VVivace Spring 2013 premiere iSSue
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model and a unique performance space have created a strong artistic legacy that positions the company well for expanded success."
The
This fall we welcomed Marc Scorca, President and CEO of Opera America. He offered his thoughts: “Opera is experiencing a period of great creative vitality and audience interest. More young singers, composers and other artists are seeking to make a career in opera. More companies are performing more American operas performed by outstanding American artists than ever before. Live transmissions are attracting tens of thousands of new audiences. There are many reasons to be optimistic.” Regarding Des Moines Metro Opera, Scorca said: "Forty-one years ago this company was founded in the vanguard of the regional opera movement. Today, thanks to the foresight of pioneering stakeholders, the company's endowment places it in an enviable position in comparison with peer companies. The summer festival performance
Welcome to the premiere issue of Vivace, Des Moines Metro Opera’s bi-annual newsletter. Although our stage is dark at this time of year, we are thrilled to be able to greet you in the "off-season" and provide you with this update thanks to Community State Bank. Their sponsorship of this inaugural issue enables us to provide this beautiful newsletter to our friends and patrons in Iowa and beyond.
ViVace | SPRIng 2013 | DESMOInESMETROOPERA ORg 2 3 A Look Back 2012: THE 40TH AnnIVERSARy SEASOn 5 Romeo and Juliet 7 Peter grimes 9 Elektra 11 SOunD BITES/ CATCHIng uP WITH . . . 12 THE EnCORE SOCIETy/ OPERA IOWA 13 PLAnnIng yOuR TRIP S AVE THE DATES TICkET InFORMATIOn Contents
Of course, incredible opera is not all we do! As Iowa's largest and most active performing arts organization, Des Moines Metro Opera is an important vehicle for music education whose commitment to creating new audience members is stronger than ever. Our OPERA Iowa Educational Touring Troupe began its tour of the length and breadth of our state in January; our renowned apprentice artist singer-training program had 1,227 applicants this year; and our new program for high school musicians, Raising Voices-Rising Stars, has been enormously popular.
Michael Egel, Artistic Director
Welcome!
The LauridSen FamiLy endowmenT iS 2013 SeaSon preSenTing SponSor
Summer will be here before you know it! Single tickets go on sale February 18, but certain dates are already filling up through subscription sales—so don’t wait to purchase yours. To those whose enthusiasm has been followed by financial support for our 2013 season, thank you! If you have not, I hope you will consider doing so. It will take all of us working together to nurture a thriving opera company and make Des Moines Metro Opera central Iowa’s premier destination for professional theatre and stunning vocalism. And with your help, I am sure we will do just that!
The 40th anniversary season is behind us and it was incredible. Critical reviews and audience enthusiasm could not have been better. I’m pleased to report that 55% percent of the audience was from the Des Moines area; 45% of the audience was composed of cultural tourists whose belief in the quality of our productions draws them to our region from 30 other states and 2 foreign countries!
Vivace newsletter, spring 2013, is published bi-annually by Des Moines Metro opera, Inc., 106 West Boston Avenue, Indianola, Iowa 50125-1836. Volume 1, Issue 1.
“des moines metro opera scored a complete triumph Saturday night with the company’s firstever performance of eugeneTchaikovsky’sonegin.”
40Th anniVerSary SeaSon
“dmmo’s first-rate Don Giovanni was graced by a powerful performance of the leading role, a strong trio of inamoratas and an insightful staging... This was possibly the most satisfying Giovanni i have encountered on the regional opera scene in the u.S.” OPERA NEWS
“The enviable success of the season—entirely planned by michael egel, who succeeded company founder robert Larsen in 2010—and the happy news of david neely’s appointment as dmmo’s first-ever music director, portend some exciting operatic growth at des moines in years to come.” - OPERA NEWS
don gioVanni
The Des Moines Register
A Look Back 2012
“as gorgeous as the visuals are— and every inch of the show show.”theforwhat’sin…areallyfirstJoycestunning—it’sisel-Khoury’sariathatpullsyousignalofinstoretherestofknock-out
The Des Moines Register
EugEnE OnEgIn
La rondine
don gioVanni
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La rondine“
EugEnE OnEgIn Eugene Onegin is an absolute gem of a show. This production demonstrates why opera at its finest is a unique experience combining the beauty of the trained natural human voice, great orchestral music, theatrical settings and the expansion of the emotional content of the story by the interplay of these elements. des moines metro opera is a unique iowa cultural treasure that has gainednationalwell-deservedattention.”Johngraether,marshalltown,ia
wonderful“wegioVannicamedownfromminneapoliswithourgoodfriends…wethoroughlyenjoyedtheoperawithitsfreshapproachandvoices.wearestilltalkingaboutyourunexpectedmachotakeondongiovanniandthewonderfulintimacyonthethruststage.”KateKemper,minneapolis,mn
La Rondine was perfection. what a joy to see it performed for the first time. it will not soon be KansasBobforgotten.”gomez,city,mo ViVace | SPRIng 2013 | DESMOInESMETROOPERA.ORg 4
Amid countless Romeo and Juliet adaptations, gounod's opera still holds its bloom
A Rose By Any otheRnAMe
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So what makes gounod's opera a rare bird? It's not just that it's based on Shakespeare's tragedy, but that it was an incredibly successful adaptation! There are hundreds of Shakespeare operas—and a couple of dozen based on Romeo and Juliet—but, astonishingly, of those hundreds only a few still merit inclusion in the repertory, and of the many, only one true hit. gounod’s music comes closer to capturing the pathos of Shakespeare than other operatic adaptations, outside the works of Verdi.
