Talking Griselda

We don’t even know what to say about Griselda (opening tomorrow, July 16). “Radical” may not be what comes to mind when one thinks of baroque opera, but “radical” this production is. You’ve heard the rundown: Peter Sellars directs, L.A. artist Gronk hand-painted the set. Sellars sets the Vivaldi score in the present… in what is kind of a fictional “Republic of New Mexico.” And check this for gender-bending: two countertenors (men who sing soprano), including the divine David Daniels, sing heroic male roles in vibrant pastel suits; the lovely young soprano Amanda Majeski sings the male aggressor in a costume inspired by Usher. Beyond that, you’ve got Beverly Sills award-winner Isabel Leonard in a quinceañera dress, Paul Groves donning Polo gear and Meredith Arwady in a Navajo blanket.

And it’s awesome. We’ve seen the final dress and there’s one thing that’s for sure: this group is TOTALLY COMMITTED to every note they sing and every gesture they make. Maybe that’s because at the helm are an AMAZING group of talkers. Some quotable moments from Peter Sellars during the past few days in the glow of Griselda:

“That’s what we do as artists – climate change. We can’t convince anyone of anything, but we can slightly shift the atmosphere.”

“Be honest with your irrational self. That’s the space we have to offer in this art form of opera. Opera is immersive.”

“Opera is open space for the unmentionable. [On gender-bending in the 18^th century Venetian theater] No one could talk about it, but people went to see it every night.”

“People can take refuge in music and images – they go beyond words. That’s why opera is powerful in ways that spoken theater can’t touch.”

Gronk on wrestling that big, white space into a set: “I come in like a boxer. You have to throw the first punch immediately or else you’re going to get knocked out before you can get started. You jump right in and there are no mistakes. You keep on hitting and hitting until you dominate that big, white space.”

Ready to bring any of these to the tattoo artist? Well, hold up for a second.  More gems await: if you’re in Santa Fe, come on down to The Lensic for a FREE seminar on Griselda by the creative team at 10 AM on Saturday morning (July 16). Seriously, this is an amazing chance to see these world-class artists who are also world-class TALKERS.

We promise you won’t be bored.   http://bit.ly/rsJlu2

“Never Postpone Joy”: A Toast to Menotti

Yesterday marked the 100^th anniversary of composer Gian Carlo Menotti’s birth. Menotti holds a special place at The Santa Fe Opera, not simply because we are staging his rarely performed and HYSTERICAL early 1960s comedy The Last Savagethis season (opening July 23), but because General Director Charles MacKay worked closely with Menotti at the Spoleto Festival, both in Italy and in Charleston, SC, and has many fond memories of the composer.

Charles shared a few of those memories as a group of Last Savage cast members, stage managers and apprentice singers gathered ‘round the cantina after rehearsal last evening for a champagne toast to Menotti, the man and the music. Charles closed with Menotti’s motto: “Never postpone joy.”

We’ll drink to that.

General Director Charles MacKay and LAST SAVAGE director Ned Canty lead the Company in a toast to Gian Carlo Menotti on his 100th birthday.

Party in the parking lot!

Tailgaters don their devil masks for dinner in the parking lot as the sun sets red over the Jemez.

OPENING NIGHT!

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has come: tonight is the opening night of The Santa Fe Opera’s 55^th season. We’ve been working hard all week focusing lights, tightening up the fat suit, rehearsing, hosting New Mexico policy-makers for dinner, and celebrating with a gala party courtesy of our opening night sponsor, Encantado, an Auberge Resort.

You’ve heard about the wildfires wreaking havoc in New Mexico, and our good neighbor to the north, Los Alamos, in particular, needs all our good vibes tonight. We’re sending them in full force. And we’re sticking by that old show biz motto: THE SHOW MUST GO ON. We’ve been monitoring the air quality vigilantly all week and all is safe for our performers, technicians and patrons, so we are raring to bring Santa Fe its very first FAUST!

And now the magic begins. No opera company on earth knows how to throw a party like us. We start with tailgating in the parking lot at 6 PM. You’ll see cowboy hats, ball gowns, candelabras and pork ‘n beans on paper plates. We’ve got it ALL. (And we’ll be updating the Back Deck with photos, so stay tuned).  

At 8 PM everyone is invited for a champagne toast on the terrace. And then at 9 PM, our new chief conductor, Frederic Chaslin, will strike up the first notes of the National Anthem for all to sing along. Then the overture of Faust will begin as the sun sets over the Jemez Mountains. And VOILA! The season has begun!

Livin’ Large

Lara Berich fits the (not) Fat Man, Don Nofte

Originally, it was retired television director Don Nofte’s wife, Debby, who wanted to be a supernumerary at The Santa Fe Opera. But look who’s wearing the fat suit now. After accompanying his wife to the audition, it was Don they ended up picking for the role of the fat man for the fair scene in Act II of Faust.

