Charlottesville Opera presents La Bohème this week as a part of their 43rd summer season.
Grab a ticket to hear the cast put a contemporary spin on a classic love story on June 24th and 26th at 8pm. This is the last show of Charlottesville Opera’s Open Air season, so make sure to check out the links below for more information. WTJU spoke with Jessica Jones, Mackenzie Whitney, Karen Barraza and Daniel Scofield who will be performing this Thursday and Saturday. They shared their thoughts on the show’s dynamic characters, Charlottesville's opera community, and the details to this weeks event.
The Open Air season ends June 26th. Find out more information about specific events in the link below.
For more on the Open Air Season and La Bohème, visit the Charlottesville Opera website.
These interviews air as part of WTJU’s Classical Sunrise, weekday mornings from 7-9am.
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HOST: For their 43rd open-air season, the Charlottesville Opera will perform Puccini's La Bohème on June 24th and 26th at the Ting Pavilion. We spoke with baritone Daniel Scofield, one of the principal performers in the show.
DANIEL SCOFIELD: I'm playing the role of Marcello. He's one of the Bohemians. You know, and they're all artists, they're all vagabonds essentially, but he is what he would consider himself to be a very underappreciated painter. The continuous part of his life is this woman that comes in and comes out like a storm, but she's also the reason that he's able to create such a tempestuous sort of art.
DANIEL SCOFIELD: And that's the really cool thing is Puccini doesn't hide the flaws of humans in this show. Instead, he's showing us kind of the ugly side of ourselves and still telling us that we still can love and we can still have these awesome relationships, even between very flawed people.
DANIEL SCOFIELD: I think that these stories that we tell, there's a reason that this show was written 125 years ago, just about, and it's still here. The relevance of this piece is that it is about humans, it is about human interaction and how they react to society and how they react to poverty and love and each other.
DANIEL SCOFIELD: And it's a wonderful show for people that are on the fence about coming to the opera. It's a show for people who love opera and this might be their 40th Bohème because we are doing something here in Charlottesville that with the unique setting by Stephanie, our director, and with Enrique, our wonderful conductor, this particular group of people will never exist again. And what we are creating inside of these rehearsals is something unique that only we can be able to recreate.
HOST: For more information and tickets to La Bohème, you can visit www.charlottesvilleopera.org.
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HOST: For their 43rd open-air season, the Charlottesville Opera will perform Puccini's La Bohème on June 24th and 26th at the Ting Pavilion. We spoke to members of the cast to learn more about what it's like to perform opera in an outdoor space.
PERFORMER 1: It is just a completely different animal performing outside. Things you have to think about when you're outside are the weather, for starters. because La Bohème takes place around Christmas, usually you're pretending to be very cold and you have coats and things. So all of that to keep in mind, you know, we're going to probably be sweating quite a bit more than we would if we were indoors.
HOST: Yeah, so playing it out in the middle of the summer is going to be interesting to sell the idea that it’s very cold outside and it's snowing when you're sweating.
PERFORMER 2: I've never done a performance like this where the acoustics are so different from a hall. So for me it's an exciting challenge. I don't know what's going to happen. I know what I need to do. But I also know that Charlottesville Opera has all of that under control and they've worked so hard to adapt to make this experience the best possible experience for the audience and the performers. So I think it's going to be really exciting to see how it all comes together.
PERFORMER 3: It is a little bit of a challenge, just because you don't have the comfort of an acoustical hall. The sound doesn't come back as easily, but the challenge is to trust the instrument, is to trust that you can be heard, to not give more than you're physically capable of. And I think it's going to be a really unique experience for the audience because of that.
HOST: For more information and tickets to La Bohème, you can visit www.charlottesvilleopera.org.
