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Jess Crawford

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PDX OPERAbeat | A Company Blog is the blog for all things Portland Opera, featuring a variety of guest contributors who will provide insider's tidbits on all we do to celebrate the beauty and breadth of opera. Jess Crawford is our primary blogger. Jess spends much of her time eating enormous amounts of cake, making long lists of books she'll probably never read, and challenging people to arm-wrestling contests. During the day (and sometimes at night) she is Portland Opera's music librarian. She writes more about her escapades at her personal blog: http://bravissimi.blogspot.com

PDX OPERAbeat's Blog

Where do opera performers go on vacation?

Submitted by PDX OPERAbeat on Thu, 08/02/2012 - 15:32

Lea is taking our Summer Adult Education Class. We asked Lea to tell us about her experience throughout the class. Enjoy!

I have a confession to make: My name is Lea and I am not fond of modern opera. Feed me the familiar strains of repeating stanzas in an aria from the19th century, say, “Una furtiva lagrima,” and I’m in heaven. But my likes and preferences are changing, thanks to what I’m learning in this opera class.

Last week, we students wrote dialogue for a version of the Greek myth, Daedalus and Icarus. This week, Alexis invited the three professionals who had spent the week carrying our libretto to fruition: John Vergin, who composed the music, Hannah Penn (mezzo) who sang the roles of Icarus and Ariadne, and André Chiang (baritone) who sang the role of Daedalus.

You may remember Hannah during her tenure as a POSA (Portland Opera Studio Artist), when she had 24 hours’ notice before she had to perform the title role of Carmen—which she did to huge acclaim. You may remember André, also a POSA, who recently performed the title role of Galileo Galilei, spanning a 40-year age range—also to huge acclaim.

Andre Chiang Photo

^{Hannah Penn and André Chiang}

My name is Lea and I'm an operaholic!

Submitted by PDX OPERAbeat on Thu, 07/26/2012 - 12:08

Lea is taking our Summer Adult Education Class. We asked Lea to tell us about her experience throughout the class. Enjoy!

I have a confession to make: My name is Lea and I'm an operaholic. Feed me opera morning, noon, and night and I'm ecstatic . So when Portland Opera announced they were teaching a summer class, I jumped at the opportunity to enroll, so I could be surrounded by fellow opera addicts like myself. This isn't your everyday Opera Appreciation class, however. It's an interactive class called "How Does an Opera Get on its Feet?"

The teacher is Alexis "I am not a musicologist" Hamilton. For someone who is not a musicologist, she knows an enormous amount about opera, both from an academic perspective and as a performer. Alexis has a luscious deep mezzo singing voice which can melt your heart. She also has an extraordinary amount of energy, and during our first class she brought a summary of 600 years of opera to life.

Opera Summer

Submitted by PDX OPERAbeat on Mon, 07/02/2012 - 10:59

And: we're back!

It's the period I lovingly refer to as "opera summer." Those fleeting few months when there's a lull between shows, when one season has ended and another has yet to begin. Although of course we all love producing operas, the break is, as breaks usually are, delicious.

What happens during opera summer?

• We put everything away. The pieces of our final production -- sets, costumes, props -- are sent home. Candide, made mostly of projections, gets its relevant bits and pieces stored in our warehouse. Costumes which were rented are returned to the rental house. The orchestra music is given a once-over (for paperclips, tape, messily-drawn cuts, etc) and, in the case of Candide, returned to the publisher.

• We do a final reckoning. In the sometimes frantic hustle of the season, things get left behind, messy, upended. In my case, I put away scores from the whole season. The filing in my office took me a whole day. I still had an entire pile of music from the gala -- LAST SEASON'S GALA -- sitting on my desk. Good grief.

• We catch up on things we never get time for mid-season. I inventoried the whole library! I spent one luxurious week wearing scrubby clothes (because of the dust things acquire from long periods on shelves) and counted every single slip of music we own. (Well, almost every one. I know better than to think I got them all.) I unearthed things I had no idea were kicking around. There just isn't time for all those big projects when you're trying to juggle the immediate issues of the production at hand.