20th Anniversary Countdown: Guest Post #12

In celebration of my blog's 20th anniversary, I'm having guest posters every week leading up to the big day. 

Diane blogs over at Life Off Headset. She's a mother of three who works as a stage manager. Her life could not be more different than my life and I'm utterly entranced by her writing about her career, travel, and the logistics of raising three children. She writes weekly recaps and I find myself actively taking notes about things I want to talk to her about while I'm reading each of those recaps because she has something to say about things ranging from the minutest of minutia (in this post alone she covered forgetting a jacket, ants, and badly designed remote controls), controversial stances on books (her defense of Jonathan in Ten Things that Never Happened by Alexis Hall is astounding), to big life questions (do you have to love your job?). Bonus, she lives near Washington, DC and the photos make me envious that she gets to live in such a cool place.

Let's welcome Diane!

Hello Friends of Engie! 

I’m so excited to help Engie celebrate twenty years of blogging!  I love reading Engie’s blog for all her passionate opinions and honest “life-ing.” She also always has great replies for comments and leaves the best comments.   

I thought I’d write about … OPERA! I’m an opera stage manager, so I’ve seen a lot of operas.  Or maybe, I became an opera stage manager because I’ve seen a lot of opera?    

I know opera is expensive and a little hard to get into. Opera requires a little bit of patience – the plots unfold gradually, people take time to feel all their feels and sing about it again and again – the term “belabor a point” seemed made for operatic characters - and sometimes the characters do truly stupid things. My advice if you’ve never been to the opera is to let go of expectations – stop expecting people to talk, stop expecting it to be short or coherent, stop expecting it to always move quickly -  savor the music, revel in the amazing sets and costumes, and be amazed at what the human voice can do. Opera singers sing unamplified, and that’s the most amazing thing to me.  

I thought I’d share a list of twenty operas that I love (plus a bonus one for extra credit).  There are of course many more than twenty operas that I love, but you gotta start somewhere.   

Operas to see if because the music will be familiar to you: 

1)  The Barber of Seville by Rossini -  Most people know the music from this opera because of the Bugs Bunny cartoon “The Rabbit of Seville." The Barber of Seville is one of my favorite operas – it’s funny, got great tunes, and a cute love story and the heroine is actually not a victim (kind of rare in opera).  Five second plot synopsis (5SPS) – Boy (count disguised as a poor student) likes girl.  Girl (doesn’t know he’s a count) likes boy. Girl’s wicked guardian wants to marry her for her money. The Barber wants to foil guardian and help the girl and boy get together. Disguises and hijinks ensue.   

2) Turandot by Puccini – The big money aria from this is "Nessun Dorma" (roughly translates to “No one will sleep tonight”). I’m sure you’ve heard it. Trust me, you’ve heard it. Turandot is a huge show.  I just did a production and there were over 100 people onstage at one time – the wall of sound that all those people produce is jaw dropping. Go see this opera to hear that gorgeous aria in context. Also to hear all the other music. 5SPS – Man-hating princess makes all her suitors answer three riddles in order to win her hand. If they get the riddles wrong, though, Off with their head! Prince in disguise (yes, another one) thinks Princess is beautiful and attempts to answer the questions. What will happen???? 

Operas to see because you know the story 

3) La Boheme by Puccini – I’m told that the musical Rent is based on this opera. I have never actually seen Rent, so I can’t tell you if that’s true, but opera companies like to bring up Rent in the marketing for this opera. You should also go see it because 1) the music is really good, and 2) it’s pretty short as far as operas go (only 2.5 hours, and it goes by pretty quickly), 3) it’s a tear-jerker, and 4) it’s one of THE most famous operas. 5SPS –  A group of poor romantics experience life, love, and death together.  Boy (poet), meets girl (seamstress) when her candle goes out and she needs a light. But.. she’s kind of sick.  [Note from NGS: I've seen a high school production of Rent!]