cut a few scenes that didn't deal directly with the two lovers, but they found time to add a character, the page boy Stephano, a trouser-role sung by a mezzosoprano. Barbier and Carré also tweaked the ending. In the play, when Juliet finally awakens in the tomb, Romeo is already dead. In the opera, when she wakes up, Romeo still has a few flickers of life, enough to sing together before Juliet then stabs herself. The passionate duet far exceeds the lovers’ supposed state of health—as a near-dead Romeo would have been neither willing nor able to sing out a high C!
Like the play, the opera takes place in Renaissance Verona. It begins with a prologue, during which the chorus foreshadows the action to come. They sing about the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets and the love between Romeo and Juliet. Since Shakespeare's initial Act I fight is excluded, there is less escalation of tension between the houses of Montague and Capulet in the opera. While some of these departures may seem too great to a Shakespeare purist, the opera’s strength lies in how loyal the librettists were to Shakespeare’s immortal words. They tailored the libretto to include the play’s most poignant moments while compressing the dramatic action to mitigate the typically slower pace of the operatic genre. The result is an adaptation that does incredible justice to the world’s most famous love story. Critics and scholars have often called the opera a love duet with occasional interruptions! It achieves a delicate and effortlessly lyrical quality that is typical of gounod, a man who might have been writing about his own operas when he said: “France is essentially the country of precision, neatness and taste, that is to say the opposite of excess, pretentiousness, disproportion and long-windedness.”
you may be surprised to learn it, but Charles gounod's Romeo and Juliet, based on Shakespeare's famous play, is a rare thing in opera. Over the centuries Romeo and Juliet has inspired composers of all kinds of music. There are pop songs, symphonic poems, and Broadway musicals—the latter's best known example being West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim, which in turn, spawned its own countless "covers" of hit tunes. Even the films inspired by Shakespeare's tragedy have spawned musical hits, the most memorable being the love theme "A Time For us" from Franco Zeffirelli's cinematic version.
When Charles gounod turned his attention to Romeo and Juliet in 1867, he'd already had a big hit with another adaptation—an opera based on goethe's Faust—and he chose to collaborate with the same librettists, Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. They stuck fairly close to the original play—the first eight lines of the prologue, Mercutio’s Queen Mab monologue, the Holy Palmers' kiss conversation, the balcony scene, and Juliet’s poison monologue are all translated into French nearly verbatim. But due to the longer dramatic pacing of an opera and the addition of music, Barbier and Carré
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complete cast and production information at desmoinesmetroopera.org
All told, there have been at least 41 cinematic Romeo and Juliets, some nearly as old as the cinema itself. The most famous of these movies is the forementioned Franco Zeffirelli production from 1968 starring Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey (pictured above) as the titular two. Douglas Booth and Hailee Steinfeld will play Romeo and Juliet in a film version directed by Carlo Carlei to be released later this year. Leslie Howard and norma Shearer, Laurence Harvey and Susan Shentall, and Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes are some other celebrity portrayers of the pair on screen. The story is also the basis of a movie called Romeo.Juliet from 1990 that used feral cats as the actors and dubbed their voices with the likes of Vanessa Redgrave, Ben kingsley and Dame Maggie Smith. There’s also the 1969 film, The Secret Sex Lives of Romeo and Juliet, which used Shakespeare’s story mainly as an excuse to show excessive nudity. It was distributed with the tagline “Winner of Best Erotic Film at the Cannes Erotic Film Festival”—a competition that doesn’t exist!
gartland and Slayden in the 2008 apprentice artist performance of the final scene from Romeo and Juliet
des moines metro opera’s upcoming production has special significance as it reunites two of the company’s finest apprentice artists. in 2008 tenor Jason Slayden and soprano Sara gartland had tremendous success with the final scene of Romeo and Juliet in a concert series, and both went on to gain prominent attention as rapidly rising professional artists.
