Comic opera tends to please the crowd: finally, a break from all the tragic death and fateful lovers. The problem is that there aren’t many choices. Opera companies can program just a handful of programs over and over, such as “Così fan tutte,” “Il Barbiere di Sivilia,” and “L’elisir d’Amour.”
Franceska Zambello, Arts and President Glimmer Glass Festival, Came up with a novel idea. “I said,’Let’s do a Rossini comedy that doesn’t exist yet,'” she said in her recent video conversation.
In other words, the jukebox opera “Tenor Overboard” will premiere at the festival in Cooperstown, NY on Tuesday and will run until August 18.
The jukebox format is common enough on Broadway, but very rare in the opera house. Baroque opera is more than most styles, from the old “Pasticcio”, a recycled version of existing work, to the 2011 “Island of Enchantment”, the Metropolitan Opera Commission, where scriptwriter Jeremy Sams inserted Handel’s music. Suitable for excellent genres. , Vivaldi, Rameau and others borrowed from Shakespeare’s play.
Without hesitation, or inspired by this relative shortage, Zambello was called a playwright. Ken Ludwig Last summer I asked if he was interested in writing a script for the project. He was an excellent candidate in two respects. He wrote the Tony Award-winning Gershwin jukebox musical “Crazy for You”. His most famous play, “Lend Me a Tenor,” is a farce starring an opera star. 1930s. (His new “Lend me a soprano” A female protagonist appears on the same basic plot and will open in the alley theater in Houston in September. )
Opera fan Ludwig jumped at the opportunity to collaborate with Rossini. He set up a “tenor overboard” in the 1940s and decided to stuff it with what he called “a great metaphor for comic opera.”
“Often they’re talking about love that older generations can’t meet because they’re trying to get in the way of younger generations’ sexual impulses:” You can’t marry the boy, “he said. Said in a video chat. “I also wanted a storm. They often change the story, like’The Barber of Seville’and’The Italian Girl of Algiers’.”
Ludwig created a story about two New York sisters, Janna (Riley Nelson) and Mimi (Jasmine Harborsham), trying to escape a marriage with a domineering father. They will eventually join the quartet of all men, called Sicilians, who sing on a ship to Sicily in a crossdressing disguise, beloved by Shakespeare, opera and screwball comedy. Naturally, there will be mayhem.
The “tenor overboard” relied more on theatrical dialogue than the recitatives of a regular opera, so Ludwig’s script had to be fairly extensive and interesting. “Rossini gave you a moment to land clearly cartoonly because he was such a cartoon genius,” Ludwig said to the singer. “And I tried to write a script that is also cartoon, and likewise my plays usually have that sense of rhythm.”
Ludwig also recreated the super titles that accompany the Italian sung arias, trying to give some of them “rhyme and rhythm”, as he said. “The opera super title needs to tell people something, and we want people to see the stage,” said Zambello, who oversees the production at the Brenna Corner.
After the general overview was agreed, the most difficult part hadn’t come yet: it had to be filled with music — eventually coming from 15 different sources.
“I was absolutely convinced that it wasn’t just about rehashing Rossini’s famous aria,” said Joseph Collanelli, music director at Glimmerglass. “Yes, there is a duet of” Barbiere “, but I wanted to express Rossini’s lesser-known music as well. “
Koraneri became part of the detective, tracking ambiguous versions of ambiguous operas online and in the library, and some of MacGyver adapted some vocal scores to work in new contexts. “Barbiere” duet text, “Dunqueioson” For example, what Koranelli mentioned was slightly tweaked to make sense in the story. Also, Ludwig’s main couple consisted of mezzo and baritone (in favor of “Dan Kaio’s son”), so a transposition was necessary. Rossini tended to combine tenor and soprano for the love duet of comic opera.
Another challenge was to introduce the first singing Sicilians I met at YMCA. Coranelli examined Rossini’s opera male quartet, but could not find a suitable one. So, after quitting opera composition, he turned his attention to the short song that the composer wrote for “Soire Musical” and found the patter song “La Danza”.Recorded by Luciano PavarottiAbove all).
Coranelli had to create two tenors, baritone and bass, and more vocal arrangements. “Two men will be replaced by two women disguised as men, so it will have to work again in Act 2,” he said. “They sing in the range of women, but I designed the piece to work in a mixed vocal style.”
“Some people will say,’How can Rossini be transposed?'” Koranelli said. “But Rossini always did this himself.”
In Act 2, Coranelli had to find Basobufoaria for her sister’s father, Petronio (Stefano de Peppo). Instead of the popular “Aundottordella mia sorte” of “Il Barbiere”, I chose “Io, Don Profondo” from “Il Viaggio a Reims” (Opera Rossini himself harvested the parts, some of which were “Lucontoli”). “For me, it’s the biggest of these buffalo rears,” Koraneri said. “Rossini went up with it. We knew that Stefano was there and he could pull it off.”
Coranelli and his cast also had to deal with the voice decorations and decorations that were part of Rossini’s performance.The conductor suggested that the singer listen Live version of Ella Fitzgerald’s “How High the Moon” For a stunning example of improvisation he described as “harmoniously off the chart.” He also worked closely with them to come up with decorations that fit their registration and role. “You can’t write decorations for someone until you ask them what they can do,” Koraneri said. “You have to think about it for a moment.”
As with most comedies, speed and timing are important both on stage and off. “Tenor Overboard” hatched in about a year. “Rossini wrote an opera in a month, why shouldn’t he?” Zambello said.
Fans need to be reassured to laugh with Rossini, not Rossini. “We aim to play with all the musical integrity needed to play these songs,” Koranelli said. “We take it all musically very seriously and spin it.”
Still, it’s clear that Zambello wants to be shy to celebrate this piece, which is part of last season as head of the Glimmergrass Festival (she remains the artistic director of the Washington National Opera). is. “It’s Italy, Sicily, food. It’s what people love.”
When asked if she would be happy Zambello smiled as he accepted his love for Shenanigan in Ludwig’s farce and made someone laugh by throwing a plate of spaghetti. “I’m resisting it,” she said. “But I think it works.”
