We’ve got magic to do…as we go along our way

I’ve been thinking about magic in opera lately.  I think we’ve all had those moments of doubt when we walk into an audition thinking the not-so-constructive thought, “I hope I can trick them into casting me.”  Magic has been a key word that has been popping up in my coloratura repertoire.  Recently, I was working on the role of Tytania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the magic involved in that opera/play.   She may possess her own magic as the fairy queen, but she is also a victim of magic as she falls in love with Bottom, the ass man, as it were.  The role of Nannetta in Falstaff is another obvious role involving magic and trickery, especially as she portrays a queen of fairies in her aria in Act 3.  It’s important to embody such magic, and for me, that translates into incorporating as much “sparkle” into my singing as possible.  But more important than playing characters that are victims or masters of magic, I think singing opera in itself is a form of magic.  We are making the audience think we are effortlessly making sound, when in reality, we have been practicing our “tricks” for years.  We are performing a slight of hand (or really, a slight of breath) to accomplish our centuries-old task.  Perhaps the only difference is that our  “lovely assistant” is the one holding the wand, and he/she gives us the support and guidance we need from afar in a pit.

I was reminded of the effect musical magic can have on an audience on Saturday night. During this time of year, the “audition season” for singers, I often feel stressed, frustrated, and overwhelmed just hearing the word “opera,” let alone attending one.  However, I felt completely haunted and enchanted by Leonard Bernstein’s A Quiet Place at New York City Opera. The music was not easy.  The subject matter was not easy.  However, the performances were so vocally and artistically magnificent that, as a singer, I often went into my head asking, “How are they doing that.” Sound effortlessly poured out of the performers, despite the fact that the actors were throwing furniture, running around the stage, carrying other actors, or experiencing a complete meltdown.  I also marveled at the magic of the subliminal suggestions of Mad Men, Revolutionary Road, and other recognizable references to dysfunctional nuclear American families by the director and design team.  I felt transformed by the experience, and perhaps that is what makes City Opera the Houdini of New York opera in my eyes.  It brings new meaning to being “outside the box.”  Maybe the next step as illusionists is to make the confining boxes of opera disappear all together.

I hadn’t planned to make my very first blog a series of musings on magic, but the impact of the opera has made it difficult for me to think of anything else.  If you have a chance to see A Quiet Place before it closes next weekend, I urge to you buy a ticket and some waterproof mascara.  And while contemporary opera undoubtedly cast a spell on me many years ago, I hope to use this outlet as a way of exploring a great variety of spellbinding events and genres that inspire me as an operatic artist, but are not necessarily operatic themselves.  So I invite you to please join me, “come and waste an hour or two…doodley-doo.”