It was a whirlwind weekend in Nashville: visits to old haunts and meeting friends old and new.
Taking the geographic route rather than chronological order, we start in west Nashville and head toward downtown. First stop: Bluebird Cafe. The restaurant/bar/listening parlor is closed at this hour, but there is, nonetheless, a steady procession of fans stopping by.
When I first pull up to the Bluebird Cafe, it is closed, but that doesn’t stop fans from peeking in the windows……including new fans of A Roadkill Opera.
One of the skills I had picked up working for Opryland USA On The Road In Branson, Missouri, was repairing microphone cables. Later, Amy Kurland, the owner of The Bluebird Cafe, would occasionally hired me to fix microphone cables and demagnetize the tape heads on her place’s cassette deck. Later still, when I was doing standup comedy, Amy was kind enough to let me perform a set at the Bluebird. I bombed–Chicago standup was not what folks came to the Bluebird for in the mid-1980s (or now, I suppose).
Proceeding east on Hillsboro Road, the next stop is the relatively new Parnassus Books. It is Independent Bookstore Day, and, as luck would have it, the co-owners are there. One of them is Ann Patchett, the award winning, New York Times bestselling author of Bel Canto, who has a few kind words for A Roadkill Opera.
Ann Patchett welcomes celebrants to Parnassus Books on Independent Bookstore Day 2015.
I am thrilled that Ann is willing to let me quote her: “Good luck at the Grammys. How could you not win with a name like that?” I tell Ann that A Roadkill Opera will have its premiere in Washington DC on January 8-9, 2016. Ann tells me that Bel Canto will have its premiere as an opera on December 7, 2015, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Proceeding further east on Hillsboro Road, another Nashville institution is reached: Pancake Pantry. While waiting in line to have breakfast with my brother Dave and his family, I make a new friend, the Los Angeles based television writer Stefani Novik (Cybill, Caroline in the City, Nub TV).
You never know who you will meet at Pancake Pantry–in this case, Los Angeles TV writer Stefani Novik has become a new fan of A Roadkill Opera.
The easternmost stop on this tour: University School of Nashville, founded as Peabody Demonstration School in 1915. There the past, present, and future merged. The present: Vince Durnan, Director of USN, congratulated me outside his office as I gave away 100 CDs of A Roadkill Operain celebration of the school’s centennial.
Vince Durnan, Director of the University School of Nashville (successor to Peabody Demonstration School), is congratulated by A Roadkill Opera librettist Stephan Alexander Parker at the centennial celebration of the school. Parker gave away 100 copies of the studio recording of A Roadkill Opera in celebration of the school’s 100th anniversary.
The future: after hearing him lead a terrific concert, I catch up with instrumental music teacher Joe Getsi in the band room, where he received a set of performing materials aka A Roadkill Opera DIY.
Joe Getsi led a terrific concert program at the centennial celebration of the University School of Nashville.
And the past: one of the distinguished alumni speaking at the centennial celebration was Amy Kurland, now a philanthropist. Congratulations, University School of Nashville/Peabody Demonstration School!
A Roadkill Opera librettist Stephan Alexander Parker and his former occasional employer from the Bluebird Cafe, Amy Kurland, shared a laugh at the centennial celebration of University School of Nashville/Peabody Demonstration School.
While in Nashville, Parker let people know about his upcoming appearance at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on Saturday, May 16, 2015, and the premiere performances of A Roadkill Opera scheduled for January 8-9, 2016, at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC.
The studio recording of A Roadkill Opera has received enthusiastic reviews. Meet Parker at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on Saturday, May 16, 2015A Roadkill Opera announced its first fully staged performances for January 8-9, 2016, at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC
UNDERGROUND OPERA SENSATION “A ROADKILL OPERA” WORLD PREMIERE ANNOUNCED
Jeffrey Dokken, Music Director and Conductor for the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia, Vetted Score and Parts at Artomatic 2012 Workshop and 2013 Studio Recording Sessions, to Return as Music Director and Conductor for January 2016 Performances
See A Roadkill Opera Librettist Stephan Alexander Parker at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on Saturday, May 16, 2015
Nashville, Tennessee—Librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, a 1979 graduate of the University School of Nashville (USN), announced today that A Roadkill Opera will have its world premiere performances at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC, on January 8-9, 2016. Special thanks to the late Jaylee Mead for her generous support of the Mead Theatre Lab.
A Roadkill Opera announced its first fully staged performances for January 8-9, 2016, at the Mead Theatre Lab at Flashpoint in Washington, DC
Parker is in Nashville to help celebrate the USN Centennial, where he is slated to give away 100 CDs in honor of the 100th anniversary of the school. Parker and all 3 of his siblings attended the school; Nina, Aaron, and Stephan entered the school when it was Peabody Demonstration School (PDS), while David entered after the change to USN.
Jeff Goold is shown receiving the first “official” set of A Roadkill Opera DIYat USN Music Night on Edgehill at the University School of Nashville (successor to Peabody Demonstration School) on February 15, 2015
USN Music Night on Edgehill 2015
“At Music Night, my wife Debby and I were lucky enough to share a dinner table with Fran & Heber Rogers in the lobby–you couldn’t get any closer to his old office without opening the door.
“The show was first rate. We sat next to Janet Carney Schneider and Drew Schneider–which was especially fun since their son John was playing bass for the all-alumni band, which was very, very good. Janet was one of my teachers and a good sport assisting me in a magic trick for the talent portion of the Mr. USN contest my senior year. But that’s a story for another day…
“Dierks Bentley & Friends gave a marvelous performance—funny, moving, personal. When his daughter sang, that really was something—they really know how to recruit talent at USN! And, as a former light and sound man for Opryland USA On The Road in Branson, Missouri, I must compliment the crew for the great sound mix. I always liked the auditorium—our class project in 10th grade was to paint it (we found charred remains of curtains from the 1954 fire)—and when Dierks Bentley said that on his first visit to the school he ‘wondered what a five-string banjo would sound like in here’ I could have told him ‘great!’ McKim, Meade and White knew what they were doing, and Manual Zeitlin improved on their work.
“Vince was truly engaging and entertaining–and we loved the stage set, too!” said Parker.
Peabody Demonstration School & University School of Nashville Influences
“My first year at PDS, Dolores Nicholson made being a stagehand feel like the most exciting part of theatre. When there were trees still on stage from a previous scene and the finale was about to start for the musical Oliver! and she said ‘Go!,’ you didn’t hesitate to run across the stage and grab the trees to clear the stage,” said Parker.
Parker and music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken, the creative team behind the Artomatic 2012 workshop performance and 2013 studio recording of A Roadkill Opera, announced a new initiative at the 2015 GRAMMY Awards in February. Parker personally delivered the first Roadkill Opera DIY package to USN at Music Night a week after the GRAMMYs. He returned for the USN Centennial for the 100 CD giveaway at the suggestion of USN Director Vince Durnan. “USN staff have been so kind and supportive, everyone I spoke with, from Dana Strupp to Britt McCauley, Jeff Goold, and Debra Alberts,” said Parker.
A Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker and music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken show their Grammy tickets before the Premiere. The Roadkill entourage also included video director Ben Ganz and merchandizing director DJ Choupin. Composer Ferdinando Paer was not available to attend, as he passed away in 1839.
