Minimalist Opera, A Historic Shift

The latest contribution for our guest blogger, Lenny Small.

Among the most the interesting periods in the more than 400 years of opera are when one operatic style changes to another. With Nixon in China, a minimalist opera, we are in the midst of one of those major changes. The opera devotees who will be in the audience for Nixon in China, (March 16 and March 18), may not realize it but they will be watching and listening to one of those historic moments in opera.

Opera has gone through a long history of change from its Renaissance beginnings in the 16th century period with the operas of Monteverdi up to the present with the new minimalist operas of John Adams and Philip Glass.  Minimalist  opera is part of the overall minimalism art scene of painting, sculpture and music.  In music, the simplest possible material is repeated many times with small changes that are introduced gradually or with the addition of other simple repetitive material that eventually changes in its synchronization to produce a trance-like effect.  It is often referred to as repetitive music that can become hypnotic.

John Cage  laid the ground work for minimalist opera, but it was John Adams who first put his minimalist opera Nixon in China on the stage of major opera houses  in the United States and England for the first time.

John Adams

I could not have been more rudely awakened than when I heard Adam’s music for the first time at a Met HD/live broadcast of Dr. Atomic.  Thus by the time I went to see “Nixon in China” I was better prepared for a full afternoon of John Adams’ music. After two more viewings of Nixon (it was broadcast on Public Television and I recorded it), I was totally entranced by the work. Up until that time, my entire knowledge of Adam’s music had been limited to his movie scores and Dr. Atomic. Adams was still a new voice to me in the field of opera and I was still remembering the romantic works of Verdi, Bellini and Rossini.  On the other hand, Nixon in China reminded me of the first time I heard Richard Strauss’ Salome with its dissonances and atonality. However, by my third viewing of that opera over the years, I have become so engrossed with its music and that I hardly hear the initial discord that I first remembered.

What makes it so easy to be mesmerized by the score of Nixon in China is the fact that the libretto is based on a piece of current history and involves two very dissimilar political societies. It is difficult to imagine this opera being set to any other type of music and be as effective.

I  urge everyone to attend the upcoming performace of  Nixon in China and see for themselves a new style of opera that will change your thinking of  21st century opera.

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Who’s Afraid of Grand Opera?

Guest Blogger Leonard Small aka Uncle Lenny

I know that sometimes opera is a little hard to understand and appreciate.  It is usually sung in a foreign language, the plots are often so convoluted that it is difficult to follow, and you still haven’t figured out why someone  usually dies  in the last act. Yet for all its challenges, the music can be glorious.  And also more familiar than you might realize. You hear opera constantly on TV commercials for spaghetti sauce, perfumes and automobiles.  It was Rossini and his opera William Tell that supplied the theme music for the Lone Ranger program, and Puccini’s genius is featured  in Cher’s Academy Award winning movie “Moonstruck”.  (Eugene readers will be pleased to know that local musician Dick Hyman served as arranger/conductor/pianist for the soundtrack of Moonstruck. )

Yet a very small percentage (actually under 2%) of the general public has ever been to see or hear a live opera performance.  To demystify it for you, I will tell you almost all you need to know about opera in the next few paragraphs.

Opera is nothing more than a drama that has been set to music, yet it is the most complete of all the art forms. There is not just singing, but orchestral music, often dancing, drama and comedy, poetry, acting, and costume, lighting and scenic design.   It all comes to life after the composer receives a play called a libretto and he sets it to music.

Since an opera is just a play, actors have to be able to communicate with each other. There are two ways that the singers can talk to each other.  One is the recitative which is a form of musical speech that tells the story and moves the plot along.  The other is the aria which is really just a song and expresses the inner most thoughts and feelings of the protagonists. In their time opera arias were the popular songs of their day. They are the songs most people remember the most; for example the Duke’s aria “La donna e mobile” from Rigoletto, Musetta Waltz (Quando me’nvo) from La Boheme or Canio’s heart breaking aria  Vesti la Giubba from Pagliacci.

