Toronto Opera and Me

Last month I finished my third season as a baritone-bass in the chorus of the Toronto Opera Repertoire, a non-professional opera company (toronto-opera.com) that puts on shows every February at the Bickford Centre. We do it in the form of a night-school course, learning the music Tuesday nights in the fall term, and rehearsing on stage and performing in the winter term. (In the fall us men go downstairs to a separate room to learn our lines, and the women always seem to learn faster than we do!) Instead of an orchestra, we have piano accompaniment by the brilliant Adolfo diSantis. In recent seasons, we've had surtitles!

The company is headed by famous Toronto journalist Gerald Hannon, who also sings baritone solo roles, and his comic performances are really funny. We rely on regulars like George Seppenwolde (also a soloist), who does our makeup every year. (The first time I looked in a mirror and saw myself in stage makeup, I reminded myself of Laurence Olivier in THE ENTERTAINER.) In particular, Barbara Thompson is the Girl Friday who gets most of the work done, from making sure all the costumes have arrived to being a den mother keeping an eye on all the choristers for potential problems.

In 2003-4 we did Donizetti's LUCIA DI LAMERMOOR and Mozart's DON GIOVANNI; 2004-5 I skipped the opera and took drama courses instead, then went to see the others in Puccini's MADAMA BUTTERFLY and Rossini's THE BARBER OF SEVILLE; 2005-6 we did Donizetti's L'ELISIRE D'AMORE and a double bill of Puccini's SUOR ANGELICA and Pergolesi's LA SERVA PADRONA. But this past season the combined work was harder than usual. It was our 40th anniversary, so we did an ambitious program: Verdi's LA TRAVIATA and RIGOLETTO. The one constant each year is that we'll do one opera with quite a few choruses and a second with not so much. (Last year SUOR ANGELICA had largely female choruses, with us men only coming in at the end with the celestial voices; LA SERVA PADRONE was soloists only.) Rig is shorter on choruses, but even that has lots of difficult stuff where we come in at the end of the bar etc. and I found it the more challenging of the two. We had an unusually long time learning all our lines, and even I, who previously had my lines down cold by Christmas, took longer this year. But the gamble paid off, and we had a successful season.

What makes it all possible is the vision of conductor-director Giuseppe Macina, who's been with the company from the start. (His favorite expression is "JESUS MURPHY!") He used to sing opera at the pro levels, and he does everything down to set design. At the nonpro level, the key is to do more with less, and he has an eye for every detail, like that the Trav doctor should remove his glove before taking Violetta's pulse, or that the Rig women can wear rubies or emeralds, but they didn't wear diamonds back in the Renaissance. I used my regular shoes for Trav, but brought my slippers for Rig. What was especially fun was at the start of the third act of Rig, just after we've kidnapped Gilda, when he had us hustling her across the stage Snidely Whiplash-style. The piano accompaniment actually added to the silent-movie melodrama effect here.

Performing in an opera, even in the chorus, is a unique experience. Giuseppe has always seen the company as providing an opportunity for nonpro soloists to sing, but for us choristers it's also a rare chance. You get a fuller appreciation of even the most familiar operas by learning to sing them. (Even listening to the DON GIOVANNI music again and again backstage, I never got tired of it.) For me, the time when the lights go down before the performance starts is like the time at a birthday party when they lower the lights just before bringing in the cake with candles. We're supposed to keep quiet in the wings, but it's a rule honored more in the breach than in the observance.

Our ticket price is $22, less for students and old folk. We do very well to fill half the seats, though I'm told we'd sell out back in the '70s when there was less competition. We also have fundraisers, and last fall we had a big event in the mezzanine of the Canadian Opera Company's new building. (The COC's Richard Bradshaw is our honorary chair.) Our main expense is renting costumes from Malabar, and we're lucky they give us a generous discount.

Acting as well as singing is a challenge. When we put on LUCIA, Giuseppe wanted us to react more when Edgardo grabbed Lucia in the wedding scene, so I bit my thumb. (More Italian than Scottish, I'll admit.) For that production I even imagined myself as a clansman who really didn't want to fight Edgardo but didn't want to look weak in front of his kinfolk. Last fall we had an acting class, for which David Roche printed out a long list of possible motivations for being at Violetta's party, like "You come to steal her knick-knacks, either to sell them or out of spite," or "You're homosexual, and they understand these things here," or "You've lost your faith, so you may as well lose your virginity too." We did an exercise where we pretended to be freaks in a sideshow, and I became a Wild Man who went around scaring people. Great fun!

What will we do next year? It all depends on Giuseppe's evaluation of the solo talent.

UPDATE:

It turns out that we'll be doing two of the following three operas: Verdi's UN BALLO IN MASCHERA, Puccini's LA BOHEME, or Offenbach's TALES OF HOFFMAN.