'm going to compile a wholebunch of images like, maybe
create a vision board orsomething like that, maybe use
Pinterest or some other means todo that so that we can all get
on the same page in terms of"What is the world of this show
that we're creating?" Forexample, "Where's it set
(35:20):
geographically?" "Where's it setin time?" "What is the era that
this piece is set in?" And, inthat case, you might do some
research around "What did peoplewear?" And then you want to,
sort of, know, "What wascommonplace for people to wear
at that time?" "Was it a timewhere women often wore skirts?"
or "Are we transitioning into atime where women would wear
trousers?" or "What does it meanto wear skirt? What does it mean
to wear trousers?" and thingslike that. So, what are your
(35:42):
costume saying in addition toeverything else that's going on
in your production. And what'sreally great is that, in terms
of collaboration (35:49):
there's the designer, there's also a team of
builders, and people whosupervise all the wardrobe
stuff. And, if you're interestedin knowing some intricacies of
that, you could go back toEpisode Four, where we spoke
with Sandra [Corazza], who'shead of wardrobe here at the
COC, and she's got lovelyinsights.
Robyn Grant-Moran (36:04):
And I imagined comfort is really
important to you as well.
Julie McIsaac (36:08):
Absolutely!
Robyn Grant-Moran (36:09):
Like, you have to have comfortable shoes.
When famous Swedish sopranoBirgit Nilsson was asked how she
prepared for the role of Isolde[in Tristan und Isolde], she
said, "Comfortable shoes!"
Julie McIsaac (36:23):
So important!
Robyn Grant-Moran (36:25):
A funny little anecdote
Braun's kneepads in the LouisRiel production he was not
using them for his role; it wasfrom a past production.
Julie McIsaac (36:36):
Opera companies have their store of costumes and
they might reuse pieces, so, youmight find yourself wearing a
costume piece that anothersinger wore maybe two years ago
or five years ago. And I thinkthat's lovely because then you
find that you're part of thistradition, you feel like you're
participating in something thatgoes beyond the single
production that you're in andconnects you to all these other
artists. The other thing I thinkabout, Robyn, is about, like,
(36:56):
"What [does] the singer have todo when they're wearing that
usually you need that when youhave to be down on your knees or
down on the ground and thinkingabout "What does that mean for
their pants that they'rewearing? Do they have to be
reinforced in the knees?" forexample.
Robyn Grant-Moran (37:09):
Hmm, yeah, I hadn't even considered that!
But, now that you said, it makesperfect sense.
Julie McIsaac (37:15):
And undergarments like, what someone's wearing
under their and that mightcontribute to the silhouette,
so, the line of the costume andhow that looks on stage. But,
also, maybe they have sceneswhere they need to be intimate
with someone else, or wherethere's nudity or something like
that. So, there's a lot ofthought that has to go into
undergarments and quick changes.
So, "How quickly do they have tochange between one costume piece
and another?" And, actually,there's one more question that
(37:37):
we received from Haydon Park'sgrade 9 MID class, and it's a
really excellent one. Theywanted to know, "How do opera
singers get their voice totravel so far?"
Robyn Grant-Moran (37:47):
You know, it's still a big surprise to a
lot of people that the sound youhear when you go to an opera
doesn't rely on the use of micsor amps. Since we were already
speaking with vocal expert LizUpchurch, we asked if she could
break it down for us in 60seconds or less.
Liz Upchurch (38:05):
The operatic voice is somewhere between it's half
athletic and half artistic. Butthere's a scientific reason why
you can hear them (38:13):
it's not that they're singing louder than the
amount of people playing in theorchestra [you] can have over
100 people in the pit, there'sno way that one person can sing
louder. This is a very goodquestion: why can we hear them
sing over or through thisenormous amount of sound? It's
(38:35):
because of actually thefrequency that the human voice
resonates at. And so basicallyoperatic voice is trained to
live to the full extent in thatfrequency or the "formant" I
believe it's called and thistakes a lot of passion and
commitment. Yes, a lot oftraining but, as I said, it's
(38:58):
not about singing louder; it's,kind of, learning to make your
entire body the resonator foryour instrument. I mean, that's
a very brief little way ofputting it but it's somewhere
between science and what thecomposer writes.
