10 questions with author of opera guides

 With the release of two new opera guides for this spring’s upcoming productions of Rigoletto and Don Giovanni, we asked guide author Stu Lewis to share some information about how he became a lover of opera and an award-winning writer of opera guides.

1.  How long have you been writing the guides for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City?

Stu: In the Spring of 2002, the now retired Lyric Opera Marketing Director Virginia Long asked me to revise a booklet that had been written for the Houston Grand Opera’s production of Cold Sassy Tree so it would be more appropriate for the Lyric Opera production. I guess she liked what she saw, because she asked me to write guides for all of the Lyric Opera productions the following season, and the rest is history.

2. Why do you write the guides?

Stu: Since I don’t sing or play an instrument very well, writing the guides allows me to use my talent in a unique way and to play a small part in the company I love. I enjoy having the opportunity to share my views and insights with other opera-goers, including those who are not yet fans. And frankly, I enjoy the prestige it brings me at the Lyric Opera.

3. What do you enjoy most about your research?

Stu: What I enjoy most about the research is learning things I did not know before and gaining new insights into the music.

4.  What is your favorite opera? Why?

Stu: I’m going to give a very conventional answer here. My unquestioned favorite opera is La bohème. First, of all the operas I know, it makes the most elaborate use of intertwined musical motifs. This may sound like heresy to some, but I believe Puccini uses this technique more subtly than Wagner does. When I revisited this opera for the most recent Lyric Opera production, I had so many new insights that I rewrote the entire booklet from scratch rather than re-using the one I had written in 2002. Second, there is the nostalgia factor, a reminder of my graduate school days when my wife and I lived on very little money and did not seem to mind. Sadly, this opera will now have a third connotation. When my wife revived briefly before her death–though we knew at the time that death was imminent–I had the strange feeling that I was living through the final act of La bohème. Like Mimi, she smiled to see her family surrounding her, and just as Mimi thought of others in her final moments (trying to reconcile Marcello and Musetta), my wife asked several questions about other people’s health problems rather than dwelling on her own. As much as I love this opera, it’s going to be a long time before I will be up to seeing it again.

In case you are interested, rounding out my “top ten” are La fanciulla del West, The Marriage of Figaro, Rigoletto, Carmen, La traviata, The Elixir of Love, Ariadne auf Naxos, Tales of Hoffman, and Così fan tutte.

5.  What has been your favorite production by the Lyric Opera of Kansas City?

Stu: On a happier note, while the Lyric Opera’s most recent La bohème would be a candidate for my favorite production, my favorite production overall would be the most recent La Cenerentola, not only because it starred Joyce DiDonato, whose career I have followed since I first heard her at the Met Auditions, but because of the outstanding solid cast from top to bottom, including Elizabeth Bennet and Kristin-Marie Hill as the stepsisters. Another runner-up would be Macbeth, because of Tim Ocel’s brilliant directing. My one favorite individual performance was Brian Steele as Horace Tabor in Ballad of Baby Doe.

6.  How long have you been a member of the Lyric Opera Guild?

Stu: I joined the Guild in 1990, when I was asked to give the preview talks for Samson and Delilah.

7.  Why should people join the Lyric Opera Guild?

Stu: The Guild provides much-needed support for the company, and if people want to learn about opera, meeting the singers at the various receptions provides a wonderful educational opportunity.

8.  When did your love for opera begin?

Stu: My parents were big fans of classical music, though not necessarily of opera. I recall that my dad would sometimes listen to the Met broadcasts while doing household chores on Saturday afternoons. We lived in Albany, NY, and during the summers we would frequently attend the open rehearsals at Tanglewood on Saturday mornings. I got the opera bug almost by accident. For a dollar I bought a record of samples from RCA’s new releases, which included the wedding-night duet from Madama Butterfly. Somehow, I felt an almost mystical connection with the music, hearing something I had never experienced in listening to other music, and I began to explore the world of opera. For some reason, I chose Carmen as my first opera record (Rise Stevens, Jan Peerce, etc), but others soon followed. The first live opera I saw was during a high-school New York trip: Simon Boccanegra at the Met. This is not the ideal opera to start with, but it’s what happened to be playing the weekend the school had selected.