One of the biggest complaints is that opera is usually sung in a foreign language. That problem has been solved because today there are Super Titles which are projected above the proscenium arch and simultaneously translates what is being sung on the stage below.

One last suggestion, if you are going to see an opera for the first time familiarize your self with the music and the story.  The libretto is on the internet and the musical part can usually be found on a CD or better yet many operas have been put on DVDs and are available from your library or from Netflix.

This week is Opera Week! Try it. You might just fall in love.

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Speaking of Carmen

This is the first post from our guest blogger, Leonard Small.  Lenny has been an avid opera devotee since the age of 10 when he heard his first Saturday afternoon broadcast of the Met Opera.  More than seventy years later his interest has not waned.  After retirement, he earned a teaching certification and  has been teaching adult education classes on opera appreciation. He welcomes your comments and questions!

Carmen (1875)
Georges Bizet (1838-1875) Libretto: Meihac & Halevy

Though Carmen premiered in 1875 and was a turning point in operatic history, it received a cool response from the audience. Yet it did receive 35 performances that first year, but only 13 the following year. When it was revived eight years later it became a world-wide sensation. By 1904 in Paris alone it had received 1000 performances.  Unfortunately, Bizet died at the early age of 37, only a few months after the opera’s premier. He never lived to see and enjoy his phenomenal success.
Originally, the opera was considered quite shocking and immoral and made audiences feel very uncomfortable.  Bizet’s choice of protagonists- a promiscuous gypsy, a deserting army corporal who becomes a criminal and a sporting idol – was not that unusual, but he made the characters react to love and jealousy in an unconventional way. The heroine was not virtuous and the hero was a bad guy who never mended his ways. What finally shocked the public was that the heroine was murdered in full view of the audience. Up until that time, murders in opera always took place off stage or between the acts.  Bizet had brought the suffering of the contemporary man into the opera house.
Bizet wrote Carmen as an opera-comique in which the set numbers were separated by spoken dialogue.  After it premiered,  competent recitatives were added by a friend of Bizet. The composer himself had intended to write such recitatives eventually so as to make the opera more performable.
With the score, Bizet created local color and remarkable entrance pieces. In the first act Carmen sings a Habanera titled “Love is a rebellious bird” (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle).  It is her answer to all the men who have been imploring her to take on one of them on as her next lover, but she chooses Don Jose, a lowly army corporal.
The Toreador Song (Votre toast, je peux vous le render) in the second act is probably the aria most associated with the opera. In it, the toreador, Escamillo, toasts the soldiers in a tavern and compares them to the toreadors as both take pleasure in combat.  He becomes Carmen’s next lover and in the end Don Jose, in a fit of jealousy, murders her when she refuses to give him up.

 

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Opening Night of “La Bohème” Brings Tears and Smiles

Thank you, Melissa Hart for this wonderful report!  Originally posted on the Register Guard blog.

During my stint as an opera major at UC Santa Cruz, I studied with the formidably talented music lecturer Patrice Maginnis.  Visually impaired, she nevertheless hammered me for my unprofessional presentation as a sophomore in her repertoire class.  “If I hear you smiling while you sing,” she told me once, “you’re out of here.”

I learned to take opera very, very seriously.  So seriously, in fact, that it took me a minute to get the joke on Dec. 30 when Eugene Opera’s new musical director Andrew Bisantz — in a woefully under-publicized but exciting pre-performance talk about this season’s offering of Giacomo Puccini’s “La Bohème” — said of the opera’s character Rodolfo and his love for the poor seamstress Mimi, “He tries to light her candle when it blows out, which is a mixed metaphor if there ever was one.”

Puccini himself had an interesting sense of humor; he apparently got the idea for “La Bohème” after visiting the composer Ruggiero Leoncavallo who spoke of working on an opera based on Henri Murger’s work of fiction, “Scènes de la Vie de Bohème.”  Puccini, also gravitating toward Murger’s stories of young artists struggling gaily to survive in the Latin Quarter of 19^th century Paris, wrote his own opera based on the novel and made sure it premiered in Turin in 1896, a full year before Leoncavallo premiered his opera.

