Seattle Opera Blog

The Audience Has Spoken!

2010-07-06T10:29:00.001-07:00

Last week, we posted a poll here on the blog that asked for everyone to vote for their favorite production of last season. As always, opera fans proved to have plenty of opinions and were not afraid to share them - and in turn, we LOVED hearing what everyone had to say!

The comments here and on Facebook revealed that most of you put a lot of thought into how you cast your vote. At first, the world premiere of Amelia took off, giving the tried-and-true Verdi classics fierce competition. But over the course of the week, all the Ringheads cast their votes and stole the show, claiming 33% of all the votes cast and winning the poll. Second place went to La Traviata with 23% of the vote, and the comedy Falstaff (15%) barely edged out the Amelia commission (14%) and the remaining Verdi opera, Il Trovatore (12%). To our delight, we also saw a few write-in votes for the Young Artists Program spring production of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos!

Thank you to all who voted. Here's to another great season at Seattle Opera!

Vote for Your Favorite Opera of 2009/10

2010-06-28T15:28:00.000-07:00

This past season brought you a trio of Verdi classics sandwiched between our signature production and a world premiere -- it's been quite a year for us here at Seattle Opera! Before we move on to the 2010/11 season, we want to take a moment to look back at our soaring 2009/10 season. This week, we're conducting a poll to find out audiences' favorite production of the past season. Are you a Ringhead or did you prefer the elegance of La Traviata? Did Peter Kazaras's innovative Falstaff tickle your funny bone or did you prefer the flames of Il Trovatore? Or perhaps the excitement of Amelia, a brand-new opera, was your perfect cap to a fabulous season. We want to hear from YOU -- so cast your vote (the poll is on the right side of your screen) and, if you want, share your thoughts with us in the comments section.

Ring photo © Chris Bennion. All other photos © Rozarii Lynch.

Shared Experiences: LINDSEY HENDRICKS

2010-06-16T11:20:00.000-07:00

Seattle Opera's Experience Opera program introduces thousands of high school students to opera each year, through teacher training, specially created media and materials, in-class presentations and performances, and attendance at final dress rehearsals. Amelia creators Daron Hagen and Gardner McFall spent time at three Seattle-area high schools this April, teaching students about the creative process and about opera, and introducing their new work; and some 800 students from fourteen different schools got to see the show.

In each of Seattle Opera's partner schools, the teachers are the heroes who make it all work, introducing young people to this great art form. Everyone knows the power a teacher has to transform a young person's life, and the energy and creativity of our Experience Opera teachers knows no bounds. Today's Shared Experience on Amelia comes out of David Vinson's humanities class at Kennedy High School in Burien, where graduating senior Lindsey Hendricks crafted a moving response to the opera:

"This video is a response to an English class question, 'What moved you about the Opera Amelia?' The emotional extremes and the imagery within the opera struck me the most. A range of emotions are encompassed in the opera and video; happiness, sadness, anger, and finally happiness once again. By writing piano accompaniment and pairing it with images that represent those emotions, I created this video as my attempt to portray those different emotions that so inspired me from Amelia.
I do not own any of the images in the video."

Thanks, Linsdey, for sharing your project with us!

Photo of Experience Opera by Rozarii Lynch

Shared Experiences: Ken Walkky

2010-06-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

From Speight Jenkins' mailbag: a beautiful thank-you letter from an attendee at opening night of Amelia. Captain Walkky was the first of a number of military and former military personnel who found the new opera deeply moving.

"Seattle
May 9, 2010

To Speight Jenkins, Daron Aric Hagen, Gardner McFall, Stephen Wadsworth, Gerard Schwartz, the cast, crew, and orchestra of Amelia.

I stopped Speight in the lobby of McCaw Hall on opening night just before the curtain to thank him for commissioning this opera of the Vietnam era. Now that I’ve seen the opera, I would like all of you to understand how profoundly affecting the performance was. I wept through much of the opera, at first too emotionally moved to appreciate the music. I previously regretted that no one had addressed this story appropriately but feel that Amelia not only overcame that omission but did it with a work of considerable stature."

Dawn at Yankee Station, 1971

"While the program suggested that the complexities of time and flashbacks might be difficult to convey, the words and voices of the singers and actors rose to the task. Maestro Schwarz magnificently conducted some truly stunning orchestral interludes. But the capping moment for me was Jane Eaglen’s rendering of the Navy Hymn.

I was a 23 year-old officer who sent fliers like Dodge catapulting off the deck of the U.S.S. Kitty Hawk, not knowing if they would return, and many did not, something I will always feel responsible for. Nor did I know if they truly were aware of how the big ship shuddered each time they left it for the air."

Aboard the Kitty Hawk, 1971

"I had previously thought no one else understood how integral Amelia Earhart, “The Flier” in the opera Amelia, is to the spirit of Navy flight but now Gardner McFall, the librettist, and Daron Hagen, the composer, along with Seattle Opera, have presented this story to the world.

Thank you,
Kenneth J. Walkky, Captain
U. S. Navy (Retired)"

The Kitty Hawk in Subic Bay, 1972

All photos courtesy Ken Walkky

Lisel Perrine, Trang and Huy's Daughter in AMELIA

2010-05-27T14:23:00.000-07:00

Lisel Perrine (left, outside McCaw Hall) is a freshman at Chief Sealth High School in West Seattle, where she takes honors classes, runs track and cross-country, and plays the piano. This spring she managed to fit another extra-curricular activity into her schedule: performing as a supernumerary in Amelia. Perrine played Huy and Trang’s daughter, a girl killed by the Political Official when Dodge (Amelia’s father, who has been captured) refuses to answer any questions. Perrine appeared in both the Vietnam flashback scene and again in the second act hospital scene.

Perrine saw her first opera at age 5 (Die Fledermaus), and has been attending Seattle Opera performances ever since. Although she doesn’t have a favorite opera, she says Amelia ranks pretty high on her list. “[It] was something I could relate to. It dealt with subjects that I, and the people around me, have personal ties to.” And, she said, it was easy to connect with the characters: “[They] seem real and closer to my life than those from other operas.”

Here she shares a bit about her background, how she prepared for her role, and artists that inspire her.

How long have you been performing?
I have been performing since I was about three years old. I attended Pacific Northwest Ballet for nine years, and performed in The Sleeping Beauty, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and seven runs of The Nutcracker. With the Opera, I have been in the 2005 and 2009 performances of Das Rheingold.

Who do you consider your performance role models?
A role model for me is my namesake, Lisel Salzer, who was a very accomplished painter. She would always tell me that "All art forms are connected." I used to think that dancing was what I wanted to do but then I discovered acting and my love for writing. And so my years of dancing and piano-playing have helped me to feel the music and coordinate what I am hearing with what I am acting.

