1930s Paris to the English Countryside in Under 3 Hours!

Last Saturday afternoon, the Central City Opera House stage featured Rodolfo and Marcello's brightly lit Parisian garret for a matinee of La Bohème. By 7:30 that same night, the stage was transformed into the dark Bly House setting for The Turn of the Screw. On days like this, our hardworking stagehands have only a few hours to make this transformation. They remove all of the set pieces, pull up the marley floor, change pieces hanging from the counterweight system, refocus lights, change gel colors, bring on new set pieces, and apply all of the finishing touches in time to reopen the house for the evening performance.

Check out this super-sped-up video of Saturday's changeover to see how it's done.

"Malo" in THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Composer Benjamin Britten

This year’s opera The Turn of the Screw doesn’t have the ever-popular songs that Oklahoma! does, or even the familiar musical moments of La Bohème, but composer Benjamin Britten did include very tuneful children’s songs in the opera.  One notable song that could have several meanings is Miles’ song “Malo.” This verse was originally a pneumonic device to help beginning Latin students remember the different meanings and conjugations of the word “malo:” 1) verb “malo” meaning “I wish;” 2) the noun “malus” meaning “apple tree” and “malum” meaning “apple;” and 3) the noun “malum” meaning “evil” – but his song seems to have dark undertones, especially because Britten set it to very melancholy music. 

Here is the text of the song:

    Malo: I would rather be

    Malo: in an apple tree

    Malo: than a naughty boy

    Malo: in adversity       

Click here to hear Thomas Parfitt as Miles sing this song at the 2011 Glyndebourne Festival.  Remember this song, because you’ll hear a variation of it at the end of the opera. 

Britten’s The Turn of the Screw may not be mainstream, but it certainly leaves an impression.  We hope that you will get even more out of your experience having learned a little more about the music.  Enjoy the show!     

The Turn of the Screw plays its final performance on Saturday, August 4 at 8pm. Hurry to see it before it disappears!

Want to know more? This blog post is part of the article What to Listen for in The Turn of the Screw, found in the 2012 Opera Insider (Festival Resource Guide - PDF). We also excerpted the section on The Turn of the Screw’s twelve-tone row in a previous blogpost.

Meet John Healy

John Healy as Miles, with Alicia Suzanne Jordheim, in The Turn of the Screw.
Photo by Mark Kiryluk.

When Central City Opera produces an opera that requires children in the cast, we turn to our friends at Colorado Children's Chorale. This year, you can see the young singers of the Chorale as the children in Act III of La Bohème and one young singer, John Healy, as Miles in The Turn of the Screw.

Watch the video below to meet John and hear his perspective on The Turn of the Screw, which closes this Saturday, August 4.

Turn of the ScrewFest

Last Saturday, the historic and haunted Teller House filled with spirits and entertainment for the first of two creepy-cool Turn of the ScrewFest paranormal parties. The events are part of Central City Opera's Paranormal Project, in celebration of Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw and Menotti's The Medium. 

The all-star cast of Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret, including Professor Phelyx, Peggy Tulane, Tovio, Tom Too Tall, Roxy Star, Carmen Maria and Tatianna Tata. (Center - ScrewFest Director Heather Brecl)

After checking in at the Teller House, tasty pub fare and cocktails were served in Lanny's Lounge (normally the Terrace VIP Lounge). Guests were then treated to a performance of Ballet Nouveau Colorado's [The Untitled Book] before heading back into the lounge for more performances by the the all-stars of Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret, including a vintage burlesque tease by the Mistress of Polesque, Roxy Star; the magical juggling and xylophone act by Tovio; the cabaret-style musical stylings of Lola Licious; Peggy Tulane's burlesque fan tease; stilt walker Tom Too Tall on the piano; and a dazzling acrobalancing act by Carmen Maria and Tatiana TaTa. For a preview of the Lannie's Lounge performances, check out the video below:




Meanwhile, on the second floor of the Teller House, guests roamed about, participating in a creepy carnival, a Ghost Hunting 101 session with The Other Side Investigations, séances with Mystical Magdalena, and crystal casting, dream interpretations, Tarot card readings, palm readings, and more with the psychics of Isis Books.  