My former voice teacher might not have found fault with the libretto and music for one of the most popular operas of all time, but what would she have said upon discovering that baritone Michael Mayes, playing the painter Marcello, not only smiled while he sang, but minced and cavorted wrapped in a bedsheet in an exuberant Act IV performance that brought to mind the best of Monty Python in drag.

Numerous young people attended the opera on Thursday, the youngest being a ten-year old boy in a tie and fedora and a three year old who showed up late with her parents and disappeared (perhaps mercifully) after the first intermission.  I imagine both the inexpensive youth/student tickets and the vibrant actors trumped any off-campus kegger they might otherwise have attended.  Their eager chatter at intermission overshadowed my annoyance at an elderly woman in furs and diamonds who, upon sitting down to Bisantz’s pre-performance lecture, waved her hand dismissively  and sneered, “I know all this already.”

Eugene’s “La Bohème” featured a fresh-faced, comely cast that bantered and high-kicked and otherwise frolicked with all the energy of UO freshmen living on Top Ramen but intoxicated by their newfound freedom to pursue painting and poetry and music along with l’amour.  An audible gasp went up from the audience as the curtain rose on Act II to reveal a stunning tableau — snow falling on the principal actors surrounded by dozens of chorus members and child singers from the Oregon Festival Choirs against the backdrop of a painted canvas set depicting the Café Momus.  And when Jill Gardner, scintillating as the coquette Musetta (“Her last name is Temptation”), took center stage with the flirtatious and famous melody “Quando me’n vo,” the people around me rewarded her with whoops of admiration.

Only one performance proved initially less than compelling — that of Yeghishe Manuchryan, who played the poet Rodolfo. In Act I, his aria “Che gelida manina” was supposed to seduce the sweet seamstress, but from where I sat, the orchestra swallowed Manuchryan’s voice and his character seemed less of a mesmerized suitor and more of a pained gentleman who — faced with the sudden appearance of a beautiful young woman — found himself suffering intestinal difficulties.

General Director Mark Beudert appeared before the second act to demystify the tenor’s performance, explaining that Manuchryan felt under the weather and wanted to apologize for any surprises we might experience in upcoming acts.  Upon hearing this, the friend sitting beside me whispered, “Great, so he’s not going to get any better.”

But then he did get better, a whole lot better, and I could finally fathom why a beauty such as Emily Pulley’s Mimi, with her rich throaty soprano, might fall for the starving poet, clad as he was in a suit that looked downright funereal next to Marcello’s smashing red velvet coat.

The morning after the opera, I logged onto Facebook to find a discussion about the Eugene Opera’s performance of “La Bohème” already underway.  My friend had posted the following: “Nothing like a night at the opera with Melissa Hart. Especially the hot chocolate!” causing another friend to respond, “What about the hot baritone?”

Truth be told, the Texan opera singer Michael Mayes looks like a movie star, a fact reinforced when I spotted him at Market of Choice that afternoon, but he can also act like nobody’s business.  In a genre known for its singers’ tendency to “park and bark,” it’s Mayes and his fellow singers with their magnetic vitality that will pack theater seats full of devotees in skinny jeans and hipster fedoras, as well as those in furs and diamond earrings.  As Bisantz pointed out, Eugene Opera’s rendition of “La Bohème” was both “pleasing and scrappy,” and most of the seats on orchestra-level were full.

But lest I imply that the four-act performance was simply a jovial romp through the Latin District with a quartet of oversexed young people, let me say here that the production offered moments of quiet and powerful poignancy.  Near the end of the opera, Rodolfo and Marcello, back in their garret, threw down their respective pens and brushes and picked up the talismans left by their ladyloves.  Rodolfo, clasping Mimi’s pink bonnet, stepped toward Marcello who held Musetta’s orange shawl, and the two men locked eyes in an instant fraught with longing and youth’s sudden insight into mature love.

