Backstage at the Opera

(first published in The Cincinnati Post June 13, 1991)

The lights dim, the conductor raises his baton. The curtain rises.

Abracadabra - opera!

Well, not exactly, says Clay Pendergrass, chorus master of the Cincinnati Opera.

"People think it's just magic, but there are a lot of fairy godmothers back there."

Behind the scenes at the opera you'll find stage managers and stage crew; wardrobe, makeup, technical and design staff; music staff; and administrative and box office personnel.

And they don't make opera with mirrors or magic wands.

It takes "coordination and guts," says opera managing director Gus Stuhlreyer - especially to present four operas in four weeks, as the Cincinnati Opera does each summer at Music Hall.

But "we all live for these four or five crazy weeks a year," he said.

"It's pretty intense," said production manager Thomas Bankston. "During the thick of it, we're doing 12-hour days, seven days a week or more."

The opera season opens at 8 p.m. June 19 - a Wednesday instead of the usual Thursday - with Puccini's "Manon Lescaut." Following at one-week intervals are Rossini's "The Barber of Seville," Bizet's "Carmen" and Verdi's "A Masked Ball."

The opera's full-time year-round staff numbers just 13, but during the summer the work force swells to more than 250, including orchestra, chorus, dancers and the singers.

One of the "summer people" is production stage manager Blythe de Blasis. Ms. de Blasis is the one who "calls" the shows. She cues the lights, curtain and movements of scenery on the stage. She pages the artists in their dressing rooms.

"Basically, all of the responsibilities that the director leaves up on the stage fall to the stage manager during the production," she said.

Ms. de Blasis, the daughter of artistic director James de Blasis, is also serving as an assistant director for "Manon Lescaut." But she prefers the role of stage manager, she said.

"It's hard for me to leave the production and go out front and watch. It makes me nervous. I don't like having to sit and have no control in it."

Working with opera singers and their legendary egos is "not difficult," said Ms. de Blasis, a former singer who is a stage manager for Chicago's Lyric Opera the rest of the year.

"They are artists; they have their particular temperaments. But, it's funny, I've seen supers (extras) have bigger fits than a singer would."

Her most temperamental artist last season was four-footed, she said - a Cincinnati Zoo cheetah that was to parade across the stage in "Aida" with, among others, an aardvark. After a first run-through, the opera was told that the cheetah would no longer be available.

"It was reported to us that 'The aardvark disturbed the cheetah's environment.' "

Backstage mishaps do occur. In the dress rehearsal for 1989's "Romeo and Juliet," a piece of runaway scenery almost mowed down chorus master Pendergrass and opera head coach Henri Venanzi.

"There was a very quick scene change," Pendergrass explained. "Henri was playing the organ and I was conducting (both backstage). The stage guys came flying out of there with this big truck, and it got away from them. The entire set rammed into me and Henri (also on a truck) and knocked us about five feet.

"We were laughing because if it had come the other way we'd have gone across the stage - just waved and kept going."

Pendergrass' chief responsibility is preparing the 46-member chorus.

"We audition a new chorus every year," he said, many of them just out of school. And singing for opera, particularly in Music Hall, requires a special orientation. "I ask for much more exaggeration of nuance, stuff you would never do in 'Messiah' or 'Elijah.' Plus "you've got to run around the stage and act crazy."

Wardrobe mistress Gail Luckey and her assistants have been hard at work since April, "building" costumes for "Carmen" - "We call it 'build' instead of 'make,' " she said.

"We started the show in prior years. This year we decided to finish it - over 150 people, and some have three costumes."

Because opera singers come in all sizes and shapes, costumes are built to be altered, said Mrs. Luckey. "The seams are sometimes two and three inches big, and we just take them in and out as needed."

Ordinarily, most of the costumes are rented. "They're shipped here, and we fit them to the people."

The care and feeding of the singers is part of production manager Bankston's job.

Bankston communicates with visiting artists on everything from housing accommodations to cuts in the music.

"You have to do your share of stroking and making them feel they are being taken care of," said Bankston, who has performed as an opera singer himself.

"But we sort of pride ourselves on that. I think our reputation in the business is that we're a kinder and gentler opera company."