How is performing in an opera a different experience than performing in a ballet?
At the Opera I was able to interact with everyone involved in the performance instead of having the children and teenagers separated from the adults. (At right: Perrine with William Burden (Dodge).) Meeting and conversing with the principals of Amelia was something foreign and I thoroughly loved being able to learn about the people and not just watch them from afar. Also, in this production I had a bigger part than I have had in the ballets, so I was given specific instruction for my character, instead of general instruction for a whole group of people.

How did you prepare for your role?
I try to put a real person behind the character I am portraying, so I talked to veterans of war and read books on the Vietnam War to research a bit about my part. And I talked with family friends who lost their father in the Vietnam War and learned about their experiences.

What was the most difficult part of playing this role?
Making my fall [when her character is shot toward the end of the scene] look convincing and at the same time preventing myself from injury was the most challenging part.

What was your favorite part of this experience?
One of my favorite parts was being able to work with so many wonderful people. I have learned so much from the artists. This was my third time working with [director] Stephen Wadsworth (left), and each time I get to know him a little bit better. I cannot wait for the next Ring cycle when he will come back to Seattle—Stephen said that he was going to bring his daughter to Seattle and I cannot wait to meet him this time as a daddy. Getting to know the people involved in giving life to this opera was incredibly valuable to me.

Top two photos courtesy Lynn Ogdon. Bottom photo © Alan Alabastro.

Shared Experiences: Alix Wilber

2010-05-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Amelia librettist Gardner McFall spoke at Seattle's Richard Hugo House (left) on April 26, 2010, on the subject of "Autobiographical Writing: From Life to Text." To read Gardner's remarks from that evening, CLICK HERE. We're grateful for today's Shared Experiences post to Alix Wilber, Program Director of Hugo House, who posted the following on the Hugo House Blog:

"I went to see Amelia at the Seattle Opera last Wednesday night.

I was invited to be a guest of the Opera because a few weeks ago Hugo House hosted the librettist, Gardner McFall, at a special talk she gave in our Cabaret on the problems of autobiography (Amelia is based loosely on McFall’s own experience of losing her father, a navy pilot, during the Vietnam War.) In return, I got an amazing meal, the best seats in the hall—and free wine and chocolate truffles at intermission!

But I digress.

Even without the truffles or the box seat, I would have gone to see Amelia. I’m a huge opera fan to begin with--and I’m always interested in other arts organizations that, like Hugo House, are committed to fostering the creation of new work. In fact, just a few days before my night at the opera, I’d attended a local theater that was premiering a new work they had commissioned; sadly, I thought it failed pretty spectacularly as a play, but I have great admiration for the playwright who poured heart and soul into it, and for the theatre, which took a great financial and artistic risk to midwife it.

From the moment the curtain went up on Amelia, it was clear that the Seattle Opera had also put themselves on the line. In an economy where the safe bet is to put on those tried and true audience pleasers (La bohème! Il trovatore! La traviata! Anything by Wagner!), they chose to produce a new work on a difficult subject and with music that people probably won’t be humming on their way back to their cars. Add to that the most intricate staging and production values I’ve seen anywhere--well, the financial risk alone was huge, let alone what the critics might say.

And it worked. It was stunning, transporting, even transcendent. I went home feeling as though I’d been permanently changed somehow by my evening with Amelia. And when I woke up the next morning, I thought about something the character of the Navy pilot sang when explaining to his young daughter why he loved to fly even though it was dangerous: “The risk is worth the love.”

It’s a recurring theme throughout the opera as characters are confronted with dangers both physical and psychic--from flying solo around the world in 1937, to flying combat missions over Vietnam in 1965, to bringing a child into this uncertain world in 1996. “The risk is worth the love,” Dodge says, and 30 years later, his pregnant daughter finally understands what he meant.

And I understand it, too--whenever we commission a writer to step off a high cliff and write something new; whenever I see other organizations doing the same, be it opera or theater or dance: there are no guarantees that you won’t fall, that you won’t fail. But to be in at the creation! --well, the risk is worth the love.

Shared Experiences: Emily Powell

2010-05-22T16:17:00.000-07:00

In honor of tonight's final performance, let's hear from our youngest Amelia blogger, nine-year old Emily Powell (pictured, right, with her mother and with composer Daron Aric Hagen).

"Last Sunday, I went to Seattle to see Amelia. At first I thought the opera would be long and I wouldn’t like it. Then when my Daddy told me the story, the car wouldn’t move fast enough! Amelia is the first professional opera I've seen. I knew about opera because when I was six, I got to be a cast member of Kurt Weill’s Street Scene. Another time, my Daddy took me to Monteverdi’s Orfeo. Both of these were at Pacific Lutheran University, because that is where my Daddy works. But, Amelia was my first professional opera.

When we got to the opera house, the auditorium took my breath away, with its levels of seats. It was just so huge! Then the opera started and I couldn’t take my eyes off of the stage. It was fantastic.

My favorite part of the show was the opening scene where little Amelia was staring at the stars, and her Daddy, Dodge, was singing to her on his knees. It was touching because her Daddy was a Navy pilot and had to go to Vietnam and they didn’t have much time to spend together. Little Amelia was my favorite character because she was my age and determined to be like her Daddy and fly planes.

I would have to say the opening scene at Amelia’s house was my favorite set. When the plane appeared, I thought, “Oh no! It's the Navy coming to get her Daddy.” Then I realized it was a dream when Amelia Earhart was in the cockpit. At first I thought that Amelia’s mother was just picking up her daughter’s toys before saying good night to her. Finally, I figured out that the scene took place in two different times, when the officers arrived in the big black car to tell her that her husband had been shot down and was missing in action. That was sad.

I thought Amelia Earhart, the Flier, had the best voice. It felt like bells when I heard her sing. Dodge had the best costume because his brisk, white uniform made him look important.

In the Vietnam scene I felt sad and I kind of wanted to forget it and make it not happen, but I couldn’t stop watching because the music made it interesting. When Dodge was singing to his daughter it made me remember when I was little and my Mommy used to sing to me. In the scene where Amelia was in the hospital, the music made me feel very tense, as if something bad was going to happen any moment.

If I had to choose a job working for an opera company, it would be a tie between being a set designer and orchestra musician. I already love the violin because I play violin. Set designing would be fun because I am very crafty and I like to make things. But actually, I want to be a Marine Biologist and raise horses in my free time.

I think I would like to see more operas in the future, even though I am only nine, because they are beautiful and they make me feel like I know the characters personally."

Shared Experiences: Roxanne Corff

2010-05-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Roxanne Corff has been Seattle Opera's Medical Consultant for Amelia.

"I had the great pleasure of being asked by a friend of mine who recommended me to Speight Jenkins for the role of Medical Consultant for the production of Amelia. From the first production meeting on April 5th to opening night on May 8th, I was part of this great creative adventure.

