Letter to Students, 2009–10

Season Overview

Quick links:
New students
Interviews
Auditions
Feedback
Casting policy
Faculty & Staff
Classes

The outline of the 2009–10 opera season can be seen in the Season Calendar. It is similar to last year in terms of scale, with two major productions (Così fan tutte and Die Fledermaus), one chamber opera (Transformations), an Opera Potpourri triple-bill of short operas in French (including Rameau’s Adonis with baroque orchestra), an evening of brand-new Opera Etudes, and an outreach adaptation of The Magic Flute. In addition, several performance-intensive classes will be offered over the course of the year.
 

Meetings for New Students

All incoming students should come to a mandatory meeting in the Opera Studio, 114 Leakin Hall, on Thursday August 27, at the following times: 9:45–10:45 for graduates, or 11:00–12:00 for freshmen and undergraduate transfers. If you can’t make one of these times, it is better to come to the meeting for the other group than to miss out altogether. People who have already been at Peabody in another program are not required to attend.

Opera in Friedberg Hall: The Turn of the Screw

Interviews

All students, whether new or returning, must sign up for an interview with Roger Brunyate between Thursday August 27 and Wednesday September 2. Sign-up sheets for these will be posted on the Opera Board outside the Opera Office (114 Leakin Hall); these will also say where Mr. Brunyate will be on any particular day. The purpose of these interviews is to get to know new students and to touch base with old ones, establishing preferences and priorities for the year ahead. Please schedule your interview before your diagnostic audition (see the following section). Please also bring the completed Personal Data Form with you to the interview; these forms can be picked up outside the Opera Office.

Rapt audience for a Peabody Outreach performance

Diagnostic and Call-back Auditions

Diagnostic auditions are required of everybody except Opera GPD majors who wish to participate in any aspect of the Opera program (including classes). These will take place in the later afternoons and evenings of Monday August 31 through Wednesday September 2. Audition blocks will be assigned by the department, so that singers from one studio can sing together and be heard by their teacher, but students must still sign for a specific time within their block, on the sheet posted on the Opera Board. Freshmen will be heard together on Monday August 31, since it is less likely that they will be considered for roles in major productions.

For the diagnostic auditions, singers should be prepared to offer two arias. One of these must be in English. One or both of the arias should be simply staged, so that we can see how the performer creates a character in a dramatic context; do not use any but the simplest of props. [These requirements will be interpreted liberally for underclassmen, who may audition with one or more songs rather than arias if they wish, and/or perform a musical-theater excerpt, whether staged or not.] Graduate students who wish to be considered for the Dramatic Text class are also asked to prepare a one-minute spoken monologue. Singers may sign up on the opera board to rehearse briefly with the staff accompanist in advance of the auditions; they are also welcome to bring their own accompanist.

Callbacks for major productions will be held in the afternoon and evening of Friday September 4. These will be held on a sign-up basis for those invited; names will be posted after auditions on the Wednesday evening. Given the relatively short rehearsal time for our productions, preference will be given to singers who can show that they have already made substantial progress in learning the role for which they are applying. Roles in the productions of the Opera Workshop and Opera Outreach will be assigned from the diagnostic auditions without further callback. [See Production Organizations for more information on these categories.]

Singers interested in participating in the baroque portion of the October Opera Potpourri should indicate this on their audition forms, and may be asked to audition for the Early Music Department on Thursday 3 or Friday 4 September, in addition to any major-production callback.

Please note, however, that since most roles for the year will be cast in early September, singers who do not make themselves available for the diagnostic auditions and callbacks may not get cast unless they have obtained a special dispensation in advance. Also note that singers may not sign a binding contract with a professional chorus affecting their second-semester availability until the casting has been completed.

Dido and Aeneas at Grace and St. Peters’

Feedbacks

After the auditions, on Tuesday September 8 through Thursday September 10, the faculty of the department will hold feedback sessions, in which students may ask for more information about how they came across in their auditions. These are entirely voluntary, and will be held on a sign-up basis. You should know that while the faculty always aim to be objective in support of the singer’s longer-term development, we would not be any use to you if we were not honest, and some students in the past have found our comments uncomfortable to hear. If you are new to us, of course, we say what we do on the basis of having heard you once or possibly twice, and there is certainly much more to you than we could ever know. Nevertheless, most of the jobs that singers get are secured on precisely this basis — as the result of singing for somebody who hears them only that one time — so it is important to know how you actually come over in such circumstances, as opposed to how you think you do.

Producing an opera: The Yellow Wallpaper

Casting Policy

We work carefully to distribute performance opportunities among the students in the department, with an ear for potential as much as for talent. So far as possible, we try to give a varied diet over a student’s career, in terms of scale, genre, and period. Inevitably, more opportunities tend to go to the more advanced performers, although we try to program works suitable for younger singers also. Where several singers are suitable for a role, preference is given to full-time students in good academic standing. We have always tried to give every singer a role in an Opera Theatre or Chamber Opera production before they graduate, but must emphasize that this depends on numbers and the balance of voice-types and so cannot be guaranteed. Furthermore we generally do not give singers more than one sizeable role per year, except where this is unavoidable due to numbers; the main exception are Opera GPD majors, who are required to perform each semester.