4) La Traviata by Verdi – This is the original hooker with the heart of gold story, familiar from movies like Moulin Rouges and Pretty Women (This opera actually is used in the scene where Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to the opera).  My 12 year old says this should be everyone’s first opera – it has all the good stuff – hummable music, pretty costumes, great love story, tragic ending. The party scene in Act Two slays me every time. 5SPS – Boy meets famous courtesan.  They fall in love. Boy and courtesan set up in country estate to get away from everything. Boy’s father disapproves of the relationship and tries to get her to break it off.  Also she’s sick. Very sick. (This is very common in opera.) 

From a production of La Traviata I worked on – The act one party scene.  One of these was a real gluten-free cake.  The rest is Styrofoam. [Question from NGS: Why was it gluten-free?]

5) A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Britten. There are quite a few operas based on Shakespeare that I love. Hamlet by Thomas, Romeo and Juliette by Gounod, Otello by Verdi.  They’re all pretty great.  They do not all stick to the story, though. In Hamlet, the title character survives. How’s that for re-writing the plot? A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is my favorite of them all. This is on my bucket list of operas I want to work on.  Why is this my favorite Shakespeare opera?  ) The music. (I say that a lot, but it is opera, right?) 2) It has the most beautiful ending in all of opera-dom. 4) It features a counter-tenor, which is always exciting for me  3) The text is lifted right out of Shakespeare. 5SPS – didn’t you read this in high school? [Note from NGS: I also saw a high school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Both of these operas I saw when I taught at a performing arts high school.]

Operas to See if you think opera is too long.  I worked for an opera company once that had some market research done as to why people don’t go to the opera. One factor was that opera was too long.  So these are for those of you.  

6) Elektra by Strauss – Based on the Greek, Elektra is 90 minutes of hold on to your seats emotional upheaval and intense family drama.  The main reason to see this is for the soprano who performs the title role – she’s onstage for almost the whole 90 minutes singing her guts out.  It’s the very definition of tour-de-force. 5SPS -  Elektra is mourning the death of her father at the hands of her mother.  She is very very very sad and wants blood. There is an axe.  

7) Gianni Schicchi by Puccini – This is not only short, it’s also a comedy.  If you’ve ever seen that movie A Room with a View, you’ll recognize that soprano aria.  5SPS – Buoso is dead.  His money grubbing relatives don’t like the contents of his will, so they hire Gianni Schicchi to fix the situation.   

8) Pepito by Nicolas Benavides – This one is just for you, Engie. Pepito is a 20 minute opera set in an animal shelter. I worked on this opera when it premiered.  It’s totally adorable and makes me smile.  One of the main characters is a dog!  You can listen to it here, or an animated excerpt here.  5SPS – Camila and David go to an animal shelter to adopt a dog.  Pepito is a dog in an animal shelter.  Will each of them find what they need?  [Note from NGS: A dog! I'm in.]

Opera to see if the foreign language thing intimidates you.  Assuming that your native language is English. The market research company mentioned above also said that people feel very intimidated about operas in a foreign language. So here are a few suggestions if that’s you.   

9) H.M.S. Pinafore by Gilbert and Sullivan.  Technically operetta, but I think it deserves a place here.   Operetta is fun, it’s silly, it’s frothy, it’s slyly satirical.  Gilbert and Sullivan is the epitome of operetta – their works are tuneful and smugly witty and full of action. There are many Gilbert and Sullivan operettas to choose from, and I had a hard time choosing just one, but I’m going to have to go with Pinafore – the plot is ridiculous, but sweet, and the music sparkles. Plus it’s the first G&S I ever saw – not counting that movie version of Pirates of Penzance with Rex Smith, Kevin Kline, Linda Ronstadt, and Angela Lansbury (which you should also check out because it is hilarious and borders on rock musical.)  5SPS – Lowly sailor is in love with the Captain’s daughter.  Captain wants daughter to marry head of the Navy.  What to do???? 

