BEHIND THE SPOTLIGHT

Why a blog from ALT? What do we have to contribute to the Blogosphere? Well, hopefully, a lot! ALT’s mission is to develop New Operas for New Audiences, but as our programs take place primarily behind the scenes, we hope to shed some light on the process of developing new operas, as well as the development of the artists who are writing those new works. We hope you will join the discussion!

Jun
30

BEYOND THE PREMIERE

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The Golden Ticket opened at Opera Theatre of Saint Louis to incredible critical and audience reception this month – we truly could not have asked for a warmer welcome for American Lyric Theater’s first commission. But… what next?  What happens beyond the premiere of a new opera?

This is a question that is being asked with increasing frequency in the opera field.  Earlier this year, I had the honor to sit on a panel at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where opera company leaders from around the country – alongside stage directors, composer and librettists – explored the challenges not of simply premiering a new opera, but of helping to secure subsequent productions and establish new works in the repertoire.  At the OPERA America conference earlier this month in Los Angeles, composer Daniel Catán focused on this very issue in his keynote address.  With the large number of exciting opera premieres to have taken place so far this year (including The Golden Ticket, Moby Dick at Dallas Opera, Before Night Falls at Ft. Worth Opera, and Amelia at Seattle Opera) the question is really lighting a fire in the opera community. 2010 is shaping up to be an incredible year for new opera – but  what can we do to QUICKLY get these new operas in front of audiences beyond the premiere.

The first and most obvious step has traditionally been co-production.  Moby Dick is a co-production between 5 companies, and The Golden Ticket is a co-production between 3 companies (OTSL, Wexford, and ALT).  So while Moby Dick and The Golden Ticket are guaranteed additional performances in different cities – and even though both operas have been widely critically praised as important additions to the opera repertoire – because of scheduling and other logistical issues inherent in the way major companies produce opera, it will take at least two years before those operas reach all of those co-producers’ home theaters  (though we are happy to report that the Wexford portion of The Golden Ticket co-production was strategically scheduled within months of the premiere in St. Louis – in part, to help close that gap).   While spreading out performances over time can help keep a new opera in the public eye, we loose invaluable momentum.

Right now, there is incredible buzz about Moby Dick and The Golden Ticket.  Imagine a world where we could move Moby Dick and The Golden Ticket to New York or Los Angeles – or any other city or cities – in the next month, riding on the wave of press and international audience good will towards both of these new operas.  Imagine if we could tour a successful new opera immediately to multiple venues – cities of varying sizes and in different regions of the country. Too idealistic?  Perhaps. Certainly there isn’t as large an audience for a tour of either one of these successful operas as there is for the touring company of a hit Broadway musical – we’d be delusional if we thought otherwise. But there certainly is an exisiting audience for these new works, and the potential to reach new audiences, and it is a shame that our current producing system has such a significant built-in time lag that doesn’t allow us to take advantage of the momentum great success should allow.

So what can we do?  Creating new producing and presenting models would be at the top of my list – but it is also the most difficult strategy. My ideal vision would be a company that brings together the best in new opera every year as an annual festival.

  • We would import the best two or three new operas produced by other companies – in their original productions – and present them in a festival format over a few weeks in a major venue where they could be guaranteed national and international exposure.
  • We would also mount a new production of one contemporary American opera produced in a recent previous season that we determined to have great potential and significant merit, but for which the original production may not have represented the piece in the best light possible. (This is a particular issue of interest for me, as I have seen a number of new operas that I felt were negatively “judged” in large part due to the production, rather than the piece itself).
  • We would record all of the operas presented if an audio recording was not made during their premiere runs.
  • We would also film and broadcast them to movie theaters and/or on the internet to further diversify our channels of distribution and potential audiences.

