What? No Fat Lady?

CSU Opera Hits All the Right Notes

By Aliese Willard

“Shows like "The Gondoliers" show that opera can be very much alive: it’s funny, goofy and satirical, it’s not fat women in ugly dresses singing in a language you don’t understand”--Camrenne Dubler, CSU opera singer

Opera.

The word alone has generated plenty of ridicule in pop culture. There are idioms, like “it’s never over ‘til the fat lady sings.” And there are clichés, like Brunhilde, the stout soprano with the Viking helmet that has come to symbolize classic opera (actually a character from Wagner’s opera “The Ring of the Nibelung”).

It’s not a surprise that interest in the craft has dwindled some, mostly because of, as Colorado State University opera singer Camrenne Dubler puts it, “the stigma.”

“The stigma being big stuffy fat women singing in big stuffy ugly dresses,” Dubler said. “And that they just stand and sing. We call it ‘park and bark’ where they stand in one place, they sing, and walk away.”

But at CSU, the mission is to kill the stigma, and that they do. CSU opera is . . . well, fun. And funny. It has frolic, frivolity and farce. Plenty of good f-words.

Brunhilde, the large woman who has come to symbolize opera in pop culture;

The character originated in Wagner’s opera “The Ring of the Nibelung.”

(photo courtesy of www.thewrap.com)

Dubler, a junior music therapy and voice major, starred as Tessa, the lead love interest of a Venetian gondolier in CSU’s latest production, the classic by Gilbert and Sullivan “The Gondoliers” (which is actually considered an ‘operetta,’ meaning an opera with dialogue). The show had four performances between March 4 and 11.

For Dubler, the production is proof that the aging genre can still enthrall audiences. And for a genre that’s been around since the late 16^th century, that’s exciting.

“Shows like The Gondoliers show that opera can be very much alive: it’s funny, goofy and satirical, it’ not fat women in ugly dresses singing in a language you don’t understand,” she said. “I think that given adequate and professional singers, opera can live. It takes a singer to bring it to life.”

Camrenne Dubler as Tessa (left) and Cassie Murray as Casilda (right);

March 11 performance of “The Gondoliers”

Photo courtesy of Cassie Murray

And CSU’s opera is full life: it brims with energy and comic relief. The three hour storyline isn’t meant to be taken seriously. It involves two women marrying Venetian gondoliers, only to discover that they may be royalty, but no one’s sure which one is. And one of them may be married to someone else, but they weren’t aware of it. It’s complicated and over-the-top, but Gilbert and Sullivan were famous for creating storylines with satire and melodrama. And that’s where the cast takes the characters and the cake. You wouldn’t believe opera was fun until you saw the performers: their joy in the show is so obvious, it’s hard for audience members not to climb onstage and join in.

“It’s great fun. (And it’s) great that it’s all in English. It’s a funny, satirical role for the time period,” said Charlie Boehlke, a freshman vocal performance major, who plays the snobby Duke of Plaza Toro in the opera. “Gilbert and Sullivan have a lot of poking fun at the aristocracy and upper class, so I play a rich man who lives with his nose in the air, spends a fortune but has no money at all.”

There are plenty of other hoity-toity British aristocrats in the cast, who sound authentic because the cast practiced speaking in Queen’s English for a week before classes resumed this semester. It’s entertaining on its own to hear them convincingly spout out the old English, including the frequently-used phrase “upon my word!”

But the main draw to watch is, again, the fun. Because in the audience, you get the feeling that the cast members are having as good a time performing as you are watching them.

“I love performing. As soon as I get onstage, when I do anything, I get so natural,” said Anastasia Gray, a freshman vocal performance major and chorus girl in the show. “I love sharing the expression and emotion of my character with the audience, and making them feel what I feel.”

Anastasia Gray as a chorus girl (right) and Charlie Boehlke

as the Duke of Plaza Toro (left) after the March 11 performance

of "The Gondoliers."

Another draw for the performers is that singing opera with proper training strengthens their voices. CSU singers are classically trained, meaning they are trained to sing opera, in a way that is healthy for their vocal folds and guarantees they will have a longer career as a singer. This also means they can transfer these skills to sing in musical theater or to sing in general, knowing that with the proper technique they will achieve the best sound and protect their vocal instrument.

Professional opera singers perform without microphones, and so do the CSU students. It’s difficult and takes a lot of practice, but students say they love it.