Julie McIsaac (39:15):
It's so interesting, that idea of the
human body as a resonator,because when we asked the same
question to professionalvocalist, Jonathan Christopher,
he almost mirrored Liz'sresponse in comparing the human
body to an instrument all itsown.
Jonathan Christopher (39:30):
So, you have your whole body your body
is your instrument when it comesto singing. And when you sing in
so many different styles, whichis for me, very important as
much as I love opera I lovemusical theatre, as much as I
love musical theatre I lovegospel music, as much as I love
gospel I love pop music andmany of my teachers along the
way have told me that I shouldprobably focus on just one thing
(39:53):
in order to be fully successfulin it. But I myself am too
passionate about music ingeneral, so, I'm happy that I
had training in opera that didprepare me for musical theatre,
but then I did learn somedifferent techniques in order
for my voice to sustain eightshows a week. So, in opera, you
(40:14):
know, our support comes from ourabdomen and, depending on the
teacher that you study with,it's whether or not you release
[your abdomen]. Your abdomen isfilled, it's like a big barrel
and you kind of or you have arubber tube around your stomach
and you try to press out to,kind of, get that support and
(40:34):
feel like a buoy that's wadingin the water. And then you have
to use the muscles in your faceas, kind of, like a resistance
in order to get this big fullsound out. And when you're
walking into a theatre, you knowthat your sound has to get from
where you are, up to the verylast balcony, where the cheap
(40:56):
seats are they're up there,so, you want to sing to them.
So, you learn the musculatureand, kind of, the anatomy of
your body to know what it takesto sing to those people out
there. And it's a lot of work,you don't necessarily have to
have a big booming voice. Itdepends on what we call "the
(41:18):
resonators," which are in yourskull. Like, there are all these
different holes and cavities inyour head, which make it like a
big speaker at a concert likeat a Beyonce concert or
something that amplifies hersound so she can get out to the
cheap seats. We use our ownbodies to do that and, through a
(41:39):
lot of studying, you figure thatout. Whereas in musical theatre,
you still have to support thesound that you're creating, but
you also have a microphone tohelp amplify, especially
nowadays. Maybe back in the1930s and 40s, you hear a singer
like Ethel Merman where she hada loud sound because she had to
(42:00):
there weren't microphones atthat time! So, you use these
different parts of your face to,kind of, [mimics performing on
stage by speaking louder] makethat sound go from where you are
and all the way through theback. But we don't have to play
with that these days, and youstill have to project, but you
also want to make really goodfriends with the sound
engineers, especially whenyou're on tour with the musical
(42:22):
because it's almost that you areat their mercy: when you're
doing a musical, they mix yoursound, they make sure that the
sound is balanced between theband that's playing underneath
the stage, the ensemble, theprinciples, so, everything
sounds, like, a beautiful rockconcert in a way. That's at
(42:42):
least what Hamilton is.
Robyn Grant-Moran (43:04):
Thanks again to the grade 9 students at
Haydon Park's MID class forthese great questions. We hope
you've got a better sense of howopera production and performance
works. You know, it'sinteresting that, a lot of the
time, people think that if youwork in opera, you must know a
lot about opera. But that's notalways true.
Julie McIsaac (43:21):
Learning is definitely a lifelong journey
and, in planning this episode,we got some opera questions from
a few COC staff members,including members of our own
production team. One questionthat comes to mind in particular
is, "Why does it feel likethere's so few English language
operas?"
Robyn Grant-Moran (43:38):
Since we were already talking to Johannes
Debus, we posed this question tohim as well. Here's a little bit
of that conversation.