Jason Slayden romeo Sara gartland JuLieT
Slayden made several important debuts with the wolf Trap opera, Vancouver opera and the Santa Fe opera where he stepped in as rodolfo in La Bohème at the last minute to replace an ailing colleague. Says Slayden, “i am thrilled to return to des moines metro opera this summer as romeo. not only will it be my debut in the role, but i look forward to continuing the work i began with Sara. it's also exciting to return to the place where i took my first steps as a professional singer!"
Other adaptations include a Japanese anime television show; a Singaporean film called Chicken Rice War (2000) about forbidden romance between rival rice shops; a martial arts variation called Romeo Must Die (2000); Romie-0 and Julie-8 (1979) about robots made by combating companies; Rome and Jewel (2006) a hip-hop version of the story; and last year’s Gnomeo and Juliet, a love story among lawn
the company produced the piece in 1986, there have been 9 movies for theaters and television directly based on the tale and no fewer than 50 adaptations and reworkings. Des Moines Metro Opera is pleased to add its vision to that rich tapestry.
ViVace | SPRIng 2013 | DESMOInESMETROOPERA ORg 6 romeo and JuLieT charles gounod June 21 | June 28 | July 6 | July 11 7:30pm June 23 | July 14 2:00pm
The two will be joined by stage director Linda ade Brand, who worked with them both on the final scene in 2008, and debut conductor Kostis protopapas of the Tulsa opera. •
Sincegnomes.thelasttime
Speaking of adaptations...
gartland quickly became an adler Fellow at the prestigious San Francisco opera where she has appeared as micaëla in Carmen and in several other roles. "To have the opportunity to portray a character like Juliet, who simply feels the purest, most passionate, and mind blowing kind of love, is exhilarating," gartland says of the role. "Juliet marries the love of her life and dies for him. They defy the rules of their own world to be together.”
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no longer a separate individual...he was bearing the burden of all those other outcasts who are rejected by their law-abiding neighbours because they are different from other people. When the tragedy had reached its quiet end and the opera was over, the listeners knew they had been hearing a masterpiece, and that nothing like this had ever happened before in English music. They stood up and shouted.”
With our performances of Peter Grimes during the summer of 2013, directed by kristine McIntyre, who has led our acclaimed productions of La Bohème (2011) and Eugene Onegin (2012), Des Moines Metro Opera will join the year-long worldwide celebration of Benjamin Britten’s centenary. Britten died in 1976 and in retrospect over his long compositional career, he can safely be called the most important and most performed opera composer of the 20th century.
a premier premiere
From its auspicious premiere in 1945, the remarkable Peter Grimes has weathered critics, audiences and the test of time
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Esteemed British musician Imogen Holst wrote with excitement of the premiere performance:
June 30 2:00pm
Sinead Mulhern Todd Thomas eLLen orFord capTain BaLSTrode
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“No one in the audience that night will ever forget the excitement of that evening. Here at last was a real English opera that was going to live side by side with any of the great operas of the world. The drama in the music was utterly compelling from the first note to the last. The story moved swiftly and the singers sang memorable tunes that could be taken home and whistled. The music stretched beyond the boxed-in sides of the stage, and when the hostile crowds in the wings sang out “Peter Grimes!”, their voices sounded as if they were coming from far along the coast. In the fog of a terrible man-hunt, the poor demented fisherman seemed to grow in stature until he was
June 22 | July 2 | July 5 | July 13 7:30pm
With its haunting, yet appealing music and profound psychological insight, Britten’s tale of the outcast fisherman Peter grimes has become the most performed British opera in the international repertoire, and arguably the most important piece of the 20th century.
peTer grimeS Benjamin Britten
The decision to commission a premiere opera for the post-World War II re-opening of the Sadlers Wells, an English opera company, was a bold one. Bold because there was no tradition of opera composition in England, little appetite for audiences wanting to see contemporary opera and the opera chosen was by a young, unknown composer named Benjamin Britten. yet the faith of Artistic Director Joan Cross in this new opera Peter Grimes carried the project through a challenging rehearsal period and to a historical opening night in 1945. Cross later recalled that the music “made a terrific impression” and that the storm music “simply knocked you over.”
