Portland Opera To Go's blog

As an actor, it is rare to make the audience "feel" enough to cry.  I forget that occasionally the audience can get so wrapped up in the moment that they believe in the reality of the world onstage. As a young actor it is also rare to get so caught up in the moment that you find yourself weeping onstage for the girl who has just expired because her lungs have filled with a combination of blood and mucus causing pleural failure. In the event of these few and far between occurrences, the more sentimental members of the mature audience may be seen wiping their eyes, sniffing the moisture back into their noses that is the involuntary result of catharsis.
 
However, our four-year old was not watching La Boheme. The young lady was viewing an Opera Improv show on Wednesday evening. The story was our Fracture Fairy Tale option, where the Big Bad Wolf is placed at the bar for attempted murder and general disquiet in the realm of make-believe. The action began during the overture (Liszt's Totentanz), with the reveal of the Little Pig #3 being pursued by the Big Bad Wolf (yours truly). The porcine would-be victim escapes however (only to return later as the bailiff, "Officer Porker"), leaving the B.B.W. to begin the opera with a bit of improvised recitative.
 
It went somewhat thus:

"I'm the Big Bad Wolf! Though I've already had two little piggies for breakfast today, that third one will fit nicely in the fridge for a snack later. Too bad he got away! Oh well, that's okay, I like eating little children just as well!"
 
At this point, I licked my chops, hunkered down, and gazed with gastronomic yearning at the four-year old in question. She quivered, with fear, screamed, and had to be rescued by a young lady I assume to be her mother. The consolation proved effective, as her sobbing subsided, and eventually she returned to her place in the front row.
 
The remainder of the show went without issue, and our morbid audience voted for a tragic ending, where the B.B.W. is cleared of his charges due to a mistrial (Red Riding Hood was the judge in disguise, seeking revenge for her grandmothers demise).

I made an attempt at reconciliation with my four-year old after the show, but I think she had her doubts about my intent... after all, the villain won, and if a child can believe that a charming young singer could really be a wolf in human clothing, how is it any less satisfying than leaving an audience with damp cheeks for a dead Mimi?

--Sammuel "Wolfman" Hawkins

The truly gratifying part of the tour is when we perform for an engaged and receptive school audience, and they pay attention to specific details. This is true especially after we've had a long run with silent and "zombie-like" audiences who have no response whatsoever. Then when we suddenly hear the laughter and applause where we're normally not used to it, it makes it worthwhile. That signifies their sign of appreciation and that applause also counts for the time it took for us to set and strike the set (especially those 8am mornings). I'd also have to say it is rewarding when we perform for an older audience and you see and hear them tearing up. It makes the 50th performance that much more organic and engaging, and it allows us to forget how sleep-deprived we all really are.

The most amusing part of the tour has been: signing autographs for kids, getting hugs from them, and having the kids tell me their honest observations. They seem to like letting me know that I look like someone they know or they can get very personal. Here are a few examples:
 
"You're pretty. You look like Mulan."

"You look like and act like London from Disney's "The Suite Life of Zack and Cody."

"How old are you? You look like you're 18."

"My mom's as old as you."

"Are you married?"

"We know someone who'd be good for you. Our teacher."

"Do you really like Marcello? Are you guys going to stay together?"

(Ha...Ha...Ha...Hilarious!)
 
Written by Sarah Kim

10 Greatest Things About the Portland Opera To Go Tour

Best Clam Chowder
Ship Inn Restaurant & Family Pub – Astoria, OR

Best Hotel
La Quinta - Ashland, OR

Best Destructive Moment
TIE:  Backing the Opera van into a parked car & knocking over a flat screen computer monitor during a scene change.  We won’t mention the locations.  (Both courtesy of Sarah Kim)

Best Audience
Canyonville Christian Academy - Canyonville, OR

Best Beach
Newport Beach, OR

Best Question from a 4th grader
“Can I have your number?”  (to Sarah Kim)

Best Free Gift
T-Shirts from Riley Creek Elementary School – Gold Beach, OR

Best Marionberry Scone
Gold Beach Books – Gold Beach, OR
www.oregoncoastbooks.com

Best Opera Improv Story
“Fractured Fairy Tale”  
The Big Bad Wolf is captured and put on trial by one of the three little pigs, cross-examined by prosecuting attorney Cinderella, and discovers the judge is none other than Little Red Riding Hood in disguise.

Best Coffee Shop
Great Pacific, Pendleton, OR
www.greatpacific.biz

During our travels we get to sample some of the local restaurants and coffee shops and what have you. This last Friday I think we found the best smoothie and Java shake cafe in the state. It's called Oregon Sunshine Espresso and they specialize in blended drinks using Umpqua Valley milk products. They also have a nice selection of wines and very helpful staff.

So, if you're ever in Canyonville, Oregon, maybe visiting 7 Feathers casino or just driving through to Grants Pass and need to make a stop, Oregon Sunshine is located on Main Street, North of downtown and South of the casino. The address is 340 N Main street. Check it out!