Don, who stage-managed shows for ABC, including Nightline and Wide World of Sports, has never seen Faust before, let alone performed in it, but he’s had a pretty good time watching the production come together. “The coordination between departments is amazing. In the corporate world, the right hand never knows what the left hand’s doing. Here, if you need something, you get it instantly, and the craftspeople are amazing!”

Yes, a fat man takes a village. A very coordinated village. Costumer Lara Berich, a costume professor at Indiana University during the school year,  created the mountain of reticulated foam (the same stuff they use in air conditioners), bean bag stuffing, and spandex that is the fat man. She took the spandex tip from Helen Fuller, our Head of Crafts (fresh off The Hobbitset in New Zealand) and looked at anatomy books to create the layers of flab that would move and shake like flesh.

Lara stitches away with padded suit in background.

Lara also made sure to include certain small, but necessary touches. For instance, she’s made Don a t-shirt with pockets so that he can wear ice packs under his massive costume to keep cool, and has stitched in a “convenience panel” so that calls of nature can be heeded.

Plaster mask!

 

 

But a fat suit will only get you so far. A true fat man must have a face and hands to match the bloat of his body. This is where the makeup department comes in. Among the many people involved is Bree Schaller, who we brought in from Las Vegas. Bree has lent her expertise in prosthetics to Cirque du Soleil, among others. She started with a plaster mask of Don’s face (with someone on q-tip duty, constantly wiping away the gook from his nostrils so he could breathe). Then a latex mold was made from Don’s face imprint, and upon that were crafted the formidable jowls of the fat man! Same for the puffy hands.

And if you think that’s impressive, wait ‘til you see the other circus freaks Act II has in store….

Wheels for the Highway to Hell

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, no one told Faust. He straight-up sold his soul to the devil for the chance to seduce the innocent Marguerite, nothing well-intentioned about it. And his ride on the highway to hell? A rickety old-fashioned wheelchair. But this is no ordinary old-timey wicker and wire number. This wheelchair was designed from the ground up by The Santa Fe Opera Prop Shop, and the carpenters worked long and hard to fashion its secret lives. You see, Faust’s wheelchair is a Transformer of sorts. It goes from traditional wheelchair to gurney to Hannibal Lecter-type upright display at the wave of Méphistophélès’ sinister magic. 

David Levine, our Master Prop Carpenter, explained that in the beginning the Prop Shop had no idea how to make this thing, but that absolutely every single carpenter contributed something to the design. In particular, they were having a hard time figuring out how to make the contraption go from chair to gurney, and it was Prop Shop Administrator Katy Phebus (with self-proclaimed “minimal mechanical knowledge”) who suggested the lever might work like the trunk of a car, and that’s exactly what they ended up using. It’s called a gas spring, and it’s that thing that makes your trunk open gracefully and, most importantly, quietly. So they made a chair/gurney out of wood to mount onto an old wheelchair from the 1920s and added this gas spring to make the chair lift smoothly, and stand upright without incident. In fact, the chair has become so popular that the director, Stephen Lawless, has given it a slightly larger role than was originally intended. But we don’t want to give it all away… you’ll have to come see Faust for yourself if you want to know where it pops up again. 

(Lest you think that everything is sunshine and peppermints backstage, know that some devilish spirit “had a hand” in the making of this wheelchair. Master Props Carpenter David Levine crushed his finger while working on the chair, which is still spattered with his blood. Here he stands next to it – accusingly. And yet, he still asked that this caption read, “I love my job.”)  

Dave Levine loves his job.

[p.s. We haven’t forgotten about the fat suit! We’re working on it! Stay tuned – it’s getting fatter!]

Devil Masks

We’re making devil masks! Yup, our first opera is Faust (you know – the original “deal with the devil” story). It opens July 1. In the opera Marguerite (our heroine) has succumbed to the charms of Faust, who has made a deal with the devil to regain his youth and seduce the innocent Marguerite. She goes to church to atone for her sins and Méphistophélès (the devil himself) brings a chorus of demons into the sanctuary to stop her from praying. This is where the devil masks – 40 of them – come in. Creepy stuff.   

Now, we’re just beginning our second week of rehearsals and our staff has already grown from the usual 76 year-round people to 295. This number will more than double by the end of the summer. 

Head of Crafts Helen Fuller is making devil masks for Faust. She claims the skull apron was donned without irony…

One of these new people is Helen Fuller, our Head of Crafts, who has just flown in from New Zealand. Helen is fresh off the set of The Hobbit, which was being filmed in her home country, so she can handle a few devil masks. With the help of Stephanie Taff, Helen’s assistant, and technical apprentices Aimee Deans and Jordan Straight, each of the masks is first molded out of clay. Then a silicone mold is made from the clay model. From the silicone mold, a plaster version is poured, and thermal plastic is molded on that plaster version. Are they done yet? Oh, no. Then the masks are papier-mâché’d. That’s a five-step process for each mask. Let no one say we are not thorough!

OK, that’s all for now. We’re headed off to grab our water bottles, take five, and maybe catch the sunset later on. Thanks for reading, and be sure to stop by next week. Up next: FAT SUIT.