"Holy Toledo! We are going to get married," discovers Central City Opera's Publicist Kelly Nelson while listening to the reading from Isis Books & Gifts's Meghan Taft. 

If you missed last week's Turn of the ScrewFest, don't worry! There's one more opportunity to join the fun, this Sunday, July 29. Tickets are just $30 or $6 with a ticket to the opera, The Turn of the Screw. Click here for more information and to purchase tickets. See you at the Teller House!

Scenic Design of THE TURN OF THE SCREW

In the final segment of our interview with Alessandro Talevi, stage director of this summer's The Turn of the Screw, Mr. Talevi gives us some background information on the Madeleine Boyd's rich, dark scenic design. If you've seen a performance already, you may have wondered about the upside-down images that are projected onstage; watch the video below for the inside scoop. If you haven't seen the opera yet, watch it now, then buy your tickets and see the opera in a whole new light!

Britten's Brilliant Twelve-Tone Row in THE TURN OF THE SCREW

Central City Opera opens its third mainstage production tonight with the creepy and cool opera The Turn of the Screw. While not as toe-tapping as the songs from this year's Oklahoma!, the score is very interesting. The opera is organized in a way that would thrill those of the Type-A personality. Benjamin Britten built the entire opera on a twelve-tone row, which is a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitches. You can listen to the twelve-tone row here.

Twelve-Tone Row on which the opera is based

The opera is divided into two acts, with each act containing eight scenes, and the first act preceded by a Prologue. Before each scene, the chamber orchestra plays a short introduction based on the twelve-tone row you just heard. Each introduction features the instruments that are important in the following scene. You may be thinking: “Wow, this sounds so mathematical and boring. How can this music be interesting, dynamic, and evocative?” Britten was a genius at getting the music to serve the story. His use of instrumentation and speech-like melody brings out all of the colors and emotions of the drama happening on stage.

Listen again to that twelve-tone row, then watch the first scene of the opera below, produced by the Glyndebourne Festival in 2011. You’ll hear the main theme – with the twelve-tone row masterfully played by the entire orchestra – then the Governess’s first aria. Note the use of percussion in the theme and during the first scene. Britten uses the percussion to invoke the feeling of anticipation, excitement, and a bit of apprehension – all feelings that the Governess has as she is traveling to Bly House to begin her new job.

Want to know more? This blog post is part of the article What to Listen for in The Turn of the Screw, found in the 2012 Opera Insider (Festival Resource Guide - PDF).

Alessandro Talevi on THE TURN OF THE SCREW

The Turn of the Screw, the final production of the 2102 Festival, opens this Saturday. In this video, Stage Director Alessandro Talevi, who some might recognize as the director of 2011's Amadigi di Gaula, introduces audiences to the haunting ghost story.

Behind the Lens: Mark Sink and Kristen Hatgi

If you’re looking in your program for a typical production photo for the operas of the Central City Opera 2012 Festival, you won’t find them this year. No, you won’t see a sketched icon either. What you will see is a window into the soul – a reflection of all that rattles the human spirit and awakens it. Central City Opera is renowned for doing things differently, and this year (ironically) is no different. As you glance at ads for the 2012 Festival or peruse the program when you head up the hill for the summer Festival, you will no doubt be lured into the photos of legendary local photographer Mark Sink.

A self-declared renegade in the photography world, Mark Sink does not tiptoe around social boundaries with his subject matter or models. Having crossed paths with the legendary Andy Warhol and many of the best-known photographers of our time, Sink unabashedly captures the world around him. Behind the lens, Mark brings raw human emotion and reaction to the audience in moments when they don’t expect it and with no apologies. An extremely modest visionary, he decided to co-found the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver over a casual discussion at the local community garden, believing that Denver indeed needed to have a forum for art that creates dialog and encourages debate.

For those of you who attended last year’s SinFest, an event during the 2011 Festival where attendees progressively experienced the seven deadly sins, you saw the exhibit of black and white photos from Mark Sink and other local photographers. Printed in large format (3x4 ft) in black and white, the images surrounded the audience on the walls in Williams’ Stables. It was difficult for onlookers not to confront the subject matter or feel the message as they were enveloped in the human response to sin.