The amount of time between a new opera’s premiere at the originating or commissioning company and this new festival would be short enough to allow us to ride on the wave of new operas’ success, but also long enough to allow the creators to make revisions (both to the works themselves, and the original productions) that often are desirable in the light of day after a new work premieres.  Similarly, revisiting an opera that didn’t get the best launch, but that clearly has merit would allow the creators to look at what went “wrong” the first time, and evaluate how to better represent their work in a new production (while also potentially making revisions to strengthen the piece itself). Might this be part of ALT’s future?  Perhaps in time…  though ALT really is set up to be a service organization, and this would require a different model than currently exists at ALT.

But… back to the present… We need to first look at what the existing network of opera companies and complimentary producing and presenting organizations can do to shorten the time between premieres of new works and subsequent stagings. And, as I alluded to in my description of an ideal new model, we also need to look into broadening our channels of distribution.  In other words, when it comes to new operas, should we be focusing on live performances as much as we do?

In the past few years, opera at the movies, led by the Met HD Broadcasts, has become big news.  The Met is not alone now in providing high quality movie versions of operas – sometimes live – sometimes taped and edited – for the big screen.   In his keynote address at the OPERA America conference, Daniel Catán suggested a model whereby new works are filmed and broadcast nation wide through a cost-sharing model that could make it possible for multiple communities to see new operas almost simultaneous with the audiences in the cities in which they originate.  While the cost structure of Daniel’s idea would have to be more thoroughly examined, and an enormous collaborative network would have to be developed, the basic principal behind his idea has great merit and with some thought, creativity and cooperation from the unions, could likely be made to work financially.

I recently read about the 3D Carmen that is being produced from The Royal Opera.  An interesting project… in all honesty, how I feel about it will depend completely on how well it is done.  I enjoyed Avatar 3D. But that was Avatar.  I like and admire the director (Francesca Zambello) and many involved with the production, but I have to ask, does Carmen as a piece need to be 3D?  If we want to embrace that technology, might we look at more contemporary operas where the intersection between mainstream pop-tech and great new art could actually help bring more NEW people to opera.   How about a 3D filming of Moby Dick?!  Or The Golden Ticket?!  Imagine Augustus Gloop drowning in the chocolate river – in 3D… or  Violet Beauregard blowing up like a blueberry – in 3D…  all with the wonderful music Peter Ash has composed, and the witty libretto Donald Sturrock has crafted.  I believe that a 3D movie of some contemporary operas would do more good for the field at large than a 3D filming of a classic.

But, oh, yes, I forgot… Carmen is safe. Carmen sells tickets.  I’m not knocking Carmen – it’s a great opera. I’ve directed it and it is a powerful piece of music theater.  But if we really want to serve the growth of opera as an art form, and opera audiences, I have to wonder (as loudly as I can!), why do we keep looking back when we need to be looking forward? If we were to expend more energy and resources on ensuring the best possible future for successful new works, I believe the impact on the future of opera would be a hell of a lot brighter.

Categories : Arts Administration, Commissions, Marketing, The Golden Ticket
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Jun
10

LEADING UP TO THE PREMIERE

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The Golden Ticket has been a daily part of my life for almost four years.  After we delivered the orchestral parts, the conductor scores, and the piano vocal scores to OTSL, everyone at ALT breathed a collective sigh of relief, because the most significant part of our role as the commissioner of the opera had reached a turning point.  We had taken the plunge in 2006 and embraced the potential in this incredible new opera; we workshopped an early draft in 2007; we worked through revisions with Peter and Donald through 2008; we presented a more extensive workshop in 2009; and when Peter and Donald had completed their performing edition for the world-premiere, our copyist created all of the performance materials required to provide OTSL with everything they needed from a musical perspective to bring the production to life.

Underlying all of the wonderful and deeply rewarding artistic work, the past four years included daily fund raising stress, complicated intellectual property negotiations to make the commission possible, and perhaps most important, telling the world about this incredible new opera, and how they really wanted to be a part of it!

In Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, we found an experienced producing partner that was able to make it possible for the opera to make its way from the page to the stage.  As ALT is primarily a service organization, we rely on strategic and creative partnerships like the one we have developed with OTSL to help usher the works we develop into the repertoire.  Without OTSL, the opera would not have been produced – and without ALT, they wouldn’t have had the opera to produce – so it’s a win/win situation for both companies – but more importantly – it’s a win/win situation for the composer, librettist, the opera itself – and of course, audiences!

So, in turning over the performing materials to OTSL, we could breathe a sigh of relief, because the ALT team knew that we had done everything in our power to to get the opera ready for its premiere – and now we were handing it over to our producing partner to take the reigns and breathe full-scale production life into it.   While I have actually had a few months of “down-time” from The Golden Ticket, it has actually been a few months full of electric tension for me personally.

While I continue to advocate for the opera wherever I go, the production has really been in the hands of OTSL. How would it all come together? Arriving in St. Louis earlier this week to see the production in rehearsal for the first time was exciting, somewhat stressful, and deeply moving.

The first rehearsal I saw was a tech rehearsal on stage – the period of time where the design team is busy working on lighting and refining the technical elements of the show.  Anyone who has ever been involved in a theatrical production knows that tech week can be incredibly challenging. With an opera based on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, it should come as a surprise to nobody that the tech rehearsals were a whirlwind of activity.  There was a lot of problem solving going on! As a director, I’ve been through enough tech periods to know that this is all par for the course – but I think being an observer to a tech period (as opposed to being an active participant, as when I’m directing a production) is even more stressful.  Fortunately, we have an incredible team on this production, but I had to restrain the director and producer in me.  My role was to sit back and watch, and trust that all was being addressed.

And of course, it was.  By the next rehearsal, enormous strides had been made. It was then on to the piano dress rehearsal – essentially, the last time to run through the opera before the orchestra is involved, and a time where the cast not only gets to feel the full pace of the show, but the design team is able to see all of the elements coming together, including the costumes (which I have to add, are absolutely magnificent in this production – Martin Pakledinaz has truly come up with brilliant designs that are so true to the spirit of Dahl, but so original and witty in their own right!).   After the piano dress, there was some more tech time for the design team to continue working on the physical aspect of the production (ie. lighting, projections, how set pieces move on and off, transitions between scenes etc.), and then the first orchestra dress.

While tech can be a stressful time, hearing the orchestra play through the score in the theater for the first time was one of the most moving experiences I have had in years.  I know Peter has an amazing gift for orchestration, but to finally hear it all come together, not in a workshop setting, but IN THE THEATER, where thousands of people are finally going to get to enjoy it – well, there were moments during the rehearsal that tears were running down my face.

But then – I had to leave!  Yes, zip to the airport, and on a plane to Los Angeles for the OPERA America conference!  While I love OPERA America and all it does for opera, I wasn’t thrilled that the annual conference was planned for this week.  I seriously thought about not attending, and in fact, some of my colleagues here were surprised to see me in LA today since they know that The Golden Ticket is in the midst of its last few days of rehearsals in St. Louis – literally, as I type.  But, at this point, the production in the hands of OTSL, and I can do more for The Golden Ticket, and for all of the other projects ALT is working on, by being here – in LA – meeting with my colleagues from other opera companies all over the country.

So after arriving at LAX just minutes after midnight, and getting to my hotel shortly after 1 AM – I got about 6 hours of sleep, woke up, and started my day with an 8:00 AM meeting – the first of 4 meetings, and 3 general sessions that have been crammed into an incredibly productive day.  There was an option to go see Die Walküre at LA Opera tonight, and as tempted as I was, jet lag is not a pretty thing – so I opted out of  five and a half hours of Wagner to go back to my hotel room and catch up on a bit of work and call it an early night so I could be fresh and awake for my first meeting tomorrow morning – once again at 8:00 AM (for the record, I am not a morning person, and any functional meeting for me before 9 is pushing it – but sacrifices must be made for art, provided coffee is close at hand!).

