Complimentary

"Everyone likes a compliment.” - Abraham Lincoln 

It is only several hours before the show opens here in Bozeman, Montana (Intermountain Opera Theater). Today has been so wonderful - woke up rested, went running on the trail near our cabin - 

and then indulged in a regular routine well-known to those in theater.

[Opening night cards.]

I remember getting used to this tradition and really worrying about if I was “doing it right.” There isn’t a way to do them right or wrong (okay, maybe telling really inappropriate jokes in a card to the president of the board might not be a good idea. That would be “wrong.”).

But I wanted to take the time to really thank people for what they had brought to the rehearsal process. One colleague here was a colleague eight years ago at Merola. Another one had me play a separate audition for him while we were here and then we had a nice lunch after. A third is a full-time mom with many children, but she has devoted some volunteer time to coordinate some opportunities for school kids to hear more about our profession and stories. It does take a village to put on an opera, and to keep a company (of any size and in any location) running.

It is human nature to like to receive compliments. We actually need them. Mark Twain said, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” 

However, it doesn’t seem human nature to give good compliments these days. In this day of social media (a very beloved mentor who does not use the platforms calls them all “My Face,” which gives me such a chuckle every time I think about it), people are complimenting themselves, while really accounting for how inadequate they feel. I got reports from a friend that she encountered someone who was so self-“complimentary” that it was grotesque. 

This will kill art if it continues.

One of the lifelines that we all have is to compliment each other - to bring out the best in each other so that we in turn can do our jobs and bring this gorgeous art form to life. It matters not if the people are managed professionals in the highest places, or if they are still students, on the way to figuring out this business. 

One of the best compliments I have ever received happened a few days ago. I was in rehearsal and the different managers and directors of InterMountain Opera Bozeman asked me if I was interested in being interviewed about my job on this production. I was interviewed and wrote about it here, and was pleased to read the article today. The columnist, Rachel Hergett, did a wonderful job in writing about the things which we spoke. You can read the article here. In asking me to do this, my colleagues paid me a compliment about my work. 

But the cycle must continue. I wrote to all of my colleagues today, thanking them wholeheartedly for their efforts to bring this piece to life. 

I paid an inadvertent compliment to my barista today too (I have no internet at home, so necessity in terms of keeping up with the world brings me to coffee shops while here). He brought me some espresso with some foam on top - and I took a picture of the image. He said, 

“The biggest compliment I get is when someone takes a picture.” 

Here’s to compliments of all shapes, sizes, and types. 

The miraculous end of "Suor Angelica"

When musicians and non-musicians alike are asked about what they know about Giacomo Puccini, many would say,

“Great theatre composer / turn-of-the-twentieth-century opera composer / the guy who wrote “La bohème” / that Italian guy that followed Verdi / the last Italian opera composer …"

And so on.

All of these great composers in the past still hold a tantamount of questions. Do Musetta and Marcello ever really work things out, past Mimì’s death? Does Rodolfo ever get married again, and at what point in his new relationship does he reveal what [was] the love of his life? 

Being here on a double-bill of Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi, being immersed in these works has brought up many questions about Puccini, his compositional style, inspiration, and in Suor Angelica, some questions about faith. 

The opera begins with a chorus of nuns (i suori in Italian) singing backstage. Angelica appears early in the opera. She gets soaring melodies and rich (though in this work, crystalline and pastel) orchestration for which Puccini is famous. Through her, we meet a nun who is simultaneously like and unlike everyone else.

Often the nuns sing in order to set the tone (the opening “Hail Mary,” sung in Italian), to narrate or comment on the action (Greek-chorus style). They sing chants, triads, and even some gossipy music (these are a bunch of women, after all). 

Puccini utilizes off-stage music in many of his works. This piece is no exception. He also sets up the “end” - the final scene - note-by-note, for the first 45 minutes. Rather than explain the whole plot, you can read it here.

After she sings her lament about her boy dying without him knowing how much she loved him, we get more of a glimpse of her as a woman. I’ve always wondered how much of a “believer” in God she actually was - was she a misfit who was put into a convent as to avoid embarrassment by the family? Does she come to resent the Church during her “punishment” there? Or does she believe that if she “Hail Marys” her way out of this, she will eventually be forgiven by God, her family, and herself?