A Roadkill Opera DIY comprises the complete opera in a box, including the conductor’s score and parts so you can perform it yourself with just 5 singers and a 9-piece chamber orchestra. The box is ready to ship with surprise extras.
“A Roadkill Opera is thoroughly enjoyable to opera lovers and to non-opera-lovers alike. Parker’s libretto is hysterically funny. The music that was written back in 1804 from Paer fits so beautifully with the things that Parker has done. Your classical music lovers will like it, your opera music lovers will like it, and your random fans who maybe have never heard an opera before will like it as well. It really is the complete package,” said Dokken.
The studio recording of A Roadkill Opera has received enthusiastic reviews. Meet Parker at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on Saturday, May 16, 2015
A Roadkill Opera is a new opera first workshopped at Artomatic 2012, the Washington area’s largest free creative arts event. Set to classical music from 1804 and crossed with a backstage comedy, the 59-minute opera (in English) tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on opening night for a comedy improv troupe in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Parker had presented a prototype mockup at Artomatic 2004 in Washington DC, and recruited production partners at Artomatic 2009 (also in DC) and at the licensed Artomatic@Frederick 2011 in Maryland. A work colleague introduced Parker to Maestro Dokken.
“Martine Micozzi had been a session musician in Los Angeles, a flautist, prior to moving to the DC area. She asked if she could show the score to the conductor of an orchestra she played with locally, the Symphony Orchestra of Arlington, now the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia (SONOVA). Martine is so talented—her flute in the 2012 workshop and the 2013 studio recording is flawless,” said Parker.
Parker’s musical training was in Nashville. Prior to entering PDS, he studied piano and composition under Mr. Higgs at Blair Academy (now the Blair School of Music at Vanderbilt University) and piano in private studies with Jerome Buck. At PDS he learned to play clarinet his first year there.
“We had a full clarinet section, with 3 clarinets and a bass clarinet, when USN hired a new band director, Rick Palmiter. Mr. P, as we called him, looked around and saw our entire brass section consisted of one lonely trumpet, the very talented Bil Hays. He asked ‘Who wants to switch instruments and learn to play trombone?’ No one else raised their hand. I was the worst musician in band class, third clarinet. I had only been playing a year or so. Mr. P taught me trombone and put me in the pep band he created to play at basketball games. That was so much fun! Hold That Tiger!”
Parker was frustrated that as third clarinet he did not have access to practice the melodic lines that were carried by other instruments. “I resolved that, if I ever had the chance to publish sheet music, every musician would know who was playing on each tune, and they would all be able to purchase the sheet music for their private enjoyment—affordably,” said Parker. In 2013 he published the sheet music for A Roadkill Opera in several volumes; one for wind instruments, one for tympani and strings, a piano/vocal score for the singers to use in rehearsal, and a conductor’s score that shows every part in a large enough format for use in performances.
A Roadkill Opera librettist Stephan Alexander Parker hits the road–by bus.
For audience use at performances, Parker published a large print libretto (which includes the vocal melodies in large print) so people can follow the action in low light and without supertitles over the stage. “A Roadkill Opera is in English. Even so, it is much easier to follow if you know the words,” says Parker.
Maestro Dokken became involved with the project after long-time Artomatic exhibitor Stephan Alexander Parker completed this new English libretto, begun and roughed-out during Artomatic 2004. A search for interested producing partners was launched at Artomatic 2009, and ended in 2012 when Dokken received a copy of the score through a mutual friend. The Artomatic 2012 workshop performance of A Roadkilll Opera in Crystal City, Virginia was “sprawling room only—every seat was taken and people were sprawled out in all directions,” said Parker.
Further Washington DC-area performances are planned for the next Artomatic events in 2015 and 2016, once they are officially announced.
Music from 1804. Action set in 1988. A new opera (in English, in just 59 minutes)
A Roadkill Opera tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on opening night for a comedy improv troupe in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company. Based (loosely) on a true story from a fast-developing tourist town, this original English libretto by Parker is set to music by Ferdinando Paer (Napoleon’s maître de chapelle).
It took 25 years to identify the classical opera Parker recorded off an FM station, and another 5 years to acquire the score. The story of chasing down the obscure score is related in Parker’s 2013 book, If you see roadkill, think opera. A sequel is in the works.
The 2012 performance was one of many featured at the month-long arts event. Artomatic 2012 was the largest ever event, featuring work and performances by more than 1300 artists, performers, musicians, filmmakers, fashion designers, and creatives of all kinds in a 380,000 square-foot office building in Crystal City, Va. The 6-week event attracted more than 70,000 attendees—not all at the same time, obviously.
Story and English Libretto by Stephan Alexander Parker
Tickets will go on sale in October 2015. Meanwhile go out and make some music of your own!
A Roadkill Opera, the underground opera sensation
“If you see roadkill, think opera”
**MEDIA AVAILABILITY: To schedule an interview with Maestro Jeffrey Dokken or librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, or to arrange a photo opportunity, contact Stephan at 240.277.6640 or roadkillopera@icloud.com.
About CulturalDC
CulturalDC makes space for art. Each year CulturalDC serves over 1,000 artists and arts groups and 30,000 audience members through the activation of art space and presentation of contemporary visual and performing arts at our two spaces, Flashpoint and Source, and in nontraditional venues across the city. Through our programs and services we work with artists and arts organizations to build the creative infrastructure that fuels the arts and builds community in Washington, DC.
About Flashpoint
Flashpoint is a dynamic arts space dedicated to nurturing and growing emerging artists and cultural organizations. Flashpoint provides services and training for cultural organizations to help strengthen their management capacity and provide affordable exhibition and performance spaces that enable arts groups to focus on their artistic goals and expand their visibility.
About Artomatic
Artomatic is a non-profit, volunteer-run 501(c)3 organization that organizes and hosts a large arts festival occurring every 12-18 months in the DC metropolitan area, usually in a commercial location slated for demolition. The event is unjuried (first-come-first-served) and showcases creative work in visual art, music, film, performance, and fashion. The 2012 Artomatic attracted about 1700 artists and performers and over 70,000 visitors. We also license other events in other locations, such as Artomatic@Frederick, held in Frederick, MD, and are currently expanding and building our licensing program stateside and internationally. Artomatic’s mission is to create community, build audience and expand economic development by transforming available space into a playground for artistic expression. Artomatic is guided by a volunteer Board of Directors and is funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. See more about the volunteer teams that make Artomatic possible.
Jeffrey Sean Dokken (Music Director and Conductor).
Maestro Jeffrey Sean Dokken is one of today’s most exciting and vibrant conductors, composers and musicians. Northern Virginia Magazine wrote, under Maestro Dokken’s direction “NOVA has a world-class symphony in the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia.” Over the past decade, Dokken has performed all across the United States and in some of America’s greatest venues including The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Marie Collier Baker Theater, Parilla Performing Arts and The Kavli Theater. In October 2013, Dokken traveled to Guayaquil, Ecuador to sit on an elite three member international adjudication panel for the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra, one of South America’s foremost national orchestras. In April of 2014, Dokken will return to Ecuador as guest conductor of the GSO. Over the past three years, Maestro Dokken has had the distinct honor of conducting at the White House in Washington D.C. as part of “Holidays at the White House.” In December 2013, Dokken returned to The Kennedy Center to conduct a combined choir of 250 voices in a performance of Handel’s “Messiah.”