First order of business was to arrange a tour of Harborview, so that the medical scenes in Amelia could have verisimilitude. But we had a problem: how can you take a large group of production staff through a working Regional Trauma Hospital in hopes of catching the essence of resuscitation? I set up what we call a mock code, in which we practice how a resuscitation should go. Coordinating with my Clinical Manager Laura Nelson and the Clinical Nursing Education Department's Nicole Kupchik, and many others, we put together a presentation in Harborview's Isis Learning Lab so the singers and performers could "watch one do one"; view a resuscitation scene and then return the demonstration. They also had the experience of practicing CPR on some manikins to unforgettable music with the right beat to deliver the correct heart rate. With the full support of top managment at Harborview, we were able to provide props and material for the medical scenes in the opera."

CLICK HERE to watch a video feature about this unusual evening at Harborview.

"I also arranged for a tour of the UW Birthing Suite, as requested by the Director of Production. On a busy Friday afternoon we convened at the UW Hospital. We took pictures and were granted the loan of some equipment for staging, for which we are very grateful. Set designer (and UW Professor) Thomas Lynch commented in a quiet sort of awe at one point on the doors in a hospital, how they really conveyed "hospital"--and when I finally saw Amelia on the McCaw Hall stage, there they were!! I was a witness to his creative genius.

Kate Lindsey as Amelia works with Director Stephen Wadsworth in rehearsal (Bill Mohn photo)

Then we began rehearsing the medical scenes. I went to the rehearsal studio every night after work at Harborview for several weeks before opening night, to work with the wonderful director Stephen Wadsworth, an amazing humanist who helped each artist see and feel each character’s role with humor and passion. He instructed me and the production crew that I was to be his shadow, running along and seeing the medical scenes from his inside view and adding as much medical veracity as we could. Karen Vuong, who plays the nurse, and I naturally bonded; she was wonderful to work with. Then Kate Lindsey and Nicholas Coppolo, playing patients, had to joke and gambol their way through the intimacy of being in gowns, in beds, and Stephen Wadsworth let them take the time to laugh through the rehearsals so they could be comfortable and serious on stage. As they got further along, I could sit back and watch it unfold, adding fewer and fewer corrections.

Jordan Bisch and Nicholas Coppolo as the Father and the Boy (Rozarii Lynch photo)

And in quiet contemplation there is real emotional catharsis for me. It caught me off guard when Luretta Bybee (right, Rozarii Lynch photo), singing the role of Amelia's mother, Amanda, brought me to tears with her incredible mixture of hope, fear, and bravery she was feeling in the face of the terrible news that her husband was lost in Vietnam. It reminded me of the astounding bravery and strength I have witnessed in families when faced with terrible, impossible news. As healthcare professionals, we are trained to be professionally calm. So watching the opera develop was a luxury of emotion. I have worked for 10 years in intensive care, then 18 years in the emergency department, and have found emotions catch up to me eventually, and a great way to cope is in experiencing performance art.

Karen Vuong as the Nurse is saddened by the death of the Boy, while Museop Kim as the Doctor closes the curtain on Nathan Gunn's inquisitive Paul (Rozarii Lynch photo)

It was amazing to be an observer and aid in this artistic process, rather than "just a nurse". I felt Stephen Wadsworth really gets it; how painful and wonderful it is to be a professional healthcare worker. And when Karen Vuong's character took moments alone in a room after her patient died to collect herself, I felt her deep involvement and committment to her role very keenly. In the last scene in the delivery room there is great joy at the same time a scene unfolds with great sadness and sorrow - just as it ever was and ever is. I feel the grandeur of our little lives as the stars come out again in the sky in the last scene of Amelia.

Shared Experiences: Toby Smith

2010-05-19T12:57:00.000-07:00

Today's reflection on Amelia is by Toby Smith, a senior lecturer in Astronomy at the University of Washington who has been hanging around Seattle Opera in the audience and sometimes as a volunteer since about 1999. The image is of the author in his father's Air Force flight cap, circa 1969.

"Astronomy is far more common in opera than mad scenes are; it is just that the mad scenes get flashier music and better (bloodier) costumes.

Occasionally astronomical themes step to the forefront and get a really great aria. A few of my favorites are Wolfram's aria to the planet Venus ("O du mein holder Abendstern") in Tannhäuser, Rusalka's Song to the Moon ("Měsíčku na nebi hlubokém"), and Cavaradossi's heartwrenching aria on the eve of his execution ("E lucevan le stelle," The stars were shining) from Tosca.

On rare occasions, an astronomer makes an appearance. One noteworthy example is the royal astronomer Astradamors in Ligeti's Grand Macabre, who likes to look at Venus through his telescope--although I am not really sure that he is referring to the planet. By the way, this opera is on the top of my list for the one I will underwrite for Seattle Opera when I hit the lottery."

In Amelia, astronomy takes center stage from the very beginning:

Oh, stars, flung wide across the dome,
Heaven's a gown I'd love to wear.
Bathed in your light, I'm never alone.
With Ursa Major, Pollux and Castor,
Hercules stands on the dragon's head,
according to what my father says.
Stars, look after my father who flies.
His name is Dodge. Please be his safety net and guide.
When I am grown, let me fly, too.
Swift as a wind-blown leaf or jay,
clear as the soaring Pleiades.

Left, Ashley Emerson as Young Amelia demonstrates her knowledge of astronomy (Rozarii Lynch, photo)

"Like Amelia, I spent large chunks of my youth lying on the ground looking at the stars. Ursa Major, Gemini (Castor and Pollux), Hercules, and Draco (the dragon) are some of my oldest friends. Stars have served many others as companions and guides. The fixed frame of reference of the stars has been the basis of navigation for centuries, a "safety net and guide" to the whole history of exploration. Lest you think navigation by stars is positively pre-19th century, the Apollo lunar mission and a whole host of interplanetary probes used stellar navigation. Even Vietnam-era pilots used the stars for navigation: the earliest star charts of my youth were the ones from my father's missions from Delaware to Vietnam.

Amelia uses astronomical references throughout the opera in a navigational context. I am reminded of Peter Grimes’ aria "Now the Great Bear and Pleiades..." by Benjamin Britten; Amelia also refers to Ursa Major (The Great Bear) and the Pleiades. It is interesting that the astronomical references in both these operas are to the winter sky in the northern hemisphere--not the best time for fishing or lying under the stars.

I did not recognize any constellations in the starry backdrop that opens this production, but the pattern of stars satisfied my astronomical prejudices. Too often, starry backdrops in the theater go with a uniform starry field. The real night sky is far from uniform; that is why we recognize constellations.

On a side note, I appreciated how the plane in the first act moved: great pitch, roll, and yaw, although I was strongly reminded of poor Fafner the dragon in Seattle Opera’s recent Siegfried, who had very similar movements on the same part of the stage and met a similar fate to the Flier's plane!

While flight is the obvious narrative link between Icarus, the Flier, Dodge, and Amelia, the stars link them as well. All of these characters would have seen the same stars. The stars that Icarus saw are the same ones that Amelia sang to in her aria. Art may be long, and life short ("Ars longa, vita brevis") but the stars we see will outlive us--and our art."