Her final scene (sung very brilliantly here in Bozeman by Maria Kanyova (her bio can be found here)) is a tour-de-force of vocalism, acting, and Puccini’s exquisite use of the backstage. Within Angelica’s final moments, she gets to stage an intermezzo (mostly the music which we have heard before and after the visit from her aunt), and kill herself using the poison she has made out of her herb garden. After the poison makes her hallucinate, she realizes that suicide is a mortal sin. The desired earthly or heavenly reunion with her son is not possible. 

The offstage-chorus juxtaposes the solo vocal rhapsody on stage. They sing a crisp “Regina Virginum, Salve Maria” in dialogue with the drama which is happening in front of the audience. After Angelica makes a heartrending plea for the Madonna to save her, the chorus responds with the tune Angelica has sung moments ago. 

On this production, I play both in the pit and backstage. Pit is organ and celesta (in a bigger house, this would be covered by several sets of hands); then I get to play backstage “organ” (it’s actually a Clavinova hooked up to an amp). In order to do so, I have to clamor through a backstage chorus (who is reading the final scene off of scores, and using their phones. Once I’m at the other instrument, it’s a deep breath - listen - follow the conductor and lead and follow at the same time.  

There are other “goosebumps” moments in this piece. For me, when the lowest soprano voices of the chorus of nuns sing an unprepared A-flat (in basically a C-major chord), that’s the magic of this whole piece. 

I love the questions which that particular notes brings. Why don’t they just sing a major chord? Or why not an E-flat, making the major chord minor, and damning Angelica to hell? 

The fact is, with this note, we don’t know exactly what happens. 

(If you are interested in reading a theoretical tract on this work, you may want to check out this article by James Hepokoski. You can find the article here.)

PHOTO: We are being housed generously by the opera company. This is a photo I took of our guest cabin out near a big trailhead on Bozeman's outskirts.

The layers of translation

I had the pleasure of sitting down with a newspaper reporter today who interviewed me for a music column in Bozeman, Montana. I am here for Intermountain Opera Bozeman (click here for more information) as the rehearsal pianist and vocal coach for a double-bill of Puccini’s Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi. 

One of my favorite questions that she asked was, “how do you do a translation?"

Translation is a very personal question. I know some who cover their scores so much that you can barely read them (a conductor who I served in 2009-2010 was the epitome of this), I know others who don’t do nearly enough translation. 

Be it written into one’s score or into a separate notebook (I do both), translation is such a deep, complex issue. 

Level 1: Know what each word means in and of itself. 

Level 2: Know the grammar and part of speech and function of each word. 

Level 3: Know the figurative or idiomatic meaning in your native tongue.

Level 4: What is magical about this sentence? How else could have a librettist or librettist-composer said what they said? Why is this the choice they came up with?

Level 5: What does the composer say about the translation (what does the harmony, rhythm, texture, color, dynamic level, orchestration have to do with the part)?

Take for example, the beginning of Rinuccio’s aria in Gianni Schicchi. 

He is addressing his aunt (who also functions as his guardian) in this scene. At the beginning of the opera, the Donati relatives have learned that their rich, heir-less uncle has left his considerable wealth to a monastery. Zita (the aunt) is horrified at the suggestion that the family employ a village bumpkin to help them scheme (and not honor the will, thusly, keeping the wealth for themselves). 

The words are: Avete torto! 

If you were to do a reverse-translation exercise (taking the original language to English, and then re-translate it), you could get the line:

Hai sbagliato. 

Why didn’t Puccini use that? A few suggestions:

1). Avete torto is easier to sing-say.

2). Avete is in the formal (the above hai is informal), still showing Rinuccio’s proper respect for his aunt. 

3). The rhythms set up the orchestral entrance in a more clear way (the orchestra rests underneath Rinuccio’s words). 

(I’m working on setting a poem of Robert Frost myself these days, so the question of text-setting is one on the brain of late.)