After earning his degree in vocal performance from the prestigious University of Redlands School of Music, Dokken pursued graduate degrees in music education and conducting at California Lutheran University and Shenandoah Conservatory, respectively. Maestro Dokken has studied conducting with Dr. Steven Cooksey and Jeffrey H. Rickard; euphonium and trombone with Dr. Phil Keen; piano with Dr. Angelica Prodan and voice with Mrs. Patricia Gee and Dr. Anthony Zwerdling. Dokken has had the good fortune of working with some of the world’s greatest conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, Marvin Hamlisch and Norman Scribner. In addition to being a conductor and composer, Maestro Dokken is in high demand as a vocalist. As a singer, Dokken has performed with innumerable world-class soloists, including Andrea Boccelli, Kelli O’Hara, Brian D’Arcy James and David Archuletta, among others. Dokken recently made his debut in the Bach Cantata #80 with St. Marie’s Musica, and performed a duet recital with renowned opera singer Jeanne Kelly this August 2014 in New York.
Upon his relocation to the East Coast, Maestro Dokken quickly became the Associate Music Director of Open5ths, then one of the premiere men’s choirs in the Mid-Atlantic region. In 2010, Dokken was hired as Music Director and Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia (SONOVA), a position he still proudly holds. Additionally, Maestro Dokken is the Artistic Director of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia Chorale. Dokken has recently been guest conductor with the Opera Guild of Northern Virginia; American University; The Washington Men’s Camerata; The Reformation Festival Choir and Patrick Lundy and the Ministers of Music. Maestro Dokken is also proudly a conductor for the Northern Virginia Area Encore Chorales. He eagerly anticipates numerous exciting opportunities in 2014, including performances with cross-over recording artist Jackson Caesar; international opera stars Laura Wehrmeyer, David Timpane, and Larry Boggs; a week in residence at the Chataqua Institution; his debut conducting appearance with The Metropolitan Chorus; and choral and orchestral guest conducting performances in Ecuador, New York, Cuba, and Colonial Williamsburg as well as a season full of outstanding music with SONOVA, the SONOVA Chorale, and several special guest artists.
Dokken has composed for, conducted and performed on a number of opera, classical and musical theatre CD’s and DVD’s. Most recently, he conducted and co-produced Stephan Parker’s 2013 adaptation of Ferdinando Paer’s classic opera “Leonora,” released commercially in July 2013. Additionally, Dokken is the Musical Consultant and Composer in Residence for the largest health care corporation in America, Kaiser Permanente, where his duties include composing health related musicals; scoring videos for public and in house use; and providing musical consultation on a wide array of arts projects. Dokken also maintains a thriving private voice and piano studio and is active as an arranger, educator and adjudicator.
The Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company was active in Jackson Hole in 1988-1992. The improv comedy troupe was modeled on The Practical Theatre Company in Chicago. A Roadkill Opera tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on the first professional gig for the Roadkill crew.
The biggest one-night lighting gig of Stephan Alexander Parker’s audiovisual technician career: Eddie Murphy, with Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation as his opening act. Photo courtesy of Paul Barrosse.
The PTC journey began at Northwestern University with several performers from the Mee-Ow Show, for which Parker had served as audiovisual technician. As the NU Library collection says:
“The Practical Theatre Company (PTC) was a Chicago-based theatre company founded by Northwestern University students and active throughout the 1980s. Its productions included new plays, satiric agitprop, rock and roll events, and a series of successful improvisational comedy revues. The PTC, whose motto was “Art is Good”, is notable for the fact that the entire cast of its 1982 improvisational comedy revue, “The Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee” (Brad Hall, Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Gary Kroeger and Paul Barrosse) was hired by Saturday Night Live.”
Signed photo of the cast of the 1980 Mee-Ow show, Ten Against The Empire
So it was only natural that when key personnel from A Roadkill Opera were in Los Angeles recently, they gathered to see the stand-up act of Emilia Barrosse, daughter of you-know-who and fellow PTC alum Victoria Zielinski.
Stephan Alexander Parker of A Roadkill Opera had The Comedy Store on his mind on an April 2015 visit to the comedy mecca on Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. Would Vic & Paul be there? Why is the earth tilting like a Swiss camera angle? And what about…Naomi?Emilia Barrosse has a full slate of standup gigs in the Los Angeles area in April and May, 2015. The Roadkill Opera entourage caught her on April 17 at The Comedy Store.A Roadkill Opera‘s merchandising director DJ Choupin, video director Ben Ganz, and librettist Stephan Alexander Parker met at the Saddle Ranch in West Hollywood prior to heading to The Comedy Store in April 2015 to catch the standup of Emilia Barrosse. Choupin and Parker met in Wyoming, where Choupin managed the box office for the eight-week run of Roadkill Live!!!After a successful set in The Belly Room at The Comedy Store on April 17, 2015, Emilia Barrosse shared a laugh with DJ Choupin, merchandising director for A Roadkill Opera.
After her set (she did well–who says kids of sketch comedians can’t grow up to do stand-up?), Emilia Barrosse was kind enough to chat with DJ Choupin and Stephan Alexander Parker of A Roadkill Opera. Then she donned a fake mustache, dark shades, a lumberjack shirt and a wig, and took off with DJ on the back of her motorcycle, heading for the deep woods, traveling all night.
DJ Choupin is a motorcycle fan. Here she is catching a ride with Rich Gaudiosi. That’s Rich Gaudiosi. Not Emilia Barrosse.
Or not.
Later in April, Parker and A Roadkill Opera music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken participated in a brown bag presentation featuring Brazilian author and artist Cassia Martins organized by Artomatic creator George Koch for the Center for the Creative Economy.
In April 2015 in Washington DC, Brazilian author Cassia Martins shares a moment with George Koch at her presentation on her book Born in Rio. Koch was the founder of Artomatic, the artistic hothouse that incubated, among other flowers, A Roadkill Opera. In the foreground on the table you can see stickers for Artomatic and If you see roadkill, think opera.Maestro Jeffrey Dokken, music director and conductor for the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia and A Roadkill Opera, swapped tales of South American cities he has conducted in with Cassia Martins, Brazilian author of Born in Rio, at the Center for the Creative Economy event in Washington DC in April 2015.A Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker posed with Brazilian author Cassia Martins at a Center for the Creative Economy event in Washington DC in April 2015 where Martins discussed her book Born in Rio.Brazilian author of Born in Rio, Cassia Martins, posed with her copies of A Roadkill Opera (on CD) and If you see roadkill, think opera (in paperback) with author/librettist Stephan Alexander Parker. He had come to see her speak at a Center for the Creative Economy event in Washington, DC, in April 2015.