“What I didn’t understand before I came to appreciate opera is it feels so good to sing the right way—with great technique,” Gray said. “When other people are singing like that it’s so loud because they get the right resonance in their mouths, and it feels good.”

Singing without a microphone can be intimidating for new students, especially when they must sing so loudly that people in the back row of the large theater hall can hear and understand them.

“It’s a whole new world because you (don’t have a microphone), you have to know what you’re doing and it’s all on you,” said Boehlke, who had no previous opera experience before he auditioned for the show. “You go up there onstage and you’re naked when you’re singing that aria, because all you have is your body and your soul and that’s what people are going to see, without any smoke and mirrors, which is what I think people are relying on a lot nowadays.”

Not only are the voices powerful and resonant, but the production is visually stunning as well. The sopranos sing their arias and the baritones belt their solos in a beautiful set fashioned to look like a village square in Venice, complete with charming tan buildings and a bridge to span the canal for the gondolas. The women beam in their colorful dresses, and sing and dance with gusto and bouquets of flowers. As for the male gondoliers, they look authentic in striped shirts and red waistbands, with lush mustaches and showy sideburns that would put Ebenezer Scrooge to shame. It’s no surprise as to why every cast member interviewed said they loved the costumes. But none more than Dubler.

“That’s the first role I’ve played as a woman in college,” Dubler said, laughing. “I’ve played boys on stage. It’s a pants role tradition that mezzo soprano singers, who are tall and skinny play boys onstage (she’s 5-foot-11 inches). So this is exciting because it’s my first role as a woman onstage, and I get to wear a dress and heels.”

Other cast members say the production is satisfying for a different reason.

“Because the professors really like it when you do operas, and it actually is a lot of fun,” said Westin Sorrel, a freshman music education major, who played Francesco in the show.

Boehlke agrees.

“It’s a great way to get brownie points, we’re all told. We’re not, you know, suck-ups,” Boehlke said, smiling.

Westin Sorrel as Francesco (note the mustache)

After the March 11 performance.

And though being in the show has payoffs in a variety of ways, cast members were clear that it’s not as easy as it looks. For one thing, the hours are long. As Dubler puts it, she is “saturated” in music all day long. Students audition to be in a class for the performance, which meets twice a week for three hours. In the weeks before the show, however, cast members must go to the class, as well as meet every day to rehearse from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., and for six hours on the weekends.

“My least favorite part is the rehearsal time; I just want to perform,” Gray said. “It’s very time consuming, but the end result is always worth it. And the stress level during the week of the show (is my least favorite), where you’re (at the University Center for the Arts) more than you are at your house. You lose a lot of sleep.”

The “stigma” also haunts performers when they announce to their college-age friends that they’re in the show.

“It’s definitely an art form you have to appreciate,” Boehlke said. “Otherwise it’s like ‘Hey dude, want to come see my opera?’ They’re like, ‘nah. You’re in an opera? What’s that?’”

The cast members say that opera is less appreciated by today’s youth (though the theater was sold out for the last performance), but Dubler says it still has a place and a purpose in musical theater.

“If you see opera it’s different then listening to it, because it’s a story. We’re storytellers, and we’re actors just as much as we’re singers, and people don’t always connect that,” she said. “There’s something to be said — there’s always a message to be communicated, even with the satire. That’s why the composer wrote it. That’s why vocal music and the music of our past is important. They had something to say, and it was important enough that they composed music for it and composed beautifully.”

So what does “The Gondoliers” say?

“I think ‘The Gondoliers’ says a lot about aristocracy, that no one really knows what we’re doing, and we just kind of go with it. There’s a lot of truth in sarcasm,” Dubler said. “It’s supposed to be goofy that the characters are like ‘we met 15 minutes ago and we’re getting married, and we love each other desperately.’ It’s goofy but it’s a reflection on little things that are real blown up to be noticeable. It makes you stop and consider why it’s funny.”

Camrenne Dubler as Tessa after the March 11

Performance of “The Gondoliers”

And after three hours of joyous music, arias and dancing, the audience had a lot to consider before at the final curtain. Their gratitude can be explained by their action, which in this case was much louder than words: a standing ovation for every member of the cast. And one by one, Gray, Sorrel, Boehlke and Dubler took a bow, sporting the widest of smiles.