La Musica Lirica (www.lamusicalirica.com) is an established and respected summer opera program that takes place in the picturesque town of Novafeltria, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. General Director Brygida Bziukiewicz and Artistic Director Kathryn Hartgrove, the program’s co-founders, have managed the program since its inception in 2000. Early each calendar year, auditions are held in a dozen or so U.S. cities and one Canadian city, with mail-in DVDs accepted if an in-person audition is not possible.
Hundreds of students from across the U.S., Canada, and Brazil (and beyond) apply and audition for the five-week-long program. La Musica Lirica is, as almost all European study programs are, fairly expensive, especially once one figures in non-inclusive costs, such as air travel and spending money. There are very few scholarships available, but the program is a 501(c)(3), meaning donations to the program in a student’s behalf are tax deductible. I wrote letters to friends and family members, performed two fundraiser concerts, and used a Facebook application called FundRazr in order to obtain donations, and I ended up paying very little out of my own pocket. Payments are divided into several installments: a small deposit is due with the signing of the contract, a few weeks later a check drawn in Euros is due, and the remainder in U.S. dollars is due approximately seven weeks prior to arrival in Italy.
Most of the students travel from Rome to Novafeltria on a chartered bus provided by the program free of charge. The students must arrange their arrival times at Fiumicino to coordinate with the bus departure time, or they have the option of making their own way. I flew to Italy a few days early for some sightseeing and was able to get accustomed to the time difference well before rehearsals began; many of my colleagues were battling jet lag on the first day of rehearsals. Several students and a few faculty members ran into trouble when their flights were delayed or canceled—but once they landed, arrangements were made to get them to Novafeltria. One of the unlucky delayed was the inimitable Carroll Freeman, stage director for the opera in which I was cast, who handily staged a full Rossini opera in less than one week of afternoon- and evening-only rehearsals.
Participants pay a housing fee, including a refundable deposit, upon moving into the shared apartments in Novafeltria. Many students are placed in the locally owned and operated Hotel Magda, which has kitchens in some units, a restaurant, wireless Internet service (for a fee), and a wonderful family environment. Others stay in apartments around the small town. The apartments I saw were all furnished with beds, sheets, dressers, kitchen furniture, towels, and dishes, and ranged from two or three people sharing a large 1BR/1B to five people in a 3BR/1.5B. I had planned on rooming with my two closest friends from my university, but I hadn’t lived with roommates for many years so I was a bit apprehensive about how things would go. Two people from our same school whom I’d never met were placed with the three of us in an apartment with one functioning shower, one washing machine, two toilets, and a refrigerator the size of a generous cupboard—and I’m pleased to say that we got along famously!
In order to accept a role once it has been offered, the singer signs a performance agreement, like a contract. The expectation to arrive memorized and ready to work is non-negotiable: extreme cases though these were, two or three students during my summer in the program were relieved of their roles due to lack of preparation, lack of memorization, or lack of cooperation. Professionalism is key.
With very few exceptions, the three operas chosen are by Italian composers and, with zero exceptions, they are all performed in Italian. Rumor has it that Italians prefer their own composers to Italian-language offerings by non-Italian composers. In the summer of 2011, the operas were La Cenerentola, Rigoletto, and Don Bucefalo by Antonio Cagnoni, an opera quite popular during its first years but which fell out of the public eye when the publishing house decided to stop printing copies of the score.
The singers in the program are divided up according to the scenes or operas in which they are cast: Opera Division, Young Artist Division, and Studio Artist Division.
The Opera Division singers are those who are cast in the lead roles of the two top-billed operas. Opera Division students work under the baton of Maestro Joseph Rescigno, an Italian American conductor who speaks Italian as authentically as the man weighing your radicchio at the market. For performances, LML hires members of a professional orchestra in the area named “Orchestra ‘Città di Ravenna.’” When I attended, the largest female roles in the Opera Division—Angelina in La Cenerentola and Gilda in Rigoletto—were triple-cast, but the other women’s roles were double-cast. Male roles were generally double-cast, but sometimes single-cast because of last-minute cancellations by students. The newly announced repertoire for the 2012 program is Puccini’s La bohème and Rossini’s Il barbiere di Siviglia.
The Young Artists are those who are cast in an opera that, in the past, has been accompanied on the piano by Young Artist Program Musical Director (and one-man orchestra) Jeffrey Price, who coaches the students’ diction and music with superb skill. The roles in the YA opera were double- or single-cast. L’incoronazione di Poppea will be the Young Artist Division opera for 2012, and more exciting news was just announced: Maestro Price will be conducting a group of strings from the harpsichord—the first YA production to have an orchestra!
The Studio Artists are, in general, younger or less experienced vocalists who have come to the program to participate in the scenes program. Each Studio Artist is given at least one scene with a prominent solo role. (Some YAs are also cast in the scenes concerts.) The Studio singers are also cast in one or more opera choruses and, occasionally, in comprimario roles of the three operas. Specific concerts are designated for only the Studio Division so that those students with less stage time have a chance to take the stage as soloists without the pressure and commitment of a large operatic role.
