In middle of week four of the 2015 Opera Saratoga summer festival season—the first season he’s planned and executed since becoming artistic and general director in July 2014—Lawrence Edelson spared a few moments to speak with Classical Singer about advice for singers and what future seasons might look like in terms of repertoire.
What made you decide to program for your first season a Bel Canto favorite, a baroque piece, and a newly commissioned work, which are inherently incredibly varied works?
I think the programming speaks to the breadth and depth of what opera is and what opera can be. There are as many different types of operas as there are people who enjoy opera or who have the potential to enjoy opera. I think it’s our obligation as the only professional opera company in our region to be providing as diverse programming as possible.
Opera Saratoga, formerly Lake George Opera, many years ago did quite a bit of American work. It hadn’t been doing as much in recent years, but it’s something I feel very strongly about. I feel that every opera company has an obligation to do contemporary work—otherwise, our art form becomes a museum. So we will be doing a contemporary American piece every year, though not necessarily a world premiere.
The programming of the Baroque piece actually didn’t come out of my desire to necessarily do a Baroque opera—but in researching the company’s history, I discovered they had never done a Baroque opera before, which was a bit surprising to me.
We’re never going to abandon traditional opera. I love the traditional repertoire and I think it’s important to always include something from the beloved canon of work—and this year that choice was La Cenerentola.
What makes Dido and Aeneas stand out in this season?
When I was appointed artistic and general director, I discovered a lot about Saratoga Springs and, in particular, there is a very large dance community here. I am very interested in exploring the synergy between dance and opera. There’s so much repertoire that includes dance not as an incidental part but as integral to the storytelling or the musical structure of the piece. Dido and Aeneas is one of those pieces.
It also fit in beautifully with my desire to embrace the natural beauty of Saratoga Springs. We’re doing Dido and Aeneas in the courtyard of the National Museum of Dance, which is in Spa State Park, where our theater (Spa Little Theater) is also located. This gives us the opportunity to do an outdoor, site-specific production—which has turned out to be quite gorgeous and very special.
And the weather was favorable for last night’s opening of Dido and Aeneas?
The weather was beautiful. I will admit that doing an outdoor production can be a little stressful. Our tech period was last week, and there were a fair number of days when it was raining and we had to work around Mother Nature, but the end result is just stunning. We timed the start of the performance so that the end of the performance as Dido is dying coincides with just as it’s getting dark and there are fireflies outside. It’s really magical and something you can’t create inside the theater. The audience just loved it last night.
Audiences also got to see Cenerentola, which is a new production by you, on July 2, opening night. What is your vision with that production?
For me personally as a director—which informs what I do as general director as well—looking at Cenerentola, it wasn’t my intention to set it on a space shuttle or anything like that. I look at the story, I look at the libretto, and I look at the music and see how I feel the story needs to be told.
I don’t think that a piece like Cenerentola needs a lot of intervention. I think it needs clear storytelling that honors and respects the music. My original training was as a singer, and my first degree I was studying voice and musicology, so the score is always the beginning for me of any work.
It’s the second Rossini opera I’ve directed, and I think so much of the comedy in Cenerentola is built into the musical structure. The ensembles are brilliant. I feel my job is to bring the score to life and to tell the story in a fun—I mean, it’s a comedy—and enchanting way that is true to the fairytale.
Why did you choose the world premiere of The Long Walk, based on a book by Brian Castner, for Opera Saratoga?
The piece was commissioned by American Lyric Theater [which Edelson founded and for which he still serves as producing artistic director] in 2012. Then, when I got my position here in 2014 and I spoke to the board about how important I thought American work was, I was thinking about which one I would want to do in the first season here. The Long Walk is a perfect fit for a number of reasons. First, I think it’s an extraordinary piece. It’s one of the most important and exciting new works I’ve ever heard. I’m a fierce champion for it and composer Jeremy Howard Beck and librettist Stephanie Fleischmann. I really think they are two of the most exciting writers in opera today and that we’re going to be hearing a lot more of them.
The piece is not only an exceptional new opera; it’s also very timely. It’s about a soldier who returns from serving overseas in Iraq in an explosive ordnance disposal unit and dealing with what he calls “the Crazy” when he comes back. It’s actually not post-traumatic stress disorder; it’s revealed to be something slightly different in the opera. But it’s something that thousands of our servicemen and women are dealing with now. And the opera isn’t just about his journey, but also the journey of his wife and three children.
I felt this was an important piece for us to be doing. As timely as it is, it’s also timeless. The operatic literature has explored the idea of war and homecoming since Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses. The context continues to change, but the idea of soldiers coming back from war to a world that has changed in their eyes is quite timeless—so to be able to now explore that through the voices of Jeremy and Stephanie in this particular work is very exciting.
The piece is also a chamber work. It’s for 17 instrumentalists and a cast of seven adults and three children, so the size of the work is really ideal for our theater, which is just under 500 seats. I’m always looking for pieces that I think that will fit both musically and theatrically in our space here.
How have you branched out into the community?
This year we held a town hall meeting. Our annual meeting had typically been closed, and I thought it was a good idea to make it open, with me being new to the community, to get to know as many people as possible.
While Opera Saratoga is primarily known as a summer festival, in the past I think the company may have identified itself too strongly as solely a summer festival. I ask people, “Why does Opera Saratoga exist?” and people answer with some version of “to produce opera.” I don’t think that’s actually the right answer. For me, what we do is produce opera and different types of opera programs, but why we do it is to serve the community. When we think about everything we do through that filter, it allows us to think about what our company programs should be year-round.
