Jake Heggie & Gene Scheer Talkback About THREE DECEMBERS

I love listening to artists talk about their creations. I got a unique chance on Saturday to do just that at a talkback for Three Decembers with composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer. They talked about the evolution of their powerful show, which began with a script that playwright Terrence McNally wrote for a benefit.

Some Christmas Letters and a Couple of Phone Calls Too was a fourteen page script that Jake Heggie found "stimulating on a musical level." Touched by the story, Heggie set out to write some music for it.

The opera that became Three Decembers took about seven years to evolve. It was a long process because Heggie & Scheer had to "create a backstory [for the characters and] show the progress that the family took over three decades." They thought about doing a musical theatre piece, but over time it evolved into the intimate opera it is today.

They were interested in the piece's flawed characters, the idea of redemption, and "the notion of how much illusion we need in our lives," but they really focused on exploring how the choices that people make travel with them over time. They both found it fascinating that "even over different decades, you're always the same person."

Scheer used his experience at Central City Opera to explain this. "I've performed here over the years." He said. "I was here ten years ago. It's very interesting to see someone 10 years later - the conversation sort of continues." They also referenced the phenomenon of the family reunion and the struggle to keep the identity you've grown into when you're surrounded by your family, who knew you when you were young.

"A lot of this piece for me," Heggie told us, "is about claiming identity, inside of a family and outside of it." Heggie and Scheer wanted to explore "the complicated messiness of people's lives," and were interested in how Maddie's decision was "sort of like life" in its messiness. "It's something that anyone can relate to," Scheer explained.

Central City Opera’s THREE DECEMBERS (2010).

Pictured Front: Joyce Castle (Madeline), Behind: Emily Pulley (Beatrice).

Photo by Mark Kiryluk.

I don't know about you, but all this talk about Three Decembers makes me want to go see it! I haven't seen the whole show yet. Good thing there's a performance tonight, Saturday, and next Wednesday... you get the picture. I hope to see you there.

P.S. There's a great in-depth interview with Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer (as well as several other artists from the 2010 Festival) in our 2010 Opera Insider (Festival Resource Guide). Download the pdf here. You can also meet Joyce Castle (playing Madeline) this Saturday at a similar event.

Marc Shulgold's Fun Facts on THREE DECEMBERS

Today we bring you more "fun facts" from Marc Shulgold, former music critic of the Rocky Mountain News, focusing on Three Decembers by composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer.

• Now an internationally respected opera and art-song composer, Jake Heggie began his composing career in an unusual way – as a member of the Public Relations Department at San Francisco Opera. It was there that he had befriended famed mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade, who encouraged him to write songs for her – ironically, it was von Stade who, years later, would bid farewell to the opera stage singing Maddy in Heggie's Three Decembers.
• This three-player chamber opera has undergone a number of transformations and name changes. It began as a 14-page play by Terrence McNally, presented as part of “A Joyous Family Christmas” AIDS benefit concert in New York's St. Bartholomew's Church in December, 1999. The playwright's contribution was Some Christmas Letters (and a Couple of Phone Calls, Too), performed by celebrated actors Betty Buckley, Victor Garber, Julie Harris and Cherry Jones. When Houston Grand Opera commissioned Heggie to create a chamber opera for HGO's 2007-08 season, he teamed with Gene Scheer to fashion a libretto. Based on McNally's playlet, the opera was given the working title Last Acts and starred von Stade. After its Houston premiere in Feb., 2008, the piece was re-named Three Decembers.
• Von Stade was intimately involved in the creation of the opera, which at first was envisioned by the creative team as a musical. The mezzo directed Heggie and Scheer to rethink it as an opera. “She was right, and instantly it fell into place,” Heggie later remarked.
• Heggie and McNally's most successful partnership came in the much-acclaimed (and much-performed) opera Dead Man Walking (premiered in 2000). Local opera-lovers may remember another collaboration between the two: At the Statue of Venus, a “scene for soprano and piano” with text by McNally that was commissioned by Opera Colorado for the 2005 opening of the Denver's Ellie Caulkins Opera House. The piece was to be sung by Renée Fleming, but she withdrew from the premiere. Instead it was premiered by Kristin Clayton (the original Bea in Three Decembers) with Heggie accompanying at the keyboard.
• Three Decembers traces three decades in the relationships between Maddy, a Broadway star whose husband had died years earlier, and her adult children, Bea, a married woman, and Charlie, a gay man dealing with the death of his partner. Heggie has said that he identifies strongly with the tensions between Maddy, a single parent, and her children, since he had lost his father through suicide as a young boy. Von Stade, too, found that the characters resonated with her own family life, noting the similarities between Maddy and the singer's mother: “It's her! The only thing I don't do onstage (as Maddy) is smoke.”
• Heggie and Scheer have collaborated on numerous stage and concert works, most recently receiving rave reviews for their operatic setting of Moby-Dick, premiered in April at Dallas Opera. 

Pictured above, clockwise from top left: Keith Phares (Charlie), Emily Pulley (Bea) and Joyce Castle (Madeline) in Central City Opera's THREE DECEMBERS (2010). Photo by Kira Horvath.

Be sure to check out the other fun fact blogs on Madama Butterfly and Orpheus in the Underworld. 

Central City Round Up

Life is getting crazy busy here in Central City. There's so much going on that I'm not sure I can even blog about it all! In the past week Three Decembers started rehearsals, the ushers learned to sing the famous Usher Song, three board members were fitted for costumes for walk-on rolls in Orpheus in the Underworld, publicity photos were taken for Madama Butterfly, and John Moriarty shared with us the history of Central City Opera at the annual company meeting. Craziness!

I got the chance to attend both the design meeting and the first staging rehearsal for Three Decembers, and I am now totally hooked on that show. As principal artist Emily Pulley said in the design meeting, "It's not an opera, it's group therapy, really." And who doesn't like to see group therapy with music? I definitely do. Director Ken Cazan, who last directed West Side Story at Central City Opera in 2008, said "the theatre will never let you down," and I have a feeling this opera won't let us down either. I'm excited about it. [View Ken Cazan's Director's Notes on Three Decembers.]

Meanwhile, the ushers woke up early one morning to learn the Ushers' Song with Associate Conductor Andrew Altenbach. They don't look particularly happy about in this photo, but I swear we perked up once the real singing started. And just wait until we learn to march - it is going to be epic!

This morning we all attended the Central City Opera annual meeting, which was pretty awesome. John Moriarty told us the history of the Opera company, and I learned so much! I wasn't able to get any good pictures, but there's a historical reason for that, I swear. Apparently, the lighting in the opera house is super low because the paintings on the ceiling were meant to be seen in gas light. Mr. Moriarty told us that under modern bright lights, the colors look incredibly garish. Who knew!? And that was only one small fun fact we learned this morning.

Over the course of the week, three opera Board Members came in to get fitted for their costumes for the walk-on rolls they have in Orpheus in the Underworld. I stopped by George Ann Victor's fitting this morning. It was really fun to see how excited she was about her role and about her awesome costume. Look to the right. How cool is that! Just wait until you see her boots.

So life is starting to get busy busy busy in Central City. Trust me, you'll hear from me soon. Until then, scroll down and read the fun facts about Madama Butterfly Marc Shulgold put together.