The final image we see in Amelia is the twinkling stars, while (l to r) doctors reminiscent of Amelia's parents cuddle in a waiting room, the Flier gazes toward the horizon, the Father heads toward the door marked 'Exit', and Amelia and Paul coo over the newest member of their family.

A Chat with Nicholas Coppolo

2010-05-18T15:43:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Coppolo, a recent Juilliard graduate, sings Icarus and the Young Boy in Amelia—roles that he also sang at the workshop in 2008. Because this production features several dream characters and has scenes where different time periods are played out simultaneously, the cast really delved into the complexity of the characters’ relationships, which fascinated Coppolo. “Seeing how my characters are integral parts of a much larger sum is exciting and enriching. It’s such a rarity for a principal singer to be a member of such a large ensemble, especially one of this caliber.”

In Amelia, Icarus (the boy who flew too near the sun in Greek mythology), is a recurring character in Amelia’s dreams. We see him building wings with his father Daedalus in Act 1 Scene 2—initially in a dream, though they continue to prepare for their escape as the scene between Amelia and her husband, Paul, continues.

The most challenging part of the production for Coppolo is his Act 2 performance of the Young Boy. “The Act 2 material was, by the end of the workshop, the toughest 12 pages of music I have ever been charged with singing,” he says, noting that in the years since the workshop a few pages of equally difficult music were added. Then there’s the extra challenge of singing high notes from a hospital bed while his character hallucinates. “It is quite a challenge to stay disciplined and focused as a singer while still communicating the story as an actor,” he says. “One of the toughest transitions from the workshop to the stage was finding realistic body positions as the dying boy that would still let me sing.”

A recurring phrase throughout the opera is “The risk is worth the love.” This realization is what allows Amelia to finally let go of her father and move forward with her life. Coppolo’s characters embody the thrills and the dangers of risk-taking. “Icarus represents the need to challenge the unknown, to face fear unabashed and with head held high…. The Young Boy represents the reality of failure,” Coppolo says. In the final scene, when the birth of Amelia’s baby is juxtaposed against the death of the Young Boy, we see “the dichotomy of the human experience. Life and its relationships bring triumph and joy, but also great suffering and pain.”

Creating these two characters has been an interesting experience for Coppolo, who has drawn on memories and past personal experiences. “I know what it is to be a frightened little boy who wants to live in the safety of his father’s arms,” he says, referring to the hospital scene where the ailing Boy cries out for his Father. But, much like his characters, Coppolo also understands the desire to take flight: “I know what it is to want to push my perceived limits.”

Photos credits. Top: Kate Lindsey (Amelia) and Nicholas Coppolo (Icarus). Bottom: Jordan Bisch (Father) and Nicholas Coppolo (Young Boy). All photos © Rozarii Lynch.

Sharing Experiences: Marie Tran

2010-05-17T09:43:00.000-07:00

Our series of reflections on Amelia from Seattle Opera audience members continues, with thoughts from Marie Tran, who teaches Business Management at Edmonds Community College.

"In watching the opera, I can relate to Amelia and her deep grief for the loss of her father Dodge, a Navy Pilot who was listed as MIA on his second tour of duty. This has to be a dramatic experience for anyone, and especially for a child. Perhaps the story touches me in a special way: my own life was greatly impacted by the Vietnam War. I was 9 years old when my family (10 kids and my parents) fled from the communist invasion of South Vietnam. Although my immediate family made it safely to the U.S., I never saw my grandmother again since that painful day in March of 1975. My grandmother, 75 years old at the time, chose to remain in Vietnam instead of continuing to make the escape with us. She “did not want to slow us down” and she “wanted to live and die in her country.”

The Vietnam War created a massive exodus of Vietnamese refugees to the U.S. and surrounding countries. During and for many years after 1975, many Vietnamese risked their lives to seek freedom rather than live under the Communist regime. When I left Vietnam at the age of 9, I was perhaps too young to put much thought into the lives of American veterans who fought in Vietnam. I was not aware of the impact it had on their lives and families in the U.S. In Amelia, Dodge’s passion for flying and his duties to his squadron and country conflicted with his love and obligation to his family. Dodge had to make a very tough decision to “go or to stay” as did many Vietnamese refugees who decided to flee during and after the war. For many Vietnamese refugees, the decision was just as difficult, for it always involved risking death in the escape as well as the decision to leave many loved ones behind. As in any war, how can we ever account for the loss of those who fought in the war and those who were left behind?"

Marie Tran (third girl from left) with her parents and nine siblings at their home in Tulsa, Okla., where the family was sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Tulsa after fleeing Vietnam in 1975.

"Act 1 Scene 3 of Amelia was moving, intense, and most powerful. To me, this was the best scene in the opera, as Amelia and her mother come to grip with the truth of the death of a husband and a father. The scene of Amelia and her mother Amanda returning to the village where Dodge was shot made me extremely sad. I again reflected on the deep loss from both sides of the war (the Vietnamese people and the American allies). The scene portrays the cruelty that humans are capable of inflicting on each other, cruelty too often still evident today throughout the world. The killing of the local family’s daughter and Dodge left me to further reflect on the parallel of their pain and losses. Huy and Trang lost their daughter, and Dodge also lost the opportunity to share his life with his daughter in the U.S. I was especially touched when Dodge with his gunshot wound slowly managed to crawl over to touch the hand of the farmer’s daughter and handed the photo of Amelia to the Vietnamese couple before he was dragged away."

Lisel Perrine as Huy and Trang's daughter and William Burden as Dodge at the end of Act One, Scene Three of Amelia (photo by Rozarii Lynch).

"Facing the truth and searching for healing is well portrayed in Amelia. Searching and delving into our past can often be a painful process but a critical and necessary one in order to heal. The journey of self discovery we witness in Amelia takes time and often requires us to confront hidden memories which can often be extremely painful. However, when we are in touch with our past and are able to make peace, it can heal us and move us forward. I can relate to Amelia’s struggle to search for the truth so that she can move forward with her life as she prepares to bring a new life into the world. As with Amelia, I too often question why one may want to bring a child into this world when there is so much pain.

After seeing Amelia, I am left to reflect on my own personal losses from the Vietnam War, my family’s escape and my personal return to Vietnam after 33 years. Like Amelia, I was fueled by the need to understand my past, the desire to bridge the lives of the two cultures which are a part of me...my return to Vietnam, like Amelia’s, was a search for my identity."

CLICK HERE to read a recent Everett Herald article about Marie Tran's experiences, including her work with Peacetrees Vietnam.

Critics rave about AMELIA

2010-05-14T15:34:00.000-07:00

This just in: Heidi Waleson of The Wall Street Journal calls Amelia "highly original and gripping," in a review entitled "On So Many Levels, a Success." She praises almost every member of the creative team, design team, and cast, and says that Stephen Wadsworth's "subtle and incisive directing made the opera's multiple levels and interactions absolutely clear, communicating the story's emotional weight without allowing it to slip into sentimentality."

