The Return of Opera




FARMINGTON, MO - Professional baseball and basketball teams like to go into their All-Star breaks with some positive momentum. I drew that parallel in my mind as we approached Thursday night's performance of Così Fan Tutte, which was our first in a month. On the cusp of our weeklong vacation, it was important to the group that we cap off the first half of the tour with a decent showing.

The monotony of doing Three Little Pigs almost exclusively for the last four weeks had become, well, monotonous. It had been so long since we had done Così that we had lost sight of the fact that it was the reason we were here at all. We were lured out to Iowa by the promise of doing multiple performances of Mozart roles that all young singers covet to have under their belts. If Così was the proverbial carrot in this particular arrangement, then I suppose Pigs was the stick - and we've been getting a lot more stick than carrot these days.



Act I sextet

The venue for tonight's performance was the Long Memorial Hall in Farmington. Connected to some of the town's municipal offices, it's a beautiful intimate theater with nicely finished wooden floors. Between its floor level and mezzanine, it seats about 250 spectators. The acoustics were warm, and the piano was out of tune in a charmingly small-town way. By the time 7PM rolled around, about 150 people filled the bottom level. Surprisingly, the age of the audience seemed fairly mixed. There were even some young children in attendance.



Act I Finale

Predictably, the show tonight was a bit rough around the edges. There were some mild mishaps with props and set pieces, and occasional lines of music were a little tardy or, in one case, simply absent. As the show wound down, a cell phone in the house started to wail uncontrollably. The important thing, however, is that we put the show over. By and large, we were accurate, and by and large, the audience seemed to be reasonably entertained.

When we return from our vacation, our performance schedule will be better balanced between Così and Pigs. We'll be able to tighten things up again, and we'll have enough performances to keep our focus where it needs to be. In athletic terms, Thursday night's show may not have been a blowout, but it was still a hard-earned honest victory. We'll be able to enter our "All-Star break" with our heads high. We've traveled for six weeks straight now with our shows, and we're still in one piece. Sure, there are times when the collective state of the group is precarious, but that's to be expected. I think we're going to make it.

Posted: Fri - March 11, 2005 at 01:15 AM      

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