complete cast and production information at desmoinesmetroopera.org
Peter Grimes' star tenor talks about tackling the title role for the first time
Before those performances he’ll have to prepare, which means pouring over the libretto. “The first thing I do is spend time reading it,” Honeywell says. "I don’t sing it,
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“I started as an actor,” says Roger Honeywell, 45, who grew up in Toronto but lives in Stratford now, “and I love intimate theaters. The Stratford theater has a great festival with a thrust stage and you can be inches from audience members. Literally they are upon you and that’s fantastic. It gives you such focus and concentration that you can feel your effect on the audience. They are a part of the performance.” Since appearing in Henry V, The Merchant of Venice and any number of other productions for the Stratford Festival, Honeywell has become one of north America’s most exciting tenors and finest singing actors in opera today. Though he has plenty of Shakespeare experience, audiences won’t see Honeywell in Romeo and Juliet this summer. He’s singing the title role in Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes, an opera by another staple of England’s artistic legacy.
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I just read it, looking for keys into my character. I look for what other characters say about my character and what he says about himself and then try to bridge the two.” Honeywell will be working a lot with stage director kristine McIntyre even before either arrive in Indianola to work on characterization. He has also reached out to a few other famous grimeses for inspiration. “One of my favorite singers and a fellow Canadian, Jon Vickers, is pretty much the standard bearer for the role, and I’ve listened to his recording hundreds of times, and other recordings, like my friend Anthony Dean griffey’s,” Honeywell says. “However, griffey told me the other night in Chicago to stop listening to recordings because you may try to force your vocal interpretation into a place that isn't necessarily right.”
“grimes is so complex. you can take him in so many directions and they are all correct,” he says of Britten’s anti-hero. “I’m going to try to make him as psychological and real as possible. I spend a lot of time asking, 'Where did things go wrong for him? Why is his life so tragic?' I can’t say definitively until rehearsals, but that's part of the process. Even from performance to performance, I’ll be trying to find the truth in it, the beauty in it and the universality.”
Honeywell and McIntyre, along with Maestro neely, will work together to fine-tune Honeywell’s portrayal, specifically created for the unique theater at Des Moines Metro Opera. With such an intimate space, Honeywell will have to rely on his non-singing acting chops. "For a role like this, acting is key,” he says. “It’s a difficult thing; you have to have a very good understanding of your technique and stagecraft. you need to be able to go farther than just the musical structure. It speaks on a different level.”
“It’s a masterpiece,” Honeywell says of Grimes. “It’s one of the greatest 20th century operas; there are no comparisons to it. Certainly for the tenor repertoire, this is one of the major highlights.” It’s also a role that Honeywell has never sung before. Honeywell’s remarkable career has taken him all over the world and encompasses many roles, including Pinkerton with Fort Worth Opera, Don José with Pittsburgh Opera, and Cavaradossi for Florida grand Opera, Portland Opera and Fort Worth. He recently appeared at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Metropolitan Opera and Opéra de Montréal in roles as varied as La Bohème’s Rodolfo, The Flying Dutchman’s Erik and James nolan in Doctor Atomic, but he’s never sung Peter Grimes
uponHoneywellStratford
Strauss’ command of tone painting was legendary. The unyielding nature of the title character is illustrated through stony harmonies. Jagged, slashing rhythms express the violence of Elektra’s tongue and the swing of the ax that killed her father and will, in turn, kill his murderers. Sickly, layered harmonies that mix dissonance and lush consonance suggest the decaying state of the household.
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des moines metro opera's principal conductor and music director david neely takes a break from the conductor’s score to discuss Elektra and why it is one of the most difficult operas in the repertory!
At the time of composition, the orchestra for Elektra was the largest seen in an opera pit—over 90 players. The large orchestra allows the composer to not only create full, thick sounds, but also a myriad of small instrumental combinations critical to telling the story in sound. Most modern productions use a composersanctioned reduction, as will DMMO. Some details of orchestration and text-painting are worth pointing out: the blood of Agamemnon running down the house’s walls (he was murdered in the bath) as envisioned by Elektra, dogs barking in the distance, and sickening stillness at the heart of klytämnestra’s sleepless guiltridden nights, where harmonies and tone colors shift like shadows upon her mother’s conscience.