Below are some of the other reviews and stories that have come in over the past few days. And if you have your own reviews to share, we'd love to hear them, either here or on Facebook!

Marcie Sillman's story about Amelia ran last week on KUOW and yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered. Sillman spoke with librettist Gardner McFall and composer Daron Aric Hagen, and the piece also features the wonderful singing of Kate Lindsey, Bill Burden, Nathan Gunn, and other fabulous cast members.

In the Financial Times, George Loomis discusses the final scene in the opera: "The expressive range of Hagen's music broadens memorably to accommodate the cascade of divergent emotions en route to a grand, life-affirming unaccompanied ensemble for the nine principal singers."

Seattle Weekly's Gavin Borchert notes the "unerring clarity" of director Stephen Wadsworth's staging. He adds that Amelia "stakes out new territory for opera—not only in subject matter (the scarring legacy of the Vietnam War) but in stagecraft" and successfully "compresses a wide-ranging story into a tight, beautifully organized two acts."

Critic Melinda Bargreen reviewed the production for both The Classical Review and KING FM. She calls this "an important piece, one that can bring you to the edge of your seat and also make you reach for a Kleenex, and one that has the whole-hearted commitment of a first-rate team of performers." In this cast of "unimpeachable excellence," Bargreen notes that, "It would be impossible to improve on the passionate performance of Kate Lindsey in the title role, a beautiful singing actress who breathes life into this role." She says William Burden sings Dodge with "remarkable finesse," and calls Nathan Gunn's Paul "deeply moving." Overall, she praises the "soaring score by Daron Aric Hagen, a masterly conducting job by Gerard Schwarz, intelligent staging by story writer Stephen Wadsworth, and singing actors who draw you right into Amelia’s world."

Act 2, Scene 1. © Rozarii Lynch photo

Singing in Vietnamese

2010-05-13T17:33:00.000-07:00

In Act 1 scene 3 of Amelia, the title character and her mother, Amanda, go to Vietnam seeking answers about Dodge’s disappearance. The Vietnamese characters all sing in Vietnamese, a tonal language that provided the singers with quite a challenge.

Three of the performers who have to use the Vietnamese language—Karen Vuong (Trang), Museop Kim (Interpreter), and Karl Marx Reyes (Political Official)—shared with me a bit about their experiences. Neither Kim nor Reyes was overly familiar with Vietnamese prior to this production, though they both are fans of the food. “My favorite comfort food is Pho,” says Reyes, “That’s pretty much it.”

Vuong’s parents, though ethnically Chinese, were born in South Vietnam and lived there during the war. She had never learned the language, but once her parents discovered she’d be singing in Vietnamese, the language drills began. “They’re taskmasters!” says Vuong. “Every phone conversation turned into ‘Sing your lines for me!’ And believe me, the conversation would not continue until I had done so.”

Kim also had help with the language outside of rehearsal. One night he went to a Pho restaurant in Los Angeles and sat with the chef who recorded all of Kim’s lines, so he had an example to practice from. Once rehearsals began, they all had the help of language coach Cay Bach. He was “relentless,” says Reyes, “and I mean that in a very good way. He wanted us to be as authentic as possible.”

The Vietnam scene features an emotionally intense flashback (above), where Dodge’s capture is played out around Amelia and Amanda. And the intensity isn’t just felt by the audience, but by the singers too. “We all cried in rehearsal,” says Vuong, “and I think it’s safe to say we still cry when we’re on stage.”

In part, that’s a result of the well-formed characters that are director Stephen Wadsworth’s trademark. “Under Stephen’s guidance the singers all really reached into themselves for the scene,” says Vuong.

Each of these three singers worked to create complex characters. Vuong talked to family members who lived through the Vietnam War. “Once they found out about the show, a lot of stories started coming out of the woodwork,” she says. “They were invaluable to me in learning not only about my family’s history, but acted as a foundation for me to base my character on.” Reyes plays the “bad guy” in the scene. Throughout the rehearsal process, the character developed from a two-dimensional “blood-thirsty” guy to someone with more depth—someone with complex motivations who is just trying to do what he believes is right. As the Interpreter, Kim tried to strike a balance on his backstory, neither too involved nor too stoic. “I am standing in the middle of the Americans and the Vietnamese…[in between] today and the past.”

The scene is “emotionally draining yet dramatically fulfilling,” says Reyes. “I find that each audience member can relate to one or more of the figures onstage.” Vuong agrees: “It’s practically impossible not to be moved by it.”

Photos Credits. Top: Karen Vuong, David Won, Museop Kim, Luretta Bybee, and Kate Lindsey; Middle: Museop Kim, Karl Marx Reyes, Leodigario del Rosario, William Burden, and Alex Mansoori; Bottom: David Won and Karen Vuong. All photos © Rozarii Lynch.

Sharing Experiences: Susan Detweiler

2010-05-12T11:42:00.000-07:00

Over the next couple of weeks, we'll be inviting selected Seattle Opera audience members to use this blog to reflect on their experience with Amelia. Today's post is by Seattle Opera Trustee and retired Virginia Mason Pathologist SUSAN DETWEILER.

"Amelia is complex. Even though I knew the story in advance, I had to read every word of the English captions. For one thing, the words are beautiful—-one shouldn’t miss them. But the words and music are so entwined that the music requires the words and their emotional content. The conflicts expressed by the story are in the tension of the music, and the story is full of tension—-love of family and home versus duty to country and military comrades, longing for a dead father versus anger at his choice of duty over daughter, bombing an enemy versus regret for its harm, to name only some of the themes. The tension resolves at times--in the lullaby in the first act, later when the Navy Hymn soars in a prayer--and the music becomes quiet and melodic. What is brilliant is the way the message of the story and the music unite to penetrate one’s soul. Dodge’s heart-breaking conflict emerges in the music in perfect accord with the words.

Because of this synchrony between the music and the message, for me, the scene in Vietnam forms the center of the opera. This is reality, without screens or abstractions, where Dodge dies in a war he at least partially regrets, where his daughter and wife face the visceral dilemma of their future. It also expresses for me the reality of post-Vietnam America: how we as a country live with the guilt for a war many of us deplore (see attached essay).

In this sense, Amelia is a war story. War stories may have nothing to do with carnage or conflict and, in fact, the best war stories have nothing to do with war. Instead, as in this opera, they are tales of human existence. The urgency of war concentrates the human drama, and, in the way a magnifying glass focuses light, war compresses life, love and loss, honor and sacrifice, and birth and death. The best war stories then dissect human existence, the way a prism can split light into its colors, into the cost of love and loss in the aftermath of death. War destroys young lives to leave the survivors with a lifetime of reverberation to find the meaning of what was lost, to add its toll, and to ask why with an intensity ignored in the slow pace of ordinary life. This is the realm of opera and at the heart of Amelia."

