Teaming up for on-stage magic

The School of Music at the Faculty of Arts produces full-scale operas requiring that students not only invest many hours of work, but also display the same level of professionalism expected from full-fledged opera company members.

Indeed, in the School's Opera Production course, students learn about every aspect of staging an opera and earn three credits in the process. Specifically, the course allows students in the vocal program to both perform on stage before a live audience in a role from the lyrical repertoire, as well as take on the duties of the professionals found in opera houses everywhere: production assistant, make-up artist, costume designer, props person, set designer, etc.

This session, the opera class is staging Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute). The production stars soloists Jean-Philippe Fortier-Lazure, Ania Hejnar, Natalya Matyusheva, Kyle Merrithew and Philippe Courchesne-Lebœuf, who share the roles of the work's famous Papageno, Papagena, Tamino, Pamina and the Queen of the Night. The vocalists are accompanied by the Opera Musica chamber orchestra, which is made up of students from the School of Music, including conductor Christian Paquette.

School of Music professor Sandra Graham undertook stage and musical direction of the two-hour opera to be performed in the original German, with spoken dialogues in English. "This year, I had to contend with a class of 38 students of which 34 are part of the cast and 25 are female students, so I chose this opera by Mozart because it calls for many female voices," says Graham. "I arranged the casting so that the students could play more than one character and benefit from singing a broader range of voice types; their learning experience is all the richer for it", says Graham. The other four students fill four technical, but crucial, positions, within the Opera "House".

What's more, for the first time ever in the history of the Opera Production course, students in Professor Jennifer Macklem's sculpture class at the Department of Visual Arts helped design three elaborate costumes and an array of headpieces. The students will also receive academic credits for their work.

The School of Music's production of The Magic Flute will be performed six times, all in the University Centre Alumni Auditorium: Friday, January 28; Saturday, January 29; Friday, February 4; and Saturday, February 5 at 7 p.m.; and on Sunday, January 30 and Sunday, February 6 at 2 p.m.

For more details, consult the School of Music Events Web page.

Nadine Saint-Amour
Photo: Mélanie Provencher
Published: January 2011