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VAF: Cinderella It was the Virginia Arts Festival's artistic coup to bring twenty-year-old Alma Deutcher's opera Cinderella to a Tidewater stage. It was so logical for this collaboration, initiated by GSA's Shelly-Milam Ratliff, between VAF and The Governor's School for the Arts to present a fully staged production at the excellent Sandler Center in Virginia Beach. The evening began with remarks by Ms. Ratliff, GSA Vocal Music Department Chair and director of this production. She mentioned that Alan Fischer, who retired after leading the department for more than twenty-five years, was in the audience. Robert Cross, Executive Director and Perry Artistic Director of the Arts Fetival joined in the celebration of their theatrical coup that included an orchestra of thirty-six, including Instrumental Music Chair Amanda Gates (who had prepared the orchestra), on violin and Suzanne Daniel on bassoon. When Ms. Deutcher was twelve years old her opera had its first staging, with adult performers. The VAF/GSA production was the first time she worked with performers younger then she is. The composer served as conductor in a performance that greatly inspired the singers and musicians of our own GSA high school music students. Ms. Deutcher changed the traditional Cinderella; "I wanted Cinderella to be like me." She would be a musician who, rather than fitting a glass slipper, is the only one who can complete the melody that the prince presents her with. To the audience's great amusement the step-sisters try very hard but fail miserably. Their over-the-top acting and stratospheric hairdos were a hoot! The step-sisters Griselda (sung by Avery Filippone) and Zibaldona (sung by Avery Eure) had a rare challenge for talented vocalists: their characters are described as untalented and must make some perfectly awful vocal noises while acting as if they are first-rate primadonnas. In this Cinderella, her father, who ran a small opera company, has died and she is left with her step-mother who is now running the show. The story opens with Cinderella still copying parts for the opera rehearsal for her step-mother when a beautiful melody springs into her head and she sings it. The delay infuriates her step-mother (sung by Dasianae Cross) who is verbally abusive and then sends Cinderella into the forest to gather firewood. In the next scene we see the world-weary King (Devin White, with a dependable baritone voice mature beyond his years,) who wishes to retire soon and for his son to marry and take the throne. As the Prince, Ethan Omitt (Xavier Thomas, March 14) had the youthful enthusiasm and voice control to make the character vividly engaging. Abigail Bodvake, an eighteen-year-old senior at GSA and Maury High School wonderfully created the role of Cinderella. She has been listening to the show's music for years and reports that working with the composer as "feeling neither overly formal or informal but rather the perfect balance." We found her performance natural and polished—perfect, really. Dasianae Cross was convincing in the rather harsh role of the Step-mother. Cinderella's unfair treatment at her hands made the outcome even more satisfying for the audience. The pivotal role of the Fairy Godmother was brilliantly portrayed by the mature vocal sound of Loryn Rodgers. She embodied the powerful magic of the "other world" that made the happy outcome in the wedding scene where the Flower Girl and Young Stepsisters were Scarlett Ratliff, Stella Ratliff and Skyler Ratliff. Ms. Milam-Ratliff told us that to put this opera on stage took one-hundred-twelve people working together, including the Virginia Childrens Chorus, led by Corbin T.Pinto, assisted by William Boardman. They were wonderfully costumed as the ten Elves; others were the twenty guests in the Royal Ball scene in the third act. The GSA soloists who reacted vocally to the Prince at the ball were Ava Bitney, Nina Chen, Jessica Facenda, Kamari Outlaw and Ella Robinson. The full ensemble of thirty-eight students included the singers just named. The superb staging involved: Adriane Kerr, supertitles; Tracy Bodvake, costume coordinator; Marissa Thompson, costume technician; Suzanne Daniel, Brittany Orosco and Sarah Strader offered wardrobe assistance (big job - so many singers); Candace Heidelberg-Denison, hair and makeup. And last but not least, Kathryn Kelly, Tracey Bodvake and Brittany Orosco, wigs. In case a singer had to drop out at the last minute, twenty GSA students learned the roles so they could step in. As I said at the beginning, this was a major undertaking! Remember to watch for the GSA opera next year. In 2024 Hansel & Gretel was presented. In 2023 it was Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld at ODU's University Theatre. 2022 saw Menotti's The Old Maid and the Thief and Gilbert & Sullivan's Trial by Jury, also at the University Theatre. In 2020 during the shutdown, Handel's Alcina was presented on the Bank Street Stage in the original tent, now the Perry Pavilion.