CLICK HERE to read Susan Detweiler's March 2008 essay about a trip she and her husband took to Vietnam, a trip which paralleled the trip Gardner McFall took while writing Amelia.

First Reviews of AMELIA

2010-05-11T12:48:00.000-07:00

We have lift-off!

Saturday night's opening of Amelia was a night to remember: the expectant tingle in the air when the curtain first went up, the gorgeous voices of the singers and marvelous playing from the orchestra, the audience's rapt stillness at the end of Act One (could have heard a pin drop), the noisy ovation that greeted composer and librettist, Daron Hagen and Gardner McFall, when they stepped onstage for their curtain call, and all the enthusiasm at the post-show discussion.

The first print reviews have been very positive. Those of you who live in the Pacific Northwest may have seen the great picture of Amelia on the front page of yesterday's Seattle Times, and read Marc Ramirez's interesting article about the use of Vietnamese in the opera. In today's Seattle Times review, Bernard Jacobson called Amelia "an achievement at once profound and hugely enjoyable" and praised Wadsworth's "flawless" production, Schwarz's assured leadership, the "stunningly good" Kate Lindsey, Nathan Gunn, and William Burden. In the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini called Amelia a "a serious, heartfelt and unusual work," wrote that Hagen's music is "harmonically lush and singable," and said that "there was not one weak link in the large cast."

Online at Musical America, George Loomis wrote that "Hagen responds to the growing demands of the drama by...broadening the expressive range of his music to accommodate the cascade of divergent emotions as the opera presses on to its conclusion—-turbulent dissonance one moment, compelling lyricism the next. The opera culminates in an ethereal life-affirming unaccompanied ensemble for the nine principal singers." In The Gathering Note, R. M. Campbell found "much to be admired in Hagen’s score. It is tonal, occasionally percussive, mildly dissonant, just enough to put him in the world of modern music. It deserves repeated attention...some of his best writing comes in the interludes that introduce both acts and separate the six scenes. This is potent music. Perhaps he should consider making a suite of them for the concert stage." For The SunBreak, Roger van Oosten praised "the magnificent performances of Nathan Gunn as Paul and Kate Lindsey as Amelia. Gunn makes you feel the pain of a man whose marriage is nearly doomed by forces beyond his control and beyond time itself...David Won, Karen Vuong, and Museop Kim are wonderful in their scenes in Vietnam: deeply felt, honest and humble...Jordan Bisch is wonderful as a large lumbering dad who is devastated by the loss of a son. And, finally, powerhouse soprano Jane Eaglen." And the Opera Tattler found that "The text did not display the awkwardness that marks many contemporary operas. The words fit the music, and the deft overlapping of narratives condensed the plot without being confusing or tedious. Layering of the Icarus myth and the life of Amelia Earhart with the main story line worked surprisingly well."

Keep your eyes on this blog in the days to come, for more reviews, audience response, and spotlights on more members of the cast.

Above, tenor Nicholas Coppolo as Icarus; Photo by Rozarii Lynch

Amelia Opening Night Q&A with Speight Jenkins

2010-05-10T09:47:00.000-07:00

Listen to this live recording of Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins as they candidly answer the audience's questions after the Saturday, May 8 world premiere of Amelia.

Commander McFall's Jacket in McCaw Hall Lobby

2010-05-08T15:46:00.000-07:00

Post by Gardner McFall

When you come to McCaw Hall for Amelia, you'll see displayed in the main lobby a flight jacket that belonged to Commander Albert Dodge McFall (1927-1966), my father, a 1950 graduate of the United States Naval Academy. The jacket is stitched with the patches of squadrons Cdr. McFall was attached to during his career. Cdr. McFall served one tour of duty in Vietnam in 1965, flying over 100 missions, for which he received air medals and two Distinguished Flying Crosses. At the time of his death, he was commanding officer of VA-76 ("the Spirits"), preparing for a second tour of duty in the Tonkin Gulf. He was lost after a catapult shot from the Bon Homme Richard in the Pacific Ocean.

The flight jacket, along with the last letter sung in the second act (words culled from my father’s own letters), contribute to making Amelia a living memorial for a man who paid the ultimate sacrifice for his country and family. Cdr McFall lived in Seattle as a boy in 1939, when his father, Admiral A.C. McFall, was stationed at Sand Point.

It is an honor to bring this jacket to Seattle for the world premiere of Amelia.

Sharing Experiences: Susan Hutchison

2010-05-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

The video below is a news story Susan Hutchison reported for KIRO-TV, which has strong ties to the story of Amelia. In 2000, Susan returned to Vietnam with her father who had been an Air Force fighter pilot and squadron commander in 1966-67. While standing on the flight line at his former base in Danang, they were surprised when a USAF plane landed. What happened next was an important experience for all concerned. This story originally aired in Seattle, and also in Washington, D.C. on Memorial Day 2000.

Since Amelia is based on the true story of librettist Gardner McFall, Susan was touched by the similarities of the two women who as teenagers worried that their pilot fathers would not come home. Susan, who is now Executive Director of the Charles Simonyi Fund for Arts and Sciences, which is a sponsor of the Amelia premiere, understood the powerful emotions the opera would provoke and deeply respects the writer's profound personal journey which led to this remarkable artistic work.

Amelia opens tonight (Saturday, May 8), and runs through May 22. There are only eight performances.

Amelia Preview Trailer

2010-05-07T13:21:00.000-07:00

NEW Amelia trailer video! Watch the trailer to catch a glimpse of the story, the characters, and the themes of this brand new world premiere production. Personal, relatable, and truly tied to Seattle, Amelia opens THIS weekend – don’t miss out on this original American story!

To watch more videos or learn more about Seattle Opera's production of Amelia, visit the Seattle Opera website.

AMELIA: A Listener’s Guide (Part 7 of 7)

2010-05-05T10:23:00.000-07:00

Act Two Scene Three concludes this song and story, which has featured so much death, with a birth. Originally, the creative team thought about ways of representing the birth onstage, visually; but they chose instead to let music lead the way. Amelia’s labor, and the birth itself, are represented musically by an extended orchestral interlude which erupts into an a cappella nonet when the baby’s life begins.

Daron Hagen wrote four orchestral interludes for scene changes in Amelia, following the model of Benjamin Britten, whose orchestral interludes include the four glorious “Sea Interludes” from Peter Grimes. This final interlude, which tells the story of the baby’s birth, was the most challenging one to write: Daron Hagen told me he ended up writing it three times. His first draft was written before the birth of his son; he rewrote it after his son was born and he had first-hand experience, if not of Amelia’s version of the story, at least of Paul’s. He then wrote it again, after dozens of women who had had children heard and gave feedback on it at a workshop in May 2008. Hagen learned, for instance, that there comes a moment in every woman’s labor when she has to give up, has to say “I can’t do this.” That psychological turning-point, giving up and relaxing, is necessary in order to release a hormone which then completes dilation. You hear that little story very clearly in the orchestra, when piano repetitions of the heart-monitor motive yield to timpani tapping out the SOS motive and strings surging upwards in quick little “lift off” scales.

