Monica (Karalee Terry) and Toby (Zac Engle) perform together in Gian-Carlo Menotti’s opera, “The Medium.” The opera is OSU’s first in more than 10 years.
Drums, horns and strings open the show as a happy, offbeat melody begins to play.
The lights shine on a puppet show while a young girl laughs at the antics of the silent act. The puppets are put away as a young man comes out of the puppet box and begins to play dress up.
The young girl, whom the audience learns is named Monica, warns the boy, a mute named Toby, that her mother will be angry if she catches him playing with her clothes.
And “The Medium” begins.
The OSU Vocal Performance department is performing two Gian-Carlo Menotti’s operas this weekend in honor of him, who died last February. In addition to the two-act tragedy “The Medium,” the performance also includes a one-act comedy Menotti intended to perform after “The Medium,” titled “The Telephone.”
Although operas have been performed at OSU, it has been more than a decade. But April Golliver, assistant director of voice and director of opera studies, brought opera back to the university this past year.
“It’s much harder to find people who can sing opera than those who can sing in a musical. We haven’t had this many performers try out before, so we were only able to do scene operas and not full operas,” Golliver said.
Golliver also said she is excited about their method of running the opera two nights.
“We have one set of performers for each night. So, you could come to both performances and experience a very different show,” Golliver said.
Megan Kite, a vocal performance junior, plays the role of Monica Saturday night. She also expressed excitement about having the opportunity to watch another play the same role.
“It’s a great way to know how you want to perform the piece,” Kite said. “You get to see someone else and how they do things, so that you can give them advice and take things that they are doing and say, ‘I should do that, too.’”
Kite also spoke of the camaraderie between performers.
I’ve heard of other places where people are really competitive. We try to build each other up and help each other become better performers,” Kite said.
Golliver said students like Kite make it easy to run the performances.
“All of the students help the others out, and on the nights that someone won’t be performing, they’ll still be here to help with the set change and to be positive reinforcement for the ones performing.”
Anne-Marie Condacse, the stage director, said she has done her best to respect Menotti and follow the operas as closely as possible.
“If the composer is his own librettist [the writer of the words and actions], then they say ‘Of course I want you to follow what I wrote. Why else would I have written it?’”
Condacse went on to say: “It is a very complex thinking. Sometimes, the music substitutes or corresponds with the movement, and we want to do our best in preserving that.”
An orchestra composed of nearly 25 musicians and led by Douglas Droste, director of orchestras, accompanies the performance, which Golliver and Kite both agree has its pros and cons.
“You don’t mic operas,” Golliver said, “so it can be hard to sing over the orchestra.”
“I’m worried that people won’t be able to hear us very well,” Kite said. “We have only been able to practice with the orchestra this week.”
Typically, orchestras perform from an orchestra pit that sits lower than the audience and stage and helps absorb the music.
“We used to have a pit, but they boarded over it years ago,” Armando Contardi said. Contardi is the technical director of this performance and full-time facilities director for the Seretean Center.
In addition to the performances, there will be a preview lecture given by Kate Butler. Butler is a world renowned mezzo-soprano who was, among other achievements, cast by Menotti and received training under him. Butler will herself be performing on Sunday afternoon in Willard Hall from 2:30-3:30. The performance is free to the public.
“The Medium” and “The Telephone” will be performed Friday and Saturday night at 8:00, with Butler beginning the preview lecture of Menotti, his life and his works, at 7:00 both nights. The cost of the performance is $5 for students and $7 for all others. The operas are open to the public.
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