9.  What would you tell someone attending an opera for the first time?

Stu: Advice for first-time opera-goers: first, read my booklet.  Also, remember that opera is primarily drama, not music–the music is there to support the story. Let the music wash over you the way a good film score does. Once you are hooked on opera, you can move on to appreciating vocal technique and things of that sort. As a beginner, just enjoy the experience.

10.  Why is opera your favorite art form?

Stu: Of all means of dramatic presentation, opera most forcefully integrates all of the elements of drama. Music is capable of expressing emotions that words cannot begin to convey. For example, read the libretto of the final scene of The Marriage of Figaro. As prose, despite DaPonte’ genius, it is lifeless. Then listen to what Mozart does with the music, turning the resolution of a marital dispute into a religious experience. No other art form can do this.

Bonus Question: What is your favorite memory about the Lyric Opera? 

Stu: I cannot think of one single greatest memory. What I value most, even more than the performances, is the friendships I have developed with people at the Guild and the company.

10 questions with Nili Riemer

Nili Riemer is en route to Kansas City to begin rehearsals for The Pirates of Penzance, in which she will sing the role of Mabel. Nili took a few moments out of her busy schedule to share answers to 10 questions with our readers.

 1.  Where did you grow up?

Israel, Massachusetts, South Carolina and New Jersey, then went to school in Boston/ Milan (study abroad), and New York.

I was born in Israel and lived there until I was nine. My family moved to Newton, Massachusetts when I was in the fourth grade—the first time I saw snow and learned how to ski on the “East Coast” snow (aka- ice). Next, we moved to Greenville, South Carolina (before BMW moved there), so my Middle School days were spent in the idyllic South, swinging on a rope across the creek (pronounced: crick) in our backyard. Next, we moved to New Jersey (exit 14 off of the NJ turnpike, just in case you were about to ask me the “which exit” joke/question!), where I attended public school at Randolph High School until my graduation and subsequent studies at Tufts University, New England Conservatory, and SUNY Binghamton.

 I loved moving as a kid-meeting new people, going to a new school, choosing which room would be mine and where I would put all of my books, tapes, and (eventually) CDs-but I’m also very glad that my family chose to stay in one area during my high school years.

If I learned anything from those early years of packing all of my treasures into boxes and labeling them for the moving men, it was-how to pack light for my life on the road as a professional!

 2.  What is an average day like for you? Do you have a set routine?

Sleep as late as possible because I’m a night owl (I do my best work and Google-research between midnight and 3am)!

During a production I will practice running lines or scenes of the day before my rehearsal begins, then it’s off to rehearsal.

I don’t have a set routine, but my day always involves talking with friends and family on one of the following methods of communication: skype, ichat, google-chat, facebook-chat..and as a last resort-my cell phone!

 3. Have you performed your role in The Pirates of Penzance before? What intrigues you about the role of Mabel?

I haven’t performed this role before and I’m very excited to be performing it for the first time here!

This is going to be the first time that I’m performing a work by Gilbert and Sullivan, and what intrigues me most is the history and record of performance that precedes me.

From the 1879 opening in New York City on New Year’s Eve, Pirates has been a hit. It toured with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company throughout England for almost 100 years! And of course, everyone knows SOME of the words to “Modern Major General”, or has seen the Public Theater of New York production with Rex Smith, Linda Ronstadt, and Kevin Kline as the swashbuckling Pirate King.

With such a high profile work, I hope to make this first performance of Mabel just as memorable and fun, whether the audience has seen or heard the music before, or not!

 4. What language(s) do you speak fluently?

I’m fluent in English and Hebrew with a pretty high level of Italian and French thanks to study abroad immersion programs. I also lived in Munich for a summer to study German.