Anyone who didn’t weep at Emily Pulley’s elegantly macabre consumptive death scene most likely wasn’t watching or — as a running buddy of mine confessed at the first intermission — had been dragged to the Hult Center on a date.  This performance of “La Bohème,” which concluded Sunday, had the power to bring the Thursday night audience to its feet.  As the actors took their final bows, I saw tears glistening in the eyes of the people around me … tears, and, yes, Professor Maginnis, smiles, as well.

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This End is Just the Beginning

Rembrandt Self Portrait: Could I change this expression without changing the posture?

Completion of the season’s posters is nearly at hand! The paintings are definitely finished, except for the signature, and until Friday they were waiting to be approved by the Artistic Director, Mark Beudert. Seeing the paintings was no surprise to him, as he has seen the composition “cartoons”, and this year, he also saw the model photos I took. He just happened to be in town for a meeting, right after my shoot, so he was able to pick the kind of expressions he wanted. This is a very good thing because changing an expression on a painting character can involve major figure changes. Body language usually accompanies or compliments an attitude, and changing the face often means changing the whole stance or weight shift. This may be easier to do in a computer generated piece, but for a 24×36” oil painting it is a major undertaking, and often very frustrating.

The painting review, which was on Friday morning, usually has other members of the opera organization attending. Always, the captain of advertising, Steven Asbury, attends, as he will be fairly living with these images for the next six months. Usually the head of the Board of Directors for Eugene Opera also is present, but this time, it was only Mark, Steven and myself, with a brief check by Jonna Hayden. This is an important meeting because everyone involved has to be not only happy about the way the images look, but inspired by the feel of the poster. It will be the main emissary for this opera season. Fortunately, everyone is very happy with the finished product, so on we go!

Toulouse-Lautrec's Yvette Guilbert: Could I change this character to refined/conservative?

As is often the case, we are on a tight deadline. Since there are no changes, the paintings need to be rushed over to a professional photography studio, Imagine Photographics, and the only one in town I have found, that can handle the shooting of paintings to digital format. Then we have a few hours to add in the titles digitally. The first year I did the posters for Eugene Opera, I hand lettered the titles. This is an interesting look, and it gave me the opportunity to incorporate the letters into the illustration, but it was decided that the subsequent two seasons be crisp lettering, so the magic of Photoshop allows digital additions. Thank goodness the old days of Letraset rub on lettering is gone! My husband, Don Carson, is also a professional designer, but his work is about 70% computer now, so with me sitting over his shoulder, he will drop in the titles just right.

Degas's Singer with a Glove: How about shy and demure

The digital discs are then delivered to Asbury Designs, and Steven will make the illustrations fit into the many venues in which the posters will be seen. Now they will go through the hands of printers, motion graphics, advertising execs., layout artists, editors, distributors, and many more. So, my work with this project is done, but you can see how many people are involved in bringing new images to you for the 2010-2011 season. I still have artwork to do for the opera, so you will see new spots of art here and there. Be sure to come to the big gala event on October 7th, and I think you will be very pleasantly surprised!

So until then, enjoy this great season!

Nadya Geras-Carson

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Eyes in the Back of My Head

Toulouse-Lautrec's "Laundress" 100%!

Last week I was sidetracked, just a little, by my article regarding the search for excellence. Giving at least 100% is always a worthwhile goal, and this is the time for that little extra push, as I am coming down to the wire. Did I mention it was moved forward by a few days? I need to be finished by the 20th now, and life keeps trying to intrude on my working time. So, even though the paintings are not completely finished, let’s get on with the finishing touches.

Beginning and ending a painting are so very different. The beginning is what a former teacher of mine calls “the honeymoon” because it is fast, loose, free, and full of possibilities. The next stage of the painting is the real work, with only a possibility of an enlightening surprise, and a lot of slogging through to implement all the problem solving already done before the painting was ever started. That work before hand was worth every moment, but the plan is already set and just the joy of painting alone is present. There is very little risk taking for an illustration at this stage. A fine art painting is different from an illustration, as the illustration has been approved, and an artist must deliver a piece very like what was seen in the approved stages of the design.

