Sing me another one:

Last Friday night I went along to Georgia State University to see an evening of opera. A lady, who I had met at a party, invited me along to hear some music, eat some food and support a couple of people who had written one of the pieces that was going to be performed.

I met her and about eight other people at a very nice Grill in downtown Atlanta. It was a very upscale place, and while the food turned out to be quite nice, the company was even better. Most of the people were either involved with the Arts or were part of the faculty and staff at the University. The conversion was lively and stimulating.

An aside: We were at a place called the City Grill and it was more than just a nice place, it was also quite nice in its décor and structure. High ceilings, marble floors and walls, a small bar and tables that were far enough apart to allow conversation without worrying about the party next to you. As I said good food and all of this served with attention to detail by a well-trained, well spoken staff. All in all it is a nice place to spend an evening. It was almost empty.

Here we are in the heart of downtown, surrounded by office buildings, concert halls and the college but they were doing absolutely no after work business. Sitting at the bar waiting for my dinner group to show up I asked the bar staff about that. Turns out, all of their business is a dinner business. Very strange, I thought. I have never seen as nice a place as this, in the middle of the working world, empty on a Friday after work. Usually places like this would be full of young executives and secretaries each hitting on the other. Atlanta is a very strange place.

Back to the evening at the Opera. It turns out that the evening is a collection of scenes from various Operas sung by students in the Georgia State University’s School of Music. There was some familiar pieces and some I had never had heard before. The composer and librettist that I had come to support had the Act one, scene two of their current opera performed. It was really a very nice piece of work. Sandwiched in between the Gian-Carlo Menotti piece and others, it not only held its own it was one of the highlights of the evening. When it is completed it will be an interesting piece and well worth producing.

But what impressed me most of all was the student voice majors. This school is producing some really terrific voices. Some young, but all were full, rich and controlled. They attacked the music as though they owned it and sold it to us at a good price. I had never heard that Georgia State was an Opera school, but boy is it. The group that sung the scene that we had all come to see did more than a good job. One of the things that a work in progress needs, but often doesn’t get, is good people doing justice to the work. This is important because the creator needs to see just what is on the stage, so they will know what to fix or what to leave alone. This group gave good value for the composers to see and use.


For the most part they could get through the rudiments of the acting craft as well. However, that part could have been better. A couple of people during the evening sold the actor’s craft, but most were just there to sing. Any acting was just an afterthought. I had an English actor, in a play that I was directing in St Andrews, Scotland, tell me once that job of the English actor was to face full front and in a clear voice say the words that the writers had written. In a land of Shakespeare, Stoppard and Wilde no one wanted the actors to get in the way of the text. I rejected that then, and I reject that now.

If an actor brings art to the craft, what they do is shine light on the words that can only bring the text to life. People forget that these words were not written just to be said, they were written to be acted or sung, and that means to be interrupted by the actors. If it were only the words then stay home, put your feet up by the fireplace, and read the damn script. I have seen some wonderful English actors bring characters to life and interrupt them in ways that I would have never understood were I only to read the text.

These young singer were cursed by the “just stand full front and sing the notes” school of opera. Today that is more boring that ever. There is the constant cry that opera is on hard times, but I think it is not the music but the productions that have got us to this sorry state. The modern audience has been exposed to more art than anytime in the history of man. While it may pass from Shakespeare to Mozart through the Dukes of Hazard, modern audiences need more than one dimension to buy into live work. The special effects of Star Wars coupled with the close up pain brought to the screen by the likes of De Niro, Hoffman, Rickman or Thomson has taught the modern audience to want the entire enchilada.

All of the work I saw by these wonderful young singers would have been so much more had their acting chops been on a par with the vocal work. I don’t know what it will take to educate their teachers, just as I don’t know what it takes to educate the modern American acting teacher about vocal work. But, like all of the people just sitting there, I want it all.

Having beat my own horse just about as hard as I could I want to say that the evening was more than enjoyable. It was stimulating and an evening full of hope for the future of art. These young voices were strong and full of confidence and brought joy to all of us sitting there. I can’t wait to go back to see a full production from this group.

On the other hand, I’ll bet I was the only person this evening that was listening to Bluegrass on the car radio on the way home.