Michael Ching's blog, pondering music, opera, and where and how it fits in, particularly in the regions. Lots of helpful links down the righthand side.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, opera a cappella now available at Albany Records
NOTES ON VIARDOT is a short, full length opera (about 90 minutes with one 15 minute intermission) about the life of Pauline Viardot, the 19th century diva, composer, and cultural figure.
Commissioned by the University of South Dakota, the opera has a large, female-leaning, cast with many opportunities for roles. The opera needs only a unit set. Some projections are desirable. It can be performed with orchestra, with a two keyboard reduction (keyboard II using samples), or with piano alone.
The storytelling utilizes many of the composers she was associated with during her life, including Mozart, Rossini, Chopin, Bellini, Donizetti, Gluck, Saint-Saëns, and many of her own compositions. This "jukebox opera" approach makes the music easier to learn. Well known cultural figures such as Georges Sand, Charles Dickens, and Ivan Turgenev appear. This gives the opera a very familiar, audience friendly vibe. It also gives the opera a very powerful curricular tie to music history and 19th century European history.
The opera is tied together with my own music, which is very lyrical. Here's a sample, an aria that young Turgenev sings. There are also several nods to musical theater in the style.
Here is the video from the premiere at University of South Dakota in April 2024. It was produced and directed by Tracelyn Gesteland.
Like repertoire pieces such as ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE or TALES OF HOFFMANN, the opera has casting flexibility for some of the leads--the Older Pauline can be played by a soprano or a high mezzo, with some different vocal lines and even aria transpositions. Several other roles also have options.
NOTES ON VIARDOT has already been scheduled for production by Arizona State University, Music on Site, and Baylor University.
The first act, about 25 minutes entertainingly synopsizes Viardot's early career and has the most of the quotations. It is available separately.
The perusal score is here. It has all of the vocal options, which makes it a little confusing in a few spots.
Here are the principal principals:
Older Pauline Viardot soprano or lyric mezzo
Younger Pauline Viardot soprano
Georges Sand soprano or mezzo
The Reporter soprano
Young Ivan Turgenev tenor or baritone
Older Ivan Turgenev baritone or bass baritone
Louis Viardot tenor (eventually there will be a bass version)
There are many more smaller roles, including Charles Dickens, Alfred de Musset, Henry Chorley, Rivals Fanny and Giulia, Manuel Garcia (her father), Madame Garcia, Maria Malibran, Manuel Garcia (her brother). Many of the smaller roles can be doubled.
There is some very easy chorus: Bandits, furies, fairies, her audiences
Although it is my intention to publish NOTES ON VIARDOT, right now it's being directly license by me.
Here's #15 Console Consolation from RSBE, performed last week at Charlottesville Opera by two fabulous tenors, Carlos Ahrens and Max Alexander Cook. This production of RSBE was the first one where the audience was mingled with the performers.
RSBE just got its 9th production at Charlottesville Opera. Thanks so much to Caroline Worra, Leanne Clement, Emily Baltzer, Wei-Han Wu of Charlottesville Opera and the terrific cast of Ader Emerging Artists, including Carlos Ahrens, Linda Maritza Collazo, Max Alexander Cook, Dylan Davis, Samuel Enriquez, Edward Ferran, Abigale Hobbs, Rebekah Howell, Elise Miller, David Morgans, Adam Rodgers, Laura Corina Sanders, Kevin Spooner, Janini Sridhar, Alicaia Russell Tagert, and Adam Hirama Wells. The set up was up-close-and-personal, with the audience mingled in with the cast.
It was the official stage premiere for several new pieces, including "Hide with the TV," "Beautiful traveler," and "Don't let the music end." The lyrics for "Beautiful traveler" were co-written by Hugh Moffatt and the lyrics for "Don't let the music end" has lyrics by Reg Huston.
RSBE is flexibly structured like Speed Dating Tonight!, but is a bit deeper and darker.
Notes on Viardot will get its third production this fall at Music On Site. Run by Jen Stephenson and Bradley Baker, the company has a unique niche in our operatic ecology. Their seasons are fit in between the end of fall semester and the Christmas holiday. It provides students and teachers to get some repertoire in between semesters. Naturally, great advertising for future performances of the opera! Thank you Jen and Brad.
So pleased to be back at the Taos Opera Institute. This summer's project is different--a concert featuring my arrangements, art songs, and operas. It will include some of the Arie not so antiche, Arrangements and Derangements of Schubert, The Bond Between, folk song and spiritual arrangements, and opera selections from SPEED DATING TONIGHT!, RSBE, ALICE RYLEY, NOTES ON VIARDOT and even a sneak peak at 2025's HAZEL MINER.
There are 28 singers in the program this year, so it's a lot of coaching--the first day is nine hours!
The weather is very cool at night, warm during the day, with moderate fire danger, so the woods and mountains will be accessible for walks and hikes.
In 2002, Hugh Moffatt and I were working on a large opera, CORPS OF DISCOVERY. It was commissioned and premiered in 2003 by the University of Missouri-Columbia. On the way to the premiere, we had a couple of workshops, including one at what was then called the Ashlawn-Highland Opera Festival at the Monroe estate outside of Charlottesville.
The opera is now called Charlottesville Opera and I'll be going back there this summer. More about that later.
Pauline looks back on her St. Petersburg debut where
she first meets Ivan Turgenev.
NOTES ON VIARDOT premieres tonight at the University of South Dakota-Vermillion. It has been a long and gratifying journey! Their producer/director Tracelyn Gesteland has made it a smooth and beautiful ride. The music department and college of fine arts has been supportive of this chance for the opera program to stretch. I owe Dr. Gesteland BIG for suggesting the idea of an opera about Pauline and this is paying off in the amount of interest that the show has gotten, both in the workshops at Florida Grand Opera, Taos Opera Institute, and Missouri State University, and in the interest in future productions, including those already confirmed at Arizona State University and Baylor University.
My hope is that this will create a wave of productions for Viardot's already popular CENDRILLON and other pieces, such as THE LAST SORCERER.
To learn more details about NOTES ON VIARDOT, go here.
After much delay, "The Bond Between" Six songs about women and horses had its premiere April 7th at Northern State University. Commissioned by Darci Bultema, I wrote the music and most of the lyrics. The list of songs is:
1. Three Amigos
2. In Perfect Equipoise
3. Chores
4. The Bond Between (text by Darci Bultema and Michael Ching)
5. Don't Make Me Choose (Between a Husband and a Horse)
6. All is well (text by Josephine Robertson)
Here's a soundcloud playlist of the songs. If you are interested in singing these, just get in touch. I'll get them up on my e-commerce site soon.
The NSU Krikac Auditorium is quite beautiful, with stained glass windows down one side.
Here's a very nice promo for the upcoming production of SPEED DATING TONIGHT! at Baylor Opera Theater on April 19th and 20th. Wherever I go I try to record some of the really good renditions of songs and add them to the master you tube and sound cloud playlists. Here's the Duet #34-#35, "Is it just me?" sung by Blayne Stonecipher and Monica Malas, who you see briefly in the promo video. This duet is one of my favorites cause it doesn't sound like it's gonna work as a duet until they sing together.
The music school's video guy is Carlos Monzon, who happens also to be a singer.
