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
Congratulations to University of South Dakota, the department of music, and their opera program led by Dr. Tracelyn Gesteland. Their production of NOTES ON VIARDOT (2024) was recognized by the National Opera Association and won one of the divisions of their production competition.
The third production of NOTES is coming up December 20 and 21, 2024 at Music On Site, Inc. MOSI has a clever niche in our opera ecosystem, producing after between the close of the fall semester and the Christmas/New Year holidays.
We were in Utrecht yesterday and imagine our excitement to see an actual sheet music store. In the US, they are a vanishing breed, and apparently not so common here either.
They had a nice collection of music, including study scores and some classical art song. The company, Broekmans & Van Pappel even have their own publishing company.
I left with a couple of things, including some songs by a Dutch composer I didn't know, Jan Mul. I didn't know this--there aren't as many art songs written in Dutch as Dutch composers tended to set the music in more "standard" languages like German or French.
As Arizona State University has its run of NOTES ON VIARDOT this weekend, they will be premiering a new two keyboard version. The first keyboard is pure piano. The second keyboard is various orchestral sounds, operated by a program called Gig Performer. The musical theatre world has been doing this sort of thing for many years, mostly on the Mac operating system with Mainstage.
I am very fortunate to have the second production of NOTES ON VIARDOT at Arizona State University, only six months after the premiere at University of South Dakota. It is being directed by Stephanie Sadownik and conducted by Michael Shannon. It is the premiere of a new two keyboard version, with keyboard #1 being pure piano and key #2 a variety of sounds, triggered by Gig Performer. The slot at ASU was designed to be a staged reading on book, but the cast has memorized their music and is fully staged--a very good sign!
Sherrill and his mother Thelma, Maria as Anna Hunter, Alice Ryley Cover
D-Do,D-Don't and Marie from Birthday Clown, Alice Ryley marketing, with Sherrill
Stairs at Davenport House, Jess Best as Alice, during COVID
This week, I ended a decade long period as composer-in-residence at Savannah Voice Festival. This has been in the works for a couple of years. I think c-in-r positions need to change to allow different perspectives, different musical styles.
It was a fruitful association, including:
* ALICE RYLEY, about Savannah in 1735
* ANNA HUNTER, Savannah in the first half of the 20th century
* BIRTHDAY CLOWN, about a performer finding their audience in an unexpected place.
* A ROYAL FEAST, a sequel to Rossini's LA CENERENTOLA
In addition there were many arrangements, a few art songs, and a production of SPEED DATING TONIGHT! One fun thing was setting to music a letter that Thelma Milnes (Sherrill's mother) wrote to her future husband.
I'm not entirely gone from Savannah. Next summer we will do a full production of A ROYAL FEAST, which was previously done in a COVID-restricted workshop premiere.
Some favorite memories:
Sherrill telling me not to write Mozart style play-offs so that the emotional high points of the arias were the last notes onstage.
Learning that the squares in Savannah were rounded off in the 20th century... for cars.
Making life long friends with my hosts, Neil and Patti Victor.
Figuring out that the organizational model of SVF was the Greek Family: noisy, boisterous, emotional, on the surface chaotic but pulling things off in style.
Sitting on the veranda looking at the marsh at the Andersons and the many casual get-togethers there.
Tracking down Anna Hunter's paintings all over town and meeting a few people who had met her.
Standing in Wright Square listening to the "tour guides" tell me all sorts of misinformation about Alice Ryley.
Working with Maria Zouves
Commuting on the ferry across the river
Playing melodica and singing arias on Broughton Street.
Any meeting in the Foxy Loxy Courtyard.
Watching John Tisbert rehearse with his Garrison School Choruses.
Watching from the piano while Andrew Bisantz conducted ALICE RYLEY
Bicycling through Forsyth Park.
The arrival of the drone in BIRTHDAY CLOWN
Thank you Savannah Voice Festival!
I close with Sherrill Milnes' favorite lines from my tenure, from ANNA HUNTER:
Speed Dating Tonight! (2013) marches on with an average of 12+ performances per season. Hooray! In 2020, I worked with Paul Houghtaling at University of Alabama on a new opera, RSBE (Remove Shoes Before Entering). It is SpDT!'s deeper cousin. Many of the pieces in SpDT! skim the surface. RSBE is inspired by the idea of writing a show about empathy. It's darker and deeper. Still, some of the pieces are very light and sweet.