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HOST: For their 43rd open-air season, the Charlottesville Opera will perform Puccini's La Bohème on June 24th and 26th at the Ting Pavilion. We spoke to Mackenzie Whitney and Karen Barazza, a couple who will be playing the principal roles of Rodolfo and Mimi in the show.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: We have done several productions together, but never as like a romantic couple. Like, there's such a great level of comfortability with each other, we don't have to ask each other questions and get to know each other. Like, a lot of times, because we're freelance performers, we just meet someone and then we're expected to be in love with them and have chemistry immediately on stage. Lucky for us, we get to skip all that and then get straight to like the details of the work.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: And another thing is we're young, and it's a story about young people and young love. So I think just relating to your past experience, especially Karen and I, you know, we met in a tiny school in Philadelphia and we have so much history together. It's very easy to relate to these characters because we are following our passions. It's not an easy life to be an opera singer. There's a lot of studying and a lot of struggle. There's a lot of people that want to do this career. I remember when I was living in Philadelphia, I lived in a really tiny, tiny apartment, an apartment of squalor.
KAREN BARAZZA: It's a little too easy to do this show because it's so relatable and it's actually most of the things that happened in the show, you have lived them.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: Yeah.
KAREN BARAZZA: And for my character, it's the exact same. She, I think she literally talks in her texts that she, you know, she doesn't have much, but she doesn't need it to be happy. She doesn't need much to be happy in this, what she tells him when she meets him.
HOST: For more information and tickets to La Bohème, you can visit www.charlottesvilleopera.org.
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HOST: For their 43rd open-air season, the Charlottesville Opera will perform Puccini's La Bohème on June 24th and 26th at the Ting Pavilion. We spoke with members of the cast to learn more about the opera's grand return to in-person live performance.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: My name is Mackenzie Whitney and I'm singing Rodolfo in Charlottesville Opera's La Bohème.
HOST: La Bohème follows the story of a group of Bohemian artists living together in Paris.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: They're all kind of living together, living very poorly, but they're following their passions. And they're all having a bunch of fun and they organize a trip to go to Café Momisse together. And my character, Rodolfo , has to stay back because he has to finish his work at The Beaver, which is a newspaper that he writes for. And in that little moment of time, the neighbor Mimi comes and her candle is out.
KAREN BARAZZA: And that would be me. My name is Karen Barraza and I'll be doing the role of Mimi. So I have two Arias in the show, and as I've been rehearsing, I'm falling in love with the first one because it's when they meet and she just pours herself out to him like a total stranger. It's her neighbor but it's the first day she, you know, she sees this guy and walks in the room.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: And what is that one called?
KAREN BARAZZA: Si, mi chiamo no Mimi.
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: Which means?
KAREN BARAZZA: It means “Yes, My name is Mimi.”
MACKENZIE WHITNEY: As simple as that, but it's really a beautiful moment in the show.
HOST: For more information and tickets to La Bohème, you can visit www.charlottesvilleopera.org.
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HOST: For their 43rd open-air season, the Charlottesville Opera will perform Puccini's La Bohème on June 24th and 26th at the Ting Pavilion. We spoke with soprano Jessica Jones, who will be playing the character of Musetta in the show.
JESSICA JONES: She really is a spitfire. She is resourceful, smart, she's cunning, she's witty, she's charming, and she gets herself into some interesting situations because she's a bit fearless. And the whole point of this whole aria, Quando m'en vo, it's a big spectacle. She is totally trying to make Marcello jealous. And it's a hit in our world. If you've heard Quando m'en vo before, it's such a recognizable tune.
[Excerpt of Quando m'en vo]
JESSICA JONES: I was worried about mentally and emotionally preparing to come into a show like La Bohème after the last year. You know what, so far it feels great though. We've come together, we're getting back in the rhythm. The pavilion is going to be a beautiful space to perform in. To be able to see people again and share and have this moment of art together is so important. So all the worries, they're slowly falling away as we're in the process. And I know this is gonna be a big moment of joy for Charlottesville in general. I hope that everyone feels that when they come out to see the performance.
HOST: For more information and tickets to La Bohème, you can visit www.charlottesvilleopera.org.
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XAVIER TAYLOR: So the piece revolves around the student revolution, right, that took place in Paris in ‘68?
