Wolfgang wired
The Opera Company of North Carolina kicks off an ambitious season with a reality TV spin on 'Don Giovanni'
Published: Sun, Sep. 24, 2006 12:00AM
Modified Sun, Sep. 24, 2006 09:50AM
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closeRALEIGH -- A closed-circuit TV cameraman roves the audience and then the stage, mingling with the cast of "Don Giovanni" as the performers scamper over scaffolding and chrome towers. As Mozart's arias flow, the singers' images appear on TV screens placed on the stage.
This is a new take on "Don Giovanni," a multimedia production that considers the Don Juan legend in the era of TV and YouTube. Presented in the year of Mozart's 250th birthday, the production also reimagines Opera Company of North Carolina in its 10th anniversary season.
"Our company is about to change very dramatically," said Frank Grebowski, the company's new general director. "Our presence in the community is about to increase several-fold."
DETAILS
WHAT "Don Giovanni."
WHEN 7:30 p.m. Oct. 5-6.
WHERE Meymandi Concert Hall, Progress Energy Center, Raleigh.
COST $20-$75.
CONTACT 783-0098, www.operanc.com; 834-4000, www.ticketmaster.com.
The cast
HERBERT PERRY (DON GIOVANNI): The bass-baritone has garnered rave reviews for his portrayal of Don Giovanni. His career has spanned all of the major U.S. opera houses and has included several national telecasts and recording projects. Perry has an outstanding reputation as an interpreter of contemporary music, most notably in his work with American composer Phillip Glass.
TIMOTHY NOLEN (LEPORELLO): The Broadway and Metropolitan Opera star won a critic's award as Judge Turpin in "Sweeney Todd," and he played the title role in Broadway's "Phantom of the Opera." He has been a guest star on TV's "The Sopranos" and "Guiding Light" and is a respected director and narrator.
HERBERT ECKHOFF (COMMENDATORE): The bass-baritone is well known to international opera, symphony and oratorio audiences. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut in "La Traviata" in 1987 and performed in "Billy Budd" in 1989-90. Eckhoff has appeared on opera stages nationally and internationally, receiving rave reviews in symphonic and oratorio performances.
KELLY CAE HOGAN (DONNA ANNA): The soprano returns to the Opera Company of North Carolina after her company debut last season as Salome. She will return to the Metropolitan Opera for performances of "Jenufa" and "La Boheme," as well as making her debut with Opera Tampa as Leonora in "Il Trovatore." Hogan has worked with companies throughout the U.S. and is praised as a concert artist.
CHRISTINE WEIDINGER (DONNA ELVIRA): The soprano has starred in most major opera houses worldwide. A frequent partner and longtime friend of mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, Weidinger performed with Horne in "Tancredi," Handel's "Rinaldo" and "La Fenice." In North Carolina, Weidinger has performed at the Greensboro Opera. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, Raleigh native Ken Smith.
ANDREA EDITH MOORE (ZERLINA): The soprano, a Durham native, has a number of operatic roles to her credit. She is a founding member of the New York-based Acanthus Chamber Opera. In February, she will be heard on the Evolution Contemporary Music Series in Baltimore. She was named the Opera Company of North Carolina's 2005 Emerging Artist of the Year.
JOEL ANDREW WEISS (DON OTTAVIO): The tenor made his international debut last season as Alfredo in "La Traviata" with the Polish National Opera, conducted by Jacek Kaspszyk. Upcoming performances include Rev. Parris in the Opera Company of North Carolina's staging of "The Crucible." Weiss made his TV debut in the first season of "The Sopranos." Weiss is married to Kelly Cae Hogan, who plays Donna Anna.
YUNGBAE YANG (MASETTO): The baritone recently completed his fourth year as a resident at The Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia. Last season, he sang the 1st Nazarene in "Salome" with the Opera Company of North Carolina.
IN TRAVEL
Austria is the center of the Mozart universe in the composer's 250th birthday year. PAGE 1H
'Postcards' from N.C. composers
"The Crucible," the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera by retired Duke University professor Robert Ward, will return to the Triangle in February at a plum time for North Carolina composers.
