Lianne Coble-Dispensa 2/25/17 Lianne Coble-Dispensa 2/25/17

At the Met Opera Club with harpist Emmanuel Ceysson

What to do the morning of an HD broadcast of Rusalka? Why learn about the opera and listen to harpist Emmanuel Ceysson of course!

Daniel Clark Smith, Elizabeth George, Jacqui Danilow, Emmanuel Seysson, Mary Kristine Hughes and Craig Montgomery at the pre-Rusalka Met Opera Club brunch

There is so much going on at the Metropolitan Opera and Saturday was no different! Even before the two performances (Rusalka matinee and I Puritani evening) the lobby was filled with beautiful music as the Met Opera Club met for their weekly brunch with special guest Emmanuel Ceysson. Luckily, Elizabeth George was on the scene to give an update on the event as our chorus correspondent ("chorus-pondent" if you will!)

After opening La Traviata last night, waking up early for a cup o' joe at the beautiful Metropolitan Opera Club was WELL worth it! We had the pleasure of listening to world-renowned harpist, Emmanuel Ceysson, who is also the Principal Harpist with The Met Opera Orchestra. Best. Morning. Ever!

Spending time with The Met Opera Club members was joy. This incredibly supportive and kind group of opera lovers are some of our biggest fans. What a treat! We look forward to spending more time with them in the very near future!

Emmanuel Ceysson, Principal Harpist with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra

Mary Hughes 3/22/16 Mary Hughes 3/22/16

Chorus Costumes from Fitting to Finale

As we rehearse on stage for the premiere of Sir David McVicar’s Metropolitan Opera production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux on Mar 24th, 2016, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the importance of costumes and costume designers in opera.

Spotlight on Roberto Devereux’s costumes designed by Moritz Junge

by Daniel Clark Smith

As we rehearse on stage for the premiere of Sir David McVicar’s Metropolitan Opera production of Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux on Mar 24th, 2016, let’s take a moment to acknowledge the importance of costumes and costume designers in opera. Moritz Junge, the designer of the beautiful costumes you see here made his Met Opera debut in McVicar’s recent production of Cavalleria Rusticana/Pagliacci. He has shared with us some photos of the trim and baubles used to decorate these Jacobean-era costumes for Roberto Devereux, as well as photos from our costume fittings for the opera, most of which occurred last fall.

Costumes play an important role in the life of a chorister at the Met. From our initial fittings to the final performances of an opera, costumes inform us as to who our characters are, and how we might act and move on stage. Some costumes are designed to individualize us, and some help to identify us as members of a particular community. In Cavalleria Rusticana, for example, we wear variations on a theme of black and white, the color scheme uniting us as the religious community in small-town Sicily. In Pagliacci, we play (perhaps) descendants of those same Sicilians, but more colorful and unique characters: from the local mayor, a policeman, a matron, a man-about-town, to the parish priest.

Opera costumes also give the chorus ideas about how our characters might move onstage. From the moment we put on a period costume, for example, the development of the physicality of an operatic character begins. Sir David McVicar, in one of our early rehearsals for Roberto Devereux, directed the chorus men to make our entrance, striding on with a “confident, masculine swagger”, and demonstrated a hand-on-hip courtier walk which to our 21st-Century eyes was anything but masculine! However, when we take into account the aristocratic court at the turn of the 17th-Century, and remember our costume fittings, that swagger becomes appropriate and begins to take on a life of its own.

There is nothing like wearing a costume that has been made to your exact measurements, and each one in its own way gives you ideas how to “play” onstage. Whether it’s a prisoner’s raincoat and handcuffs in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, an Old-West cowboy look in La Fanciulla del West, Cyrano de Bergerac’s swashbuckling hip boots, or Madama Butterfly’s multi-colored kimonos, we put on the costume, and our body mechanics immediately change. Pair that with a masterpiece from the operatic repertoire played by the world-class Met Orchestra, and with the superb stagecraft (lights, sets and stage direction) of the Met, then a specific scene starts to come to life.

