Wilson Clark opera series serves up feast for the soul

Wilson Clark opera series serves up feast for the soul
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BY ELLEN CHANG
Rice News Staff

Four well-known
Italian operas will kick off the Leon Wilson Clark Opera
Series, “Opera Pasticcio: Food for the Soul,”
Oct. 21 and 22 at the Shepherd School of Music.

Scenes from “La
Bohème,” “La Clemenza di Tito,” “L’elisir
d’amore” and “La Traviata” will be performed
by graduate voice students of the Shepherd School. Debra
Dickinson, artist teacher of opera studies, and Kathleen
Kaun, professor of voice, are the stage directors and Jo
Anne Ritacca, staff accompanist at the Shepherd School,
is the music director. The pianist in two of the scenes
will be graduate student Calogero di Liberto.

Performances
will begin at 7:30 each evening in Stude Concert Hall, Alice
Pratt Brown Hall. Admission is free and no tickets are required.

All four of the
19th-century operas are about personal relationships and
how people deal with them, said Kaun.

“La Clemenza
di Tito,” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is about a Roman
emperor and the intrigue that surrounds his court. The emperor
is known for his fairness in all issues, and this is troublesome
to those who want to usurp his power.

“L’elisir
d’amore,” by Gaetano Donizetti, is about a farm
boy who falls in love with a pretty girl who will have nothing
to do with him.

“La Bohème,”
by Giacomo Puccini, is about two bohemian couples who have
relationship problems. It takes place in Paris in the 1830s.

The last opera,
Giuseppe Verdi’s “La Traviata,” is about
a courtesan in Paris who finds true love, but will not be
able to enjoy it because of illness and family intervention.

Students have
been rehearsing 15 to 20 hours a week to perfect their hand
movements, turns and diction for the performances. Preparing
for an opera is physically rigorous since it requires the
entire body to produce sound, Kaun said.

“It’s
incredibly time consuming,” she said. “That’s
why they’re here. They’re here to perform. It’s
like being a professional athlete with artistic overtones.”

Having the ability
to sing and act in an opera and also make it look natural
is a difficult task, she said. Opera singers are restricted
by a pace that is dictated by the composer and by the boundaries
of the styles of historical classical singing.

Standing out
as an opera singer can be tricky. Singers must learn to
develop a unique sound that is instantaneously recognizable
and have the self-confidence to become the character with
“a unique stamp of sound and diction,” she said.
They also must have the musical skills to obey what the
composer dictates in pitch, rhythm and dynamics.

“That’s
the hardest thing — to make it magical after learning
all the skills,” she said. “It’s beautiful
people making beautiful sounds in a beautiful setting accompanied
by music written by geniuses whose music has lasted for
hundreds of years. It speaks to something deep within us
that can’t be experienced any other way.”

The series will
continue Oct. 28 and 29 with performances by undergraduate
voice students. They will perform two one-act operas, “A
Hand of Bridge” by Samuel Barber and “The Face
on the Barroom Floor” by Henry Mollicone.

Barber’s
opera is about four friends who gather for their evening
bridge game. The piece reveals unspoken thoughts and portrays
a search for a way to a better life.

One of America’s
most popular cabaret operas, “The Face on the Barroom
Floor” is set in the Old West. It is about a passionate,
tragic love triangle based on the poetic legend surrounding
the painting of the beautiful Madeline on the barroom floor.

Both operas will
be performed each night. Performances begin at 7:30 p.m.
in the Wortham Opera Theatre, and admission is free.