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From:  Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Isabelle Bracamonte <ibracamonte@y...>
Date:  Tue May 15, 2001  11:37 pm
Subject:  repertory system and local opera



> As it happens, Opera San Jose operates in a similar
> fashion. The company
> hires "resident artists" who are housed in the area,
> train and work work work on several roles a season.

This system has BIG drawbacks, and I don't just say
this because the three Opera San Jose performances I
saw this season were absolutely horrible (they were
more poorly cast with poor singers and awfully
directed -- I understand they're having an internal
crisis that accounts for the shoddy quality this
year). I've seen very good productions there in the
past, but they all show the same basic flaw.

When you have a repertory company which expects to
hire one soprano to sing all the lead parts, one tenor
to do the same, etc., as OSJ does, you will destroy
the voices and comromise the production quality.
Especially if you insist upon casting singers in their
very young twenties, as OSJ has the reputation for
doing. The idea of finding a leading lady capable of
singing and fully doing justice to, while not
compromising her own instrument, soprano roles in a
season that is diverse enough to keep audiences
coming, is ridiculous. Unless you're doing an
"all-ina" season, or an "all operas whose protagonists
are light lyric tenors" season, something is going to
give. Audiences want to come see a Puccini, a Mozart,
maybe a bel canto, maybe a verismo piece, a big Verdi
-- don't tell me that you're going to cast the lead
singer with the same four or six young people in all
of these productions. It's a recipe for chewing
singers up and spitting them out. In addition, you
get bored of seeing one soprano sing everything for
two seasons straight, especially if you are watching
her technique get worse and worse as she sings roles
across the board like Norina, Nedda, Violetta, Mimi,
Tatiana, Juliette, Rosina, etc. Perhaps an older,
experienced voice would know how to handle the
different demands of each role, but a 23-year-old is
just going to crumble.

People talk a lot about how the good old-fashioned
repertory company doesn't exist in America and is
fading from Europe. But even in Europe, there were a
variety of singers to choose from -- not every singer
in the company had the lead in every production,
surely. Graham, who has worked in such houses in
Germany, how does the system work in practice? I'm
betting that there is a larger pool of singers than
just two or three sopranos, two or three tenors, etc.,
yes? Big houses fly international singers is because
that's how you get the best voices for one particular
production; you get "the" Amneris of today, and a
soprano who does a killer Aida but would be totally
wrong if she had to sing Donna Anna, Adina, and
Musetta in the same house.

It's not that I think everyone should specialize and
sing only one role brilliantly, but I think that
stretching a voice into too many different fachs (even
if they're all broadly "soprano" or "tenor" roles)
isn't good, especially when you're young. It's
important to choose roles that are just right for your
voice at the time, and if you belong to a repertory
house that decides that roles A, B, C, and D are
what's right for you -- because there's no one else to
sing them, and because that's what will produce a
lovely season for the audiences to appreciate -- I
think you are being done a disservice.

Going back to Karen's idea, I think the idea of a
local repertory company will work as long as your
talent pool in the area is large enough. It's really
boring to go see 6 out of 10 productions in a year
where the leading tenor is the same man, or you see
one soprano in every show. I can go to a season of 6
plays in a small theater company in the bay area and
see the same actor in perhaps two of those shows (in a
small part and later in a large part).

Again, maybe theater isn't like this because there is
a larger pool; there are more struggling actor
wannabes out there than singers, so the casting
directors have more to draw upon. Maybe OSJ is
failing (in my opinion) because they simply can't
afford to house and pay more than two sopranos a year.
I don't know. I think small repertory companies can
exist, you just have to be careful so that you don't
end up inappropriately casting voices and/or boring
audiences.

Isabelle B.

=====
Isabelle Bracamonte, ibracamonte@y...
San Francisco, CA
moderator of Vocalist: the mailing list for singers
(vocalist-temporary@yahoogroups.com)

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  Replies Name/Email Yahoo! ID Date Size
11931 Re: repertory system and local opera Lloyd W. Hanson   Wed  5/16/2001   5 KB
11941 Re: repertory system and local opera Karen Mercedes   Wed  5/16/2001   4 KB
11951 Re: repertory system and local opera thomas mark montgomery   Wed  5/16/2001   2 KB

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