STEPHANIE HAVEY: That's right. We've decided to update the setting to the 1960s in Paris because the background for who these bohemians are, it's really based in protest art in its own way. The original story took place in the 1830s, but bohemians have always created art as a form of protest. And so we wanted to update it to a time period that our audience would be familiar with and have some relationship to what artists may have been protesting in the ‘60s. And so we thought that by drawing that parallel, it would also help us see parallels to today.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Oh, for sure. That's immediate. As soon as I saw that idea, I was like, man, she's like making it so topical.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Yes.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Who was in charge of doing the adaptations and the enrichment of…
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Let me give you a little background and then I'll hand it over to Stephanie because she is. The answer is she is that. But this project originated before the pandemic, right? There was a transition for the company. I had been in the plans to conduct a production, and as things evolved, they asked me if I would serve as artistic advisor to get the production together. So the first thing was to hire a stage director.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: And the first experience I had with Stephanie was in a situation where I needed to bring new people into the theater. I had a core audience that loved and expected very traditional opera, but that I knew after really in-depth market research and really going into their heads more than based on what they said, I knew that a little bit of a change needed to happen. Not so much a change as making things fresher and attractive to new audiences. And we did a production together that had those characteristics. She had this masterful transition in her head to bring out totally traditional opera or that could be totally traditional like Don Giovanni and make it so attractive that it really we sold the house every time and they loved it. So, knowing that Charlesville Opera was in that, well, every company is in that quest, you know, we need to bring new people.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Yeah, new work, new life.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: So she came to mind and she was available. At that time, she was really busy. She had, like, something right up to the time she was supposed to be here and then was going into her next job. But she agreed to do it. Now, the whole pandemic transition thing, you know? And then that's where I pass it to Stephanie to take you from there on how she came up with this fantastic concept.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Awesome.
STEPHANIE HAVEY: So the company asked us if we could create a version of La Bohème that would be under 90 minutes because we were hoping for safety reasons to avoid an intermission. So that was an interesting prospect because traditionally, no one makes any cuts in La Bohème. It's one of the most beloved operas and so it was a bit of a daunting task to say how could we possibly cut Boheme. But another safety consideration was that we needed to reduce the numbers of singers on stage, and so we had to eliminate the number of chorus and supers and that sort of thing. So we started there. We said we need to cut down the large crowd scenes and once we cut those out of the piece, I mean, they're still there, but we do actually have a chorus, but it's a smaller chorus.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Featuring the young artists, is that correct?
STEPHANIE HAVEY: That's right! It's the young artists. The emerging artists, even. But once we reduced sort of the crowd scenes, then it became clear how to cut the piece down, and we didn't want to eliminate any of the story or any of the recognizable tunes, and there's so many.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Yes.
STEPHANIE HAVEY: So really we only had to take a few minutes out of each act and now we just have this action packed version of the story that just, it doesn't let up. So I think, I hope it will be an emotional roller coaster for the audience.
XAVIER TAYLOR: So for you with that abridged action packed version, has that created any new challenges behind the..
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Well, some technical, even technical or like logistical challenges. again, because it's such a...difficult piece to cut with.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Yeah, already.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: You know, I assure you, every musician in the orchestra has probably played it or in the very least is very familiar with. So to go from one thing to another one far in the future and paste them together was always a shock.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Yes, majority.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: But you get over that, you know, and as you go in rehearsals and you repeat it and you will assimilate [to] this new structure, especially when it works so masterfully on the stage, you totally accept it. And I can assure you, unless you are familiar to the point that you can remember the score in your head, people are not going to be able to point out exactly where the cuts are.
XAVIER TAYLOR: So there's no big feeling that any bits of the story have been left out from you?
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Oh no! From that standpoint, the story is there. It's an impeccable approach from that standpoint and they're going to get every bit of it.
XAVIER TAYLOR: It's fantastic.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Yeah, and as Stephanie said, every wonderful melody that's in the score. We didn't leave any of those out.