5. How did your initial interest in the art form of opera begin?

My dream was to sing Christine in Phantom, Cosette in Les miserables, Sarah in Guys and Dolls and a number of other Broadway leading ladies as a younger singer.  Although we listened to classical music in my family, it was mostly instrumental.  My first introduction to opera was really from my first voice teacher, and also-those arias that you hear in the background tracks to Ghirardelli chocolate commercials (The flower duet from Lakme), and Ragu Spaghetti sauce commercials (“O mio babbino caro” from Gianni Schicci).

After I learned my first aria and translated it into Italian I realized how much amazing repertoire was a part of this art form, and knew that I wanted to be a part of that.

6. What is your favorite opera to watch/experience?

This is a tough question! I have had the opportunity to see and hear many wonderful performances that I will never forget, but I don’t think that I have a favorite.

Many times, the production that I’m singing in becomes my favorite, because I am living in it for 5 weeks of rehearsals; between costume fittings, wig fittings, staging, orchestra rehearsals, director’s notes, and tech week, it’s hard to think about anything else!

7. Where is your favorite place to perform?

It’s a tie between the shower (great acoustics!) and once when I was visiting the Roman amphitheater in Verona as a tourist and I started singing “O mio babbino caro” because it was a once in a life-time thing to do-and all of the other tour guides and tour groups thought I was crazy, but they clapped anyway!

8.  What is the opera role you haven’t performed, but would like to perform the most in your career?

I would really love to sing the entire role of Zerbinetta in Strauss’s Ariadne Auf Naxos (I’ve sung it in pieces and in concert, but not in its entirety, yet!)-the vocal prowess and ‘gymnastics’ that the role requires both physically and vocally are amazing. And she is a smart, sensual, and sarcastic character that I think I could really have fun with onstage.

9. 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?

I would ask you what your favorite TV show is, and then let you know that MOST likely, there is an opera that has just as much drama and may EVEN be in HD (thanks to the MET’s recent program to bring opera to the movies), and the only difference is, it’s all sung, you can’t DVR it, and there are subtitles.

For Example:

Desperate Housewives: you think Edie, Mike, and Susan had issues? Try Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro-Susanna, Count and Countess have more problems on their hands and with their in-laws than the folks living on Wisteria Lane.

House: Main character is a self-loathing, sarcastic artist-genius type that has to try and save lives? Meet Rodolfo from Puccini’s La boheme- talented dramatist and poet, who with his three friends must try to save the dying Mimi.

Lost:  A plane crash, mistaken identities, and a hope for return to the mainland.  Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri; A shipwreck, a search for a long-lost fiancée, Turkish disguises in order to escape the captors.

Family Guy (yes, I can even do this for cartoons!): Brian the dog, bumbling and well-intentioned Peter, and tangential vignettes—perfect! Try Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann: Nicklausse the Muse, troubled and beer-filled Hoffmann, and Acts that take place in a mad scientist’s lair, a Munich music room, and a Venetian Palace on the Grand Canal.

Gossip Girl: Blair, Serena, Nate, Dan, Jenny—all this teen angst and relationship drama while living the upper class life in New York’s most posh apartments.  How about  Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte-only Despina and Alfonso know the truth about the true love and fidelity of Fiordiligi and Dorabella’s fair-weather boyfriends!

10. What facts about you would our audience be surprised to learn?

I am a down-to-earth-diva–  I do love the glitz and glamour of the opera performer life style, the thrill of the curtain rising on a new performance, the triumphant last curtain call, opening night galas with gowns and grand entrances, but at the end of the night I kick off my heels, put on a pair of fuzzy slippers, have some tea, and settle into bed with a good book-and my ideal day off is spent reading the Sunday New York Times, wearing sneakers and my favorite pair of jeans, and laughing with friends over a late brunch that includes the latest Hollywood gossip.

Also, not many people know that I actually went to school for a degree in International Relations with a concentration in Mid-East policy.  If I hadn’t received an immediate scholarship to pursue my Master of Music degree, I was going to apply for internships in D.C. and with the United Nations.