Fans of A Roadkill Operashould head on down to the George Washington Memorial Masonic Temple in Alexandria, Virginia, for the SONOVA Gala beginning at 5:30 pm on March 28, 2015 (that’s today). The Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia will be setting a Guinness Book of World Records record with the largest orchestra to accompany a live production of Les Miserables (http://sonovamusic.org/upcoming-concert/). Conductor and Music Director Jeffrey Dokken, principal flautist Martine Micozzi, and Associate Conductor Michael Thompson are among the SONOVA personnel who performed on the studio recording and workshop concert of A Roadkill Opera.
You can meet the librettist Stephan Alexander Parker at the 5th Annual Gaithersburg Book Festival in Maryland on May 16, 2015. This is Parker’s third time exhibiting there, showcasing both the sheet music and studio recording for A Roadkill Opera and his 2012 book If you see roadkill, think opera. A Roadkill Opera DIY will be featured at the 2015 event. The Gaithersbook Book Festival featured Parker and Dokken on their page on March 28, 2015.
The headline on the March 28, 2015 latest news page of the Gaithersburg Book Festival says “Exhibiting Author Stephan Alexander Parker Talks Literary Roadkill.” The full article includes a photo of Parker and A Roadkill Opera‘s music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards in February 2015.
The new Roadkill Opera YouTube channel playlist includes the 2011 synthesized-piano-backed karaoke versions of the Roadkill Opera songs, the 2008 Leonora Overture, and the February 2015 announcements at the 57th Annual GRAMMY Awards by Jeffrey Dokken and Stephan Alexander Parker. Dokken committed to a performance of A Roadkill Opera by the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia in the next year. Parker announced A Roadkill Opera DIY.
Digging through the Roadkill Opera archives (well, okay, pulling a picture off the fridge), I found an early indoctrination training photo of the video crew for the 2012 Artomatic workshop concert of A Roadkill Opera.
A training mission at a 4-D theatre at Washington DC’s Newseum for the future video crew for A Roadkill Opera. From front to back, Jason Ganz (now with Canvas and Agora VR–see the January 2015 DCInno articleAgora VR uses Oculus headset and its own software to enable virtual seminars), Ben Ganz (the youngest field producer in American Idol history, now with Fox Broadcasting Company) and Stephan Alexander Parker.Videographer Ben Ganz (at right) and assistant Jason Ganz were paid in sushi for their video work at the Artomatic 2012 workshop concert of A Roadkill Opera.Artomatic 2012 included exhibits from DJ Choupin (center, background). Brian Jerome Murphy’s sculptures are in the foreground, including a partial view of his Spirit sculpture on the far right. Spirit was also exhibited at Artomatic Takes Flight in 2014-2015.Looks like one of the admirer’s of DJ Choupin’s photographs is wearing Chucks at the Artomatic 2012 exhibit. Dj CHoupin’s best-selling “zag” along with “boys” and “glint” are featured on the column above her maroon address djchoupin@mac.com.A Roadkill Opera appeals to fans of all ages, as seen in this gallery crowd at Artomatic 2012 in Crystal City, Virginia. A 4 year old boy is looking at the Roadkill Opera mockup (first shown at Artomatic 2004) and swag (premiered at Artomatic 2012).Two fans inside the Roadkill Opera exhibit at Artomatic 2012 in Crystal City, Virginia. Check out the red white and blue Chucks suspended from the ceiling.
If you see roadkill, think opera…we felt like royals at the 57th Grammy Awards.At the end of the ceremonies, A Roadkill Opera‘s Stephan Alexander Parker and Jeffrey Dokken outside LA Live at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards after taping the announcement for A Roadkill Opera DIYA Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker and music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken show their Grammy tickets before the PremiereJust inside the door of the Premiere at the Nokia Theatre, A Roadkill Opera‘s Stephan Alexander Parker and Jeffrey Dokken were excited to see “Weird Al” Yankovic and his wife enter behind themSome people looked famous…Jane Seymour (left) and Glen Campbell’s family sat right in front of the Roadkill Opera entourage at the Grammy Premiere–Glen Campbell was nominated for Best Country Song for I’m Not Gonna Miss You, from the film of the same name. Hilary Hahn is seen on the monitor.“Weird Al” Yankovic sat across the aisle from the Roadkill Opera entourage at the Grammy Premiere–he was nominated for Best Comedy Album…results are belowJane Seymour watches from her seat as Glen Campbell’s family accepts the Grammy for Best Country Song for I’m Not Gonna Miss You., which Glen Campbell co-wrote. Seymour was one of the producers.Wait for it…Wait for it…Yes! “Weird Al” Yankovic wins the Grammy for Best Comedy Album for Mandatory Fun as Jeffrey Dokken of A Roadkill Opera applauds. Al’s wife has a great smile!“Weird Al” Yankovic races up the aisle to collect his Grammy for Best Comedy Album as Jane Seymour gets up. The Premiere ceremony was running long–like the Roadkill Opera entourage, Jane Seymour was waiting to see Al win his Grammy before heading over to the televised event.A Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker and photographer/merchandising director DJ Choupin were happy to be at the Premiere event at the 57th Annual Grammy AwardsA Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker and music director/conductor Jeffrey Dokken with photographer/merchandising director DJ Choupin at the 57th Annual Grammy AwardsA Roadkill Opera‘s librettist Stephan Alexander Parker and photographer/merchandising director DJ Choupin on their way to the Premiere and the 57th Annual Grammy Awards. Parker is wearing a classic Rockmount shirt and a vintage Rockmount tieA Roadkill Opera‘s video director Ben Ganz, librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, and photographer/merchandising director DJ Choupin at their seats at the conclusion of the 57th Annual Grammy AwardsA Roadkill Opera‘s video director Ben Ganz checks his phone for details on the after-party for the 57th Annual Grammy Awards, while librettist Stephan Alexander Parker is pleased he remembers where he parked the car
UNDERGROUND OPERA SENSATION “A ROADKILL OPERA” NOW AVAILABLE AS DO-IT-YOURSELF OPERA IN A BOX
Jeffrey Dokken, Music Director and Conductor for the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia, Vetted Score and Parts at Artomatic 2012 Workshop and 2013 Studio Recording Sessions
Just add Five Opera Singers and a Nine-Person Chamber Orchestra to Perform “A Roadkill Opera”
See A Roadkill Opera at Artomatic 2015/2016
HOLLYWOOD, CA (February 8, 2015) — The creative team behind the Artomatic 2012 workshop performance and 2013 studio recording of A Roadkill Opera are at the Grammys this week, where they announced a new initiative: A Roadkill Opera DIY. ARO DIY comprises the complete opera in a box, including the conductor’s score and parts so anyone can put on a concert performance—just add five singers and a chamber orchestra.
Under ARO DIY, groups that commit to performing by Groundhog Day (February 2) 2016 can order the opera-in-a-box for $150—a savings of more than 25 percent over purchasing the items separately. To make it even more attractive, ARO DIY Is further offering BOGO—buy one at $150 and get a second one for half price. Challenges of cross-town rivals could ensue…
A Roadkill Opera is a new opera first workshopped at Artomatic 2012, the Washington area’s largest free creative arts event. Set to classical music from 1804 and crossed with a backstage comedy, the 59-minute opera tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on opening night for a comedy improv troupe in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
“This music is too much fun for us to be the only ones performing it,” said Jeffrey Dokken, music director and conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia.