ELEkTRA BrowneLLBySponSorediSFranKr.iii
With the jarring full-force orchestral cry of “Agamemnon” begins one of the most intensely expressionistic operas of all time. In Elektra, Richard Strauss and his librettist Hugo Hofmannsthal create a portrait of twisted psychology within the framework of a bloody tale of justice and revenge. Daughter of the slain Trojan war hero Agamemnon, Elektra harbors extreme resentment toward her calculating mother klytämnestra, her mother's murderous lover Aegisth, and all in their household who support them. none are spared Elektra’s spiteful tongue, including her sister Chrysothemis, whom she viciously mocks for desiring to have a normal life. Elektra fixates on the day her brother Orest will return to exact revenge for their father’s murder.
giving Voice to revenge
Premiered in 1909, Elektra sees the then 45-year-old Strauss in full command of his extraordinary powers of musical and dramatic characterization. In Elektra (and Salome) the composer chose subjects that were fascinating character studies of disturbed individuals under duress that would challenge his compositional skills. The musical world of Elektra is dark and brooding, violent, cunning, and disturbed, with the music directly illustrating characters’ thoughts and hidden motivations. Freud is clearly in the air as Strauss weaves layers of complex psychology into his adventuresome score.
But Strauss as a composer is still firmly rooted in the romantic era, and the heroic and romantic Strauss we know from his tone poems and later operas breaks through where the drama requires. For example, Elektra revels in a heavy waltz-like dance at her imagined, and, later, real revenge; the yearning and passion of youthful Chrysothemis’ desire to marry and have children is a bright C-major waltz; the epic nature of Orest’s secret return is expressed in solemn sustained brass chords.
Elektra set design and drawing based on the death mask of agamemnon by r. Keith Brumley
SPOTLIgHT
Strauss stopped pushing forward after Elektra As Western art music became increasingly dissonant, Strauss’ style grew more exclusively romantic, culminating in masterpieces such as Ariadne auf Naxos and Der Rosenkavalier. But his rebelliousness at the beginning of the 20th century left us one of the most fascinating and satisfying of music dramas. I am extremely excited about collaborating with the DMMO orchestra, stage director Dugg McDonough, and our cast of worldclass singers that includes Brenda Harris in the title role, Joyce Castle as klytämnestra, and Julie Makerov as Chrysothemis. Elektra at Des Moines Metro Opera promises to be a particularly exciting process for the artists and a rare theatrical experience for audiences.
complete cast and production information at desmoinesmetroopera.org
June 29 | July 9 | July 12 7:30pm
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Joyce Castle Julie Makerov KLy TämneSTra chrySoThemiS
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one of america's finest sopranos, Brenda harris has appeared in leading roles with many of the world's most prominent opera companies and orchestras. praised for her “drop dead gorgeous singing," soaring voice and glowing warmth in lower registers, she has already scored successes this season with abagaille in Nabucco with minnesota opera and the title role of Turandot with Sarasota opera. She has performed with companies as wide ranging as The metropolitan opera; Teatro massimo in palermo, italy; washington national opera; new york city opera and opera du rhin in Strasbourg; among many more. des moines audiences have heard her Lady macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth, agathe in Der Freischütz and donna elvira in Don Giovanni last season.
Klytämnestra costume sketch. costume designs by melanie Taylor Burgess
eLeKTra richard Strauss
The role of elektra is one of supreme difficulty, perhaps the most taxing of all dramatic soprano roles. a cursory look at the score shows that elektra sings eight B-flats and four high-cs and she is on stage for most of the time during the duration of the opera, approximately 110 minutes. it is a role that is only taken on by the most confident of artists who have sufficient vocal resources. The performances this summer will be harris’s first appearance in the title role, after having previously sung chrysothemis, elektra’s fretful younger sister. harris will be one of the few elektras who will not sacrifice warmth and vocal beauty to the knife-edged singing demanded of every artist who runs this vocal marathon. a self-professed Strauss fanatic, she offered about her preparations: “TerriFying, thrilling, inspiring, brilliant, unspeakably hard to sing and learn and i cannot wait to do it! when i sang chrysothemis, i remember thinking, someday, i want to sing elektra!” well, that day has arrived and it is June 29, 2013, when des moines metro opera joins the small but elite group of opera companies around the world to have performed this work. Because sopranos approach the role with great caution, performances of Elektra are very rare. But when an artist of this stature agrees to assume the role, you can be sure you are in for a thrill!