10) Silent Night by Kevin Puts – This is a 2011 opera based on a French film about the Christmas even truce of 1914.  Silent Night is one of my top five favorite operas I’ve ever worked on, and I get to work on it again this summer, which I’m super excited about.  The music is beautiful, the story is heart-wrenching, all about connection and the good in people and how that gets twisted by war. There’s a freaking battle onstage (I’m interested in how we’re doing this battle scene this summer on a stage the size of my living room.)  There are bagpipes! it isn’t often produced, but if you have a chance, go see this opera!  5SPS – It’s December 23rd, 1914 and The German, Scottish, and French armies are exhausted by war. The Lieutenants of the three armies agree to a truce for Christmas and the soldiers start getting to know each other. What will happen the day after Christmas?    

11) The Little Prince by Rachel Portman -  Based on the book by Saint-Exupéry. this opera is also in my top five favorite shows I’ve worked on. It is SO good! Whimsical and charming – the music is so pretty (Portman has won an Oscar for her score for the movie Emma), and the characters are all delightful.  The lamplighter scene at the end of Act 1 is one of my favorites, all about how fast life moves, including this line: 

“It's a whirl of a world when the night's are brief  

and the moon goes down like the fall of a leaf.  

Where day's arrival and dispatch  

flare and die like the flame of a match.”     

There is a filmed version of this opera that we watch at least once a year. (We have the DVD, but you can also find it here.) 5SPS – The Pilot, having crashed in the desert, encounters The Little Prince, who has left his own planet in search of answers for some of life’s big questions.  What do the Pilot and the Prince learn as they become friends?    

Operas to see, even if you haven’t read the book:  

12) Turn of the Screw by Benjamin Britten – If you want creepy, twisted opera, here it is. Based on the novella by Henry James this opera if full of ghosts and madness and unspoken actions. This opera has a very small orchestra, which makes for a very claustrophobic kind of feel for the piece. Oh my gosh, the ending is SO wrenching!  I love Britten.  People don’t do his stuff enough. Britten’s operas are on my list of operas I will probably always say “Yes” to if offered.  5SPS – A young lady is hired to be the governess to two children. Creepy things happen. Can she protect the children? Do they even need protection? Can she protect herself?  [Note from NGS: No one has actually read this book, right? Because the writing is boring as all get out? I just found out it's only 121 pages, but let's be honest. It feels like 400.]

13) Moby Dick by Jake Heggie – I will probably never read Moby Dick, but at least I saw the opera.  I’m going to be honest – the music for this one is kind of “meh” for me – it’s not bad, just not really stick in your head hummable. You should see this one because it is a huge, huge, huge spectacle. It’s jaw dropping. There is a ship. There are people in the sea, there are people in the air.  And they sing while doing it. 5SPS – Captain Ahab is obsessed with finding the White Whale. He’s going to kill the whale or die trying, and he’ll take his crew down with him.   

The middle child visiting me during rehearsals for The Little Prince.  He’s sitting by the airplane with the Prince’s yellow scarf and a random “gear” for the Pilot to fix.  

Operas to see for edge of your seat drama: 

14) Tosca by Puccini – This is the opera that has been called “A Shabby Little Shocker” by a because the plot is so tawdry. It’s got love, religion, jealousy, mind games, war, sexual obsession, torture, death … all the really juicy things. It’s kind of the Real Housewives of the opera world. I love this one. 5SPS – The opera singer Tosca loves painter Cavaradossi.  Police Chief Scarpia loves Tosca, in his own twisted way. To what lengths will Scarpia go to get his way? To what lengths will Tosca go to thwart him?  

The last scene of Tosca takes place at the Castel Sant’Angelo, which is topped by a statue of an Angel.  Our onstage reproduction is rather one-dimensional. 

15) The Queen of Spades by Tchaikovsky – Russian Opera isn’t always my favorite thing, but this one is kind of riveting. There’s love and obsession and high stakes gambling and ghosts. It’s up there with Turn of the Screw for scariest opera.  5SPS – Solider Hermann is fixated by two things – gambling and Lisa. He thinks that the aged Countess has the mystical key to always winning at cards, and is determined to get the answer from her.  It doesn’t go well. 