The baby emerges when a texture of rumbling sixteenth notes, scales rushing upwards, and soaring wings gives way to nine singers on a glorious triple forte E major chord. The voices are bass (the Father), two baritones (the Doctor and Paul), tenor (Dodge), two mezzos (Amanda and Amelia), and three sopranos (Young Amelia, Aunt Helen, and The Flier). Their nonet, as complicated in its way as the fiendishly difficult ensembles in Verdi’s Falstaff, concludes the opera. Hagen, who says that he did in fact hear a jubilant ecstasy of voices breaking free from orchestral gravity when his son was born, admits that his musical device here “is the obvious way to do it; the trick is, can we do it well?” As of this writing, the singers and Maestro Gerard Schwarz are still figuring out how to do justice to what Hagen has written, with its jazzily syncopated rhythms, close harmony between vocal neighbors, and unforgettable tempo marking “Unreeling like a montage of kisses!”

Join us at Seattle Opera on May 8, and in the weeks that follow, to find out what it sounds like for yourself.

AMELIA: A Listener’s Guide (Part 6 of 7)

2010-05-04T16:00:00.000-07:00

The heart of Amelia is Act Two Scene Two. Structurally, this scene contains the golden mean: that moment, not quite two-thirds of the way through, where (mathematically speaking) a climax or turning-point feels most natural. Left, the mathematics of the Golden Mean create beautiful natural shapes. Richard Wagner always deploys his shattering musical climaxes at the moment of the Golden Mean, whether you’re talking about a prelude or orchestral interlude or an entire opera.

The climax of Amelia takes place in a hospital, a few days after the pregnant Amelia collapses at her husband’s office. Because the drama of this scene is extremely complicated, the scene is organized musically around three set-pieces:

Theme and Variations
After an expository passage in which we meet several new characters--Amelia’s Doctor and Aunt Helen, plus a real-life Father and Boy who remind us of Daedalus and Icarus--Hagen organizes the first section of the scene as a Theme and Variations. The theme is Aunt Helen’s hymn-like arioso “Oh, stars flung wide across the dome,” a prayer she sings upon learning from the Doctor that the Boy (Amelia’s neighbor in the hospital) is likely to die from the injuries he sustained in his great fall. The first four variations support the comatose Amelia’s conversation with her dead father; but the final variation turns out to be Aunt Helen’s version of the Navy hymn.

Quintet
When Amelia tells Dodge, “I’ll let you go now,” we begin the Amelia Quintet. The singers are the Father, Aunt Helen, the Boy, Dodge, and The Flier; the voices enter in fugue, because, as Daron Hagen puts it, “There’s nothing more terrifying than a fugue!” There’s something mechanical about the inevitability of the fugue--intensified in this particular fugue by an ostinato, an unsettling repetitive figure which we hear over and over again in the accompaniment:

Musical example by members of the Seattle Symphony

This ostinato cell is the sound of the Boy’s heart monitor beeping away; the pinched high B flat is actually played by a dead-stick Vibraphone, meaning the percussionist hits the bar but never releases his mallet. The machinery in the music sets up an atmosphere of eerieness, while the five voices in their fugue lament the imminent death of the Boy; he repeats the cry, “Father, don’t leave me!” while his Father reassures him and encourages him to “Cast off your fear.” Following the Quintet, the boy’s heart-monitor flatlines (computerized sound effect) and an attempted resuscitation fails. Watch the singers being trained by staff at Harborview Medical Center to perform this scene accurately here.

Amelia is about loss and recuperation. This quintet plays a crucial thematic role, sheltering as it does in music the emotional impact of a tragic death. We meet in this opera four characters who cross the line between life and death: The Flier, Dodge, the unnamed daughter of Trang and Huy, and the Boy; but the music only stops to mourn the loss of the Boy. No one can mourn The Flier or Dodge, because no one knows what happened to either of them; Trang and Huy’s daughter dies in a wartime action sequence of senseless violence, one without time for grief. The Boy’s death comes where it does because we need to mourn those we’ve lost. The creative team who wrote Amelia have each in their own lives had to grieve for those they’ve loved and lost, and when we hear the Quintet, each of us in the audience will be right there, in that scene--because it happens to all of us, sad though it is, it’s what makes us human, mortal.

Letter Aria
But the true Golden Mean of Amelia is the aria that follows the Quintet, the piece known as the “Letter Aria.” Paul sings it; deeply shocked by the death of the boy, he fears that Amelia, too, may die. He is imploring her not to die, a cappella, when he finds under Amelia’s sheets, miraculously, the last letter Dodge wrote from Vietnam--even though Trang burned that letter thirty years earlier. So the aria is Paul reading the loving last words of a husband and father as he bids farewell to the wife and daughter he loves most of all. Right, one of the real-life letters from Dodge McFall, senior, that inspired the Letter Aria (courtesy of Gardner McFall).

Like every moment of Amelia, the Letter Aria operates on many levels: it is Dodge, comforting Amelia; it’s Paul, comforting Amelia; it’s Dodge, comforting Paul; it’s Paul, having his first and last encounter with his father-in-law; it is someone without convictions learning from someone else what is worth dying for--and what is worth living for. Musically, the Letter Aria is a gentle Andante, with pulsing hymn-chords in the orchestra and long lyric phrases for the baritone; it moves from the key associated with Dodge (and his military trumpets), Bb major, to Ameila’s home key, E major; and it climaxes in a full-voiced high G and then ends on a pianissimo high E. Seattle Opera’s beloved late Director of Education, Perry Lorenzo, told me when we first heard it two years ago he thought this brief, powerful aria had the potential to replace Billy Budd’s “Billy in the Darbies” aria as the standard English-language audition aria for baritones.

Having mourned those we’ve lost, and found renewed strength and confidence from magical words of comfort, it’s time now for: the landing of Amelia Earhart! The Letter Aria is followed by a brief scene in which The Flier gets out of her Lockheed Electra, looks around, and assesses that wherever she is, it’s an OK place. Metaphorically, this means that Amelia is ready to give birth. The scene concludes with her emerging from her coma, refusing Caesarean section, and declaring: “I can do this.”

Photos from The Museum of Flight

2010-05-04T11:15:00.000-07:00

On Saturday night, more than 200 guests joined Seattle Opera at The Museum of Flight to celebrate the upcoming world premiere of Amelia in style. Here are a couple of photos from the exciting event—enjoy!

Members of the Vovinam Lion Dance Team performed traditional Vietnamese dance.

Attendees included (from the front right): Seattle Opera President Steve Phelps and his wife Anne; Laurel Nesholm (wife of board Chairman John Nesholm); Speight Jenkins III (in the red vest); and Moya Vazquez, trustee and chair of the development committee, among many others.

