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Students shine in Opera Institute's fall festival

By Hope Green

The hero of composer Jorge Martín’s one-act comic opera Tobermory is a talking cat that embarrasses a house full of party guests. The costumes are simple, the cast small, the props and furniture spare. All the action takes place in a drawing room. In fact, the entire performance is only 45 minutes long.

But as any singer can attest, belling this cat is tougher than it looks. That’s often the nature of short operas, says Allison Voth, a School for the Arts assistant professor and musical director for Tobermory, which will be staged in early November as part of the SFA Opera Institute’s annual Fringe Festival.

The concise operatic works in this three-weekend series, which began October 20, give participating students the chance to work with professional directors and fully develop a role, which is not always possible in an opera with multiple scenes.

"It’s a fishbowl," Voth explains, describing the one-act genre. "The performers can’t hide behind fancy costumes or sets. They have to rely on their good, honest acting and singing."

Festival participants are a mix of SFA graduate and undergraduate students, as well as singers enrolled in the institute’s certificate program. Sharon Daniels, director of the Opera Institute, modeled the event after the small performances outside the gates of the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.

"It allows our students to experience a broad spectrum of musical styles and professional challenges," she says.

This year’s festival opened with Leonard Bernstein’s first opera, Trouble in Tahiti, on October 20. The second weekend, beginning Friday, October 27, features cantatas by Paul Bowles and J. S. Bach. A cantata is usually a sacred piece meant for solemn occasions, but the composers also wrote secular ones. Bach’s Coffee Cantata, for instance, was meant to celebrate the opening of a friend’s coffeehouse. In the festival’s updated version, a young woman tries to hide her caffeine addiction from her father, as well as conceal her displeasure with the man he wants her to marry.

Martín adapted Tobermory, the final work in the SFA series, from a short story by Saki (pen name for H. H. Munro). The author was popular at the turn of the 20th century, and frequently used animal characters to illustrate human foibles.

The opera, which won first prize in 1993 at the National Opera Association’s chamber opera competition, includes two arias, one for the cat and one for the mad scientist who teaches him to talk.

But the piece is also full of ensemble work featuring tightly woven, complex harmonies. In rehearsals, Voth had the students speak the libretto in rhythm before singing a single note.

No one person has a starring role, which is one reason Voth has been eager to stage Tobermory at BU. "It’s a great piece to feature young singers," she says, "because they all have a chance to shine."

Besides the challenging singing parts, the cast has been learning a variety of physical movement styles. Eliomar Nascimento (SFA’01), a student from Brazil who has the title role, is perfecting the body language of the mischievous feline. He looks forward to the staging phase of rehearsals with guest stage director Bill Fabris.

"When we leave the music practice room and start acting, that is the fun part," Nascimento says, "because then you start relating to the other characters and you have that famous Ping-Pong game actors play, the give-and-take."

The Opera Institute Fringe Festival will present J. S. Bach’s Coffee Cantata No. 211 and Paul Bowles’ A Picnic Cantata on Friday, October 27, and Saturday, October 28, at 6:30 p.m. and on Sunday, October 29, at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Guest stage director is David Gately, and musical director is Jeffrey Stevens, Opera Institute repertory coach. The festival concludes with Tobermory on Friday, November 3, and Saturday, November 4, at 6:30 p.m. and on Sunday, November 5, at 3 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. All productions are at Boston University Theatre Studio 210, 264 Huntington Ave. Admission is $5, students free of charge. Call 353-5201 for reservations.

6 December 2000
Boston University
Office of University Relations