UMBRELLA COLLECTIVE
  • Home
  • About
  • Projects
  • Support
  • Connect
  • Blog

Talking Opera

4/11/2013

 
Here in Minneapolis, we are working away to expand and explore the story of THE GOLDEN CARP with our presentation coming up next week. In another season in the not-so-distant future, this story will find it's full life as a chamber opera, so I talked withcreator and project leader Candy Bilyk out in California. We talked about opera, what it means to her, and how it will allow this story to be expressed. /Blake

(Please note: the upcoming workshop of THE GOLDEN CARP will be acted, but not sung. Join us now for the story; stay tuned for the future full opera!)

THE GOLDEN CARP Workshop Presentation
April 19 and 20 7:30 pm
Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center
3749 Chicago Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Make reservations here!

Blake Bolan: Can you give us a beginner's definition of opera, and how it connects to other forms of music-theater?
Candy Bilyk: I don't want to get myself in hot water here, but the "big" forms of music-theater in the Western tradition are the opera, musical, and ballet. The most important thing is that music-theater is a spectrum, not a neat set of drawers or folders with zero overlap. And no matter how you define each form, even the big "established" ones, there will be people out there to argue that you're wrong.

View image | gettyimages.com
We know she's singin', but it ain't over!
There's a lot of dissension about what separates opera from music-theater in particular, because they are so closely related. Musicals are a child of operettas, and the operetta is really seen as a particular style of light opera. But broadly speaking, an opera has wall-to-wall music, all the words are sung, and the music has prominence as the most "important" element in the production. Musicals contain songs as well as considerable spoken dialogue, and the words and story are more important than the music or at least equally so.

BB: How did your interest in opera begin? What are some elements of the form that you particularly appreciate?
CB: When I was in high school, my orchestra took a field trip to see a final dress rehearsal of Turandot, performed by the Minnesota Opera. It sounds corny, but I just fell in love. Some people are really into movies with visual overload, like Moulin Rouge. Opera is like the aural equivalent of that to me. When I sat in that audience I felt like I was surrounded and inundated by sound; it wrapped around me and I was inside the music. That is what I love most about opera. Since then I've also played in opera pits many times, and it is my favorite thing by far to play.
Picture
The pyrotechnical spectacle of Puccini's La Bohème at Opera Philadelphia.
Can WE have fire, TOO?!
PictureThe carp (Evan Boyce) sings
his own praises at Savage Umbrella's
Night of New Works last summer.
BB: How does working on an opera differ from your other experiences in music-theater?
CB: Well, really the biggest difference for me is that I'm the driving force on this project. In all the other music-theater pieces I've done, the idea was generated by someone else and the music was designed to serve the story and a particular purpose that was markedly subservient to everything else going on and could have been written by other people. But things like the rehearsal process are all really similar, it's just that opera is all music and musicals usually have less music and more speaking and blocking. The only real difference I've experienced as a violist is that in musicals we have less music to play, and the viola parts are frequently pretty boring and easy. I've never played ballet music outside of the concert hall or written for ballet, so I can't speak to that experience.


BB: How do you think the form helps to tell the story of THE GOLDEN CARP?
CB: That's a good question. I've heard opinions from other people about this, like opera is somehow the most unrealistic art form and therefore a fantastical world is more accepted in it. I disagree with that, but maybe there's something to it in the collective consciousness. I just really wanted to make it an opera. I partially wrote a short story several years ago about a fairy and a fish (which barely resembles the story today), and the more I revised and added to it, the more crazy duets and arias started popping into my mind. But I think any story can work in multiple forms, this is just the way I'm excited about telling it. It could be a really cool stage play if told differently.



Comments are closed.

    Archives

    November 2020
    May 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010

    RSS Feed

Picture
Together is better.
Get under the umbrella.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Copyright 2019
​Umbrella Collective
  • Home
  • About
  • Projects
  • Support
  • Connect
  • Blog