Divas and plot twists and high-pitched outbursts, oh my!
Ask the average person which art form most resembles reality television, and opera probably would come in dead last — behind harp playing and medieval tapestry restoration.
Think again, said Emmalee Iden.
“We who work in opera get to see all the craziness that happens on and offstage, and the audience just gets to see the fantastic production,” said Iden, director of education at the Atlanta Opera and the mastermind behind the “24-Hour Opera Project” happening this weekend. “We were laughing about it at lunch one day, saying, ‘Someone should do a reality TV show about everything that happens. And I said, ‘Well, we should.’”
Not to worry, opera purists. Don Giovanni isn’t about to start cavorting in a hot tub à la “The Bachelor.” And instead of TV screens, this particular show will stream live on the Atlanta Opera’s website Saturday night.
Back for a second, much expanded, go-round this year, the “24-Hour Opera Project” takes the best elements of reality shows — strangers thrown together and tasked with creating something new and appealing in a limited amount of time — and gives them a made-for-melodrama operatic twist:
Five teams of composers, lyricists, stage directors and singers recruited from all over the country;
Each creating an original 10-minute opera “scene” in a little under a day;
All built around the same theme, which the participants will only find out about at Friday night’s kickoff — at the same time they find out which props they’ll also be expected to work into their story lines. (Last year’s choices? A ventriloquist’s puppet, a sword and a yellow flashlight.)
That 5 p.m. gathering at the First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta on Peachtree Street is open to the public. So is Saturday night’s performance at the Atlanta Opera Center on Northside Drive, where the teams will compete for a judges award and an audience favorite prize. The latter is open to voters watching in person or via the webcast.
Think “The X-Factor,” only with better musical talent. And some real live “X factors” thrown into the process.
“This is kind of a wonderfully terrifying project to be involved in,” said Jason Barabba, 41, a Los Angeles composer whose original pieces for full orchestras and chamber groups have been performed and recorded around the world. The last significant vocal work he wrote was 15 minutes long and took him about a month and a half to complete, said Barabba, pointing out that he and his as yet unknown “Project” lyricist will have a mere 12 hours to accomplish the same. Going in, “I don’t know the subject matter, I don’t know if I’m writing for a soprano, a tenor. ...”
Perhaps his team will include Kori Jennings, 32, a mezzo-soprano who just graduated from Louisiana State University with a doctorate in musical arts and vocal performance and who has sung with major companies such as the Pittsburgh Opera and Opera Louisiane.
Or perhaps not. The singers are just as in the dark about who’s writing their music, let alone what operatic style their composing team will favor.
“I’m sort of hoping something takes me out of my comfort zone,” Jennings said eagerly last week from Baton Rouge, explaining that she hasn’t yet performed many of the “coloratura” soprano roles that feature fast runs and agile vocal leaps. “Ultimately this whole thing takes us all out of our comfort zones.”
Last year’s “24-Hour Opera Project” featured three teams and no live webcast. The Atlanta Opera wanted to increase the number of original works being created this year and also make the very first public performances of them available to more people here and in other parts of the country, Iden said. A grant from Turner Broadcasting is boosting the web component, which will include video and photo updates posted on the Opera’s Facebook and Twitter pages throughout the 24 hours.
Creating a sense of excitement and discovery about opera is a major reason for staging the logistically challenging “Project,” said Atlanta Opera communications manager Laura Soldati.
“The idea a lot of people have about opera is that it’s a huge man singing in a foreign language in a tuxedo,” Soldati said. “But ultimately opera is all about the most human experiences. This is a fun way of communicating that fact to people.”
Human? Fun? Opera?
Guilty on all counts says Beth Suryan of Smyrna. Back for her second year as a participating stage director, she says last year’s experience underscored for her the relevance of opera, where some of the most celebrated plot lines involve family feuds (“La Traviata”), interracial love (“Madame Butterfly”) and war (“Aida”).
“Opera seems so hoity-toity, but it’s just not true,” insisted Suryan, who’d taught at Kennesaw State University and had more experience directing musical theater (“Nunsense,” “Into the Woods”) than opera when she took her first “24-Hour” plunge. “Any opera can rival anything you see on TV now in terms of drama.”
Not to mention laughs. Last year, Suryan's team won the audience favorite award for their scene, titled "Scrub-a-Dub Raw."
"I knew if we got the rubber chicken and washboard, it was going to be a comedy," Suryan laughingly recalled of the props her group ended up having to use. "There's no way you can make a rubber chicken serious!"
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Event preview
"24-Hour Opera Project"
Kickoff event, 5 p.m. Friday. Free. First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta, 1328 Peachtree St., Atlanta.
Showcase performance, 7 p.m. Saturday. Free. Atlanta Opera Center, 1575 Northside Drive, Building 300, Suite 350, Atlanta. 404-881-8801, www.atlantaopera.org.
To watch the live feed from Saturday night’s showcase performance:
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