Edward Manet's "The Balconey"

But what has happened while you were in your studio, all alone, working away at a painting, and looking at that painting through eyes that know what the painting is supposed to look like when it is finished? How do you know there isn’t some horrible error somewhere? As an artist you don’t want to notice something as you are loading the paintings into your car!

Here are some of the methods an individual artist can use to help them out, not only at the finish, but also at various intervals during the painting process. One of the easiest but most effective tools is the mirror. Simply hanging a large mirror behind the artist is indispensable. All they have to do, to check on the progress, is to turn around and look at the painting in the mirror, and suddenly the painting is not the same one the artist has been staring at these long weeks.

"The Balconey" upside down. Note the value composition.

It has become instantly a new painting and can be looked at with a fresh eye. Taking a painting off the easel and turning it upside down or sideways can achieve a similar goal, because the artist can see if the composition still works, even though, as it is upside down, the subject becomes irrelevant.

In our current day, we also have the benefit of digital photography to help us see what may be obvious to everyone except the artist. We can take a picture of the painting, input it into the computer, and flip it, rotate it, darken a corner, change it to black and white, and essentially completely change the view of the piece.

Mrs. Fiske and Daughter Rachel by JS Sargeant

30 years ago, we could only accomplish this same treatment by xeroxing an image, or covering the painting with a sheet of amberlith (an all orange gel sheet originally used for color separation work in printing). These two methods achieved the same goal of flattening the images, filtering out all the little details, and leaving just the value relationships to be studied. Unfortunately, these two older tricks could only be used when the painting was completely dry.

How many illustrators, long ago, delivered finished paintings to be photographed, with the paint (especially white, which is the slowest drying, and always used for the little sparkle at the end of the painting process), still wet and glistening?

Mrs. Fiske and Daughter Rachel "Flipped" as seen through a mirror.

No wonder illustrators embraced acrylics!

As an artist, if there is a problem with your work, you need every trick and tool to be an angel looking over your shoulder. These are a few simple suggestions to help you find problems right away. It always helps to have another pair of eyes to see your work in a fresh way, but when you don’t have anyone to volunteer, these are ways to do your best work any time.

Speaking of which, I must get back into my studio! Next week I will be all done, and will let you in on my last touches, as well as the technical finishes (the titles) done in the computer, as a mock-up for the art director. It’s going to be warm out there, and even warmer in my studio, so think of me while you are having that lemonade in the shade!

Nadya Geras-Carson

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Greetings from Scotland!

Edinburgh Castle Complex

I’m at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, soaking up a dose of creative energy. There’s over 2400 shows playing in the next three weeks, ranging from theater to dance to opera to musicals! I’m here with the Red Chair Players West, the theater group from the Academy of Arts and Academics in Springfield.

Aside from the mind-boggling array of shows, I’m visiting the local museums and continuing my research for La Boheme. Currently there’s an Impressionist Masters show at the Scottish National Galleries, and Holyrood Palace has a wonderful collection of portraits and paintings. I’ll be at the Palace today, camera in hand, looking for more inspiration.

Edinburgh is a lovey city, full of beautiful architecture–it’s so interesting with the juxtaposition of modern next to 18th century, and I love the texture I encounter on every street.

Victoria Street at Dusk

This image is Victoria Street, just off the Royal Mile. It’s a lovely, steeply curving street, with a delightful array of small shops (one of which did major damage to my Visa card). There’s  a tailor’s shop I’m hoping to visit today, an antiquarian book dealer, a milliner, and a knitting shop. As you can see, the street above’s buildings have terraces that look over the shops below.  I spent a good deal of time on this terrace last night, watching the light change. I was particularly taken with the layering of colors and how the setting sun heightened the contrast in different ways on the buildings and street below.

I would love to be able to capture this feeling of depth and texture in the fabrics I use for our chorus for La Boheme–creating an “old world” feel not only with the silhouette, but the drape, patterns, and texture of the cloth. Everything from the iron work to the cobblestone streets to the carved stone detailing on the buildings is filling in the base of information I’ll be working from as I begin pulling costumes from stock and purchasing fabric to build our show.