“A Roadkill Opera is not roadkill on the road to Grammy gold—we got bronze!” said Stephan Alexander Parker, librettist for the opera. He was referring to the invitation to attend the Grammy awards. Together with Dokken and Parker, the Roadkill entourage includes video director Ben Ganz and merchandizing director DJ Choupin. All four are attending the Grammy ceremonies tonight with Bronze level tickets. Composer Ferdinando Paer was not available to attend, as he passed away in 1839.
“It was a thrill to provide A Roadkill Opera as an entry for consideration last year. We are not nominated or performing…this year. But we’ll be back!” said Parker.
“This project has become extremely dear to my heart and I am working hard to ensure its immediate and long term success,” said Dokken.
Maestro Dokken became involved with the project after long-time Artomatic exhibitor Stephan Alexander Parker completed this new English libretto, begun and roughed-out during Artomatic 2004. A search for interested producing partners was launched at Artomatic 2009, and ended in 2012 when Dokken received a copy of the score through a mutual friend. The Artomatic 2012 workshop performance of A Roadkilll Opera in Crystal City, Virginia was “sprawling room only—every seat was taken and people were sprawled out in all directions,” said Parker.
Further Washington DC-area performances are planned for the next Artomatic events in 2015 and 2016, once they are officially announced.
Music from 1804. Action set in 1988. A new opera (in just 59 minutes)
A Roadkill Opera tells the story of the hour before the lights go up on opening night for a comedy improv troupe in Jackson Hole, Wyoming—the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company. Based (loosely) on a true story from a fast-developing tourist town, this original English libretto by Parker is set to music by Ferdinando Paer (Napoleon’s maître de chapelle).
It took 25 years to identify the classical opera Parker recorded off an FM station, and another 5 years to acquire the score. The story of chasing down the obscure score is related in Parker’s 2013 book, If you see roadkill, think opera. A sequel is in the works.
The 2012 performance was one of many featured at the month-long arts event. Artomatic 2012 was the largest ever event, featuring work and performances by more than 1300 artists, performers, musicians, filmmakers, fashion designers, and creatives of all kinds in a 380,000 square-foot office building in Crystal City, Va. The 6-week event attracted more than 80,000 attendees—not all at the same time, obviously.
**MEDIA AVAILABILITY: To schedule an interview with Maestro Jeffrey Dokken or librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, or to arrange photo opportunity, contact Stephan at 240.277.6640 or roadkillopera@icloud.com.
Jeffrey Sean Dokken (Music Director and Conductor).
Maestro Jeffrey Sean Dokken is one of today’s most exciting and vibrant conductors, composers and musicians. Northern Virginia Magazine wrote, under Maestro Dokken’s direction “NOVA has a world-class symphony in the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia.” Over the past decade, Dokken has performed all across the United States and in some of America’s greatest venues including The Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Marie Collier Baker Theater, Parilla Performing Arts and The Kavli Theater. In October 2013, Dokken traveled to Guayaquil, Ecuador to sit on an elite three member international adjudication panel for the Guayaquil Symphony Orchestra, one of South America’s foremost national orchestras. In April of 2014, Dokken will return to Ecuador as guest conductor of the GSO. Over the past three years, Maestro Dokken has had the distinct honor of conducting at the White House in Washington D.C. as part of “Holidays at the White House.” In December 2013, Dokken returned to The Kennedy Center to conduct a combined choir of 250 voices in a performance of Handel’s “Messiah.”
After earning his degree in vocal performance from the prestigious University of Redlands School of Music, Dokken pursued graduate degrees in music education and conducting at California Lutheran University and Shenandoah Conservatory, respectively. Maestro Dokken has studied conducting with Dr. Steven Cooksey and Jeffrey H. Rickard; euphonium and trombone with Dr. Phil Keen; piano with Dr. Angelica Prodan and voice with Mrs. Patricia Gee and Dr. Anthony Zwerdling. Dokken has had the good fortune of working with some of the world’s greatest conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Christoph Eschenbach, Marvin Hamlisch and Norman Scribner. In addition to being a conductor and composer, Maestro Dokken is in high demand as a vocalist. As a singer, Dokken has performed with innumerable world-class soloists, including Andrea Boccelli, Kelli O’Hara, Brian D’Arcy James and David Archuletta, among others. Dokken recently made his debut in the Bach Cantata #80 with St. Marie’s Musica, and performed a duet recital with renowned opera singer Jeanne Kelly this August 2014 in New York.
Upon his relocation to the East Coast, Maestro Dokken quickly became the Associate Music Director of Open5ths, then one of the premiere men’s choirs in the Mid-Atlantic region. In 2010, Dokken was hired as Music Director and Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia (SONOVA), a position he still proudly holds. Additionally, Maestro Dokken is the Artistic Director of the Symphony Orchestra of Northern Virginia Chorale. Dokken has recently been guest conductor with the Opera Guild of Northern Virginia; American University; The Washington Men’s Camerata; The Reformation Festival Choir and Patrick Lundy and the Ministers of Music. Maestro Dokken is also proudly a conductor for the Northern Virginia Area Encore Chorales. He eagerly anticipates numerous exciting opportunities in 2014, including performances with cross-over recording artist Jackson Caesar; international opera stars Laura Wehrmeyer, David Timpane, and Larry Boggs; a week in residence at the Chataqua Institution; his debut conducting appearance with The Metropolitan Chorus; and choral and orchestral guest conducting performances in Ecuador, New York, Cuba, and Colonial Williamsburg as well as a season full of outstanding music with SONOVA, the SONOVA Chorale, and several special guest artists.
Dokken has composed for, conducted and performed on a number of opera, classical and musical theatre CD’s and DVD’s. Most recently, he conducted and co-produced Stephan Parker’s 2013 adaptation of Ferdinando Paer’s classic opera “Leonora,” released commercially in July 2013. Additionally, Dokken is the Musical Consultant and Composer in Residence for the largest health care corporation in America, Kaiser Permanente, where his duties include composing health related musicals; scoring videos for public and in house use; and providing musical consultation on a wide array of arts projects. Dokken also maintains a thriving private voice and piano studio and is active as an arranger, educator and adjudicator.
About Artomatic
Artomatic creates community, builds audience and expands economic development by transforming available space into a playground for artistic expression. Open-entry events showcase creative work including visual art, music, film, performance, poetry and fashion. Artomatic is a non-profit organization headed by a volunteer Board of Directors and funded in part by the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, an agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts. For more information, visit www.artomatic.org.
When I moved to Jackson, Wyoming in 1984, the bottom had fallen out of the real estate market–condos were selling for half of what they were purchased for. There was no regular jet service. You could get two TV stations (sometimes) and cable was not available. And, while the internet existed, the world wide web did not (it was launched in 1995). If the entertainment you sought was not available locally, you had to travel or do without. Or you could do it yourself.
In Chicago, I had worked as a light and sound man (and in Nashville, Orlando, and Branson), and also did standup comedy (at the Roxy; on the Friday Club TV show; at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe; and at the Catch A Rising Star in Cambridge, Mass.) and did the rounds at talent agencies in Chicago, trying to get acting jobs.
