J-Term at Carthage

'The Magic Flute'

Carthage students spend J-Term bringing Mozart's opera to the stage

It was Friday, Jan. 15, exactly three weeks to showtime. (Of course, when your entire rehearsal schedule spans just four weeks, three weeks is a long time to go.) Thirty students were gathered in the rehearsal room at the Johnson Arts Center to spend another three hours on Mozart's "The Magic Flute" before breaking for the weekend. Stage director Matt Boresi was ready to roll.

Photos by Ken Sabbar, '10

"The Magic Flute"

7:30 p.m. Friday & Saturday, Feb. 5-6
A. F. Siebert Chapel
Free admission, no registration required

"Everybody, places!" he announced.

"With music?" asked a student.

"We're going to try it with music," Boresi answered. Then he paused. With a hint of humor in his voice, he added, "Good luck."

Nervous chuckles traveled the room as the music began. Sure enough, some lines were skipped, others were mumbled, interruptions were frequent. But the show must go on. For Dan Ermel, '11, playing Tamino, the opera's romantic lead, stumbles are part of the process. "As soon as you try to put a show on its feet, it’s going to wobble a bit," he shrugged.

After all, they're pulling together a full-length opera in less than a month: Memorizing lines, learning music, designing costumes, constructing props — not to mention studying the history of "The Magic Flute" and opera in general.

"It's going to be tight," Boresi said of the race against time. "It's going to be a squeaker."

But this is J-Term at Carthage. Mistakes are made, problems are solved, boundaries are pushed, passions are born. The whole point of J-Term is to flex a little creative muscle. As Dan said, when asked why he signed up for Opera Production: "I figured I'd broaden my horizons and give it a shot."

'Give it a shot': Opera draws students of all majors

Opera Production is an upper level performance class offered during J-Term by the Carthage Music Department and the Music Theatre and Opera Program. Students auditioned for roles in fall, then gathered in January to begin — and complete — rehearsals. Every student in the class is in the cast. In 2008, the Opera Production class presented Pirates of Penzance. In 2007, the class performed Die Fledermaus.

Stage director and course instructor Matt Boresi watches rehearsal.

Guiding this year's production are Carthage music professor Gregory Berg, music director for the show, and Matt Boresi, who is visiting Carthage from the Music Institute of Chicago, where he is program director for the musical theatre program. Carthage graduate Maggie Spanuello choreographed the production.

"For most of the students in this course, this is their very first experience at stepping inside an opera," Berg said.

"Students learn to work at a professional pace and that's important," said Corinne Ness, music theatre professor at Carthage. "They learn to collaborate because we pick shows that require students to work in groups and help each other along in the process. Freshmen are mentored by upperclassmen who have done this before."

While many of the students in the class are music or music theatre majors, "we have plenty of students who aren't music majors at all," Berg said. "They just love to sing and want to be a part of this, which I think is really cool. At a larger school, you probably wouldn't have that. At really, really big schools with really big music departments, they can scarcely give opportunities to their own music majors, let alone math and biology majors."

'A Total Production Experience'

This year, students in the Opera Production class are also responsible for designing the set and constructing props and costumes.

"We've divided the cast into costume, puppet and set design teams," Boresi said. "It's a total production experience for them. They're learning about Mozart, how to perform the piece, and getting an introduction in creating a production and concept."

Boresi, who has taught J-Term classes at Carthage before, is a librettist, director and theatre instructor who has written operas that have been performed nationally. He is grading the students on their attendance, participation, how well they learn their music, and the occasional pop quiz.

"The very first day, there was a pop quiz," Berg said. "Matt likes to have that academic element in the class: the history of the work, the standard building blocks of opera, the terminology. I like that a lot."

Music professor Gregory Berg works with students during rehearsal.

"I'm especially excited for the music theatre students who are in the class, because I think they really deepen their expressive abilities by singing opera," Berg continues. "It's one thing to stand on a stage and belt out a love song that's in their own style. There's something familiar about that. Here, you're singing a love song, but it's in 'The Magic Flute' and the music is by Mozart. You have to learn to be just as real and authentic with your emotions, even though the music you're expressing is 250 years old. It's like being on a treadmill and putting it on tilt. You have to work harder."

'Not Your Typical "Magic Flute" Production'

"The Magic Flute" tells the story of Tamino, a handsome young prince who is asked by the Queen of the Night to rescue her daughter, Pamina, from Sarastro, a high priest. The Queen gives Tamino a magic flute to use in times of danger, and he sets off to save Pamina with the help of bird-catcher Papageno, who is desperate for a wife. Sarastro has in fact kept Pamina from her evil mother to protect her. He decides that Tamino and Pamina may be together, once they endure a series of ordeals to purify their hearts.

"We're setting it in modern-day Wisconsin. The music is Mozart, but we've added hip hop and dance and modern dress."

"It's a show that's full of magic and fantasy," Boresi said, "but this is not your typical 'Magic Flute' production. We're setting it in modern-day Wisconsin. The music is Mozart, but we've added hip hop and dance and modern dress."

"We're making it accessible to everybody," added Dan, who, as Tamino, will wear an argyle sweater and jeans. "There are a lot of modern jokes."

A wintry setting gives the show additional context for the students. "J-Term is a special experience here," Boresi explained. "Kids are hunkered down here on campus for a month, and it's very cold and snowy. We thought we'd bring that into the design and make it a set in a winter escapade so we could embrace the moment of this course."

"It's funny, it's serious. It's fun. There's good music,” said Laura Kaeppeler, '10, of Kenosha, who plays Pamina in the production. "People think of opera and think, 'Oh, how boring.' But we’ve put a modern twist on it so it’s a little bit more relatable to college students."

Pulling It All Together

Last week, as J-Term drew to a close, "The Magic Flute" cast worked to put the finishing touches on their J-Term project. They'll meet the first week of February to continue rehearsals for the Feb. 5-6 shows. "It's been exciting to pull it all together," Laura said.

"This is an intense period of activity, and it will only get more intense as we get near the performance," Berg said. "These students have to take a lot of responsibility on themselves to really learn their music, memorize their lines and clarify their blocking. For some of them, they've never been in anything like this. A lot of them come from high school situations where you rehearse it a million times over until everyone has it memorized. It all happens miraculously. Nothing is going to happen miraculously in this."

Yet the players are confident that all the pieces will come together. It's been a wild ride — with more highs than lows, Berg said. For Berg, who has worked on three J-Term operas, one of the highs this time around was meeting Boresi: "I had not worked with him before this, and I had been told that he's a wonderful collaborator. He's absolutely great. He really works the students hard, but yet he's very, very funny. He's serious with a light touch, and that's a brilliant combination for the students."

Another high — quite literally, Berg added — was hearing Elizabeth Hood, '11, sing through her arias for her role as Queen of the Night.

"This is one of the most difficult parts to cast in the opera," Berg said. "The Queen of the Night has to sing a total of five high Fs over her two arias. Sopranos talk all the time about a high C — a high F is higher than a high C. We didn't know if we had anyone at Carthage who could sing those arias. The first time I heard Elizabeth sing through those arias, she nailed all five high Fs. I'm excited to give her this opportunity."

See "The Magic Flute" at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5, or Saturday, Feb. 6, in the A. F. Siebert Chapel. Admission is free; no reservations required.