Next week I’ll be back in Eugene, whereupon I’ll be getting down to the nitty-gritty details of developing the budget and projecting out the costs for producing the costumes. It’s a complex process, balancing the needs of the show with the available budget, and trying to produce the best possible experience for our patrons.

See you next week!

Jonna Hayden, Costume Design

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Striving for Excellence

Last week I mentioned that I had gone to the De Young Museum in San Francisco to see the impressionist show there. It was glorious! While in town, we made a detour to the beautiful, newly acquired, Presidio area, which was restored and saved primarily by George Lucas, but also is the home to the new Disney Family Museum. We were told by many people, whose opinion we valued, that we must see it. As both my husband

Walter Elias Disney

Don and I, had worked for Walt Disney Imagineering, and we were fans even before that, we thought we knew a lot about Walt Disney, but we were astonished at not only how well the museum was designed, but also how much relevant information we did not know. Why am I telling you all this? I want to tell you what I took away from that museum. Walt Disney never settled for anything less than the best he could do, and he worked very hard to achieve that excellence. He didn’t care what he had to risk to accomplish his goals. He believed in his employees and fellow workers so much, that he gave them goals that they themselves felt were beyond their ability. No one ever wanted to disappoint Mr. Disney’s enthusiasm, so they always came up to the challenge. Walt Disney wasn’t a follower, he was an innovator. Every other company who settled for following Disney’s ideas was left behind in the dust. In other words, playing it safe by doing what other people have already proven popular is a form of mediocrity, and that giving 150% is what brings the “average” up to the “inspirational”. That is what the Disney museum conveyed, and that is what the Disney museum itself embodies.

The relevance to this column may seem obscure, but I believe that doing the best one can, and striving for excellence, is a choice most of us make every day. You can see by these ongoing blog entries from the company that people like Jonna Hayden, the costume designer for the Eugene Opera, puts the most effort possible into this project. You will see contributions ongoing from other members of the company, with evidence of this same dedication to excellence. This company could do the bare minimum to ensure its continuation, but that isn’t good enough, and you will see the evidence, where all the dedication was applied, in the coming season.

Back to the paintings and a most important design element; value! Value is a relative tool, and is dependent on the arrangement of light and dark patterns within the painting’s format. Let me illustrate this concept for you with the painting  El Jaleo, by John Singer Sargeant. The easiest way to see the light and dark patterns,

El Jaleo

or Chiarascuro (which means light and dark) is to squint while you look at the painting. Indeed, representational artists squint more or less all the time while painting, to see the relative values of their subject matter. While squinting at El Jaleo, you can see that the painting is primarily dark, but the placement of the lights in this piece is critical. I’m not going to tell you that value is the only tool this master used for this, or any of his paintings, but this painting in particular, because of its theatrical lighting, depends on those lights. The tension and excitement occurs when the darkest dark is placed next to the lightest light. The dancer’s skirt pulls you into the painting, but the contrast occurs on her left shoulder and face. Squint again and see how the patterns of the guitar players force you to look at the seated figure before being forced back to the dancer’s face. All arrows point to her, so you keep coming back to her, but Sargeant keeps your eye moving around and around the painting, always lighting on the dancer’s face, and still feeling the movement.

Repose

This second painting by Sargeant is called Repose. It is a painting of his niece, who actually posed quite often for him. This is a predominantly light painting, with natural, not theatrical lighting. Look at the light and dark patterns in this piece by squinting. Notice the substantial white stripe behind her dark hair. Her pale face is surrounded by dark, but that choker ( the darkest dark) and the collar (whitest white), along with dozens of arrows pointing to her head, make that face the definite focal point. His brilliance as a painter, once again, keeps the viewer’s eye moving around the painting, but always comes back to her face. Interesting to note;  John Singer Sargeant is another of our artists which are period appropriate for our production of La Boheme.