Johannes Debus (43:46):
In terms of the amount of repertoire that has
been produced in English inopera, there's a bit of a gap. I
mean, after Henry Purcell,you'll find some things, of
course, in the 19th century,late 19th century, [Frederick]
Delius and others and, yes,Benjamin Britten. I mean, we did
(44:08):
A Midsummer Night's Dream at theCOC at least in the last 10-11
years, Peter Grimes, the companyhas done [The] Rape of Lucretia,
[The] Turn of the Screw, and Ithink those are all yeah,
absolute masterpieces based ongreat stories, it's always
(44:30):
extremely exciting and it'sextremely well written. Then
there's something likeStravinsky, The Rake's Progress
and, of course, now you have ahuge amount of repertoire from
the U.K. but also from otherEnglish spoken countries North
(44:50):
America in particular. I thinkthere's a lot happening and I'm
sure that we will see and hearmore. Obviously I'm not a native
speaker but, from what Iunderstand, it's actually very,
very tricky to perform/to singin English well, and that might
also be one aspect why peoplehave the impression and the
(45:12):
notion that this repertoirerepertoire in English is a bit
neglected.
Robyn Grant-Moran (45:18):
Do you have a favorite English-language opera?
Johannes Debus (45:21):
It might be Peter Grimes. I think Peter
Grimes is one of those piecesthat it has it all. You know,
it has the large scenes, it hasalso the focus on the
individuals and their tragedies,so to speak. The music is of
(45:46):
such variety and mastery, thescore writing is so powerful.
chorus, soloists, but then alsothe orchestra with those
interludes it's reallybreathtaking! And you go from,
like, at the very end, you onlyhear a foghorn and basically,
(46:08):
you know, you go from very, verylittle to the largest storm
scenes. Yeah, so, it's a piecethat somehow showcases the
possibilities, the range ofopera and the immediacy. You
know, it can hit you and it hitsyou then right in your heart.
Julie McIsaac (46:53):
Our next question came to us from theatre critic
Karen Fricker. We'll actually bechatting further with Karen on
an upcoming episode about thefuture of arts criticism. But
when she found out that we weredoing this mailbag episode, she
thought it'd be the perfect timeto learn the answer to something
she's always wondered about.
Robyn Grant-Moran (47:09):
I'm curious about what opera singers eat on
the day [of a performance]because, you know, you hear a
lot about, like, how to run amarathon and the pasta stuff
and, I'm just wondering, ifyou're going to sing a big, big
role, what's the philosophy? Andis there a philosophy or is it
(47:31):
completely dependent on theperson? Is it dependent on what
register they sing in? Is itdependent upon their physical
size? So, that (47:39):
what do you eat?
This is such a great question.
And this is so different foreveryone. I know I don't like to
feel too full, but I don't wantto be hungry either.
everyone's gonna have their ownlittle tricks of the trade and
what makes them feel good andconfident going out on stage.
Robyn Grant-Moran (47:58):
We decided to widen our nets on this and bring
you some answers from a range ofperformers working across opera
and musicals. Our friends atAmplified Opera wanted to weigh
in. Here's co-founder TeiyaKasahara.
Teiya Kasahara (48:11):
I typically eat something that is quite hearty
and nutritious. So, energy thatI can pull from for quite a few
hours. So, something withcomplex carbs, a lot of protein,
no spice I don't want any acidreflux or any kind of acidic
things, usually no tomato,anything dairy. It depends, but
(48:33):
I think everyone is different.
That's what I eat.
Julie McIsaac (48:36):
Here's what Jonathan Christopher had to say
when asked about his pre-showeating rituals.
Jonathan Christopher (48:42):
It really does depend on the person and it
also depends on theidiosyncrasies and the neuroses
of a person. I know when I wasin my master's degree at least,
there were a lot of us that werejust, kind of, freaking out
about the next steps of whathappens after you receive your
master's degree, and I worriedmyself so much I did start to
(49:05):
get acid reflux, and there weredays when I couldn't sing I'd
go into my voice lesson and itwould just be [imitates scratchy
throat] or I was doing I forgetwhich opera I was doing but at
the same like, the muscles inmy throat would start spasming,
and I was like, "Okay, thisisn't great. So, what do I do to
make sure that this doesn'thappen in a performance?" and
(49:27):
most of it does come down todiet but, at the end of the day,
too, it, kind of, just comes towhere you are physically,
mentally, emotionally, andspiritually as a performer, and
you learn that through time. Interms of opera. I don't
necessarily want to have a fullstomach before I go on stage
(49:47):
or in musical theatre as well.