1. Friendship Bracelet. About rescuing a turtle at the beach.
2. Impostor. The feeling of impostor syndrome
3. Samaritan. Failing to give aid and resolving to do it next time.
4. I See Me. Searching for inclusivity and belonging
5. Alaskabout you. Bitterly remembering being abandoned by their father
6. N-Word/One Square at a Time (Duet). Telling a friend not to use the N-Word. Remembering a beautiful family quilt.
7. Imaginary Friend. Recalling and conjuring their imaginary friend.
8. Gramma’s Lesson (Where the Wonder Never Ceases) Remembering gramma, who took took away their phone and took them outside to see the magic in nature.
9. The First Time I Heard Mozart. Hearing Mozart for the first time.
10 You’re in my car (Duet). Getting into the wrong car on a busy day. Oh, and it's occupied.
11 Reading Frederick Douglass for the first time
12 Picture of You. Recalling departed love.
13A So Sad. Long term depression, knowing the trigger is 13B
13B Just Between Us. Recalling a childhood abuser.
14 Me That Used to be. Arriving at a woman's shelter
15 Console Consolation (Duet). Recalling great old video games.
16 Shedding. Could you have too much stuff?
17 Interconnected. Recalling a sermon about our common, inescapable bonds.
18 What I had to do. Reading a letter grandfather sent from overseas during war.
19 Hide With the TV. Wanting to nest with old B&W TV during stressful times.
20 Don’t let the music end. Recalling an old flame.
21 Another motherfucking snowstorm. Recalling what it says.
22 Beautiful traveler. Trying to take a picture of a butterfly.
If you've done Speed Dating Tonight! you know how flexible it is. RSBE is structured the same way, with all of the pieces being flexibly cast. It has a touch more ensemble singing, but it is all really easy. The premise is very slight (there's even an alternate premise) . Speed Dating Tonight! takes about ten minutes to set up the scene; RSBE dives in within about 90 seconds. The original premise is a group of students visiting a mysterious building, part old sanctuary, part old second hand store. The alternate premise is students in a classroom.
I'll leave you with one more. #20 Don't let the music end. Co-written with Reg Huston.
NOTES ON VIARDOT is a short, full length opera (about 75 minutes, not including an optional 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.
NOTES ON VIARDOT will have its premiere next month in April 2024. Dr. Tracelyn Gesteland suggested Madame Viardot as the topic for the opera after we spent nearly a year looking at subjects and discarding them. What a life--dad premiered Almaviva in BARBER OF SEVILLE, her sister was a famous diva, her brother a famous voice teacher. Liszt was her piano teacher and Saint-Saëns her accompanist. She collaborated with Berlioz and Chopin; Georges Sand was her mentor. Clara Schumann was a lifelong friend. Ivan Turgenev was the love of her life. Her salon was one of the most important in Paris. Gounod, Massenet, Faure, Debussy, Dickens, James... it goes on and on. I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to write an opera about her.
You can download the perusal score on this blog, with the link on the column on the right.
Last week I had a lovely three days at the Baylor Opera Theatre. Thanks to Jeffrey Peterson, Jen Stephenson Baker, Kathleen Kelly, and Morgan Montfacier for making it happen.
Every time I go to visit a school, I try to record some notable performances for the SpDT! reference audios and videos. This time one of the ones I got was #34-#35 "Is it just me" here recorded by Monica Malas and Blayne Stonecipher.
Last week in Taos, I heard what I think was my favorite recital/concert ever. Taos Opera Institute (TOI) presented mezzo Jamie Barton with pianist Kathleen Kelly at the Taos Center for the Arts. The program was wide ranging yet never incoherent. It included German, French, and Italian sections, with the duo providing friendly, inviting commentary rather than formal program notes. This gave the event a welcoming, cabaret feel, which drew in the audience in a way that I've never seen in a program that had the likes of Purcell, Schubert, and Mahler. The closing English group of Libby Larsen and Jake Heggie songs had us enraptured in a way which said "and now let's add the extra layer of instantaneous, immediate comprehension to go along with the musical and vocal beauty and perfect ensemble supplied by their earlier foreign language selections. Songs in English should always provide that... like adding a wondrous fourth dimension. I arrived at the concert something of a jaded skeptic and left with a sense that Barton and Kelly have shown us how to transform the old "art song recital," into something vibrant, vital, and fun.
Bravo to TOI for bringing this program up the mountain.