LML has also developed a program for collaborative artists (a more appreciative term than “accompanist” for our pianistic partners-in-performance), also led by Jeffrey Price. The LML website describes the Collaborative Artist Division as being “for pianists focused on a professional coaching career, looking to strengthen their Italian language skills and their ability to coach singers in the Italian style of singing. Each participant will receive up to 20 hours of Italian per week, daily observations with the Rossini Opera Festival coaches, two weekly classes with Mr. Price, studio assignments, accompanying assignments, and concert performances.”
Students as young as 17 and as old as 38 took part in 2011 La Musica Lirica; education ranged from DMA graduates to freshmen, while experience ranged from avocational singers to seasoned emerging professionals. Regardless of age, education, or experience, each student who showed a deep dedication to the art of singing made great strides in diction, stagecraft, musicianship, and professionalism by the end of the program.
There are many, many opportunities to perform, regardless of the division in which a singer has been placed. A student must secure his or her accompanist and then sign up on a form several days in advance in order to have the opportunity to perform in these extra evening events. The repertoire primarily consists of arias in Italian, with a few art songs sprinkled in. Ubaldo Fabbri, general director of Voci nel Montefeltro (the overarching summer music festival in the area, of which LML is a part) announces the title of the aria or song, the opera it comes from, and the names of the singer and pianist before each piece. The site of these opera concerts, which are generally well attended by both locals and fellow students, is the Teatro Sociale, Novafeltria’s theater.
One concert in particular has become a favorite among the residents of Novafeltria and its environs—it also turned out to be the highlight of the concert schedule for me. LML provides an evening of sacred music and spirituals once a summer at the local church. Of extraordinary interest to those in attendance in 2011 seemed to be the African American spirituals, which were sung by a handful of LML students. These pieces, along with an impromptu group rendition of “This Little Light of Mine,” garnered the most thunderous applause of the evening.
Each singer receives two 45-minute voice lessons and two half-hour coachings per week. Upon signing the performance agreement, students are given the opportunity to make known a preference for a specific voice teacher, if desired. Both Bziukiewicz and Hartgrove teach voice, and the other voice teachers are university faculty members from all over the U.S., with a few based in Canada. Last summer a handful of students found themselves dissatisfied with their assigned voice teachers. So long as the student had given his or her teacher a bona fide chance, the directors acted quickly to make more suitable matches for those students. The faculty roster does vary slightly from year to year, but most of the voice teachers have come to the program for several years. There is a faculty showcase concert where each voice teacher is able to share a song or aria in an outdoor concert on the piazza.
Coaches from the Rossini Opera Festival (based in Pesaro—the Rossinian Mecca), all of whom are native speakers, come to Novafeltria every year for the benefit of the vocalists. About half of the coaches were comfortable in English to varying degrees; I found it most useful to have them speak in Italian until I didn’t understand something. The attention to detail and nuance of Italian diction to be gained during these coaching sessions is absolutely invaluable. I brought my iPod and a microphone so I could record both my lessons and coachings.
The town of Novafeltria is quite small but quite comfortable, with friendly faces to welcome “their singers” at every turn. It seemed that a fair percentage of citizens over the age of 30 were either unable to speak in English or were only minimally conversant. They are, however, patient and helpful to those who honestly try to speak Italian. To make a general statement about Italians, they seem to want foreigners to succeed in speaking—they complete halting sentences, offer vocabulary to the mentally encumbered or tongue-tied, and strive to understand what is spoken to them, all with generous smiles and plenty of gesticulation.
The students are given a test of Italian comprehension on the first full day. Then they are divided into four classes and study each weekday morning with teachers who are all native speakers of Italian, and most of whom speak English very well. Students with an acceptable attendance record who wish to gain a certificate of beginning or intermediate Italian have the option of taking a standardized test during the final week of class.
The typical day at LML begins with an 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Italian class. Everyone is given a lunch break at noon. Lessons and coachings are primarily scheduled from 12:30 p.m. until about 4:00 p.m., when opera staging and musical rehearsals begin. Opera rehearsals generally continue until as late as 10:00 p.m., with sufficient breaks for dinner and such. If there is a concert or performance scheduled on any given evening, the rehearsals end by about 8:00 p.m. to ensure every student’s availability to participate or attend.
Classes, lessons, and coachings are held in a school in the center of town, across the tiny cobblestone street from the Teatro Sociale. Additional staging rehearsals are held at a cinema, up a small hill near the church. The school is the only one of the main rehearsal buildings that is furnished with portable air conditioning units (in most of the classrooms), an amenity for which we Americans are most particularly grateful. The heat indoors can be oppressive, and even a few moments without the air conditioner running can mean a resurgence of perspiration, of which there was no shortage for any of the 80 or so students in the program. The classrooms double as practice rooms later in the day (after classes and lessons) and on Sundays, when there are seldom scheduled rehearsals.
Of the three summer programs I have attended over the past several years, La Musica Lirica is the most efficient (regarding money and time), best organized, and most useful to preparing for a career in opera.