With the composition in La Boheme, I am confronted with interior candlelight, winter colors outside, moonlight, snow, and an interior woodstove. All of these elements have to work together and also still have a strong value pattern. This is a tricky combination! The Mikado is easier because it is a much less complex composition. In fact it is really very graphic, so the lighting just has to be consistent.

John Singer Sargeant and Walt Disney were both geniuses, but most of all, they worked very hard and continued to pursue the excellence they knew to be possible, 150% always, and never gave up. To be an artist it is necessary to follow their examples, as one never stops learning, and the next piece is always at least a little bit better.

See you next week, and hopefully with more or less finished paintings. Those sparkling little touches only happen after some quality staring time. Next week we will also talk about the tools and tricks to help finish the pieces. Until then, enjoy the summer!

Nadya Geras-Carson

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Looking to the Masters

Lautrec

Here we are, another week gone, another blog coming to you, the end of July, and I can’t help but say, “Where is the summer going so fast?”!

Last week we talked about my creative process, obtaining the images, and composing them for the poster painting. This week I would like to discuss “Style”, with a capital “S”! I could just paint the posters in the same style each season, but I would like to experiment with throwing at least a hint of a past master’s style into the mix. For example, for the Marriage of Figaro poster, I wanted something very rich, and colorful. Mozart is a complex composer, so I thought about ‘what would a pointillist like Seurat, Signac, or even a more modern extreme, like Bonnard do’? Now I had to take in account the time constraints, as Seurat would take close to a year, and make the piece on a huge canvas. It was a good experiment, and I ended up very happy with the results, however, I realized it was not very practical for the time allowed, and making tiny dabs of paint can be tedious for a piece that large.

An example of Lautrec influenced by Degas

This year, I wanted to do La Boheme with a French style, which reflected the period and mood. Since we had jumped the time forward a trifle, some of the styles originally under consideration were not on the table any longer. Actually I was happy about that, because it moved me into a much more interesting set of painters. This was the height of the impressionists and the beginning of the post-impressionists popularity. And so naturally, I ran to Henri Toulouse Lautrec! He had a great style to emulate, and even worked within the artist’s realm where we were to call home for this production. I did many little studies in color, using his approach, but it just wasn’t a look I thought the art director would like, so I turned to look again at the master’s master. Of course! Edgar Degas, the man Lautrec emulated! And here is where I found the perfect inspiration! About this time in history, Degas was almost blind, and so his paintings were even more vibrant with color, but his subject’s features were almost non-existent. I had to do some backtracking to about ten to twenty years earlier in his career, but still the style was there. That is a hint of what I am using in the Boheme poster for this season. I read as much as I could find on Degas’s actual painting process, looked at as many photographs as I could find, and paid a visit to the De Young Museum of San Francisco, to see the impressionist show currently on view. Some 15 years ago, I had the opportunity to spend many days at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, where there is a vast collection of Degas and Lautrec originals. I am not trying to create a duplication of his work, maybe in another 30 years of trying I could succeed at that endeavor, but just give a flavor of his work to my own style. As my own style is still evolving, I know the influence of many artists resides there already, some which I can identify, and some a little harder to find. I am just adding a little extra Degas for this one poster!

Oddly enough, the impressionists were greatly influenced by the simple compositions, and graphic like treatments of master Japanese printmakers like Hokusai, which brings us back to The Mikado. I didn’t want to use an impressionist style on this poster, it wouldn’t have made any sense, but the composition is along the same thinking lines of graphic treatment that were very popular in that time period. I have only to keep it simple to make it work. And that reminds me, I must also point out that although the two posters will never be up around town at the same time, they will be side by side in the advertising and subscription brochures for the coming season. They must have some aspects that tie the two shows together. This year, color will play a large part of unification, and of course the graphic use of composition.

I am coming down to the wire on the paintings, they are far from finished, and my deadline was just moved closer by a few days. I will have to spend more time painting and less time contemplating if I want to make my deadline. I’ve never missed one yet, but next week’s blog will know better where I am. I have ordered and received extra sable filbert brushes to accomplish the style, and I have some more paint ordered and on the way, just in case.

