March 7, 2012
The Benjamin T. Rome School of Music presents the spring opera production of Madama Butterfly Friday, March 16, through Sunday, March 18, in Hartke Theatre.
Giacomo Puccini's 1904 masterpiece Madama Butterfly sets to music the heart wrenching story of Cio-Cio-San, a beautiful geisha in Nagasaki. A marriage broker has arranged for the young maiden to become the wife of U.S. Navy Lieutenant B. F. Pinkerton.
The 999-year marriage contract (with a monthly renewal option) indulges the American, who ultimately hopes to take an American wife, but Cio-Cio-San lets her heart get in the way of business. When Pinkerton leaves Japan for three years, Cio-Cio-San longingly awaits his return, along with their young son (born after Pinkerton's departure).
Will the lieutenant's return be the happy reunion that Cio-Cio-San has long desired, or has Pinkerton left their love in the past? The opera is based on John Luther Long's adaptation of Pierre Loti's semi-autobiographical Madame Chrysanthème .
Voice instructor Fabiana Bravo, who serves as a consultant for this show, has performed the role of Butterfly with two prestigious companies - the Dallas Opera and San Francisco Opera. She has been working with the CUA student performers to pass on what she learned in the past from working with a geisha to accurately portray the part.
"Fabiana has invaluable experience to pass on to the students," says David Carl Toulson, director. "She offers an extraordinary level of detail in such things as how to move correctly, bow, and use a fan. She is also working with the lead roles, helping them to establish a credible emotional arc for their characters."
Madama Butterfly is also one of the first music scores Katerina Souvorova, musical director, learned 30 years ago when she started working for an opera house in Russia.
"Along with the knowledge of Japanese traditions and culture, the style of Puccini's verismo demands finding truthful, authentic expressiveness in interpretation," says Souvorova.
"The primary challenge for all singers was discovering how to interpret the famous canto parlato , a unique style of Puccini's vocal music based on the flow of the Italian speech. This is what I have been spending time doing in the studio - teaching students how to become expressive, precise, and realistic in their diction. Working on these aspects of opera has helped develop the flexibility and expressiveness of their voices, making our students better singers, perceptive musicians, and singing actors."
Although Madama Butterfly has consistently ranked as one of the most popular operas in the world since its premiere in 1904, Catholic University has not performed it many times because of vocal demands for the three lead roles. The current cast (with two students playing each lead role on alternating nights), with the consult of Bravo, has led to an amazing show, Toulson says.
With the exception of one student, all the other performers in the lead roles are approaching the show for the first time.
"There are no pre-conceived notions," Toulson says. "There is a youthful energy that I think will create beautiful and moving moments."
The production with full orchestra will be conducted by Murry Sidlin, professor of music, on Friday and Saturday; and by Joel Borelli-Boudreau, a doctoral candidate studying orchestral conducting, on Sunday. Sharon Christman, associate professor and head of the CUA Voice Program, is advising the production.
Performances will take place at 7:30 p.m. on March 16 and 17 and at 2 p.m. on March 18. Tickets are $15 for general admission and $10 for seniors, students, and CUA alumni, faculty, and staff. For more information, to purchase tickets, or to request disability accommodations, call 202-319-5416 or visit http://music.cua.edu/calendar/butterfly.cfm .
Sharon Christman , soprano, made her Alice Tully Hall debut singing Pergolesi's Orpheus Cantata with the New York Chamber Orchestra. Engagements with the New York City Opera and Opera Orchestra of New York under the direction of Maestra Eve Queler followed. Christman made her Metropolitan Opera debut singing the role of the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte - a role she has performed with more than 20 opera companies and symphonies across the United States, Canada, and South America. She may be seen on video with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation with L'Opera de Montreal, a Maurice Sendak production.
Christman has sung leading roles with opera companies around the world, such as Dallas Opera, Teatro Municipal (Santiago, Chile), New York City Opera, The Metropolitan Opera, Pittsburgh Opera, Florentine Opera, and many more. She has soloed with major symphony orchestras including the National Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, Montreal Symphony, Opera Orchestra of New York, and New York Chamber Orchestra, to name a few. Christman has soloed under the baton of such conductors as Julius Rudel, Eduardo Muller, Alfredo Silipigni, Wolfgang Rennert, Hans Allers, Steven Larsen, Richard Lert, and Yakov Kreizburg. She performed Maestro Murry Sidlin's concert-drama "Defiant Requiem: Verdi at Terezin," as part of the Prague Spring Festival, at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, and at other venues.
Christman has taught and aided in the development of the careers of a number of young talents, including Patrick Carfizzi (Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera); Fabiana Bravo (New York City Opera, Metropolitan Opera, Los Angeles Opera, and Hjordis Elin Laurus-Dottir, "Disella," (Metropolitan Opera). In 2009 Christman received the "Overall Excellence in Teaching" award from Catholic University.
Katerina Souvorova is an accomplished pianist as well as a distinguished professional opera and vocal coach. Souvorova's work with the Baltimore Opera as a principal accompanist included Puccini's Madama Butterfly , Verdi's Il Trovatore , Strauss's Salome , Puccini's Fanciulla del West , and Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro . She is founder and general and artistic director of Bel Cantanti Opera in Washington, D.C. She started the company in 2003, training a handful of young singers to perform Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors , Bel Cantanti's first fully staged opera production.
