Michael Marino and Brent Calis in Jonathan Dove's Siren Song, presented as part of 2009 Banff Summer Arts Festival
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Opera as Theatre at The Banff Centre was revamped in 2002 to catapult its participants back into the opera world with the mindset of the singer-actor.
Kelly Robinson, executive director of Theatre Arts at the centre, thinks the new approach to opera and training are converging. In Europe, opera is still a director’s art form, yet European directors want physically adept singers who are competent actors and who look the part — more so now than 20 years ago. The line between musical theatre and opera is blurring so that a combination of skills becomes more important. “Of course there are vocal superstars for whom those secondary skills are less important, but some of the great singers are fabulous actors, dance like a dream and are vocal powerhouses,” says Robinson. “And that package is what will assure young singers of a career and not just in opera.”
Robinson says there are many other ways to satisfy the urge to tell stories on the stage. The acting program uses scenes from classical musical theatre, which elevate text to song with a very clear acting objective.
“A piece of standard repertoire is always going to be at the cornerstone of our repertoire. However, we are also looking for opportunities for them to apply the skills that they learn here in vigorous ways,” says Robinson of the reasons behind the selection of pieces for study and public performance. “[Leos] Janácek’s The Cunning Little Vixen has physical and acting challenges. We expose them to contemporary music in achievable ways.”
Jonathan Dove, the composer of Siren Song, is senior composer-in-residence at the centre as a Jarislowky Distinguished Master Artist this summer. “My operas particularly require theatricality and acting that is interested in telling the story,” he says. “I don’t want concerts in costumes.” He believes the Opera as Theatre program creates singers who could meet his requirements.
Yet teaching singers to be actors is no simple task. Robinson says an incredible focus exists among the opera singer, the conductor and the singer’s oral capacities even during a performance. The ability to think outside that axis can be limited.
Viewpoints, a training tool added this year to the curriculum by Cree actor, choreographer and dancer Michael Greyeyes, has been adopted to deal with these limitations and difficulties.
Viewpoints trains actors and dancers to be more aware of their surroundings onstage and to work better in an ensemble. The method was developed by Montana-born Mary Overlie over 27 years of practice. Artists such as Ornette Coleman, Willem Dafoe and Sam Shepard have found her system liberating and an enhancement to their art. Her philosophy is “You find yourself through your surroundings, or you don’t find yourself at all.”
“It’s phenomenal because it teaches you awareness onstage and how acting is reacting and how to move in space and environment in relation to other people,” says Baritone Brent Calis. “Michael Greyeyes explained to us that as singers we internalize everything we learn. It is all about our voice, what we do with our bodies. And now we need to see what others are doing around us and react to them to create the show. Or else we are just internal and the audience doesn’t know what is going on.”
Soprano Betty Allison plays the Vixen in Janácek’s opera and early in the program she was wearing kneepads and exploring her athletic abilities to move onstage like an animal. “I really believe in the singing actress. These are extreme characters that we are doing. The explorations of the text are more extreme. I know in any other opera company I would not be allowed to sing as poorly as I am because of the other things. And that is relaxing because you can experiment and try something that is so physical it pushes what you can do vocally… in other places if you messed up vocally once, that would be another story.”
Calis has experienced the benefits of dancing and acting as instruments to move the audience. And the training helps him as a singer. Calis played a con man in Siren Song at the same time he was rehearsing for the larger role of woodsman in the upcoming The Cunning Little Vixen. More than any other courses or training, Calis says Opera as Theatre has given him heightened awareness while performing. “If you do your work in the practice room, when you get onstage to concentrate on how to react to another actor onstage you sing better. The best notes that came out of me were the ones I didn’t think about, and the ones I thought about were not so good.”
“Other directors try to get it in different forms, but last year I noticed that there is an equation here that works. When you watch the shows, every singer had a quality that was enhanced throughout the six weeks. I really truly believe that is [because of] the various things they have you do,” says Calis. “People complain about dancing so much, but by the end, without realizing, they are moving better. They look better. They are acting better.”
Calis says it’s not simply a matter of one star moving an audience. “It’s not just one person — it’s the collective. When you see two actors connecting it is inspiring. Opera as Theatre is a new way of thinking and it is something special.”
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