Next week I will talk about the “honeymoon” vs. the Slogging through stages of the painting, and painting choices. I’ll also throw in another compositional lesson, which is so important, on value. You will know where to find me this week!

Nadya Geras-Carson

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Creating a Town

Jonna Hayden, Costume Designer

In the second act of La Boheme, our intrepid companions go off to dinner at Cafe Momus–on the way, they encounter “a large, diverse crowd of citizens, soldiers, servant girls, boys, little girls, students,  seamstresses, gendarmes, etc.” They also chat with waiters and enjoy the visit of a toy seller. It’s  a crowded scene, full of the hustle and bustle of Paris on Christmas Eve.

This huge scene is made up of our Opera Chorus. We’re blessed in Eugene with an incredibly talented pool of artists to draw from, as we witnessed at our auditions earlier this month. Over 50 people showed up to sing for a place in our production! Of this, 44 will be in the final chorus, and we’ll have eight children joining them on stage.  Add to that four to eight non-singing extras playing waiters, and you have quite the crowd!

As I’ve discussed previously, I’ve been researching Paris in the early 1890’s, getting familiar with what the various classes of people would be wearing.  To create the overall look and feel of a town, I need to have enough variation between the kinds of people so you get the “feel” of walking down a street in Paris. You’ve seen what upper class women would be wearing, but what about the regular folk? Below is a painting of La Carreau du Temple by Luis Jimenez y Aranda of the “ragpickers”. This is a period painting of second-hand clothing dealers in a huge Paris market that stands to this day.

Le Carreau du Temple, Louis Jimenez y Aranda

I love this painting, because it shows everyday people out doing business. Note the woman sitting to the left–she’s wearing a skirt with a short jacket, a dark apron, and what seems to be a knitted headwrap. The lady speaking with her has a charming bodice with a white apron, and she’s holding up a dress bodice with interesting decoration. The gentleman to the right has a jacket thrown over his shoulder, showing a collar, and three umbrellas tucked under his arm. He’s got a fabulous top hat on (a bit worse for wear) and a short coat–which is fascinating to me, as in modern times, we’re used to top hats going with tails!

Between the sitting and standing ladies, there’s a small child in the background, with a cute coat and a hat. The crown in the far background is full of all kinds of people, going about their day. The detail in this image is invaluable, as it shows so much of the everyday existence of the regular people of Paris.

Images like this help me dress the chorus in a manner that creates this feel for the audience. Armed with this information, I can pull together costumes for our chorus. Now we get to the logistical part–Each and every member of the chorus and all the extras have to be dressed. Think about that. The entire chorus–44 adults, eight children, four to eight waiters, and various small roles, all dressed. Each and every one has to have an individual costume, consisting of pants or skirt, bodice or coat, blouse or shirt, hats, coats, gloves, shoes, socks, headwraps, stockings, socks, vests, uniform, and any other accoutrements to complete their outfit. Each and every one of them.

That? Is quite the pile of clothing! Pulling it all together is an adventure, starting with our costume storage. Storage, you say? Costume storage? Yes, I have the biggest closet in town! (And I will say, it’s great fun to go there–!) A backstock of general costumes is an invaluable asset for any production company, and the Opera has a nice collection.

I’ll be sharing pictures of our costume storage with you in the coming weeks–but my next three posts will be coming to you from Edinburgh,  Scotland! I’m travelling to the Fringe Festival with a troupe from the Academy of Arts and Academics, the arts focused high school in Springfield, where I’m a Guest Artist instructor in the theater program. While I’m at the festival (which is HUGE!), I’ll be attending a new production of The Mikado, and taking in as many shows as humanly possible when I’m not back stage with the troupe. On our way home, we’ll be stopping off in London for a visit to the Globe Theater and a production of Henry IV, Part 2, and a West End show (We’re still debating between Into the Woods and Ghost Stories.) It’s a wonderful opportunity to see new and different shows and arts productions, and I’m delighted that I’ll be able to share some of the adventure with you!

Next post,  Scotland!

Jonna Hayden, Costume Design

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