Souvorova's work was highly acclaimed by Joe McLellan, the late classical music critic emeritus of The Washington Post who said: "...Katerina Souvorova [is] a pianist of international stature and vocal coach of extraordinary talent...We can credit her with a high level of skill, both in music and in human relations, and an even higher level of determination."
Murry Sidlin has conducted 14 consecutive New Year's Eve galas with members of the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center. The National Symphony has long had a special place in Sidlin's career as he spent four years on the conducting staff as resident conductor to Antal Dorati. His career includes tenure as music director of the New Haven Symphony for 12 years, the Long Beach Symphony, and the Tulsa Philharmonic.
He has conducted hundreds of opera performances, among them about 120 performances of his own chamber ensemble transcription of Aaron Copland's only opera, The Tender Land , which Copland himself authorized and approved, and which was recorded on Koch International classics. Recently, Sidlin recorded Maria de Buenos Aires , the tango opera by Astor Piazzolla. He also presented the American staged premiere of Karol Szymanowski's 1926 masterpiece Król Roger at the Long Beach Opera in California.
In May of 2006, Sidlin conducted his most well-known concert/drama, "Defiant Requium," on the grounds of Terezin, the former Nazi concentration camp in the Czech Republic, with chorus and orchestra of The Catholic University of America. He performed this concert/drama additionally at Terezin in May and June 2009, and at the University of Houston last May. Other performances of "Defiant Requiem" were presented at the Oregon Symphony, the Rochester Philharmonic, and at Catholic University. He is currently finishing a documentary film titled "Defiant Requiem at Terezin." The film explores the Verdi "Requiem," which was learned and performed by a prisoners' chorus that gave 16 performances between October 1943 and June 1944.
Joel Borrelli-Boudreau is the head enlisted conductor and principal trombone of the United States Naval Academy Band. During his off-duty hours, he serves as the director of music of Galilee Lutheran Church, Pasadena, Md. Borrelli-Boudreau has performed with the Boston, Cincinnati, and Baltimore symphony orchestras, and was a member of the orchestras of the Baltimore Opera Company, Florida Grand Opera, Sarasota Opera, and the West Palm Beach Opera. Additional performance credits include performances with the Bolshoi Ballet, the Royal Ballet, and the Miami City Ballet orchestras.
David Carl Toulson directed his first Don Giovanni for Piedmont Opera last fall, which was notable for its faithfulness to Mozart's blend of both comedy and melodrama. Last spring, in addition to directing an inspired La bohème for Asheville Lyric Opera, he performed the role of set designer, creating a simple but beautiful production that highlighted the lives of the bohemians as they struggled through life and love. His production of Cimarosa's The Secret Marriage for Aurora Opera Theater in the D.C. metropolitan area was received with much critical acclaim.
Other notable moments in his career include being the associate director on the sumptuous Marta Domingo production of La traviata at Los Angeles Opera, and as a frequent member of the directing staff at Washington National Opera and the Tanglewood Music Festival, having had the honor of working alongside opera greats such as Plàcido Domingo and James Levine.
Equally at home in both comedy and tragedy, Toulson counts selected directing credits that include L'elisir d'amore , Il barbiere di Siviglia , Rigoletto , and Carmen for Asheville Lyric Opera; Don Pasquale for Toledo Opera; Face on the Barroom Floor for Central City Opera; The (mini) Magic Flute , a double bill of Haydn's La Canterina and Donizetti's Le convenienze teatrali and Don Pasquale for Opera Theatre of Northern Virginia; Dr. Miracle for the University of South Carolina; Regina for Catholic University; and Le nozze di Figaro in Cortona, Italy.
Fabiana Bravo made her professional debut in 1996 as Lucia in Lucia de Lamermoor with Luciano Pavarotti at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia after winning the 5th Luciano Pavarotti International Voice Competition. Since then she has achieved recognition as Tosca; Madama Butterfly ; Norma ; Ariade auf Naxos ; La Gioconda ; Mimi in La Bohème ; Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro ; Donna Anna in Don Giovanni ; Nedda in I Pagliacci ; Leonora in Il Trovatore ; Madame Ledoine in Les Dialogues des Carmelites ; Desdemona in Otello ; Amelia in Un Ballo in Maschera ; and Leonora in Verdi's Oberto .
Bravo made her Carnegie Hall debut as Fiora in L'Amore dei Tre Re by Montemezzi with Samuel Ramey and Maestra Eve Queler with the Opera Orchestra of New York. She is well known on the European stages, having performed in Italy, including singing at Castel Gandolfo for Pope John Paul II. She has also performed in Prague; Oviedo, Spain; and, in Germany, at a concert for Operalia as an Operalia finalist with Placido Domingo.
For outstanding contribution to the arts as a young artist, the Congress of Argentina named Bravo 1999 Argentine Woman of the Year. She is also the winner of a number of competitions such as the Metropolitan Opera Young Artist Competition and Opera Index.
Fabiana has studied with Sharon Christman, Renata Scotto, and Luciano Pavarotti.