XAVIER TAYLOR: So we’ve got a very sort of ambitious production going on. We're outside, COVID safety protocols. This is the first one that's going to be done at the Pavilion, which is super, super exciting. And you brought in – who's your lighting and stage production...?
STEPHANIE HAVEY: The lighting and scenic designer is Barry Steele.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Barry Steele. And he's done some great work sort of all over the country.
STEPHANIE HAVEY: Yeah, he's worked all over the world with video design and lighting design. And so we knew that for this venue, being outdoors and starting the show during daylight, which is something that in opera we don't do too often. So, we needed to take a new approach and we needed to use technology to meet the challenge. And the venue worked with us to help us find some LED screens that they usually use for rock and roll shows. And we said, well, we should use them for opera. Why aren’t we using these rock and roll LED screens for opera? So Barry came in and has created this incredible video design that will transport us to Paris, but then also incorporate this protest art throughout the story to help support the idea of who these characters are and the context in which they lived.
That is very, very cool. I'm excited to see it. So this is both of your first productions here in Charlottesville. What else is in the near future for you guys?
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: It's a difficult question to answer right now. The world is just opening up and six, eight months ago, I didn't even think the US was going to be one of the first ones to be opening doors at this level. And knock on wood, we are very fortunate that it is actually happening. Some of the very strict restrictions that this production was planned on have even been lifted by now. Of course, when you have a plan, you just have to follow it, otherwise, it would be difficult to adjust day by day. But when it comes to answering your question, that's what we're doing right now, adjusting day by day with lots of plans and propositions and you know, but we have to see. Let us hope that we really, the arts and culture sector is opening completely and that within a year we'll be all back to work and sharing with the audiences.
XAVIER TAYLOR: So we're going to play some of your favorite recordings this evening on the program. Can you give me a few just tip bits on why you chose the particular recordings that you did?
STEPHANIE HAVEY: For me, when I look at a recording, I'm listening for expression of text. And so I like to look to the masters who did the roles hundreds or thousands of times to find the nuance in the expression of text. And that's what I work on with the cast when we're in rehearsal. I don't assume that because it's opera and it's scored, that doesn't mean you can only represent the text in one way or express it in one way. We want to find nuance in the expression and I like to ask the cast, why do you think this happens in the orchestra? Why do you think your vocal line suddenly has a dynamic change? What does that say about the character? What does that say about how you read the line? And so I sort of start with the masters and in one way, you kind of try to forget all of that when you walk into the rehearsal room and say, can we create something new and fresh here?
XAVIER TAYLOR: For sure. I was going to go with the question about singing and English and modern opera, which I know that you have a deep passion for and also share that passion. And it's bringing that freshness and that newness to these works and also bring that text to life in a way that sometimes can be overshadowed by just trying to repeat the same melodies over and over without actually digging into what is being said. So, I really appreciate the effort and work going into that.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: I agree with everything Stephanie said about that recording and I would only add one thing, the beauty of those voices, you know, because in that particular one, aside from the words and the articulation that she rightfully mentioned and that I will follow on, it's just that kind of sound. And I think we have that in our two leads also when they open their mouth. You feel that, you know, in the voice. So I can see why in this case she listed that recording.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: In my case, both Renata Scott and Alfredo Krauss, through their careers, had a very special gift of getting what they wanted from a conductor. Not that Freni and Pavarotti didn't, they did too, but I also want to make emphasis on the articulation of the text. I mean, Scotto was, is a native speaker. Alfredo Krauss wasn't, he was a Spaniard, but the idiomatic way in which he sings the language, both in Italian and French, was masterful. Now, what made me decide on this recording as a basis to my re-preparing is that most of the musical articulation, aside from the vocal.and language aspects of it, is the most literal to what Puccini put on the page. It's within the style to get a little overindulgent or carried away in terms of sound and I think that recording that Stephanie chose is fabulous in that sense that you just get that sound.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Yeah, wrapped up in a tape.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Yes, but with me it was more about my being prepared to be loyal to the score and yet totally bring it to life afresh.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Is there a piece that you would love to direct or conduct that has not come across your table yet or your plate yet?