Tomorrow promises to be another invigorating and exhausting day. Early Saturday morning, I’m back to St. Louis, where I have a meeting with my colleagues from Wexford Festival Opera who are producing the European premiere of The Golden Ticket this October.  All leading up to Sunday… the world premiere!

Categories : Arts Administration, Commissions, Performing, The Golden Ticket
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Jun
07

VERUCA’S VIDEOBLOG

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As I get ready to head to St. Louis for the final week of rehearsals of The Golden Ticket (with a quick trip to Los Angeles for the Opera America conference in the middle!), I was excited to see that Jenny Rivera – Veruca Salt in the OTSL premiere of The Golden Ticket – has been up to her old tricks again and has created a wonderful little trailer for the production with some footage from rehearsal.

If you haven’t read Jenny’s blog I highly recommend it!  Next post from St. Louis – where the Oompa Loompas are waiting…!

Categories : Commissions, Performing, Singers, The Golden Ticket
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Apr
14

THE PUBLIC WORKSHOP DEBATE CONTINUES

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I was not surprised to receive so many emails about my last post. While the debate continues, a few responses that I’ve received have prompted me to be a bit more clear about my feelings on this topic!

Many people emailed me directly about this, or posted comments on facebook (please, post your comments here so everyone can see and get involved in the discussion!).  One very strong opinion against making the workshop process public came from my friend Eric McNaughton in Atlanta:

Public opinion is the enemy of creativity. Far too much value is put on the thoughts and opinions of the faceless (myself included). Production by popular vote/comment/survey will only lead to bland and easily digestible works…like white bread. Fewer risks will be taken, and everything will become benign…like a tumor.

To some extent, I agree, but I believe a comment like “public opinion is the enemy of creativity” has to be qualified. Certainly, there are many masterpieces – in all genres, including opera – that would not be the masterpieces they are if their creators sought public feedback and then changed their vision in response to negative feedback.  Richard Strauss’s Salome, a piece that I love and think is rather brilliant, was banned in London for two years, and the original performers were reluctant to perform the piece. When it did premiere in London, it was actually modified, much to the amusement (and apparently, later, annoyance) of Thomas Beecham.  In New York, the premiere was suppressed by wealthy patrons, and it wasn’t until 1918 – 13 years after the premiere – that it premiered in Vienna, despite the passionate advocation of no less than Mahler!

If Strauss had done a workshop, conducted an audience survey, and changed all of the parts of both the music and libretto that the audience did not “like” or found offensive, the world would have lost one of the greatest operas ever written (IMHO).

So, what’s the point?  Yes, public opinion can be the “enemy of creativity”. The key here is that it can be – it doesn’t have to be.  I would never suggest that creative artists bow down blindly to public opinion.  But I do feel that often, the public’s feedback on CERTAIN issues can be very useful when a piece is developing.

One of the challenges we face in opera is that in any country and in any period of time in which it was really thriving, it was a POPULAR art form, in the language of the people, that was both familiar and relevant. That simply is not the case in opera in the US today.

New operas can be a very useful way to attract new audiences to opera (in fact, 25% of those at our workshop this weekend had NEVER been to an opera before.) Listening to audience opinion is different than production by popular vote – which I agree, would be disastrous! But is it really wise not to at least listen to the opinions of the audience we hope to serve – the audience that we hope is going to buy tickets and tell their friends how much they enjoyed the opera?

