A Tale of Two Art Forms, Part II: Houston Ballet and Houston Grand Opera

[Cover of Madama Butterfly, a quadrilingual picture book by Monica E. Lapenta (author) and Stefania Pravato (illustrator)]. Paramica/LaMa House Publishing, 2008.]


A few nights ago I was fortunate enough to attend Houston Ballet's Dance Talk titled "A Closer Look at Cio-Cio San", who is also known as "Madame Butterfly." This talk was a lead-up to Houston Ballet's upcoming production of Madame Butterfly, a two-act ballet created by the company's Artistic Director, Stanton Welch, back in 1995 for The Australian Ballet. This, in turn, was based on Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly. (The "a" is not a typo; the opera really is titled Madama rather than Madame.)

I always enjoy Houston Ballet's "Dance Talks," but this one was particularly thrilling for me because we not only got to hear about the character of Cio-Cio San from Yuriko Kajiya, one of Houston Ballet's principal dancers who will be dancing as Cio-Cio San in the upcoming production, the panel also included Vicki Attard, who originated the role in Welch's premiere of this ballet, and Ana María Martínez, whom we have seen sing the role in Houston Grand Opera's production of Puccini's opera not once, but twice.

The discussion was ably led by Dr. Howard Pollack from UH Moore's School of Music. Dr. Pollack first gave some background on the ballet, which is based on the opera, which is based on David Belasco's one-act play titled Madame Butterfly: A Tragedy of Japan. And that was based on the 1898 short story titled "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was partially based on stories told to Long by his sister and partially on Pierre Loti's 1887 French novel Madame Chrysanthème.

Got all that? There will be a quiz.

The panel discussion lasted about an hour, but it seemed to fly by much more quickly than that. The artists discussed the fact that modern audiences may view Cio-Cio San as a victim, but within the context of her story, her strength is illuminated when she sacrifices herself for her child. They also spoke about the challenge of performing opposite different singers/dancers as Pinkerton, and performing with a small child or, as Ms. Martinez did at the Metropolitan Opera, with a puppet (and three puppeteers!) representing the child.

My favorite moment of insight came when Ms. Kajiya charmingly stated that the dancer must first "get the steps into your body" before developing the emotional layers that go with the role; the dancers can't act realistically if they are thinking about the steps or the count, so those things must become second nature. I also enjoyed hearing about how she had to study up on Japanese attire, gestures, and movement, since the traditional attire has not been worn widely in Japan during her lifetime.

I was also impressed with how articulately Ms. Attard and Ms. Martinez described the process of bringing a character to life. People sometimes mistakenly assume that ballet dancers are unthinking dolls, but in actuality, the best dancers take a deep and intellectual approach to their characters. Similarly, opera singers literally must learn to convey emotion in many different languages, since most operas follow the language of the composer. If I recall correctly, we've heard Ms. Martinez sing beautifully in French (Carmen), Italian (Madama Butterfly), and Czech (Rusalka). It's not enough to learn the words by rote; the singers have to understand and convey what they're singing at all times.

All three of these strong, passionate, talented women were kind enough to sign my copy of the quadrilingual picture book shown at the top of this post, a book that is now a very treasured possession for me.

Houston Ballet's production of Madame Butterfly runs from September 22 to October 2, 2016. Tickets are available here. In addition, Ms. Martinez is in town to perform as Marguerite in Houston Grand Opera's production of Gounod's Faust, which runs from October 28 to November 11, 2016 (tickets here).

[Click here for the post "A Tale of Two Art Forms, Part I"]


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Houston Ballet Dance Talk - "Discover Manon"

Originally I intended to wait until after I'd actually seen Houston Ballet's Manon before I would write about the dance talk pertaining to this production, but the talk, which I attended last night, was so outstanding that it deserves mention all on its own.

By way of background, the Houston Ballet puts on several dance talks each season that are free and open to the public; these may feature the company's Artistic Director (Stanton Welch), ballet historians, dance and/or literary scholars, conductors, dance teachers, and, of course, dancers. The talks are held on weekday evenings, usually leading into a specific production, and are about an hour long. They take place at the Houston Ballet Center for Dance, which is the fairly new and quite gorgeous rehearsal space for the company, located on Preston Street in downtown Houston.

Last night's talk served as an introduction for the season's opening production of Manon, a three-act ballet created by choreographer Sir Kenneth MacMillan in 1974; it is set to music by Jules Massenet and based on the 1731 novel by Abbé Prévost titled L'Histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut. Rather than a lecture, the talk consisted of a panel discussion led by Elizabeth Klett, a professor of Literature at UH-Clear Lake whom we saw speak last year on interpretations of Shakespeare in ballet. For this talk, she was joined by Assistant Conductor Ned Battista and répétiteur (*) Bruce Sansom -- a terrific combination, because between them they could speak authoritatively on the literature, music, and movement of Manon.