Professional headshots taken in Chicago in the mid-1980s led to regular work as an extra on the Moonlighting-inspired TV show Jack and Mike, which shot in Chicago. I also auditioned and was called back for a role in the Richard Chamberlain mini-series Dream West, which shot some locations in Grand Teton National Park; while that role ultimately was shot in another location, I got to gallop a horse and ford a river as one of Kit Carson’s men with the legendary Ben Johnson playing that role.
The funniest group I had seen in Chicago was The Practical Theatre Company and its college training ground, the Mee-Ow Show at Northwestern. For the latter, I served as audiovisual technician. Since I had no training in improv, try as I might to audition, I was not anywhere near good enough to join the troupe. There was just too much talent at Northwestern.
Signed photo of the cast of the 1980 Mee-Ow Show, Ten Against The Empire
So when I saw an ad in the Jackson paper in 1987 that an improv class was forming at Tommy’s On The Square restaurant, I leaped at the chance. Now I would learn the high art of improvisational sketch comedy. The improv class I joined included Holly Danner, the KMTN radio news reporter; and Ed Bachtel, who guided whitewater rafting trips for Barker-Ewing, the arch-rival to the whitewater rafting firm I guided for, Mad River Boat Trips (my river name was “Killer”). Holly and Eddie were two key members of the 1988 Roadkill Live!!! Comedy Revue, which ran for 8 weeks at the Wort Hotel in the Greenback Lounge (enter through the world-famous Silver Dollar Bar). Ed and I were partners in the show, which he mostly wrote and I mostly produced and directed. But I am getting ahead of the story…
Stephan Alexander Parker worked off and on as a whitewater rafting guide on the Snake River for Mad River Boat Trips from 1985 to 1992 under the river name “Killer.”
We were in the improv class, which met in the restaurant during restaurant hours–a little weird for the customers, I suppose, but this was a small town and I guess they must have looked at it as free entertainment. Honestly, I think they wanted the class during restaurant hours so they could get students into the restaurant to purchase food–business was slow.
Tommy’s On The Square had access to a theatre space, where they put on plays such as Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit (with Holly in the lead role–I did the lighting). The owners were not interested in putting on an improv show, and because it was a family restaurant and people were trying to eat, our improv range had be kept within bounds. Eddie had also worked standup, although he was on the western circuit while I had stayed east of the Mississippi. So we decided to do some open mic to perform improv comedy that was a bit wilder. Just one problem–there was no open mic venue in Jackson.
Open mic (short for open microphone) was so well established in the places I had lived that I assumed there were places in Jackson, a place so rich in singing and songwriting talent. There had been one, but that place–the RJ Bar, I think–had long since closed. So first Eddie spoke to the owner of Spirits of the West Saloon, who agreed to provide a stage and free drinks for performers on Wednesday nights. Then, Judd Grossman rented us his sound system, telling us that he was about to quit his day job to be a full-time professional musician. I bought a Shure SM-58 microphone and put a red floodlight in a headlamp fixture I’d bought at Orville’s Army Surplus, and we were in business. It went great, except for one thing–no one at an open mic in a bar wanted to hear sketch comedy, although they were sure happy to hear singer-songwriters and cover singers.
Open microphone at Spirits of the West Saloon. We spared no expense on publicity materials.
So Eddie spoke to the bar manager at the world-famous Silver Dollar Bar at the Wort Hotel. They had an under-utilized nightclub space that would be perfect for us. We agreed to an 8-week run that would begin Independence Day weekend, 1988. But that’s another story…told through song, as it happens, as A Roadkill Opera…
Although now known as “the underground opera sensation”, A Roadkill Opera was almost launched as a rock opera. Yes, “Music from 1804. Action set in 1988. A new opera (in English)” almost had its 1804 score rock-ified. Here’s how it went down.
Brian Clark was preparing the performance score and parts for the Bampton Opera’s 2008 production of Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora. After DJ Choupin and I attended the London performance, in 2009 Clark sold me the Sibelius musical notation for the overture and first act, including the piano/vocal score he had prepared to facilitate rehearsals. While working with the score in my spare time, I participated in a work-related event in Silicon Valley in September 2010. The organizers provided an evening entertainment.
The Bampton Classical Opera performed Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora twice in 2008, once at the Deanery in Bampton and once in London.
In hanging out with the performers before their demonstration, I mentioned that I’d worked my way through college doing live sound reinforcement. About 20 minutes before the scheduled performance, one of the producers asked for my help–the demo site had lost power. I helped the sound man diagnose the ground fault that had interrupted the amplifier, but could not find the reset for the GFI. Plan B worked, though–we split the equipment into two power feeds, and used long extension cords to power the show.
After the show, I was thrilled by what I had seen: a review of the evolution of synthesized instrumentation, demonstrated first by a live drummer, then the drummer using synthesized drum sounds, then the drummer using sampled drum sounds. I approached the producers with some trepidation; one had produced half-time shows for the Super Bowl, and the sound man was a multiple GRAMMY Award winning producer.
When I asked for advice as to who to talk to about bringing A Roadkill Opera to life in a live or recorded performance, Neil Dorfsman (http://www.neildorfsman.com) could not have been more gracious. He gave me the name and contact information for Peter Kiesewalter of the East Village Opera Company. The East Village Opera Company CDs La Donnaand Olde Schoolhad electrified opera arias. Dorfsman had received a GRAMMY nomination for his mix of Olde School.
The Hills Are Alive was a big hit for Peter Kiesewalter and the Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata.
When I reach Peter Kiesewalter, he is interested–but not available. He has just finished recording the tracks and is about to go into a two-week mixing session for his latest project: The Hills Are Alive, his update of The Sound of Musicwith his other group, the Brooklyn Rundfunk Orkestrata. His mixer: Neil Dorfsman.
Stephan Alexander Parker spoke at length with Peter Kiesewalter about adapting A Roadkill Opera in the style of the East Village Opera Company’s Olde School. The two were introduced by Neil Dorfsman.
Kiesewalter had long been fascinated by the Rogers and Hammerstein classic. He had even recorded a tribute album years earlier with his band of native Canadians, The Angstones.
Peter Kiesewalter’s first album tribute to The Sound of Music was The Angstones version of The Hills Are Alive.
So now I have fine lead on a producer/arranger, but he is not currently available due to a compelling project that is likely to suck up his time (and it did–I heard Kiesewalter on All Things Considered–-http://www.npr.org/2011/03/19/134632888/brooklyn-rundfunk-orkestrata-alive-with-new-sounds). What to do, what to do? I am wrestling with this question when I am invited to the first meeting of the Washington Arts Huddle.
The Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington had pulled together “affinity group meetings to discuss and focus on issues that impact arts and culture in the National Capital region.” The October 2010 meeting I attended was led by Septime Webre, Artistic Director, Washington Ballet, and Howard Shalwitz, Artistic Director, Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Each participant in the meeting was asked to articulate their current artistic dilemma; for me it was whether to wait and pursue the rock opera version or to forge ahead with the classical version. I told the group that my plan was to keep banging away at the classical and to follow up with the rock version later.
The roadkill opera journey began on a cold night in Chicago. When I moved to Evanston, Illinois, for college, I brought my Onkyo receiver and my cassettes. No classical in my collection, though, as I relied on my father’s albums when home in Nashville. To fill the gap, I began recording off the FM classical station, simply recording over the stuff I didn’t like.