I think the real issue is balance. Do we bow down to public opinion? No. But do we listen? Is it possible to learn useful information? Absolutely. That simply cannot be done if we hide behind closed doors. That being said, there are a few issues I’d like to expand upon:

1. IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE WHEN IN THE PROCESS YOU OPEN WORKSHOPS TO THE PUBLIC

This is very important point that I didn’t address in my previous post. The Golden Ticket will go into production in a year. The piece has been under development for many years, and there have been a number of closed workshops prior to this open one. (ALT did a closed workshop in May 2007, and much has been done to develop the piece since that time).  I feel that workshops should be open to the public when those involved feel a work is very close to completion, and once they feel their vision of the piece is clear.  Opening earlier workshops to the public would be counterproductive. In other words, an open workshop is potentially useful to the creative process only when the overall shape of a piece, musically and dramatically, has been determined by the composer and librettist, AND once they feel they have fulfilled that vision.  I do not believe a workshop should ever be used to determine what a piece should be.  I do believe a workshop can help writers see, from an invaluable outsider’s perspective, if they have been successful in fulfilling their own vision.

2. WHAT YOU ASK THE AUDIENCE TO TELL YOU MATTERS?

Market research is an art in itself. Surveys can be useless and even counterproductive if not properly executed.  We ask our audience answers to questions we want answers to.  For example, I didn’t ask:  Do you like that Augustus falls into the chocolate river?  That’s the story. Period.  As pointed out by Eric, it would be like asking a preview a audience at West Side Story if they would have preferred that Tony and Maria ride off into the sunset. We’re not looking to the audience to write the piece.  What we DO want to know is this: is what we are doing being clearly communicated to the audience? Is the storytelling clear?  These are areas where audience perception is very useful.  We don’t ask – how could this be more clear? We ask – is this clear? It is up to the composer and librettist to make the storytelling clear. YOU CANNOT LEAVE THAT TO A DIRECTOR!  A gifted director may be able to make a weak piece stronger, but ultimately, a piece should be – as Mark Adamo calls it – director proof.  If it’s not in the score and it’s not in the libretto, at some point, in some production, it will not appear on stage. (I’ll write another post on the concept of being “director proof” because, as both a stage director and producer, I find this a very useful concept.) If  the telling of the story through the music and words is not clear to an audience who has no previous exposure to a piece, that is a problem – and it is a problem that is not always apparent to those deeply involved in the writing process.

Of course, a few people at our workshop of The Golden Ticket suggested modifications to the opera that the creative team vehemently disagreed with.  You can be sure that the writers aren’t going to change anything that modifies their vision of the piece.  At the same time, there were some very constructive comments made that can be used by Peter and Donald to reinforce their vision.  I think that is really what it boils down to:  audience perceptions during the development phase of a piece can help writers identify opportunities to make their vision of a new work stronger.   Opening the process is not intended to influence what that vision is in the first place. Tony should die in West Side Story. Bernstein, Sondheim and Laurents knew that (of course, so did Shakespeare!).  In The Golden Ticket, Wonka should give the Chocolate Factory to Charlie.  That was Roald Dahl’s decision, and one that Peter and Donald bring to life in the opera. The public is not being invited into those kind of decisions!

I know public workshops will always be a contentious issue.  Workshops can be an incredibly useful tool in the development of new works, but how one workshops a piece is crucial. Too often, workshops don’t do as much as they could – periods where a new piece is heard by those directly involved, without the ability to get invaluable distance from their own work.

By opening the workshop process, we are not asking the audience to write our new operas for us. What we want is to discover how well the creative vision of our artists is being communicated in the work they write. You can’t communicate with an audience if they are not there. If we wait until a work is complete, a valuable opportunity – if properly used – is lost. Does that really serve audiences or artists?

Categories : Arts Administration, Commissions, The Golden Ticket, Workshops
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Apr
09

SHOULD WORKSHOPS BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC?

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The response to our workshop of The Golden Ticket last weekend has been incredibly positive. Interestingly, both before and after the workshop, there has been a lot of discussion as to whether or not workshops should be open to the public. I strongly believe that inviting the public in to see pieces in development is a crucial part of the process.