There are challenges to wearing costumes in opera, though, such as the men’s multiple costume changes in Il Trovatore (back and forth from Manrico’s Gypsy followers to Di Luna’s soldiers and back again!). But our dressers work hard with us to make sure our quick changes go smoothly. We can sometimes feel the effects of a costume hours later, however, such as a heavy cape draped to one side. Thankfully, we have help from members of the wardrobe staff, who work to make sure we are as comfortable on stage as possible. It is, of course, the nature of opera that sometimes we stand on stage for an entire Act or two a night. But working in opera is what we’ve all dreamed of doing, and we are thankful to work with the greatest artists and artisans in the field. Nevertheless, when we join the chorus, we learn very quickly why one of the first bits of advice from colleagues is: “make sure your shoes fit well!”

Most costumes are rigged with 21st-Century conveniences such as velcro, zippers or button snaps, in order to make a quick change easier. Some, however, are designed with historical accuracy in mind, such as the costumes for Anna Bolena which have multiple laces, most of which are never seen by the audience. These are much more like historical clothing, rather than costumes.

Whether costumes serve as character study, guides to movement, or simply as a way to identify the chorus onstage, we are thankful that the Metropolitan Opera has such talented wardrobe and costume personnel. From designers like Moritz Junge and the costume staff who build the costumes, to the dressers and wardrobe staff who oversee them, we are in their debt. They make us look good onstage and we are eternally grateful!

Mary Hughes 1/27/16 Mary Hughes 1/27/16

Spotlight on Saturday's Turandot in HD

Photo Marty Sohl

Turandot masked Ping, Amir Levy, masked Pang, Elliot Reiland, masked Pong, Andrew Robinson with Chorus Sapienti Brandon Mayberry, Edward Hanlon, Seth Malkin

By Mary Hughes and Marie Te Hapuku

This Saturday, January 30, the Metropolitan Opera will present the HD performance of Turandot with Nina Stemme in the title role, in cinemas worldwide. For the Met Chorus Artists, this show is one of the most difficult operas that they prepare, and one of the most breathtaking. The chorus sit huddled in tightly cramped stage spaces while numerous dancers and supernumeraries tumble and carry huge court banners on the stage. They often sing with their bodies facing one direction, and their heads and voices contorted in another direction - while churning out voluminous vocal sound and beautiful tonal consistency. Franco Zeffirelli’s 1987 production continues to astound audiences with its grandeur and immense scale, as it is a very demanding night from beginning to end, musically and physically.

Another interesting aspect, from a chorus perspective, is that there are several small solos that the members of the chorus perform, for what is usually, a long run (16 performances in the 2015-16 season). This includes two ancelle Handmaidens (women) in Act I, three sapienti Wise Men in Act II, and four araldi Heralds (men) in Act III. The following is an outline of what is required to perform the ancelle roles.

The ancelle singers open the opera with the full chorus, as popoli (the crowd). After performing the first 14 pages, they two discreetly exit the stage and descend one level to make a costume quick change in the storage space connected to the orchestra pit. Accompanied by three dressers, they disrobe in the dark to change into sparkling, hand-sequined robes, twinkling headpieces, and silver slippers. They enter the stage (one floor below the action currently taking place) on a lift that will ascend to high above the stage when the chorus first refers to Princess Turandot. Assisted by two stage crew members, the ancelle climb a ladder in their intricate costumes, and are loaded into separate towers. This is where Turandot and her entourage load up, and wait for their musical cue. Turandot will appear and be referred to by the chorus, but won’t sing until Act II. The cue is heard - the conclusion of the Moon Chorus [‘Perchè tarda la luna?’ - and the ancelle are given the signal that the lift is moving. They stand, and observe the chorus, the popoli, from the highest, farthest point in the theater, standing aloft separate towers, each flanking Turandot. They watch the backs of the principals and gear up for their solos, which finish in the blink of an eye.