We have really expanded our year-round presence in the region. I introduced a new program this winter called Saratoga Sings! It’s a series of free concerts and events at venues and locations that are unique to our region. For example, in tandem with the premiere of The Long Walk, we did a special event at the New York State Military Museum, which is located here in Saratoga Springs. That event involved the composer and librettist as well as Brian Castner, who is the author of the memoir upon which the opera is based, and Heather Johnson (mezzo-soprano) and Daniel Belcher (baritone), who are creating the lead roles. It was a free event and it was packed.
I think it’s important for us to be doing things like this on a regular basis because it makes us more of a community asset and adds value to the people who live and work in the region. So we’re not just a company that presents a few weeks of opera in a theater in the middle of summer. I think it’s a very important thing for opera companies to not isolate the way they think about themselves. Our identity should not be locked into only our fully staged productions or our primary theater.
What’s next for the Opera Saratoga’s outreach program?
The Opera-to-Go program has been at the company for many years and it’s a program I believe in very strongly. We did expand it slightly this year and we’re expanding it more significantly next season. We’re doing a new piece for the program next year. In the past, we’ve been doing versions of fairytales, a little series of short children’s operas—like The Three Little Pigs—which draw on music of Mozart or Offenbach and things like that.
We’re actually doing something a little more updated, something that I think is really exciting. It’s a piece called Operation Superpower that baritones John Brancy and Tobias Greenhalgh created with composer Armand Ranjbaran when they were all students at Juilliard. It’s a great piece that really empowers kids to find what’s special about themselves and it’s somewhat of an anti-bullying piece as well. So that’s going to be the cornerstone of our Opera-to-Go program next season.
As of early July, there are several job openings at Opera Saratoga. Is this a sign of growth for the company?
Yes, the company is definitely growing. To give you a sense of the scope, the season before I came here was two operas and it was a little over two weeks. This summer, our season is seven weeks. It is three opera productions plus 10 additional concerts and related events that are taking place throughout June and July.
It was a conscious decision on the part of the board to expand our presence in the summer—as well as with what we’re doing with our year-round expansion—so that we play a stronger role in the community. A lot of the concerts and things we’re doing over the summer are also free, so it’s a really important way for us to introduce people to our program in a risk-free way. You know, people don’t have to buy tickets [for the free events], which allows them to try new things they might not otherwise explore. And these events are at locations outside our home theater, locations that people already frequent and know well in the region.
How involved are you in the casting of mainstage and Young Artist Program singers every season?
I cast everything, so I cast all the principal roles and I do the young artist audition tour with Director of Young Artist Programs Laurie Rogers. We together screen all the applications. This year we had over 1,000 applicants and we picked 25 singers, one director, and two conducting-pianist fellows. We both reviewed every single one of those applications and we had just under 400 who were granted live auditions.
This year, I significantly expanded the Young Artist Program. In the past we’ve had somewhere around 14 singers in the program, and this year there are 25. This, in tandem with the expansion of our programming, provides a lot of additional opportunities for the singers. We have a number of young artists who are singing significant supporting roles (such as Aeneas, Belinda and the Sorceress in Dido and Aeneas, and Tisbe and Clorinda in La Cenerentola). In addition, all of the roles in all of the operas are being covered by the young artists, and there are concert opportunities for young artists throughout the season.
How do you pick just 25 singers from about 400 live auditions?
I started out as a singer; I was a young artist at Des Moines Metro Opera eons ago and I went through that process as well. And it’s hard, because when you have an audition for a Young Artist Program, you have 10 minutes at most to make an impression—and depending on the mood of the panel, the position of the moon [laughing] or whatever (there’s lots of factors), it’s challenging.
The advice I give is really be true to who you are as a singer. Don’t try to give the company what you think they want or need, but show yourself off at your best.
I heard some singers this year on the audition tour who sang beautifully who are on my radar for the future. I knew they weren’t right for what we needed this summer and I told them that. I told them, “You had a very strong audition. I want to hear you again, but you’re not a fit for this summer. This is not a ‘no,’ it’s a ‘not right now.’”
What can a singer do to stand out, whether in a good or bad way?
If you’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole—as in, if you’re not a strong Rossini singer but you see the company is doing Rossini and you try to bring a Rossini aria and you bomb, that’s what we’re going to remember. Just don’t do that. Sing what is right for your voice.
For me, being very connected to the text and being genuine with your interpretation is always incredibly important. Obviously voice is number one, but it’s as much about the connection to the text and understanding the context of your arias in the operas when you’re auditioning, because you don’t have a fully staged context to sing in an audition. I’m very aware that some people are incredible performers and don’t necessarily audition as well as they perform. There’s no easy answer to that. It’s a very challenging process, and I know young singers have to sing tons of young artist auditions throughout the course of the fall, so just be very true to who you are as a singer and what your strengths are—and sing something you love, as well.
When I was auditioning, I would start with the Magician’s aria from The Consul, and everyone would tell me I was crazy because it wasn’t something that everybody knew, but it was something I loved to sing and it was something I knew I sang really well. And when I did that, I would sing better auditions. When I sang things that I thought I should sing because I thought that’s what the panel wanted to hear, I’d say 90 percent of the time the auditions didn’t go nearly as well.
What should we expect to see repertoire-wise in future seasons at Opera Saratoga? Should we expect an expanded summer festival plus extra engagements through the year?
The season that we have this year with Cenerentola, The Long Walk, and Dido is reflective of the diversity that the company is going to be presenting in the future. It’s not always going to be world premieres and it’s not always going to be a Baroque piece or a Bel Canto piece—but you will definitely see very diverse repertoire.
We’re not going to be doing three warhorses in the season. I don’t think that serves any company, audiences, or the field. We’ll do a beloved piece that people know, something out of the ordinary, and something that has a dance element in it—because that’s something that’s important for us and our identity. And in terms of our young artist auditions, we want singers who are excited about the opportunity to explore the diversity of repertoire that we are going to be presenting.