July 7 2:00pm
OPERAMInnESOTA/THEDAnIELMICHAL
Brenda harriS
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michaeL mayeS (Don giovanni, Don Giovanni, 2012) will sing the role of Joseph De Rocher in Heggie’s Dead Man Walking with Eugene Opera and later the title role in Verdi’s Rigoletto for the first time with Boston Lyric Opera.
Sarah Jane mcmahon (Lisette, La Rondine, 2012) appears this season as Magnolia in Showboat with Central City Opera and with the Lyric Opera of kansas City as yum-yum in The Mikado
John moore (Onegin, Eugene Onegin, 2012) toured last fall with the glyndebourne Festival Opera, singing his first Count in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. The baritone returns to the Metropolitan Opera this spring for Giulio Cesare
TayLor STayTon (Ernesto, Don Pasquale, 2011) made a last-minute Metropolitan Opera debut as Percy in Anna Bolena. Summer 2012 he was with the glyndebourne Festival Opera for Ramiro in La Cenerentola and had a debut with the Bayerische Staatsoper in Mitridate
Sarah haTTen has been dmmo’s resident wig and make-up designer for 5 seasons. Sarah is also the wigmaster at the Lyric opera of chicago, where her fine work was recently profiled in an impressive feature in the Lyric’s winter/Spring program. The Fort dodge native has also earned rave reviews from the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago Tribune
cherie ShrecK, longtime dmmo Board member and past president, is a recipient of opera america's 2013 national opera Trustee recognition award honoring outstanding trustees of u.S. opera companies for exemplary leadership, generosity and audience-building efforts. cherie chaired the first campaign for endowment in 1992, which exceeded its goal by 3 million dollars. The ceremony will be held in new york city on February 22.
adam dingeman, dmmo’s 2005 title role in menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors, was recently cast in a recurring role on FoX's hit TV series "glee." we wish the west des moines native and graduate of the american musical and dramatic academy in Los angeles the best as he continues his acting career!
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marJorie owenS (Donna Anna, Don Giovanni, 2012) is a resident artist with the Sächsische Staatsoper in Dresden, singing Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer, Elisabetta in Don Carlo and Amelia in A Masked Ball She will return to the u.S. this April for the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos with the Fort Worth Opera.
DAn REST/LyRIC OPERA OF CHICAgO
paTT y and Jim cownie were presented with the Bravo award at Bravo greater des moines' awards gala on Saturday, February 2, at hy-Vee hall in downtown des moines. The Bravo award recognizes a company, individual, or family that has made a significant contribution to arts and culture in greater des moines. patty served on the dmmo Board of directors from 1986-2004, including two years as president.
on January 2 dmmo welcomed greg Van den Berghe as the new development coordinator. Last season Kim udroVich, art director, celebrated her 10-year anniversary with dmmo, and orchestra manager and principal percussionist marK dorr celebrated his 20th season. earlier this year denniS hendricKSon, Box office manager, celebrated his 10-year anniversary, and chari KruSe, administrative assistant, celebrated her 15th! This summer michaeL egeL will complete his 20th consecutive season with the company.
maTThew pLenK (Don Ottavio, Don Giovanni, 2012) makes company debuts this season with Los Angeles Opera as Steuermann in Wagner’s Der Fliegende Holländer and with Opera Theatre of Saint Louis as nanki-Poo in The Mikado
Joyce eL-Khoury (Magda, La Rondine, 2012) will sing Violetta in La Traviata for Palm Beach Opera, L’Opéra Théâtre de Saint-Etienne and De nederlandse Opera. This summer she sings her first Desdemona for the Castleton Festival.
cLipSundS
audiences watched mimì and rodolfo's love story unfold onstage during our 2011 production of La Bohème, but behind the scenes, real-life romance was brewing between mimì (Jan corneLiuS, also Tatiana in last season's Eugene Onegin) and colline (Ben LecLair). happy news of their engagement came on christmas morning from oldenburg, germany, where Ben is on a year-long contract. another dmmo romance!
•Catching up with...
If you talk to Tom and Marsha Mann about opera, you’d think they were lifelong devotees. The couple are world travelers (Tom and Marsha are taking a hiking excursion off the coast of Western Africa in 2013) and are as comfortable discussing their hometown opera as they are talking about the Teatr Wielki Opera narodowa in Warsaw. However, if you’d met the couple just 15 years ago they would have told you they’d never seen an opera.