Like, I'll have an energy drinkor not necessarily a cup of
coffee but something, kind of,that wakes me up but also gives
me enough energy to do athree-hour show. Well, I'm
vegan, so I, kind of, eat vegan
junk food (50:05):
I love falafel but I try to have stuff that's not too
acidic. But also, the more Iworry about it, the more I
become neurotic about whether ornot the food affects me. And
since I don't eat dairy anymore,that doesn't really factor into
what I eat. But I know a lot ofpeople that have very strict
(50:27):
diets in order for them to makesure that their throats are as
prepared, and as clear, and asclean as possible. I was just
watching an interview withLeontyne Price earlier today
and, if you don't know whoLeontyne Price is, she was one
of the most prolific voices ofthe 20th century. As a Black
(50:48):
opera singer, she was aninspiration to me and to so many
others; the adversity that shewent through paved the way so I
can be where I am today. Shesaid something about [that] her
private life was free fromvarious temptations, whether it
was, you know, the night beforea show, going out to a party or
having a big, big meal thatmight affect her voice the next
(51:10):
day for that concert or for thatopera. Our job as artists is to
give our best selves to thepublic in the theatre, so,
throughout your years of studyand throughout your young
career, you figure out whatworks for you and what doesn't
(51:30):
work for you, and if that comesdown to someone eating a big
piece of lasagna before they goonstage to do La Traviata, then
that's what it is, you know. Andif it means not necessarily
having a meal from noon on untilafter the show, then that's that
person's convention. But itreally does depend.
Julie McIsaac (51:51):
Well, thanks for sharing your particular
experience on that and alsopulling in, sort of, the wisdom
of artists who have come beforeus in previous generations.
That's great, too! Thank you.
Robyn Grant-Moran (52:02):
There's one final question that came through
to us on Twitter and it's from aperformer who's no stranger to
the COC's mainstage.
Julie McIsaac (52:10):
Audiences might remember soprano Keri Alkema as
the Foreign Princess in theCOC's Rusalka in 2019, or as
Giovanna Seymour in COC's 2018production of Anna Bolena. She
also co-hosts a weekly YouTubeshow [Screaming Divas] with
soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, andit's a lot of fun, so do check
it out! She tweeted, "With thepandemic or possibly endemic
(52:32):
I wonder what our art form as awhole will look like in 3-5-10
years from now?" So, we thoughtthis might be a nice one to
ruminate on as we wrap up. Whatdo you think, Robyn three
years from now?
Robyn Grant-Moran (52:43):
Oh, my gosh, even just three years from now:
will we have the ability to allsit together and commune in an
opera house together? Will we bedistanced in that? Will we have
intermissions? All of thesethings are going to really
change the landscape the answersto these.
Julie McIsaac (53:02):
Right! Like, will I have people sitting on either
side of me, and will we be inthere, sort of, in that
beautiful, tight compactexperience altogether or not?
And also thinking ahead, youknow, three to five years, you
know, we had Cherie [Dimaline]and Ian [Cusson] who shared with
us about their collaborations(it's on Episode Five of the
podcast) and I'm hoping that,three to five years from now,
(53:22):
we're seeing that productioncome to the stage, and that it's
really indicative of this wealthof Canadian storytelling that's
beginning to take over ourmainstages not take over our
mainstages but really have itsplace, its rightful place on the
main stages of the country.
Robyn Grant-Moran (53:38):
And I expect hybridisation is going to become
the norm; that live performanceswill have a lot of digital
content for accessibility,whether it's unpacking themes,
seeing backstage bonus things,even getting to see performances
(53:59):
when you're not able to get tothe theatre itself.
Julie McIsaac (54:03):
Yeah, I agree with you that opera isn't just
about what happens in the operahouse; but opera is this thing
that can connect us and that wecan all be connected to
regardless of whether or notwe're able to gather together in
the opera house but thatthere's many different pathways
in and ways that the art form isevolving and percolating.