View from my room as I recorded the mystery music in the winter of ’79.
This triage resulted in the survival of a mystery opera–one I assumed to be Mozart that ultimately was identified for me in 2003 as the work of Ferdinando Paer. Paer was the first to respond to the repeated requests of the Empress of Austria, Marie Therese, who wanted a new musical setting for her favorite libretto, Leonore, a 1798 escape drama written by Jean-Nicolas Bouilly and set to music by Pierre Gaveaux.
Paer’s 1804 Leonora was the second version of the story set to music. Beethoven’s Fidelio was three of the six versions. Parker kept Paer’s music and wrote a new story and libretto to it.
In that winter of 1979-1980, I had no idea who had written the music and I had no clue as to the story–all I knew then (and for the next 24 years) was that the music was highly melodic and had infectious hooks. What I learned later–much later–was that the Empress’s wish was met not once, not twice, but three times: by Paer, by Johann Simon Mayr, and by Ludwig van Beethoven, for whom it was his only opera–Fidelio.
A Roadkill Opera resets Ferdinando Paer’s music from his 1804 Leonora to a new story (in English) set in 1988 Jackson Hole, Wyoming–opening night for the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company, a comedy improv troupe
The 1804 Paer Leonora that so caught my ear was–and remains–the only commercial recording released. The album I heard was released in 1979 and was not issued on CD until after we went into the studio to record A Roadkill Opera.
The 1979 release of Ferdinando Paer’s 1804 Leonora was a passion project for conductor Peter Maag. He recorded it with the Bayerisches Symphonieorchester, Ursula Koszut, Siegfried Jerusalem, Giorgio Tadeo, Edita Gruberova, Wolfgang Brendel, Norbert Orth, and John van Kesteren.
After workshopping A Roadkill Opera at Artomatic 2012 in June, in December I re-visited the shop in Vienna, Austria, that had first identified the recording for me; the staff confirmed that Leonorawas still out of print. So, in January 2013, Maestro Jeffrey Dokken and I reassembled most of the workshop performers to record A Roadkill Opera.
One of the things I learned from John Rice’s excellent book Empress Marie Therese and Music at the Viennese Court, 1792-1807, was that Paer had been a regular performer in the Empress Marie Therese’s house concerts–that is, her performances put on only for her own amusement in her palace chambers. When Paer was composing Leonorafor the Empress, I am sure the had in mind both his ambition to have the opera performed in public with full orchestra (as reflected in the 1979 Maag recording) and the likelihood that the Empress would perform the work in chambers with a smaller ensemble. Our workshop and recording of A Roadkill Opera reflect how Paer likely anticipated the Empress would hear and perform the work.
John RIce detailed the ambitious musical appetite of Empress Marie Therese, and laid bare the reason there were three new versions of her 1798 favorite libretto Leonore produced in 1804-1805.
After we laid down the orchestral tracks and the scratch tracks for the vocals in January 2013, I found out that the music that had first inspired me had been released for the first time on CD. The Decca Eloquence label in Australia released Leonora on a two-CD package that includes the libretto. You get the lyrics in English translation as well as the original Italian.
In February 2013, Decca released Leonora on CD for the first time. A Roadkill Opera was already halfway through its studio recording.
We pressed on with our recording of A Roadkill Opera. In the do it yourself punk spirit of the Chicago music scene I grew up in, by the end of 2013 I also published the sheet music so you can follow along, play along or put on your own chamber performance. You can find the album and sheet music for A Roadkill Opera on Amazon; the recording is also available on iTunes and CD Baby. If you are looking for an unusual holiday gift, I can about guarantee they don’t have this!
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.
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):
——
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]
——–
So there you have it. Carmina Burana, A Roadkill Opera, Die Walküre or Götterdämmerung, and the Grand Ole Opry.
I have a confession to make: I am a HUGE fan of the discerning eye of DJ Choupin. That is the reason her work appears on the covers of all 7 roadkill opera-related books published in 2013. Her work at Artomatic 2012 is stellar. See djchoupin.com for more.
DJ Choupin’s “plain” is one of her most popular–and enduring–works. It serves as the spine and back cover of the piano/vocal score for A Roadkill OperaThe back cover to A Roadkill Opera: Piano/VocalDJ Choupin’s Columbia River “gourds” capture the light and the seasonDJ Choupin’s “boys” captures the mood of Yellowstone in winterDJ Choupin’s “zag” is her best-selling photo of a snowy landscape in Yellowstone National Park
I had fancied myself a photographer at one point, so I felt I knew a superior talent when I saw DJ’s work.
Stephan Alexander Parker photographed the cast of Good Times in the Country: Opryland USA on the Road in Branson, Missouri, in 1981. Self-portrait, above.
It was while working on mounting an exhibit of DJ’s photographs in Artomatic 2008 or Artomatic 2007 or Artomatic 2009 –no, it was 2008– that I found that Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora was being staged in London and (at last) I would have an opportunity to get a copy of the score. While the 200-year-old manuscript would eventually come into my hands in digital form, I was interested in a performance copy, updated for modern use.
The 1804 manuscript for Ferdinando Paer’s Leonora
Fortunately, the Bampton Opera production led to the creation of a modern score. But I digress…
DJ Choupin hawking If You See Roadkill, Think Opera, at the 2014 Gaithersburg Book Festival. 22,000 people were estimated to attend the May 17 event. Note the viola cases book-ending the table display.DJ Choupin’s “flecked” serves as the cover of If You See Roadkill, Think OperaDJ Choupin in 1980s Jackson Hole
Thanks for everything, DJ–the best is yet to come!
Hard to believe that FSK wrote The Star Spangled Banner 200 years ago! The song is ingrained into the American psyche and tied intimately to A Roadkill Opera. Really.
Consider this:
Every performance of Roadkill Live!!! (the original 1988 sketch comedy revue in Jackson, Wyoming) and every performance of Roadkill’s Greatest Hits!!! (the 1992 revival, also in Jackson) ended with a performance of The Star Spangled Banner. Performed by an honorably-discharged veteran of the U.S. Navy. By harmonica. Through his nose. Yes, really.
Ed Bachtel plays the U.S. Nasal Academy arrangement of the national anthem, by harmonica, through his nose, in this screen-grab from the 1988 Roadkill Live!!! Note the Mae West life jackets on the right.
The more I thought about it, the more remarkable I found the demonstration of Ed’s love of country. So it became the point of the finale of A Roadkill Opera. It is alluded to on the program cover for the 2012 workshop concert. But there are more ties to the song.
The program cover for the 2012 workshop concert of A Roadkill Opera. It serves as a puzzle, too. Can you spot the X things wrong on this cover? Compare it to the poster that serves as the cover for the Roadkill Opera sheet music published in 2013, below.Photo of the Hatch Show Print poster for the workshop concert of A Roadkill Opera at Artomatic 2012 in Crystal City, Virginia
For example, the music director and conductor for the 2012 workshop of A Roadkill Opera also sang The Star Spangled Banner at a Washington Nationals baseball game. Yes, indeed! He sounded so good, we drafted him to sing tenor (the part of Dave, the musician) in the 2013 studio recording of A Roadkill Opera.