Cafe review by Sara Busch

 Life on the road is exciting, rewarding, and challenging!
We though we would share some of those moments with you in photos.  Enjoy!

We Sing Seattle-ese

Kids say the darndest things. Ya gotta love 'em. The cutest and most humorous answer to any of our questions this season:

Question: Does anyone know the language we just sang?

Answer: Seattle?

Yes, Seattle has it's own opera dialect. I'll need a refresher course for that diction. We also get great answers for other questions. During our Opera Improv intro we will sing a snippit of an aria and ask our audience, usually K-5th graders, "what type of character or mood did I just sing?"

Answers fly at us such as,

"You look like you're a king punishing a peasant"

"You're a princess who just kissed the prince"

"There's a spider in front of you and you're scared"

"You're lost and you can't find your mommy"

Smart kids. Clever kids. Never do they cease to entertain us.

Written by: Bobby Jackson

At the end of our Opera Improvs, sometimes we have the time for a Q and A session. This is always fun, because we get some really fun questions. My favorite though, is when we get a student who wants to sing for everyone like an opera singer. We've had several throughout the tour, girls singing as high as they possibly can and guys typically singing with the baritone claw (hand outstretched), but today at a performance for homeschoolers in Beaverton we heard my favorite. I believe we met a diva in the making! One of the girls that we performed for asked if she could sing for us like an opera singer and preceded to stand up, face the audience and say "Wolf Man, get the piano ready!" She wanted "happy music", so Eric, our pianist, preceded to play some happy music on the piano and away she went. What confidence! I wish I had that when I was her age.

We've been on the road for many weeks now and have been all over Oregon. Many times when we travel out of town for the day or week, we'll load up in the van, sleep and just wake up when we get there, unload and perform the show. Consequently, we don't always know where we are, except the name of the school. I felt so silly when after being interviewed after a show for a newspaper, I asked the girl that was interviewing me, "So, is this for a local paper or the school paper?" I soon found out it was the capital's paper, the Statesman! We were in Salem and I didn't even know it.

Written by Alexis Lundy

As tour manager I get to hear (and remember) the great things kids say and the quick thinking the performers are required to do. I also get to see most things that happen behind and off the set. At this point in the tour a handful of great moments have passed, almost unnoticed.

First, I would like to clarify that this tour requires the cast to be the crew as well. At each performance we unload, set-up and the re-load the set pieces in a moving truck. We have gotten quite good at the process. At the Bay City Arts Center, we were unable to fit all the pieces up the stairs and needed to set a few off to the side. This happens often, depending on the size of the space. What makes this event memorable was the action of a wandering animal. Bay City Arts is graciously (and gently) guarded by a beautiful dog who is not responsible for the following action. A collie I have never met before came to greet us about half way through our set-up. He was quite an excited pup and instantly began looking for something to claim as his. All he found were my set pieces and they, naturally, became his. After shooing him away, the women in the kitchen helped me find some disinfectant so I could sanitize the set pieces before returning them to the truck.

In addition to La Boheme, this tour performs an interactive improvised opera which lets students vote on music and storylines as well as learn a few lines to perform as the chorus. During the musical voting sessions, the kids are asked to think about the mood of the music and respond with their ideas. They also get to vote on the overture. In one of these moments, Eric played a happy tune which got the response “it sounds like an elf bouncing through a happy place.”  Eric responded, slightly under his breath, with “well, it is Mozart, so you’re right.”

POGO took a trip to an alternative high school named The Miller Education Center. These were some of the neatest teens and being at this school reminded me of how much I miss my work as a teen counselor. For some of them, it was their first opera. The opera ends with Rodolpho screaming Mimi's name on a high G and then sobbing over her dead body. Pretty emotional huh? Well despite this, I heard that one of the girls cried not during this, but instead during Colline's (the bass) aria where he decides to sell his coat for Mimi's medicine. I guess the tenor can't ALWAYS win.

Today POGO participated in our first teaching class sessions along with our 3rd Bohème for a school consisting of K-5 students. The students turned out to be a bit rowdy during the class teaching segment, but I chalked it up to their enthusiasm for the upcoming show. The Bohème went really well and the students seemed to really enjoy it. I must admit, I did think the subject matter of Bohème might have been too mature this age group. However, they were a really good audience. Afterwards we started loading the set (that's right, we do it all and sing too). As we were doing this, I noticed one of the students standing off to the side watching us. He was dressed like any other stereotypical "cool" young guy in black jeans that barely hung onto his waist and a black sports jacket 2-3 sizes bigger than he was. He looked at me and asked, "You were in that opera right?" "Yep!", I replied to which he responded, "That was really cool. Thanks for coming." Then, he turned and walked away throwing jabs at the air like he was sparring with an imaginary boxing partner. I thought to myself, "Now that's why we're doing what we do."