Robyn Grant-Moran (54:22):
Yeah, I'm really excited to see how the
use of technology that we'vebeen incorporating since the
pandemic stays and how it growsover the next few years.
Julie McIsaac (54:39):
One it's exciting, too, to think right
now, Robyn, we're having theseconversations that are a bit
removed from mainstage operaactivity just because there
really isn't any, but to thinkthat this is a place that we
could talk about productions ifthey were happening, and we
could chat with people who areworking on their productions
and, sort of, have a place toadd to people's experience or to
(55:00):
expand the experience ofattending the opera.
Robyn Grant-Moran (55:04):
I love the idea of us having episodes that
act in support to productionsthat are happening at the Four
Seasons Centre.
Julie McIsaac (55:15):
And I love what you're saying about all those
different things that cansupport that experience, whether
that's insight into what'shappening backstage, or getting
to know one of the performers,or getting to know what's going
on in the pit and getting abetter sense of connection to
those individual musicians whoare making the magic happen down
there. A lot is possible andwe've been forced to explore and
to innovate, and, hopefully,we'll bring it along with us
(55:38):
when we also bring back thatthing that we miss so much.
Robyn Grant-Moran (55:41):
One final thought. I mean, the
conversations that we're havingabout identity, and gender and
opera, and racial identity. Theywere conversations that were
happening before but not at thedecibel level they are right now
because of the pandemic. That'sreally exciting! How is that
going to change productions inthe future? I expect for the
(56:05):
best, much of the time.
Julie McIsaac (56:07):
I remember Rena [Roussin] saying on Episode
Seven, she said, "I just wantmore opera, and more people who
feel represented, and feelincluded, and feel like they can
come and enjoy the art form."Speaking of more, that's all the
time we have for today. Butthank you so much for joining
us.
Robyn Grant-Moran (56:28):
We also want to extend a special thanks to
all of our guests (56:31):
COC General Director Perryn Leech, COC Music
Director Johannes Debus, Head ofthe COC Ensemble Studio Liz
Upchurch, actor and singerJonathan Christopher, Amplified
Opera co-founder Teiya Kasahara,and soprano Rebecca Caine.
Julie McIsaac (56:49):
We loved hearing your questions and we hope that
we were able to satisfyinglyanswer a few of those
head-scratchers. But please feelfree to keep sharing your
questions and feedback at anytime. You can tag us on social
@CanadianOpera, or email us ataudiences@coc.ca. You can also
send us a voice memo and there'sinstructions for how to do that
(57:09):
at coc.ca/KeyChange.
Robyn Grant-Moran (57:13):
We appreciate all of the feedback we've
received so far, and the reviewsyou've left on Apple Podcasts.
And remember, if you're a COCsubscriber or member, you have
access to exclusive bonuscontent and extended interviews.
Next week (57:26):
we'll have more from our chat with Rebecca Caine.
Julie McIsaac (57:30):
So, if you're a COC supporter, keep an eye out
for a link in your supporternewsletter on Thursdays. Coming
up next episode (57:36):
we're diving into our Spring season with an
exploration of opera andcontemporary art. Icelandic
artist Ragnar Kjartansson willjoin us in conversation along
with Adelina Vlas of the ArtGallery of Ontario, where
Ragnar's work is currently ondisplay.
Robyn Grant-Moran (57:51):
See you then.
Be the first to find out aboutfree events and concerts from
the COC by signing up for ourmonthly eOpera newsletter at
coc.ca/eOpera.
Julie McIsaac (58:11):
Thank you to all of our supporters for making Key
Change possible. This week wewant to especially thank every
COC member, subscriber, anddonor for coming on this journey
with us as we explore new waysto share opera's unique power.
Robyn Grant-Moran (58:25):
So, to make sure you don't miss an episode,
subscribe to Key Change whereveryou get your podcasts.
Julie McIsaac (58:32):
Key Change is produced by the Canadian Opera
Company and hosted by RobynGrant-Moran and Julie McIsaac.
Robyn Grant-Moran (58:39):
To learn more about today's guests and see the
show notes, please visit ourwebsite at coc.ca/KeyChange.
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