Aspects of Women
What are your own roots?
My
roots are in theatre. I was a professor in the theatre department at Dalhousie
for forty years, and have been actively engaged as a director for most of that
time.
How long have you been involved in opera, and in what capacity?
My
involvement in opera as a director goes back to the eighties when I was engaged
by the Dal music department to work on their production of Gianni Schicchi. I
have subsequently directed several operas for Opera Nova Scotia. I've always
been interested in opera as a form, however, and my awareness of it goes back
to my childhood and my father's passion for the great mid-century singers.
pera was always a part of the musical world in our house, and has
remained so for me.
What inspired this particular production?
My
involvement in this production arises from my being asked by Walter Kemp to
direct La Serva Padrona, and then being asked by Andy Wainwright if I would
work on the opera he and John Plant had written called I Will Fly Like a Bird.
I knew La Serva Padrona because I'd directed it before back in the eighties,
and I knew the other piece because I'd seen its premiere at Scotiafest two or
three years ago. Serva is always fun, and the chance to work on it again after
so many years, and to rethink my approach to it, was very welcome. And the
opportunity to work on an original piece of the quality of Fly Like a Bird, to
direct the first staging of it, is a wonderful chance to create something new.
What are the challenges involved?
The
primary challenges are pragmatic ones: budgetary restrictions, shortage of
rehearsal time, limitations of rehearsal space, that sort of thing--the things
you encounter with any production. But there are aesthetic challenges as
well. To create a theatrical piece out of something that wasn't
necessarily designed to be theatrical, as in the case with Fly Like a Bird, is
a challenge that I welcome. To layer a kind of metanarrative over a
pre-existing narrative so that it makes theatrical sense is very
exciting. In the case of Serva Padrona, the discovery of new comic
possibilities within a piece that has had so many different productions over
the years is a lovely challenge.
What are the rewards?
For
me, the major rewards are in the rehearsal process and the discoveries that are
made. The collaborative process, the contributions that everyone makes to the
final product, the spirit of generosity in the room--those are the things I
value most. I love to see performers discovering things in themselves that
they weren't aware of. I love the way in which the unsung creative
staff--the designers of all the various visual and auditory aspects of the
production--contribute to the process. Ultimately, of course, the process is
only complete when an audience shares the experience, so the final reward is
the audience themselves and their reactions. I should add that a bonus for me
in this production is sharing the bill with the work of my former Dalhousie
colleague Roberta Barker, who is directing another original piece called A Visit
From Aunt Helen.
What can audiences
expect during the run?
Tears
and laughter, I suspect. These are two wildly contrasting pieces that
between them run the emotional gamut.
What are your thoughts on the state of opera in Halifax, and Atlantic Canada?
There's
a strong and passionate community that creates opera in the region, and a
number of remarkably talented performers. But the size of the potential
audience makes its economic viability challenging. In large centres,
productions that command large budgets are possible simply because the economic
scale is different, and this is the kind of production most people think about
when they envision an opera. It's the kind of thing people see in those
broadcasts from the Met, that are very popular in local movie
theatres. Growing up in Vancouver, I was able to see world class singers
in large scale productions. Here, the scale is different. Realistically, it has
to be. One of the things I like about working on this particular evening
of operas is that the scale is right: these are not reduced versions of
something that's meant to be much larger. These are produced on exactly the
scale they were meant to be produced on, so there's a kind of integrity about
the work that I like.
What's next on your creative agenda?
I'll
be directing a double bill of Riders to the Sea (the play) and Riders to the
Sea (the opera) for the Fountain School at Dal in February. I think this will
be a very exciting project. The idea of pairing these two works is a wonderful
one, and I'm looking forward to starting work on it.
Aspects of Women
May
22, 23, 7pm
Sir
James Dunn Theatre, Halifax
www.nsopera.org