As composers and librettists (not to mention producers and directors) are working on a piece, we all become very close to the work at hand.  Regardless of how objective we strive to be, there is incredible value at being able to look at an opera being developed with a completely fresh perspective, and simply put, that is impossible when you are part of that process.  Most opera companies develop new works behind closed doors.  I understand why they do this.  The last thing anyone wants is for a new opera to be prematurely ‘judged’ or evaluated. Other companies invite select guests to their workshops. Again, I understand the protective rationale; however, I believe that by only inviting ‘select’ guests, a company is effectively stacking the deck and not getting a representative sample of the public that is ultimately going to be the audience for the piece.  Feedback from opera ‘experts’ is valuable, but equally valuable is feedback from our intended audience.

This is not to say that ALT is the only company that opens the workshop process to the public, but we are in the minority. The development process should not be a mystery.  It can take a LONG TIME to develop a new piece.  Let’s acknowledge that, and honor that. Too often, operas are rushed to the stage well before they are ready.  While I’m not going to cite any specific examples, I’m sure we can all think of pieces that could really have benefited from further development and ‘audience testing’ so to speak.  A new movie or television show would NEVER be launched without extensive consumer testing. Plays and musicals are increasingly being put through a more extensive workshop and audience testing process.  For Broadway Musicals, this is what out of town tryouts are all about.  In opera, we don’t have the money for ‘tryouts’, and generally, operas are more complicated musical documents in which it is not easy to pull out one song that doesn’t work and replace it with another.  If we want to properly revise works in progress, we need to give our writers sufficient time to really address the issues at hand.  Hence, ALT feels that the workshop process is absolutely essential if we are to provide opera writers with the best environment in which to develop their work.

At our workshop of The Golden Ticket last weekend, we had an audience of 150 people.  While we had our entire design and production team in attendance from Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, as well as representatives from other opera companies considering co-producing the world premiere, the majority of those in the audience were not directly connected to the piece. We created an online audience survey that was distributed via email to that segment of the audience in which we asked a wide variety of questions.  We start off with basic information about their attendance habits for both opera and musical theater; their age; and their previous knowledge of the book and both film versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. We then ask them about how they felt when they heard about an opera based on this famous story, and how – if at all – those feelings changed after hearing the reading. This information is very valuable from a marketing perspective.  Then we dive in deeper.  Were they able to follow the storytelling? Were there parts where they didn’t understand what was going on?  If so, where did this happen? What did they really like? What didn’t they like?  And finally, we simply open the floor to any comments they might have about the piece.

Scary? Not really if you think of a couple of things.  First of all, we are not developing new operas for ourselves – we are developing new operas for AUDIENCES.  Yes, we care what they think.  Are we going to respond to every issue raised in an audience survey? No. But, we are going to look for areas where there is a strong consensus among audience members. Sometimes, those issues are already apparent to all of us working on the project. More useful, of course, is when the majority of the audience has a strong feeling about something in a piece that we had not previously thought to address. Ultimately, the composer and librettist – working with the producer and director – need to stay true to their vision of the piece. But, we really do urge the writers to consider audience perception, and to consider how that perception can be used by them to improve their own vision for the piece.

So that, in short, is why we open our doors to the public!  Without the public, there is no reason to write new operas. Being defensive about what we are creating – or scared of public opinion – is not only going to hurt the work at hand, but ultimately will have a negative impact on the art form. Opera needs audiences.  Let’s take time to listen to them whenever we can. They may not always be ‘right’ to us, but they are always ‘right’ to themselves, and they are the ones who are going to buy the tickets or stay home!

If you weren’t at our workshop this weekend, I’ll be posting short clips to give you a sample of The Golden Ticket. We had two cameras recording the workshop – mostly for archival purposes and so that The Golden Ticket team could listen to the piece repeatedly. But, I do want to share some highlights with you!  Today, a scene from Act I, where Augustus Gloop and Violet Beauregarde are interviewed by Candy Mallow – a TV talk show host – just after they have found their Golden Tickets.

Timothy Redmond conducts Andrew Drost (Augustus), Kiera Duffy (Violet), and Elise Quagliata (Candy). Brian DeMaris, piano.

Categories : Commissions, The Golden Ticket, Workshops
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