Not That Kind of Opera | A Roadkill Opera

There are all kinds of operas. What you think of the form really depends on what you’ve been exposed to.

The first opera DJ and I went to see together was at the Metropolitan in New York–the Met. We saw a modern production of Salome. The plot involves a young princess who asks for a man’s severed head–when she gets her wish, she dances around with it. Ew.

Last Saturday night, DJ and I attended the opening concert of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia (SONOVA), Premiered at the opera house. The first half of the show include some very popular pieces, such as the William Tell Overture. After halftime, the Metropolitan Chorus was featured in the opera Carmina Burana.

Photo of the Metropolitan Chorus and Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia performing Carl Orff's Carmina Burana on November 8, 2014. Soloist Jeffrey is visible at front. — Maestro Jeffrey Sean Dokken, music director and conductor for the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia, took a rare turn as tenor soloist under the baton of the Metropolitan Chorus’s artistic director and conductor Maestro Barry S. Hemphill. Dokken sang in Carl Orff’s **Carmina Burana** November 8-9, 2014, at the George Washington Masonic National Memorial in Alexandria, Virginia.

I had heard of Carmina Burana, but I didn’t know the story. Neither did DJ. My method of watching an opera that I don’t understand — sung in other languages, as in this case, in Italian — is to make up lyrics in my head that have nothing to do with the story of the opera. For Carmina Burana, the story in my head essentially had every character with a solo singing a lament of “who moved my cheese.” I found it highly entertaining.

I had used the same technique to turn the first act of Ferdninando Paer’s Leonora into A Roadkill Opera. It is not that kind of opera–it deals with the stage fright and such of a small town improv troupe in the hour before their first professional gig in 1988 Wyoming, set to Paer’s 1804 music. But I digress…

Maestro Dokken informed me after the show that he was singing the role of a swan–a swan that is singing as it is being boiled alive. Yikes. Turns out the story of swan’s singing just before they die is as old as Greek myth and music. There is nothing new under the sun…

The story got me thinking of other opera moments that have a larger presence in popular culture. With the World Series just behind us, who can forget “it’s not over ’til the fat lady sings”? Stories of the origin vary, but many ascribe it to the singing of Brünnhilde’s final aria from Die Walküre or Götterdämmerung.

And then there is the Grand Ole Opry. According to Wikipedia (retrieved November 10, 2014, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ole_Opry):

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On December 10, 1927 the phrase ‘Grand Ole Opry’ was first uttered on-air.^[10] That night Barn Dance followed the NBC Red Network’s Music Appreciation Hour, a program of classical music and selections from Grand Opera presented by classical conductor Walter Damrosch. That night, Damrosch remarked that “there is no place in the classics for realism,” In response, Opry presenter George Hay said:

“Friends, the program which just came to a close was devoted to the classics. Doctor Damrosch told us that there is no place in the classics for realism. However, from here on out for the next three hours, we will present nothing but realism. It will be down to earth for the ‘earthy’.”

Hay then introduced DeFord Bailey, the man he had dubbed the “Harmonica Wizard”, saying:

“For the past hour, we have been listening to music taken largely from Grand Opera. From now on, we will present the ‘Grand Ole Opry’.”

Bailey then stepped up to the mic to play “The Pan American Blues”, his song inspired by the Pan American, an L&N Railroad express/passenger train.^[10]^[11]

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So there you have it. Carmina Burana, A Roadkill Opera, Die Walküre or Götterdämmerung, and the Grand Ole Opry.

You’re welcome!