Dr. Klett began with some background on the novel, which she points out has not one but two title characters: des Grieux and Manon. The multi-part work was considered quite racy at the time due to Manon's questionable morals. Dr. Klett also referenced a June 2006 New York Times article about three different dancers' interpretations of the character, who transforms from innocent girl to celebrated courtesan to impoverished prostitute over the course of the ballet.

Dr. Klett then invited Ned Battista to speak to the music, which was particularly fascinating. Although Jules Massenet (1842-1912) had composed an entire five-act opera for Manon, which was first performed in 1884, MacMillan decided he wanted to use different music -- but by the same composer -- for the ballet. As a result, every note of the ballet's composite score was written by Massenet, but not one note of it came from Massenet's opera. Instead, MacMillan hired musicians to comb through Massenet's catalog of work to find pieces of music to fit the ballet he envisioned, a difficult task considering that the pieces needed to sound organically cohesive.

Mr. Battista also noted that the ballet makes use of what some have derisively referred to as the "calling card" technique, in which each character has a distinctive motif, a la Wagner's Ring Cycle. (I hope it doesn't horrify any ballet or opera enthusiasts for me to say that my first experience of this technique came when I saw The Empire Strikes Back at age twelve; in addition to the more heavy-handed Darth Vader theme, I can also recall the gentler motifs for Princess Leia, Han Solo, and Yoda.)

This provided a segue for Dr. Klett to ask Mr. Sansom about similar motifs in the choreography, and he explained that Manon repeats, once in each act, the same sequence of steps yet with different interpretations depending upon her circumstances at the time (innocent girl, celebrated courtesan, and somewhat enfeebled prostitute). He also spoke about his own experiences dancing in this ballet, having performed many of its roles, including that of des Grieux.

The talk ended with questions from the audience; my favorite was when a woman asked Mr. Battista about working with dancers as opposed to singers. He answered that the conductor does have to watching the dancers closely, stating (more colorfully than this) that if the dancer is a little bit behind tempo, you have to pull up and not let them (or make them) crash. I loved the answer because it showed how strongly he felt that it's a give and take process, and they're all there to work with each other. Rigid adherence to having one's own way, he said, is not the way to make art.

Houston Ballet's Manon will run from September 10-20, 2015.

[* a person who teaches the steps and coaches the interpretation]

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An Evening with Neil deGrasse Tyson

Last night my husband and I went to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak at Jones Hall here in Houston. I'm not sure we've ever paid to hear someone just speak before; the closest was when we paid a small amount to see William Shatner speak for an hour at a convention we were already attending anyway. Neil DeGrasse Tyson tickets cost, shall we say, not a small amount.

And it was completely worth it. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, honestly. Would it be like an episode of Cosmos? Would it be a rant about politicians who refuse to consider evidence that's right in front of their eyes?

Actually, no -- it was more like stand-up comedy for scientifically minded people. The "backbone" of the talk was basically how movies look to NDT: what's right, what's not right but still cool, and what's so scientifically wrong that it's difficult to get past it. Spoiler alert: Armageddon did not fare well, but that wasn't a surprise to me, considering that the husband is an asteroid scientist, and the (to me) well-known Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop apparently uses that film to talk about everything that's wrong with science in Hollywood. (Yes, we do still own a copy of that movie. Science aside, it's a lot more entertaining than it's summer-twin-release, Deep Impact.)

Interspersed with the movie still frames and clips were.... several beer commercials! Probably the most "political" line of the evening was when NDT said, in response to a beer commercial in which primordial creatures don't like the taste of their water and so wait through a zillion years of evolution until Guiness is invented, that it's a sad state of affairs when a beer commercial is more scientifically accurate that some school curricula in this country. (We're looking at you, Southern states!) Apart from that, though, the evening was just a fun look at what movies do and don't get right, and what we can and can't forgive them for getting wrong.

I laughed like crazy. And here were the two best parts of the evening: 1) this man clearly loves science and the wonders of the universe; and 2) the atmosphere at Jones Hall before the talk. NDT fans clearly view this guy as a rock star, and he is. Of science.

And just for fun, off the top of my head, other movies referenced (for both good and bad) included:

• Back to the Future
  
• Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure
  
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
  
• Contact
  
• Gravity
  
• Interstellar
  
• The Lion King
  
• Love Story
  
• The Matrix
  
• Star Wars (the real one)
  
• Titanic
  
• West Side Story
  
• The Wizard of Oz
  

If you ever get a chance to hear this man speak, I highly recommend it.

[Edited to add: I should have mentioned that this appearance was put on by the Society of the Performing Arts (SPA) in Houston. Thanks, SPA!] Read more!

