It's a dark, warm Thursday night, and all is quiet around Grounds. An occasional person shuffles down the sidewalk above the Newcomb courtyard between Peabody and Newcomb Hall. As he passes by, a swell of music coming from the courtyard causes him to stop in his tracks. He looks down and sees College fourth-year Nicole Barrick as Carmen and College second-year Will Hodges as Don José moving about the courtyard, singing the familiar melodies of Bizet's Carmen.
Their voices blend together perfectly and fill up the whole space. Not one note is off-pitch as the actors square off in one of the most dramatic scenes in the opera. Barrick, as the gypsy temptress, dances around sensuously and powerfully while the convincingly heartbroken Hodges, the Spanish officer, pleads with her. A lone keyboard player and two students stand across from the actors next to Newcomb, studying them carefully and providing accompaniment and any forgotten words.
At this point, several people have stopped to watch, mesmerized by the beautiful voices in this curious outdoor rehearsal. They are witnessing Opera Viva's nightly rehearsals. Opera Viva, a CIO founded last semester, is the first student opera company at the University. The company is preparing for its first performance of one of the most -- if not the most -- famous opera of all time, George Bizet's Carmen.
The company was founded by the group's artistic director, College fourth-year Anne Holt. Holt directed a Spectrum Theater production of Dido and Aeneas last spring to provide a place for male actors to sing, since the music department's Opera Workshop was performing all-female opera scenes at the time. Barrick, who sang the lead role of Dido, said after Dido and Aeneas they "found out that we were capable of putting on a production for ourselves."
What really transformed Opera Viva from an idea to reality, however, was the hiatus of the Opera Workshop last semester due to the retirement and passing of the workshop's teacher, Louisa Panou-Takahashi.
Barrick said a group of opera-loving students "felt the need to keep the opera community alive." Holt, an accomplished opera singer and student, became the group's representative. She approached English Prof. Katharine Maus, interim chair of the music department, and asked her permission to form an independent study that would eventually lead up to an opera performance.
With Maus's okay, Holt and a group of about 10 students, including Barrick and many of the other leads and production crew, began an academic study of Carmen.
After the academic study was completed, auditions took place and rehearsal started this past January. Members of the cast, who range from first years to graduate students, from systems engineering majors to music majors, have been rehearsing five days a week for the last four months. Third-year Jill Cockerham, the music director and conductor of the accompanying orchestra, said trying to work out everyone's schedules has been very challenging but that the experience has been "one of the most amazing things" she's done at the University.
The cast is made up of nine leads and 15 chorus members. While the opera is intended to be accompanied by a 28-piece orchestra, the company reduced the size to 10 to make it more manageable. In the event of bad weather, the company will have to cancel its performance for the evening. Although it has been using Old Cabell as a backup practice spot, Holt said it would be impossible for them to try to perform it there after all the stage blocking they've done in the courtyard.
The work that the students in the academic study performed was crucial in order for the goals of Opera Viva's mission to be completed. Not only did the group study the history and criticisms of the opera, but it translated the opera from French to English. The translation was done by four of the students, including Barrick, with the goal of making the opera accessible to the Charlottesville and University community.
"Our mission statement is to provide accessible, engaging and relevant opera to the University community, and to pull in new audiences and also to allow students who haven't participated in the process of making opera the chance to do that," Holt explained.
Opera Viva is also performing the opera in the style Bizet intended it to be performed. Holt explained that Carmen was unpopular when it opened in Paris in 1875. It was written as a light opera with dialogue separate from the songs. Shortly after the performance, Bizet passed away. Another musician, hoping to revive the opera, rewrote it in the recitative style, in which all the dialogue is sung. Holt said the group wanted to tryto remain true to Bizet's original style and also cut down on the length of the performance. In the recitative style, the opera would run about four hours. Opera Viva's version should run about two and a half hours.
"I feel like [the change] makes it a lot more accessible to have dialogue to an audience that's not used to opera, and also it makes it a lot easier on the young singers because to sing a complete opera that's completely sung all the way through for several hours is really challenging," Holt said.
Holt explained that through the dialogue, setting and costumes, Opera Viva was trying to bring out the themes of gender and ethnicity in the play.
While the opera is set in the 1800s in Seville, Holt wanted to create a timeless feel through the use of the costumes and set. They will use the natural setting of the courtyard as the backdrop to the story. The use of the outdoor setting echoes the fact that the majority of the scenes in Carmen are set outdoors. It also evokes the idea that the story could happen anywhere. Instead of using traditional, historically accurate costumes, Holt designed costumes based on American 1950s clothing.
"We wanted a visual language for the costumes that was highly gendered and would allow us to explore some things, so we decided to go with a pseudo-1950s look because the gender silhouettes at that time period are very different and also because those are sort of what a lot of Americans think of as classic American male/female dress," Holt said.
Both Holt and Barrick explained that Opera Viva is not trying to make any statements about gender or ethnicity, but is trying to get people to think and talk about it.
"We're trying to raise the issue of gender as something to be thought about in the opera" Holt said. "We are really interested in the themes in the opera that are kind of timeless. We're trying to tell the story in a way that will make you think about it and think about how it relates to you and your experience and your community."
Holt welcomes comments and feedback about the performance and encourages people who come to the opening night to attend a banquet after the show for a Q&A session with members of the group.
Opera Viva's production of Carmen is promising and certainly seems entertaining. The cast and crew are extremely talented and passionate. They are dedicated to the company's ideal of making opera understandable and appealing to the average audience.
Barrick stressed that anyone -- regardless of their musical tastes -- can enjoy the performance.
"I hope people come to this first of all, especially if it's their first experience with opera," she said. "It's so powerful and beautiful just on its own merit. The music is incredibly moving and sweeping, something that I think anybody can appreciate, even if they don't know about classical music or think they don't like it."
Opera Viva will perform Carmen at 8 p.m. on April 14, 15, 21 and 23 in the Newcomb Hall courtyard. The performance is free but tickets must be picked up at the Newcomb Hall box office.
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