Once the ancelle finished singing, they each take a seat on tiny stools, and wait for the end of Act I, after which the lift will go down to stage level (equivalent of one floor), when they will climb down their ladders to change back into their popoli costumes for Act II. One of our ancelle shared, “To watch Act I unfold from this, a most extraordinary perspective, is one of the most memorable and enjoyable experiences that I have ever had as a singer. It is surreal and mind blowing; to watch and listen to this score in a venue filled with thousands, while I’m seated quietly in a serene fiberglass tower, belies the flurry of activity that is taking place. It sounds corny, but the music fills me up like this every single time – there is no finer sound than the Met Orchestra playing under the principals in Non piangere Liù.”

As noted previously, the other chorus solos for Acts II and III are the sapienti Wise Men and araldi Heralds. The sapienti spend most of their intermission after Act I transforming into the powerful keepers of Turandot’s three riddles; changing scrolls to reveal the answers to Calaf and the polpoli. The four araldi open Act III and have the difficult task of singing terrifically soft, exposed music while moving in sync across the stage towards their exit. They return later in the act with Liù and Timur, to proclaim the tortures that await.

The solo opportunities available to the Met Chorus Artists vary according to repertoire. Auditions are held each year for solos available in the upcoming season, for which many choristers sing. So in addition to the vast amount of music learned by each Met Chorus Artist each year, several are chosen to prepare solos. They receive musical coachings from music staff, and are responsible to shift effortlessly between the challenges of singing with an excellent choral blend, as well as projecting as any other soloist in the the Metropolitan Opera.

Mary Hughes 12/18/15 Mary Hughes 12/18/15

La Donna del Lago from a Chorister's perspective

The first time that I heard La Donna del Lago was in college. It was a recording of Marilyn Horne and I wondered if I would ever get to hear it live because it was staged so infrequently. That, and who could sing the demanding role of Elena?

Fast forward to 2015 and I’m in utter disbelief that I’m only mere feet away from Joyce DiDonato and Lawrence Brownlee, the main characters in Rossini’s operatic adaptation of Sir Walter Scott’s 1810 narrative poem. They both make it look so easy and my predominant thought is how people should be beating the door down to hear this indescribably beautiful singing – and it’s LIVE! Real, live people singing in the most extraordinary, beautiful bel canto style. The whole cast is truly wondrous.

This is second in a series aimed at highlighting The Metropolitan Opera's Saturday afternoon Broadcasts

By Mary K. Hughes

For the Chorus there are many non-musical details and logistics to manage outside of the music that make this a challenging opera. The Chorus Men have a particularly difficult agenda to fulfill because they are required to be on stage for most of the opera. In addition to having more music, some men have up to 6 costume changes: peasant, hunter, kilt, Bard, back to hunter, and members of the King’s court in the Act II finale. Several of these costume changes are quite fast, and the men who sing the mystical Bards are required to apply blue body makeup to themselves and to supers during the Act I finale. The blue body paint is transported in bowls carried by members of the Ladies Chorus and brought to the warriors at the end of the Act I with a warlike ensemble within which the Bards have their most challenging musical moments in the show; highly exposed with complicated texts with minor variations. The scene ends in a show of patriotism and determination.

The set is intended to emulate the Scottish highlands and it built on a raked stage with rubbery nubs to simulate heather and grass growing. Coming off of the lit set into a dark exit is one of the pitfalls that the Chorus has to negotiate regularly, and La Donna del Lago is no exception. Live fire and tricky multi-level drop-offs precede the exits that make the stage terrain unusually complicated, but as in all productions safety is a priority and there are three safety delegates within the Chorus who work to ensure and address safety concerns.

That said, there is no other group in the world so accustomed to thinking on their feet, which means adapting to unusual stage terrain, multiple costume changes, and rehearsing and performing many operas within a given week. All of this happens seamlessly while maintaining the highest of musical standards. The height of vocal achievement is on full and dazzling display in La Donna del Lago both from the Metropolitan Opera’s principal soloists and chorus artists, and underscored, as always, by the luminous playing of our distinguished Met Orchestra. It all makes for a satisfying and exciting night at the opera!