Dear Mike, Joycelyn and Vocalisters:
I was singing with Center Opera of Minneapolis, later renamed Minnesota Opera, in the The early 70's when they did the world premier of Conrad Susa's "Transformations" I was not in the cast but was in the casts of other shows done that season. John Haber was stage manager for our shows that year and Will Graham was Asst. stage manager, I believe. The opera was commissioned by Center Opera and Suza was selected by Philip Brunelle, music director and Wesley Balk, Artistic Director.
It was based on the book entitled "Transformations" by Anne Sexton. Sexton rewrote many of the Grimm's Fairy Tales to give them a contemporary meaning. The story of Rapunzel became an incestuous relationship between Rapunzel and her mother; When Rumpelstiltskin (Sp?) wove the straw into gold, that is, "did the trick" as the brothers Grimm put it, he fathered the child that he later came to claim, etc. etc.
The cast was dressed in white jump suits, the stage was in white with lighting providing the color, the sets were nothing more than frames made of white polyvinyl tubes on which was stretched white sheets of vinyl. The cast stacked these frames to create the sets that were needed and drew on them with enormous magic markers. Rapunzel's tower, for example, was made of two frames stacked on each other with a tower drawn on them by one of the cast and Rapunzel standing on a white ladder behind the frames. The effect was stunning; the cast created not only their roles bot also the theatre atmosphere necessary to execute their roles. All of this was the work of Wesley Balk, one of the most honest and inventive stage directors I have ever seen or work with.
Sally and I sat near Anne Sexton at the premier. She was very concerned about the work and whether it would do justice to her writing. At a reception afterward she expressed great satisfaction with the results. She struck us as frail and very fragile. She did take her own life within a year of that time. It was a very great shock to us and the literary world.
John Haber has since passed on as well. He become an excellent director and this does not surprise me. He was a friend to all of us singer/actors with a great sense of humor and a deep devotion to music theatre. Other members of the resident company of Center Opera during those years have also died. I miss them. Many of them were of that group that were caught unawares by the lethal aids virus.
Will Graham became head of the opera department at Boston University and is now artistic director of a well endowed opera training center in one of the southern seaboard states. I cannot remember which, at present.
Jocelyn, you will find Susa's music and the setting of Sexton's wonderful poems a very moving experience, I am sure.
Regards --
Lloyd W. Hanson, DMA Professor of Voice, Vocal Pedagogy School of Performing Arts Northern Arizona University Flagstaff, AZ 86011
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