And now they’ve made a decision that’s of lasting importance to them and Des Moines Metro Opera—Tom and Marsha are making a major planned gift to the company. “We discussed
If you are interested in supporting Des Moines Metro Opera in a similar way, we can offer you assistance to discover the best planning vehicle to fit your philanthropic goals. Contact DMMO Director of Development, Leslie garman, CFRE, at 515-961-6221 or lgarman@dmmo.org. DMMO recognizes its planned giving donors through The Encore Society, whose membership is published in the annual festival program. If you've already made a planned gift to DMMO, let us know by June 1, 2013, and you will be listed as a member of The Encore Society in the 2013 program. •
Once again the indefatigable members of the OPERA Iowa Educational Touring Troupe will take to the highways, byways, interstates and two-lane roads of Iowa and Missouri. The 2013 group consists of music director Tzu-Hwa Ho, sopranos Amedee Moore and Andrea Shokery, tenor Robert Lilly, baritone greg Jebaily, bass-baritone Brad Baron, and 2ndyear technical director Jessi Rechin. The group hit the road January 28 with Davies’ The Three Little Pigs for elementary performances (pictured) and Donizetti’s The Elixir of Love to be performed for communities in evening settings.
The OPERA Iowa van and truck will load up with sets, costumes, lights and singers for the 10-week adventure, stopping in Des Moines and all of its suburbs, Ames, Sioux
now in its 27th year, the tour is DMMO’s gift to those who may not have an opportunity to attend performances during the summer season, in fact, for many of those attending OPERA Iowa productions it will represent their only performing arts experience in an entire calendar year! The complete tour schedule can be found at desmoinesmetroopera.org.
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City, Spencer, Carroll, Cherokee, Algona, Humboldt, Webster City, Bloomfield, Pella, Ottumwa, Oskaloosa, Muscatine, keokuk, Cedar Rapids, Davenport, Dubuque, kansas City and others along the way!
he story of one Minnesota couple’s love of Des Moines Metro creatingopera—andalegacy
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The SocieTyencorepreSenTingSponSor
“We’ve always loved classical music,” Marsha explains. “We’d hear opera on the radio and it didn’t seem like something we would like,” Tom continues. “Several years ago we went to Rossini’s Semiramide in Minnesota and we were hooked.” That performance changed their view of opera. Later they noticed an ad for Des Moines Metro Opera and Tom recalls, “We decided to go down to Des Moines and we loved it!" The intimacy of the stage is one of their favorite aspects of DMMO. “We look forward to that hot July weekend every summer,” Marsha mentions.
it for about a year,” Marsha remembers. “We talked about different organizations but we both agreed. It was Des Moines Metro Opera. The work of this company needs to keep going,” Tom explains. “There are plenty of people like us who lived most of their lives without realizing how wonderful opera is and by supporting it we ensure that it continues so others can discover it. We both decided that this was the organization where our money would make the greatest impact. We wanted to make sure the company that helped provide that enrichment has a solid future. The bottom line is we learned about opera at other companies but we learned to love it at Des Moines Metro Opera.”
pre-Show dining gourmet dining at its finest returns this season! enjoy menus catered by the embassy club and gateway market and themed for each opera in the secluded air-conditioned comfort of the theatre lobby.
iowa cuBS deS moineS arTS FeSTiVaL June 28-30, deSmoineSarTcenTer2013
desmoinesartsfestival.orgmusic,withvisualthisFestivalsawardwinnergames.rangingfromarepacifictheleagueThepappajohn-sculpture-park.aspxdesmoinesartcenter.org/visit/anycelebrated4.4-acretheentranceLocateddesmoinesartcenter.orgatthepedestrian-friendlytodowntowndesmoines,landscapedesignofthisparkandartworkby21artistsmakeitunlikeothersculptureparkintheu.S.iowacubsisaTriple-aminorbaseballteamaffiliatedwithchicagocubsandplaysinthecoastLeague.homegamesplayedatprincipalparkStadiumapriltoSeptember,withticketsfrom$8to$26forsinglemilb.com/index.jsp?sid=t451ofthegrandpinnaclefromtheinternationalandeventsassociation,festivalfeaturesthebestartistsinthecountryalonginteractiveactivities,livefilm,andperformingarts.
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opera preViewS members of the music staff introduce the background and highlights of the evening’s opera in a free educational and informal presentation 45 minutes prior to each poperformance.ST-opera
Following selected opera performances, get in on the behind-the-scenes action as the production director and staff show how the evening’s production came to the stage, then how they ‘strike’ the set to prepare for the next day’s performance. Backstage tours included. admission is $20 and reservations are required.