Guest dined amidst the historic aircraft at The Museum of Flight.

Jennifer Zetlan, who sings The Flier in Amelia, performed her character's aria for the crowd accompanied by David McDade on the piano. To her left, librettist Gardner McFall, General Director Speight Jenkins, and composer Daron Aric Hagen look on.

David McFerrin—who sings the role of Amelia’s husband, Paul, at the matinees—performed the "Letter Aria."

AMELIA: A Listener’s Guide (Part 5 of 7)

2010-05-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

Act Two Scene One of Amelia takes place in the office of Amelia’s husband, Paul, who is an aeronautical engineer. Although the opera isn’t specifically set in Seattle, Speight Jenkins has commented that he thought Amelia might speak powerfully to residents of Jet City, with its large Vietnamese community and deep connection with Boeing. When Daron Hagen originally pitched Jenkins on the opera, it was about flight, using the image of flight as a metaphor for the human condition. Everything that goes up must come down: liftoff is like birth, landing (or crashing) like death; living itself can be like trying to maintain level flight while the wind is pushing you up and gravity is simultaneously pulling you down. Hagen wanted his opera to work like an ourobourous, the old mythological image of the serpent consuming its own tail: a balance between liftoff and touchdown, male and female, birth and death. Icarus crashes to earth as Amelia’s daughter is born, Dodge and The Flier both go missing and both are found, the end of one thing is forever the beginning of something else.

An abstract way of thinking, to be sure, and if it takes a while to see the pattern, well, that’s maturity. That’s our protagonist’s growth in Act Two, and in this first scene she really hasn’t got it sorted out. This nine-months pregnant woman bursts into her husband’s office, breaks up a meeting, freaks out, and collapses into a coma. Amelia can’t stand not knowing; not knowing what happened to her father, not knowing what happened to Amelia Earhart, not knowing what her husband does for a living. She can’t take the risk involved in letting go of earth and soaring skywards; and she’s not ready to be a mother, since she can’t get out of her own head and see things from other people’s points of view. Her music in this scene is agglutinative: she steals music belonging to all the other characters and uses it herself. Structurally, the scene is a duet which Amelia turns into an aria, which then becomes a mad scene. Kate Lindsey, for one, is excited by the opportunity: “Mezzo sopranos NEVER get to play mad scenes! This is great!”

The scene pivots from duet into aria at the moment where Amelia quotes Melville: “All wars are boyish and are fought by boys.” Hagen and McFall are well aware of the many recent American opera librettos that were constructed by patching together quotations from a variety of different sources; they even mock themselves for doing it, when Paul sings (immediately following Amelia’s Melville quote) “Who said that, who?” In addition to this quote, the libretto quotes Edna St. Vincent Millay, “O world, I cannot hold thee close enough. / Thy winds, thy wide grey skies” and Robert Louis Stevenson, “Up in the air I go flying again, / Up in the air and down;” it takes text from Dodge McFall, Sr.’s real-life letters, and from the final transmission of the real-life Amelia Earhart; and of course, there’s the Navy Hymn.

But even more of the quotations in the libretto happen because the poetry works motivically; the characters of Amelia are constantly quoting each other. Amelia’s aria, in Act Two Scene Two, pivots into mad scene when she quotes something her father told her in Act One Scene One (and which Daedalus repeated to Icarus in Act One Scene Two): “Imagine a feather pushed up by the wind, climbing through sea-mist and clouds.” Dodge was ready to sail off into the unknown blue in search of adventure: “Fear is worth feeling to know that sky.” But Amelia cannot follow him: she fails to complete the quote, and instead the orchestra tumbles down a four-octave chromatic scale, in sixteenth-note tritone chords marked triple-forte and marcatissimo: crash! Amelia is left alone in the clouds, with no airplane to support her, and sings her ensuing mad scene a cappella.

Last Night at the Museum of Flight

2010-05-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

Seattle Opera’s gala, featuring Amelia, couldn’t have been held in a more appropriate place: at the Museum of Flight, with airplanes hanging over, beside and around those who had dinner and heard from several participants in the production. Composer Daron Hagen and librettists Gardner McFall spoke about the creation of Amelia; interspersed in their conversation with General Director Speight Jenkins were three arias. Though the space was not meant for singing, all three singers made each aria moving and effective. Ashley Emerson radiantly sang the opening piece in the opera, the young Amelia’s musing about her fascination with flying; Jennifer Zetlan received applause and cheering for her rendition of the Flier's aria in the first scene, its text based on what Amelia Earhart actually said in her last few minutes before her plane went down in the Pacific; and David McFerrin sang the Letter Aria, Amelia’s father last communication to his family, with heartfelt intensity.

Both Hagen and McFall offered new insights into the creation of Amelia, fresh points not made in their earlier public presentations. McFall talked about what it meant to her to use her father’s words written in letters to her mother in the Letter Aria and among other points Hagen discussed what it was like to orchestrate the opera and to compose for the specific singers who were scheduled to sing the world premiere.

All five artists were warmly received by the more than 200 patrons who enjoyed a reception before the dinner at another area of the Museum of Flight. The area where the dinner was held, amidst maybe six or seven huge planes, had a stage created on which was placed a piano. All who spoke or sang used the stage, and to improve visibility all that went on was seen additionally on a large screen. David McDade, Seattle Opera's principal coach/accompanist, accompanied the singers.

Congratulations to MOBY-DICK...and, get ready for AMELIA on Twitter!

2010-05-02T10:59:00.000-07:00

As Seattle Opera enters the final countdown to Saturday night's world premiere of Amelia, we'd like to congratulate composer Jake Heggie, the Dallas Opera, and everyone involved in this week's other new American world premiere opera: Moby-Dick, which set sail Friday night. In an informative review, Wayne Lee Gay wrote about "a fine score, performed by an ensemble of great singers and instrumentalists," including Seattle favorites Ben Heppner, Morgan Smith, and Robert Orth.

Morgan Smith, who plays Starbuck in Moby-Dick, made his Seattle Opera debut in our 2001 Billy Budd, as did Wesley Rogers, who will create the role of The Officer in Amelia. (Photo of Billy Budd by Chris Bennion.)

Also in the news: Bernard Jacobson of the Seattle Times writes of Amelia, "The plot...while complex, is vividly emotional enough to grip an audience, and Hagen's music, too, is approachable in the extreme. He writes lyrically, exploiting the resources of tonal harmony to intense expressive effect and giving the voices — including in this production the superb ones of Kate Lindsey, William Burden, Nathan Gunn and Jane Eaglen — time and space to soar."

And get ready, everyone, for the Twitter Countdown to Amelia! Starting tomorrow morning at 9 am, we'll be tweeting the entire libretto, line by line, on a dedicated Twitter account. Go to twitter.com/AmeliaLibretto and sign up to read the libretto as it gets tweeted over the course of the week. We'll give you just enough time between tweets for you to imagine, if you were the composer, how you'd set that line to music!