All roles in the present season are open to audition; none have been pre-cast. While casting decisions are made by the faculty of the department, all performance assignments are checked with the student’s voice teacher before being posted, and the teachers have the final say. Very occasionally, we may have to withdraw a singer from a role during rehearsal if the teacher feels it is becoming harmful. Teachers do not nominate their students for roles, however, and casting is made without regard to studio. We also discuss our choice of repertoire with the Voice faculty each year before it is announced.

Generally, at least one production each year involves a chorus; this year, however, three of them do, although two are small. Rameau’s Adonis, to be given on October 19, has a chamber chorus whose music is central to the work. The chorus roles in Così fan tutte will be taken by a very small group, possibly even a solo quartet, who will be responsible for a variety of other interesting stage roles as well. For Die Fledermaus, of course, the chorus needs to be a large one, involving ballroom dancing and a range of bizarre characters. All three shows offer an excellent opportunity for gaining stage experience. Choral slots will be filled by assignment, using volunteers wherever possible. However, all students who accept solo roles in any departmental production may be assigned to sing in the chorus of one show for each two years of residence; accepting a role implies acceptance of this commitment, and conversely successful participation in a chorus triggers a priority on our part to find the singer a suitable role in the future.

Backstage at The Magic Flute

Faculty and Artistic Staff

While not all details have been confirmed as yet, we expect the following people to work with the department during the course of the year:

• Carol Bartlett, the Chair of the Peabody Preparatory Dance Department, will teach Movement for the Stage in the first semester, as well as assisting with the productions of Adonis and Die Fledermaus.
• Jennifer Blades, will repeat her successful outreach production of Papageno! and stage a new production of Transformations at Theatre Project. Depending on numbers, she may also direct some of the Opera Etudes.
• Garnett Bruce is unable to direct a production this season, but will be offering a variety of class and coaching sessions in the middle of the year.
• Roger Brunyate, Chair and Artistic Director of the Opera Department, teaches Acting for Opera and Dramatic Text. He will direct Die Fledermaus, the French triple-bill, and many of the Opera Etudes. He will also offer a Seminar in Opera Composition and take part in the POCP (Professional Opera Coaching) program.
• Eileen Cornett, who also runs the Accompanying program at Peabody, will coach Die Fledermaus and supervise Papageno!. She will teach a class on Musical Theater in the fall, and be one of the coaches in the POCP program throughout the year.
• James Harp, a Peabody alumnus formerly with the Baltimore Opera Company and one of the most sought-after coaches in the region, is now building a separate career as a stage-director. He will offer a class in the winter semester that combines his many areas of expertise.
• JoAnn Kulesza, the Music Director of the Opera Program, will coach and conduct Così fan tutte and Transformations. She will also supervise the musical preparation of the Opera Etudes, and coach in the POCP program.
• Hajime Teri Murai, Music Director of the Peabody Orchestras, will conduct the Opera Theatre production of Die Fledermaus.
• A. Scott Parry, guest director, has worked with the New York City Opera for many years, and is building a strong presence in US opera companies. He will join us in the fall semester to direct Così fan tutte.
• Adam Pearl, the music director of Rameau’s Adonis in October, teaches harpsichord in the Early Music Department at Peabody, and is music director of the American Opera Theatre.

Further information on all these people may be found by passing your cursor over “People” in the menu box at the top left of this page.

In addition, we welcome back Judy Diann Bennett, our departmental manager, after spending the summer with the Wolf Trap Opera. Her arrival two years ago as the first full-time staff appointment in this position, coming to us with long experience of handling scheduling and similar administrative tasks with the Washington National Opera, made an immense difference to the running of the office. She is in charge of all the scheduling and administrative business of department. She is assisted this year by Stephanie Miller, who holds a half-assistantship in charge of outreach, by Bill Schaller, who will work with web projects, and by other student workers yet to be appointed.

Our accompanying assistants for the year will be Bukyung Shin, Younggun Kim, and Hye Jin Kwon. Other pianists will also take on specific classes and projects during the course of the year.

The final product: penultimate scene of The Magic Flute

Classes

Click here for a list of the Opera Department’s regular classes. The following additional points should be noted
:

• The Fall Opera Styles and Traditions is being taught by Eileen Cornett, and will be a performance-based class devoted to Musical Theater.
• The Winter/Spring Opera Styles and Traditions course will be taught by James Harp. The specific topic for this class, which will involve aspects of both musical and stage performance, will be announced shortly.
• Roger Brunyate will offer a Seminar in Opera Composition in the first semester. Students will be nominated by the faculty of the Composition Department, and will go on to write short operas for performance in the Opera Etude program on May 4.
• Garnett Bruce will offer a seminar on Creating a Character in the last two weeks of the fall semester and the first two weeks of the winter. Students in the course, whose precise logistical structure has yet to be determined, will coach opera scenes and stage them for in-house performance. Mr. Bruce will also offer non-credit coaching for singers preparing arias for professional audition.

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Photo credits: Jesse Hellmann (Peabody Outreach); Peter Wen-Chih Lee (Dido and Aeneas and backstage); Corey Weaver (The Turn of the Screw, The Yellow Wallpaper, and The Magic Flute). 

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