16) Faust by Gounod – This opera has love, obsession, (again – I guess if love and obsession aren’t worth singing about, what is?), the devil (literally), village gossip, war, sword fights, infanticide, insanity, religious ecstasy and damnation.  There is a lot packed in here.  5SPS – Faust is old.  He wants to be young.  He sells his soul to the devil to be restored to his youth.  Young Faust falls in love with Marguerite and pretty much ruins her life.  

Operas to see because the music is awesome, even if the story is ridiculous: 

17) The Tales of Hoffmann by Offenbach.  The Tales of Hoffmann is based on E.T.A. Hoffmann’s fantastic short stories, so there is some legit bizarre plot elements going on.  In the first act, for example, Hoffmann falls in love with a dancing robot.  The man is romantic, but a little dense.  This opera has a special spot in my heart because it was the first opera I really remember seeing.  One summer my mother would borrow video cassettes of operas and brought them home for us to watch.  I was entranced.    5SPS – The poet Hoffmann is drunk in a bar and recounts the stories of his three great loves.   

18) Il Trovatore by Verdi.  Spoiler alert -this opera involves throwing a baby into a fire.  Yep.  When you think of all the ridiculous opera plots there are out there – and there are many -  this one requires a heavy dose of “Just go with it.”  On the plus side, the opera requires three very strong singers, so you are guaranteed to hear some amazing singing.  Plus there are sword fights.  5SPS = Manrico loves Leonora.  So does the Count di Luna.  Manrico’s mom used to be di Luna’s nanny, so there’s some quasi-sibling rivalry there.  There’s a war.  I’m not quite sure what goes on here because, like I said, the plot is a little inane.  Go see it for the singing and the sword fights.   

Opera to see because it is famous, but I don’t ever need to work on ever again: 

19) Carmen by Bizet.  If you’ve only ever heard of one opera, chances are this is it.  Justifiably so – it’s got all the hit tunes ("Toreador song," anyone?), there’s a super steamy love story, the sets have to be amazing (It takes place in 1- A Square in Seville, 2 - A Tavern, 3 – A Mountain pass, and 4 – Outside a bullring).  5SPS - Don José falls for free-spirited Romany Carmen.  He goes to jail for her, and when he gets out, he joins up with her and her band of merry smugglers.  But while he was in jail, she’s taken up with the local toreador.  Don José is mad and things go south.   

When I was in college, my roommate and I would argue about whether Carmen was a tragic figure to be admired for her lust for life, or just a destructive self-absorbed criminal.  Go see this one and let me know what you think.   

But WHY don’t I ever want to work on another production ever again?  Well, there’s a bit of PTSD – this was one of the first show that I did post COVID shutdown – but not that much post COVID.  People were dropping like flies, we never knew how many people we would have onstage or backstage any one night, there was a horse involved, actually two because we had to fire the first horse, I had to step in for the head stage manager when she got COVID, and massively screwed up the transition from Act 1 to Act 2.  (You can read about it here.) 

But aside from that COVID specific thing – I’ve done four productions of Carmen.  This show is a pain in the ass to produce.  There are four ginormous sets.  There are a gazillion people on stage.  And they all do very specific things.  A show like Turandot, where there are 120 people onstage is actually pretty easy because everyone does same thing – ie enter, sing, exit – that is fine. In Carmen, every villager has to have their own story line and enters at different times and have different props. And then Act three, the smuggling scene, where EVERYONE has to have some piece of contraband. I know it’s a smuggling scene, but maybe not everyone needs a piece of contraband?  But no, most directors want a lot of stuff onstage for this scene. And singers are always so stuck on their particular piece of contraband. This is a typical conversation I have at the places call for Act Three: 

“Can you please grab your prop and go onstage?” 

“I can’t find my prop.” 

“Here, take this.” 

 “I was told to bring on a bundle, this is a burlap sack.”  

“….”   

Inside I am screaming, “IT DOESN’T MATTER!  YOU JUST NEED A PROP CONTRABAND. THE ORCHESTRA IS TUNING AND YOU NEED TO GET YOUR ASS ONSTAGE.”   