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13 ViVace | SPRIng 2013 | DESMOInESMETROOPERA ORg
The des moines art center is a world-class museum in the heart of the midwest. with a focus on contemporary art, it has amassed an important collection. Free admission Tuesday through Sunday.
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At DMMOIn Des MOInes
6/28 | 7/5 | 7/12 $87$73$63$47 6/29 | 6/30 | 7/6 | 7/7 | 7/13 | 7/14 $92$77$66$49 Students (k-college, Tues & Thurs only) $39$33$29$21
wine & Food ShowcaSe des moines marriott, 5:30-8:30pm $35/person$50/person groups of 6+ (preorders only) $100/patron (includes pre-event Vip Flight, general admission, and option to buy up to 10 discounted tickets at $25 each)
Build-your-own $245$205$175$120
Sunday 6/23 or 7/14 | 6/30 | 7/7 $245$205$175$120
Join us for the opening night, pre-performance gala dinner for Elektra and post-performance celebration. Opera tickets can be purchased separately. Black tie optional. Following the performance, the Max Wellman Jazz Trio will take the stage at the new Principal Financial group Black Box Theater.
May 3 opera BaLL
June 13 & 15 peanuT BuTTer & puccini Blank performing arts center, 11:00am $10/person Our annual family opera adventure includes a kid-friendly opera, a peanut butter sack lunch and a backstage tour of the theatre.
ViVace | SPRIng 2013 | DESMOInESMETROOPERA ORg 14
FOr tIckets
6/21 | 6/22 | 6/23 | 7/2 | 7/9 | 7/11 $78$66$57$42
Times and dates are subject to change. call 515-961-6221 or visit desmoinesmetroopera.org for more information or to order tickets.
Saturday 6/22 or 7/13 | 6/29 | 7/6 $245$205$175$120
February 15
over forty of the finest restaurants, wineries, breweries and distributors offer up their most delectable for unlimited tasting at the downtown marriott. Browse and bid on silent auction gifts and take a chance on our Sweetheart raffle. attendees also enjoy exclusive, event-only access to single tickets for our upcoming summer season. Tickets can be ordered online, by phone or purchased at the door.
sIngle tIckets (on sale Feb. 18 )
purchase online at desmoinesmetroopera.org or call 515-961-6221 and use code: ViVace41
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sAve DAtesthe
opening night 6/21 | 6/22 | 6/29 $245$205$175$120 Friday 6/21 or 6/28 | 7/5 | 7/12 $240$195$170$112
June 8 ThreadS & TriLLS coSTume Show and Luncheon embassy club west, 12:00 noon $40/person get a sneak peek at the costumes from the festival season and be treated to an excellent meal while enjoying arias and duets sung by principal artists.
July 10 STarS oF Tomorrow
The Temple for performing arts, 6:30pm $150/person, $200/Vip patron Celebrate the season with us! Come for cocktails and dinner, bid in our popular Aria Auction featuring baritone John Moore, and round out the evening with dancing. Tickets are $150 each or $200 for VIP Patron (includes patron party). Event sponsorships begin at $2,500 and include event recognition and other benefits.
Sheslow auditorium, drake university, 7:00pm $25/adults, $10/students Apprentice Artists and Festival Orchestra members present duets and ensembles. Tickets include a dessert reception following the concert.
2013
BLanK perForming arTS cenTer, located on Simpson college campus, indianola, ia
2013 subscrIptIOn serIes
weekend 2 6/28 | 6/29 | 6/30 $220$185$160$110 weeknight 7/2 | 7/9 | 7/11 $220$185$160$110 weekend 3 7/5 | 7/6 | 7/7 $220$185$160$110 weekend 4 7/12 | 7/13 | 7/14 $220$185$160$110
June 29 opening nighT gaLa dinner hubbell hall, Simpson college campus, 6:00pm $100/person
des moines metro opera, inc. 106 west Boston avenue indianola, ia 50125-1836 return Service requested Visit: desmoinesmetroopera.org watch: youtube.com/user/desmoinesmetroopera Like: Follow:facebook.com/desmoinesmetrooperatwitter.com/dmopera gOunOD romeo and Juliet June 21 | June 28 | July 6 | July 11 7:30pm June 23 | July 14 2:00pmSTForTy-FironSSeaSTFeiVaL BRITTEn peter g rimes June 22 | July 2 | July 5 | July 13 7:30pm June 30 2:00pm STRAuSS elektra June 29 | July 9 | July 12 7:30pm July 7 2:00pm singleticketsonsaleFebruary18!