Starting this week, the N.C. Symphony will begin premiering works it has commissioned from seven state composers -- including Ward. The series, called "Postcards from North Carolina," features four- to six-minute works that reflect an element of North Carolina.
Here's the slate of composers and the first round of performances of their works:
* Kenneth Frazelle of Winston-Salem, "The Swans at Pungo Lake," Thursday in Southern Pines and Friday-Saturday in Raleigh.
* Roger Hannay, a Chapel Hill composer who died in January, "Triangle Transit," Oct. 12 in Chapel Hill and Oct. 13-14 in Raleigh.
* Stephen Jaffe of Durham, "Poetry of the Piedmont," Jan. 25 in Chapel Hill, Jan. 26-27 in Raleigh, Jan. 30 in Fayetteville, Jan. 31 in Greenville and Feb. 1 in Durham.
* Paul Elwood of Brevard, "Overlooking Glass Falls," Feb. 9-10 in Raleigh.
* Anthony Kelley of Durham, "Carolina Indigo -- Calls and Responses," April 12 in Southern Pines and April 13 in Raleigh.
* Robert Ward of Durham, "The Beginnings," May 3 in Chapel Hill and May 4-5 in Raleigh.
* J. Mark Scearce of Raleigh will bind the works as a suite to be scheduled next season. Call the symphony at 733-2750 or visit www.ncsymphony.org for details.
As for "The Crucible," based on Arthur Miller's play, Opera Company of North Carolina will stage Feb. 23 and 25 in Memorial Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill. The opera has enjoyed a string of performances of late; a staging at East Carolina University in Greenville was one of more than a dozen last season.
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"Don Giovanni" opens the first season in which the company is staging three full productions. Rehearsals began last week with an invitation to the public to drop by Cameron Village and watch the stars work.
Grebowski and artistic director Robert Galbraith, who founded the company with his wife, Margaret Poyner Galbraith, brainstormed a flood of ideas for reaching beyond opera's traditional audience -- performing scenes from "La Boheme" in shopping malls, starting discussion groups for "The Crucible" in schools, libraries and retirement homes, sending singers out with carols at Christmas.
The vision for "Don Giovanni" responds artistically to the goal of reaching people who perceive opera as overly refined and irrelevant to modern life. And it's the company's first attempt at original interpretation.
"It's the project I'm most excited about," Galbraith said. "It's a contemporary look that has never been seen in Raleigh before."
The singers will wear clothes from their own closets instead of lavish costumes. The stage will be strewn with what Galbraith calls "technical gadgets" -- scaffolding, kits, hanging sculpture, chrome towers and TV sets. With the roving camera and projected images, he said, he's contrasting reality television with the fiction of opera.
"There's a stronger, more profound reality in our storytelling, in our pretending, than what we're getting as our daily dose of reality on television," he said.
As an added element of interest, an artist will create two large paintings about the opera during each of the two performances. Matt Sesow of Washington, D.C., who paints in the outsider or contemporary folk style, will begin the first picture 15 minutes before the curtain rises and finish it before the overture. He'll also paint the second during intermission.
Along with the new comes something old: The orchestra will be on the stage rather than in a pit, which Galbraith said is true to Mozart's time.
Tapping resources
This departure from past productions reflects differences behind the scenes. Galbraith sees this as a pivotal time, and he wants the company to run more like a business. His newly shaved head is a radical switch from the ponytail he wore just a couple of years ago, but the changes he has in mind are more than cosmetic.
Up to now, Galbraith has stayed closely involved in running the company, even when he had a managing director on staff.
"It's time for me to get into the nuts and bolts of the artistic element and leave it to someone like Frank to guide the business," he said.
The company has a stellar track record artistically, but its history is written in red ink. Income from ticket sales and donations has increased in recent years, and Grebowski said he thinks the market is strong enough to double or triple the company's budget, which hovers just under $1 million. Yet the company, which has relied heavily on financing from the Gailbraiths, still operated at a loss last year, partly because it staged two operas for the first time since 1999.
Staff writer Craig Jarvis can be reached at 829-4576 or cjarvis@newsobserver.com.
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