Outside calm voice, “I think it will be okay.  I need folks to be at places.”  

Oh and then the transition from Act Three (Smugglers in the mountains) to Act Four (Festive people at the bullring) – it’s always a beast.  You have three minutes (sometimes less) to do a massive scene shift, and at the same time EVERYONE has to change costumes.  Like a substantial costume change, even shoes.  And there are kids onstage too – which is always great because it’s usually 10:30pm by the time you get to Act 4 and these kids have been sitting backstage for two hours and are on their absolute best behavior.  (not at all.)  It always feels like a shit show and never ever ever have I done it where it doesn’t feel like we are lucky to get the curtain out for Act 4 and be passably ready with no naked people onstage.   

Which is all to say – Carmen is a hard hard hard show to work on.   But you should go see it because it’s pretty gripping and you’ll recognize the tunes.  

The horse in Carmen, backstage.  This was not the horse that was fired. Though we did have a singer fall off this horse onstage.  It was alarming. 

Opera to see because it’s my most favorite opera: 

20) The Marriage of Figaro by Mozart.  I’ve done maybe six productions of this opera.  I will almost always say “yes” if someone offers me to work on this show.  Oh Figaro, why do I love you so much?  Well, there’s the music first of all- the arias are beautiful and the ensembles are genius.  If you’ve seen Amadeus, the part where Mozart talks about writing an opera finale that goes from duet to trio to quartet and so on and on for twenty minutes– that’s the Act Two finale of Figaro.  Then there’s the story, which is convoluted as all get out, but also funny and human.   Also, I think Figaro has the best women characters in all of opera. They’re smart, they’re resourceful, and they love their men, but also don’t let the idiots get away with anything. The men in this opera are all just kind of dense, one could even say morally questionable. Even still, it’s one of those operas that makes me go, “Yeah, we’re all idiots, but we’re trying to do our best in this messy thing called life”.   5SPS – Figaro and Susanna are getting married.  The Count wants Susanna in his bed.  The Countess wants the Count back in her own bed.  Obstacles and disguises ensue.  This one is actually quite hard to summarize because there’s a lot of bonkers shit going on.   

Bonus:  (one to grow on for Engie!) You’ve made it this far… Opera you should see if you want some cachet -  

The Ring Cycle by Wagner. This is the Mount Everest of Operas. It’s an epic musical saga, fifteen hours long, broken up into four separate operas, loosely based on Norse mythology.  There are Gods and Goddesses, magical rings, dragons, incest, mermaids, curses, women warriors, swords, trolls, giants, fire, and ultimately the end of the world and rebirth.  It’s long, it’s dense and it’s in German.  My company has done this, so it’s checked off my bucket list.  When we did the Ring Cycle, I worked on three of the four operas and saw the fourth one from out front.  I’m going to be honest – I might not have stayed awake for the whole thing.  Have I mentioned it’s long?  (One of my favorite things about doing the Ring Cycle, though,  is that each opera is so long that per union regulations, the company has to feed the stagehands dinner half way through.  Even though I’m not a stagehand, it’s pretty sucky to not feed everyone, so I got free dinner too!).  People LOVE Wagner – they travel from all over the world to see The Ring. I get it – you have to really lean into the epic story telling and re-telling and philosophizing going on in these operas.   It takes a special kind of person to love Wagner.  I’m not that kind of special.  But, I thought that if you made your way through the other twenty operas in this list, you might just want to experience the Ring Cycle too.  5SPS – There’s a magical ring.  It was made from gold stolen from the Rhinemaidens.  Everyone wants the ring.  That’s about all I can do.  Anything else would require a whiteboard and a flow chart.   

Prop Table for Siegfried, the second opera in the Ring Cycle.  Did I mention there was a bear in the Ring Cycle?   A Bear who eats chips, hence the prop bags of Lays. 

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Have you seen any of these operas? Who's up for a field trip to see "Pepito"?