This was an amazing evening of French art songs. These often neglected songs were beautiful , challenging and so well sung. For song connoisseurs it was a very rich treat. Even Karen Hoy, one of the great, local champions of art song, was in attendance. The opening set of three songs, Drei Lieder der Ophelia by Richard Strauss (1864-1949), was sung by Shelly Milam, GSA Vocal Music Chair with Stephen Coxe, GSA Music Artistic Director, at the piano. The set of Ophelia's Three Songs from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Opus 67, completed in 1918, only months before the end of WWI, was composed under pressure from his publisher to fulfill a 1903 contract. Most of his 100 or so songs were written for his wife Pauline, a soprano. Strauss was too busy with his operas to fulfill what he considered to be a tiresome contract. Even so, the music for these reluctantly composed songs required a technical virtuosity. The text is from the deranged mind of the maiden who will soon drown herself. The emotional range demanded by these songs is great and Ms. Milam was superb in conveying the required feelings. We were told that this was the beginning of a series of Strauss songs. Kathryn Kelly followed with a three-song cycle by Claude Debussy (1862-1918). Trois Poèms de Stéphane Mallarmé (1913) offered a somber mood of great passion in 1. Soupir (Sigh); 2. Placet futile (Futile petition), "Princess, appoint me shepherd of your smile;" 3. Éventail (fan) has gentle but overwhelming energy. These abstract, remarkable and experimental poems came to life in her singing. We next heard Chanson perpétuelle (1898) composed by Ernest Chausson (1855-1899), sung by soprano Anna Feucht with New Commonwealth Quartet (Elizabeth Vonderheid and Jonathan Richards, violins; Matthew Umlauf, viola; Elizabeth Mezaros, cello) joined by Stephen Cox, piano. Chausson wrote: "I believe firmly in the reality of expressed thought, and a thought can only be considered expressed when it is dressed in sufficiently beautiful form." In a natural setting with a starry night sky, the singer tells us that her lover has left, leaving behind her desolate heart. She feels like she is dying and plans to drown herself in the pond, becoming part of the "sleeping water." Ms. Feucht's delivery was passionate and totally engaging, peaking in the description of her merging with a butterfly landing on the lips of her departed lover, accompanied by a lushly romantic quartet and piano—a most elegant performance! Another special musical treat followed. Playing violin, Amanda Gates, GSA Instrumental Music Department Chair, galvanized her students in the audience when she and Instrumental Music Artistic Director Stephen Coxe played Violin Sonata No. 2 (1927) II. Blues by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). It opened with plucked strings, soon joined by piano in a fun, jazzy tempo. The melody in the violin is joined by strongly accented piano chords. Moments of seriousness gave way to dramatic ragtime syncopation demanding immense concentration in a very fast tempo. A return to the opening melody brought us to a safe landing with the students exclaiming great appreciation for these fine teachers. After intermission the piano bench and two chairs with music stands were filled by violinist Mr. Richards and cellist Ms. Meszaros and Coxe on piano for Piano Trio No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 67 by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). He composed this Trio during WWII (1944) and it opens with what I heard as a very quiet dirge for the fallen. Three minutes in, the cello becomes more energetic and is followed by violin and piano but it is still an anguished cry for Soviet life during the nightmare of war. Shostakovich said he had started to write a trio "on Russian folk themes." The second movement follows this idea with fine fiddling. The music is engaging but with a raw edge in the Allegro con brio which is less than three minutes long. Piano and plucked cello strings offer a happy tune. The direction taken by all three players becomes unpredictable. Big piano chords in movement III. Largo lead into a heartfelt serious dialogue with the cello. The soulful, somber, slow enfolding offers an emotional respite Movement IV. Allegretto-Adagio marches in with percussive piano and plucked strings and borders on a dance tune but in a dire mood. The instruments seem to go in different directions and then return to the march with intense forward movement that is loud and furious. A Jewish tune appears. The momentum unravels and the mood becomes deeply serious as the march continues, becoming even more intense. It is frantic, and then plodding before easing a bit. The Jewish tune returns with dour intensity. There are several finger slides near the top of the cello strings while piano notes repeat softly and the music fades away. In 1946 Shostakovich's trio was awarded a Stalin Prize. (Excerpted from Shostakovich: A Life, page 143, by Laruel E. Fay). |