STEPHANIE HAVEY: Yes, absolutely. I grew up in the South, mostly in Knoxville, Tennessee, but I've also lived in South Carolina and Florida and all throughout the South. For me, I love to work on pieces that deal with religion and our culture here in the South. So, a piece that I would love to work on is Carla Floyd's Susanna. And it's a piece that I did in school and the composer actually came and worked with us and coached the singers. And it was so eye opening to me to sort of see the history of my culture reflected on stage, and to consider as a director how someone might interpret that. So that's something I'm really passionate about is sort of looking at how we portray religion on stage. And I recently did a production of The Crucible where I explored some of those similar themes and to also ask how do those pieces relate to us today. Of course, The Crucible very easily related to us today, but I think Susanna could be something interesting to explore as well.
XAVIER TAYLOR: I definitely agree with that. Susanna sort of strikes a chord in me. It's one of those things that you just said. It's about sort of beginning, especially in the world of opera as an American, for sure to start to be able to see yourself and your stories on stage and how that affects you to see yourself up there. that is...
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: Okay, I'm totally inspired by the two of you to answer that question because, you know, the answer to that question is a long list. But just hearing her about, to speak about Susanna and knowing that she did it in college is the same thing with me. I've done two productions, they were two both university productions. So the composer did two versions of the orchestration and one was geared for a college. So that's the one I have conducted. But my mouth waters to think of doing it in a big stage with a full orchestra, professional cast of singers and, yeah, that would definitely be one of my least.
XAVIER TAYLOR: What was the production that you did?
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: First I was in school myself at the University of Texas at Austin long, long ago I won't even tell you the date in a new way. And actually three four years ago at Oklahoma State University I was a visiting professor for orchestral studies there for one year and I was in charge of the opera and the one big production that year was Susanna. Yes 2015-2016 academic term.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Awesome. Okay, so what we sort of talked about this a little bit earlier but I want to dig back into it a little bit just to close out. Refresh for us or repeat for us the importance of having these sort of adaptations and bringing this new freshness to these pieces so that we can bring in these new audiences that sometimes have never seen or been to a theater before. Or as in our case, not even a theater, it's an outside, a broad concert venue.
STEPHANIE HAVEY: Right. Well, after what we've all experienced over the past year, I think that as artists we have to respond to the human experience. So doing a piece like La Bohème, you know, I kept asking myself, what does this piece mean to us now? I mean, I ask that every time I do a production, but especially now. We've all been through a lot and I think it's changed our perspective on our culture, on arts, and on how we relate to our communities. And so I felt like we couldn't ignore that when we’re creating this production.
STEPHANIE HAVEY: And in fact, the idea to update it to the 1960s was something that we decided to do very recently. That was not the plan, you know, two years ago when we were thinking about doing La Bohème. But for me, it's really a response to what's happened in our communities. And I think it's important that art always allows us to, as you said, see ourselves in the story, to consider our history and also consider what role we want to play in our communities going forward. So that's what this production is about.
ENRIQUE CARREÓN-ROBLEDO: It is almost daunting to acknowledge how much history repeats itself. You and you go from the time the opera was written to today, there are so many different time periods in which this would be played and you would have contact with that. And I very much agree the audience wants to connect directly. Let me tell you: When Verdi wrote La Traviata, he wanted to put people on the stage wearing the same clothes that the audience was wearing. But there was censorship back then, right? So he had to pre-date it a hundred years back. So when I produced La Traviata for Verdi's bicentennial in 2013, no, bicentennial of his birth, you get mixed with the dates, I decided I'm going to set it in 2013. because that's what Verdi wanted. And I assure you, any of these composers will totally be for this kind of updated production because it would just bring it to the present.
XAVIER TAYLOR: Well, it's been really enjoyable talking to you two. I very much look forward to seeing this production and hopefully maybe working with you two soon if you return to Charlottesville or maybe somewhere else in our adventures.