A Tale of Two Art Forms: Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Ballet

Yesterday my husband and I had a great experience, or two great experiences, really, in an amazing juxtaposition. Over lunchtime, we attended a workshop by HGOco, which is “Houston Grand Opera’s unique initiative that connects HGO to the community through meaningful collaboration." A lot of what HGOco does consists of workshops, opera camps, student-only performances, etc., but they also commission works particularly relevant to the local community. Along those lines, in the fall of 2015, HGO will premiere O Columbia, a chamber opera telling the story of the exploring spirit in general and the Columbia shuttle tragedy in particular.

At yesterday’s workshop, we listened to a libretto reading given by professional actors for the material as it exists to date. The entire creative team was in attendance, including librettist Royce Vavrek, composer Gregory Spears, HGOco Music Advisor David Hanlon, and director Kevin Newbury. The purpose of the workshop was for the creative team to get feedback from several opera enthusiasts as well as current and former NASA employees, including at least one astronaut. This allows them to assess whether the piece is moving in the right direction before the work goes further, particularly the musical composition.

For us, it offered an extremely rare opportunity to see the early stages of the creative process in action. I didn't know that the libretto comes before the music, and now that I know, I still can’t imagine the complexities of having to write words that will be sung when you don’t yet know the melody (although of course they have been collaborating throughout the process, so they’re on the same page in that regard), or the difficulty of fitting the music around words while also carrying certain melodic themes throughout the entire work. We've had season tickets to the opera for a few years now, and I know that I will look at productions differently after having seen some of what goes into them.

Without going into further details, I have to say that if you live anywhere in Texas, when the time comes you should make every effort to get to Houston to see O Columbia. (Although you don't have to live in Texas -- there are lots of flights to Houston every day!) It’s going to be an amazing opera, one that’s incredibly personal to anyone even remotely affiliated with NASA or simply interested in human spaceflight. It will be even more personal to those of us who live in Houston, but it’s not limited to that. So remember: Fall 2015. This is going to be really special, and shouldn’t be missed.

By complete coincidence, yesterday evening we also attended a talk presented by the Houston Ballet. Every season, the company puts on three full-length ballets and three mixed repertoire performances. This year, all three full-lengths will be Shakespeare (how fun is that?!), so last night’s Ballet Talk was about interpreting Shakespeare through dance. I hadn’t really thought about it before, but it’s a fascinating topic, because Shakespeare is all about the language, none of which is available in dance. Houston Ballet will be performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and The Taming of the Shrew over the 2014-15 season, and now I can't wait to compare them to the plays. (Tangent: a fun coincidence is that the first opera I ever saw was HGO’s performance of Benjamin Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s really interesting to see the same story as both opera and ballet; I believe the only other story I’ve seen in both forms is Madame Butterfly.)

For this Ballet Talk, the panel of experts consisted of Artistic Director (and choreographer) Stanton Welch, Managing Director Emeritus and ballet historian Cecil C. Conner, Jr., and University of Houston-Clear Lake literature professor Dr. Elizabeth Klett. The talk began with some interesting literary context from Dr. Klett. For instance, who knew that the story was not original to Shakespeare, but came instead from what Dr. Klett said was a "frankly terrible" 1562 poem by Arthur Brooke titled "The Tragicall History of Romeus and Juliet"? Dr. Klett gave us lots of other interesting tidbits, and was followed by Mr. Conner's overview of various Shakespearean ballets over the years, accompanied by some lovely photographs of famous performances.

My favorite part of the talk, though, was when Stanton Welch spoke about the new Romeo and Juliet he’s creating that will premiere in the spring. He said that while you might expect the artistic process for a new production to begin with the choreography, it’s actually the opposite: you start with the sets (built with models down to opening doors and cloth backdrops) and the costumes and don’t get down to the characters and the choreography until much later. This production's scenery and costumes have been designed by Roberta Guidi di Bagno (go here for a great blog post by Laura Lynch, Houston Ballet Wardrobe Manager, on working with the designer and shopping for fabrics in Rome).

Another thing Mr. Welch discussed was his intention to reestablish many of the play’s minor characters that have been eliminated from most dance productions. Another part of the process is settling on intentions and motivation; he said that in watching several versions of the play, he’s noticed that Mercutio’s famous speech has been played as slightly mad, as humorous, as angry…. Which of those will ultimately fit the version he wants to tell, and how to portray that in dance?

As with the opera workshop, I felt we were getting a look at the creative process in action. Especially when re-creating one of the most performed stories in recent history, how do you keep all that in mind and manage to make it all come together in the end, into a work that has its own personality?

And to think all this time I've thought that simply writing a short story was difficult. It is difficult, to be fair, but I have to admit that I'm amazed at what goes in to these other, extremely complex forms of storytelling. I’m glad there are such talented people out there who are so devoted to these two art forms.


[Costume design sketch by Roberta Guidi di Bagno.]
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