Interestingly, this season Mark’s modern look at the world comes through the lens of both a digital camera and a camera used during the turn of the century, the setting of both Oklahoma! and The Turn of the Screw. Using a technique called collodion wetplates or tintypes, Mark and his partner Kristen Hatgi, a very talented photographer in her own right, photographed his subjects for our shoot with a wooden large format view camera with a lens from the 1860s. The initial shot was set up using a digital camera, followed by the tintype photo with the wooden camera.

Tintype photographs are made by taking a piece of aluminum and coating it with collodion, then placing the the “tin” piece in the wooden camera and creating a direct positive on a sheet of metal. Check out the collodion wetplace process here.

The image itself is actually reflected upside down on the viewer of the camera; because of the developing and the background, the dark underexposed negative appears as a positive.

To create the photos for this summer’s production, Mark was provided with ideas and sketches from our creative team Boska and brought his own vision to the table. Working with models from the art community and some hands at CCO, Mark and Kristen sought to produce images that evoked the feel of the era and an insider’s look at the life of the characters who make the storylines.

Over the period of a few weeks, we held four photo shoots with Mark and Kristen creating the perfect images for the four operas in the 2012 Festival. As a creative team, we managed to capture moments that evoke an emotional response to the productions.

As you leaf through the program this summer, notice the honesty brought to the opera images. Perhaps the element which is most attractive about Mark and Kristen’s work is that it touches upon the human spirit that is brought to life on the stage of our Festival each year. With all of the complexities involved in creating a world-class production, the goal is to connect with the audience in an extraordinary way. Mark Sink’s images provide the first gateway.

Central City Opera Celebrates Benjamin Britten

We're very excited to share the recently digitally-remastered clips from our 2002 production of Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Britten was born in 1913 and the "centenary" celebration of his works spans the 2012 and 2013 seasons of performing arts companies around the world.

Central City Opera has a rich tradition of producing the works of Benjamin Britten, which have a wide appeal for audiences. The composer himself is quoted as saying, "I write music for human beings." Central City Opera presented the North American premiere of Benjamin Britten's Gloriana in 2001, followed by this glorious production of Midsummer in 2002. Britten's work has since been performed on the Central City Opera stage in 2005 with the regional premiere of Paul Bunyan and in 2008 with productions of The Rape of Lucretia and Curlew River (the latter performed by our apprentice artists). This summer, we're proud to offer a new production of Britten's The Turn of the Screw, opening July 14th.

To whet your Britten appetite, here are four video clips from A Midsummer Night's Dream (2002):

Clip 1 - From Act One

Clip 2 - Tytania and Bottom

Clip 3 - The Rustics Perform

Clip 4 - Finale

In Paul Curran's Director's Notes for the 2002 production he wrote:

I have been lucky enough to work on the DREAM with two of Britten's own assistants: Steuart Bedford and Roderick Brydon. They have both made me look ever deeper into the music to see the piece more clearly. "If you can't see why I wrote (the music) that way, then don't conduct it" was Britten's advice to the young Steuart Bedford. "Play it again, I can't hear the colours. If there are no colours, there's no opera," another gentle encouragement. The colours of the opera and story are all in the orchestration; "every note counts, there is nowhere to hide in this score" - again, Britten to Bedford.

Steuart Bedford, mentioned above, conducted Central City Opera's 2005 regional premiere of Paul Bunyan and will return this summer to conduct The Turn of the Screw. Bedford was featured in the July 2011 issue of Opera News as "a peerless interpreter of the operas of Benjamin Britten." [The article is also available as a PDF.] Central City Opera presents The Turn of the Screw for the first time this summer with just six performances. Mark your calendar to join us on July 14, 18, 21, 29 or August 4 for this rare treat!

You may also wish to view 5 video clips from our 2001 production of Britten's Gloriana.

Ghostly encounters in Central City

This Opera House photo will help set the mood.

In honor of this summer's production of The Turn of the Screw, we are delving into the haunted history of our historic properties like the Opera House, the Teller House and Williams Stables. Check out one of the fabulous tales from the Teller House. 

The Teller House

If you have any spooky stories of ghostly encounters in Central City, please share them with us! Send your tales to me at hbrecl@centralcityopera.org and we will find fun ways to share them throughout the season.