That’s right, the final production of the Company’s inaugural season in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts opens tonight! A limited number of tickets for tonight’s performance of The Barber of Seville are still available, so get them quick. If tonight doesn’t work for you, the added Monday, April 23rd performance has a number of quality seats available. Click to learn more about The Barber of Seville.
In honor of opening night tonight, the Company wanted to share a little taste of what to expect with an excerpt from the piano dress rehearsal this past Tuesday evening featuring our Figaro, Joshua Hopkins. Enjoy, and enjoy the show!
Brad Walker, 2011-12 KU/Lyric Opera Apprentice and Fiorello in production of The Barber of Seville opening Saturday, recently sat down with us so we could pick his brain. Not only did he answer questions for our “10 Questions” series, but he also took some time to explain what the Lyric Opera Apprentice program means to him and how it has helped him grow as he enters the professional world of an opera singer. Watch the video below to learn about Mr. Walker’s Lyric Opera Apprentice experience. AND, don’t forget to scroll down afterwards to read all about this up-and-coming artist.
1. How did your initial interest in the art form of opera begin? Mr. Walker: I first became interested in opera my first semester of college at Michigan State University. I was taking voice lessons and my teacher basically said, “Stop singing that pop-musical theater crap, your voice was made for opera!” So I looked into it, and found I really had a passion for it.
2. Where did you grow up? Mr. Walker: I grew up in Lake Zurich, Il. A suburb about 45 minutes Northwest of Chicago.
3. Do you have a significant other? Children? Pets? Mr. Walker: No. I have a wonderful roommate, who is “training” me to be a great husband around the apartment, but no significant other.
4. What is an average day like for you? Do you have a set routine? Mr. Walker: I do have a routine! I just started using it in fact! I wake up about eight o’clock each morning and work out for about an hour. Head home, clean myself up and get ready for the day. I head to KU where I teach/practice/coach/work for the opera department. Around 6, I leave for Kansas City for whatever rehearsal I have that night. Get home about 11, and watch Hulu for about an hour. Rinse, and repeat. Though, I do take one day a week of and bum around!
5. What is your favorite opera to watch/experience? Mr. Walker: My favorite opera is Mozart’s Don Giovanni. It was the first opera I ever saw, and I have loved it ever since. Not to mention, I would love to play all the roles in it some day!
6. Have you performed your role in Barber before? If so, do you have any interesting anecdotes you can share about the experience? Mr. Walker:I have not. This is actually my first The Barber of Seville. So I don’t have any anecdotes, but I am plenty nervous to be the first one to sing!!
7. What language(s) do you speak fluently? Mr. Walker: English is the only language I speak fluently, but I am trying to get my Italian back up to snuff.
8. What facts about you would our audiences be surprised to learn? Mr. Walker: That I am a HUGE momma’s boy. One of the things I have had to learn to live with and adjust to, is that this career takes you away from your family. I try to call once a week at least, but I make every effort to get back home to see everyone as much as possible.
9. The opera role you haven’t performed, but would like to perform the most in your career? Mr. Walker: Don Giovanni. No question about it. He is such an amazing character. You get to play so many emotions through the course of one show, not to mention sing Mozart!
10. If you bumped into me at a coffee shop and learned that I had never been to an opera before, what would you say to entice me to give it a try? Mr. Walker: Try watching a movie without the music. It is BORING. Music is the only language everyone on our planet speaks. It connects all of us, and touches you far deeper than words. Why wouldn’t you want to experience an art form centered around it?!
Even though The Barber of Seville has been a mainstay in the repertoire since 1816, many people do not know much about the opera. Luckily, Don Dagenais of the Lyric Opera Guild was available to fill us all in with a video found below. In the video Mr. Dagenais muses about The Barber of Seville’s origins, outlines the cast in our production, and adds all sorts of fun facts about this timeless opera. Watch the video and after you watch the Lyric Opera production you will assuredly wonder how such a great opera was created so quickly.
Director Kristine McIntyre (Norma 2010, John Brown 2008) took some time to share her vision of Così fan tutte with the world and why she thinks this will be a great production! Watch Ms. McIntyre talk about the upcoming show below!
Guild speaker Don Dagenais spoke with us recently about Così fan tutte, which the Lyric Opera will be presenting in just over 2 weeks. Watch the video below to learn all about this timeless comedy about the relationship between men and women!
International opera superstar Samuel Ramey arrived in Kansas City the other day to begin rehearing for the Lyric Opera inaugural production in the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, Puccini’s Turandot.
Mr. Ramey has been blogging all summer about his visit to Kansas City. You can read his blog entries by clicking here.
Early last week the rehearsals of The Marriage of Figaro were in full swing and we were able to get some footage from a couple of different nights. Altough the footage only covers a small part of the show, it does showcase some of the comedy that you should expect to see. If you didn’t make it to opening night on Saturday don’t worry, you can still get a look at the show. Hopefully the two clips below will tide you over until you make it to one of the remaining performances.
This clip is from the scene in which Cherubino is dressed up by Susanna (Sari Gruber) and Rosina Almaviva (Katie Van Kooten) so he can remain and aid Figaro in his plan to embarrass their boss, Almaviva. Enjoy!
The clip below is of the aria Voi che sapete che cosa è amor (“You ladies who know what love is, is it what I’m suffering from?”) which is sung by Cherubino, played by Brenda Patterson.
Not long ago we sat down with the Mark Streshinsky, director of The Marriage of Figaro, to ask him about the upcoming production and how he adapted the concept to say goodbye and thank you to the Lyric Theatre. Hear what he has to say about the evolution of converting this Mozart classic to a production that makes the Lyric Theatre, and the action backstage, the focal point of this charmingly funny story.
