“Nice music, but everyone sang all at once.” “Hard to understand.” “They were the soap operas of their day.” “So terribly tragic!”
Many people have opinions about the opera, whether they attend performances or not.
The Pocket Opera company, founded in the sixties by Artistic Director Donald Pippin, strives to make the shows varied, fun, and accessible and thus expose more people to the art form. Originally presented in the Old Spaghetti Factory with wine and pasta, their operas range from old favorites (Madame Butterfly, La Boheme, Carmen) to formerly overlooked shows, sometimes translated and produced for the first time in the United States, but which still draw crowds.
“Every opera company brings their own approach to the same shows,” explained production manager Nicolas Aliaga. “We choose to bring the narrative storyline to the foreground by minimizing the sets and translating the entire piece into English.”
Translation involves constant choice and compromise when going from one language to another with different rhythms and root words. Internationally recognized for their abilities, the Pocket Opera’s translators work to balance literal meaning, syllabic count, alliteration, poetic allusion, and contextual background when bringing the lilting Italian lyrics down to their often shorter and rougher-sounding English equivalents. More about that process here: http://www.pocketopera.org/ “Turning Opera into English” under the Donald Pippin section.
The performances also offer an explanation of the storyline before each act, so that viewers may concentrate on the musical experience without simultaneously attempting to decipher plot. Singers can put more energy into the vowel sounds than the consonants, which, while enhancing musicality and melody, can make some words difficult to make out.
Pocket Opera also intentionally encourages creativity and resourcefulness among its performers. “We don’t rehearse on location,” Aliaga said. “And we put on shows in a variety of small theaters all over the Bay Area, so we have to adjust and figure out how to work with each new setting a few hours before each performance. Make sure everyone’s there, load all the props and sets out of our U-Haul, touch up anything that needs it with a glue gun.”
Performances come out of short periods of intense preparation. At the beginning of every season Pippin selects five operas, then holds auditions and begins rehearsals in January. This readies the company for its first public productions in February, which continue throughout July in San Francisco and outlying regions. To give an idea of the time frame, La Favorita involved 4-5 weeks of rehearsal, while Carmen required closer to seven.
The structure of the presentations showcases each participant’s talents, as normally there is one person on stage for each of an opera’s voice parts: one soprano, one alto, etc. Pocket Opera is also known in the opera world for sensitivity to its vocalists: the costumers work together with the singers to make sure the outfits allow performers to move freely enough to reach the highest and lowest notes of a piece. They attract a wide variety of singers – people fresh out of the conservatory looking for a break, people in the midst of successful operatic careers who don’t want to travel far from the Bay Area.
Located directly behind the singers, the orchestra contains eight instrumentalists without a conductor. Several of the company’s stalwarts multitask to perform music – even Pippin, who also plays piano in between managerial and directorial duties.
When asked about the future of Pocket Opera in these difficult times, Aliaga replied, “We keep attracting newer and younger people every year.” He explained that they offer a unique experience, and so far people continue to show interest. “Here people can afford tickets without getting stuck in the nosebleed section, and actually see the performance.”
Born in a barroom amid the clutter of dishes, nurtured on wine and pasta, the Bay Area’s Pocket Opera presents Carmen, the final show of this year, this July. You may visit them online and read about their history and approach to production here: http://www.pocketopera.org