Four members of open5ths sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” before a Washington Nationals-Milwaukee Brewers game on April 17, 2010, at Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. From left to right is Peter Rogers, bass; Ed Hoover, tenor; Jeff Dokken, tenor; and Andy Pulliam, bass.
Sure, trained singers can carry the tune by themselves, but part of what makes the song so special is that it sounds good when a crowd sings it. Maybe you and I don’t sing much of the range, but together, we’ve got it covered.
Music is an essential component of improv comedy–in fact, of comedy, period. My introduction to improv in Chicago in the late 70s and early 80s was integrated with music, first through the hilarious work of the Mee-Ow sketch comedy show with its incomparable musical commentary by the lightning-sharp piano wizardry of the witty Larry Schanker, and subsequently through the spinoff Practical Theater Company and its musical alter ego Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation.
As lighting tech for 5 years of Mee-Ow shows, I had the pleasure of seeing the hilarious work of Paul Barrosse and Rush Pierson as “colonels” in a hot zone; Julia Louis-Dreyfuss channeling Mary Taylor Moore through the Dick Van Dyke Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Ordinary People all in the same sketch; and the shockingly good Christmas carolers singing the Ayatollah song. And the seal and penguin romance…hilarious.
Signed photo of the cast of the 1980 Mee-Ow show, Ten Against The Empire. “Shoulder to shoulder, elbow to knee, zip down your fly when you’re in company…” Front row: John Goodrich, Paul Barrosse, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Rush Pearson, Judy Pruitt. Back row: Michael Markowitz, Ken Marks, Dana Olsen, Rod McLaughlin. Not pictured: Larry Shanker – Piano.
When much of the Practical Theater Company cast got scooped up for a season of writing and acting on Saturday Night Live, Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation came back to open for castmate Eddie Murphy at the Varsity Theater in Evanston. As lighting designer, I was initially thrilled, then disappointed when told by Eddie Murphy’s manager that Eddie wanted only two follow spotlights, no additional lighting; then, thrilled again, when the limited electrical infrastructure meant that I would have to sit in front of the stage to unplug the lights from the opening act, Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation, and since I had nowhere to go in the sold out house, sat in front of the front row for Murphy’s raucous set. [Special thanks to Paul Barrosse for the Varsity photo, borrowed from his blog at http://pab58.com/rock-roll/all-about-the-rockme-foundation/.]
The biggest one-night lighting gig of my audio-visual career: Eddie Murphy, with Riffmaster and the Rockme Foundation as his opening act.
When Ed Bachtel and I were constructing our first sketch comedy revue, the 1988 Roadkill Live!!! for the Wort Hotel’s Greenback Lounge (enter through the Silver Dollar Bar), we knew we needed live music. Fortunately, we found Dave Rohrer, who was willing to gig on the side. Dave had a real job as a marketing director for a sporting goods manufacturer, while Eddie and I were river rats and Holly was a radio newscaster and aspiring deejay. The 1988 show was an independent effort; we worked with the Jackson Hole Actors Co-op for the 1992 revival, Roadkill’s Greatest Hits.
Debby (DJ Choupin) cheered on the cast prior to the 1988 opening night of Roadkill Live!!! at the Wort Hotel in Jackson, Wyoming
Despite my best efforts, though, I was not able to persuade Actor’s Co-op during my 1984-1992 tenure as volunteer lighting designer to mount the funniest send-up of resort town economics/politics I have ever seen, the Practical Theater Company’s production of Paul Barrosse’s Song of The Snells. It has everything: murder, intrigue, mock iambic pentameter…but I digress. Hope springs eternal. Actor’s Co-op is gone, but there are alternative theater companies now, such as Riot Act, that might really go for something as unusual and bloody as Song of The Snells.
Wouldn’t it be great if Song of The Snellswas on a double bill with A Roadkill Opera?
Artomatic Chair Emeritus and founder George Koch speaking at the opening of Artomatic Takes Flight on July 25, 2014.
At the opening reception for Artomatic Takes Flight, the 2014 iteration of Washington’s non-juried free arts event at The Gallery Walk at Reagan National Airport, Artomatic founder George Koch spoke eloquently about the simple goals of Artomatic: first and foremost, to build community among artists. Photographer DJ Choupin and author/librettist Stephan Alexander Parker, both long-time volunteers, were there. After George spoke, Stephan caught up with him and told him this:
A Roadkill Opera was workshopped in Crystal City, Virginia, at Artomatic 2012. The workshop concert was so well received (“sprawling room only” as every seat was filled and people were sprawled on the carpet) that Parker and conductor/music director Jeffrey Dokken co-produced a studio recording with Blue House Productions’s Jeff Gruber in Kensington, Maryland, in 2013. In the do-it-yourself spirit of Artomatic, when Parker released the recording in 2013, he also published all the sheet music for the score and parts, so anyone can put on the 59-minute opera. The support, encouragement, and facilities provided by Artomatic were instrumental and go back to the second Art-O-Matic.
Artomatic is always interactive. At the opening for Artomatic Takes Flight, markers and rolls of paper were provided and used by artists to mark the occasion.
Parker exhibited at Art-O-Matic 2000 in Tenleytown, in the District of Columbia, highlighting the one-act plays that featured the character Eddie, Parker’s comedy partner in Wyoming. “Loose Lips,” a one-act that is set in Nora’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson, Wyoming, has Eddie spinning a yarn about his involvement in the French commando attack on Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior II.
Talk about a small world: Jay Marx, who was also at Art-O-Matic 2000, read “Loose Lips” at Parker’s exhibit. He emailed Parker:
Sat, Oct 21, 2000 4:08 pm
Dude, I wish you had put a phone number on your installation somewhere and we could've been in touch days ago, because my email access is way sporadic, but suffice to say that I spent 9 summers of my youth in Jackson Hole and I knew Nora, before she ran the Fish Creek Inn, from running the JH Rodeo's concession stand, and now I'm acting, some, here in DC and helping to book the Literary Stage at A-O-M, and I will consider this whole artomatic venture a personal failure if we fail to arrange a staged reading of your plays, either on the lit. stage or upstairs on the Rhinocerous stage, and
Please Call Me, at your earliest convenience, if such a proposition
interests you--
Jay Marx @
XXX-XXX-XXXX - home
XXX-XXX-XXXX - mobile
Yes, DC needs a dose of the west real, real bad. Hoping to speak to you
soon. . .
--Jay
Jay went on to recruit actors and an audience. Since the formal slots on the Literary Stage were all booked up for the final week, the actors gathered on the roof of the garage, outside the temporary stage where Wooly Mammoth was presenting Rhinocerous. Based on the reading, Parker refined his play. On Groundhog Day 2013, with the first recording session for A Roadkill Opera under his belt, Parker published his first book, If You See Roadkill, Think Opera. As described on the back cover:
“Parker opens with his 25-year quest to identify music he recorded off a classical radio station in Chicago. He closes with the true-ish story of whitewater rafting guides from rival firms on the Snake River teaming up during the Yellowstone fires of 1988 to create an original, improvisational comedy sketch show, in the underground opera sensation Opening Night: A Roadkill Opera. In between are one-act plays with art entrepreneurs, kitchen characters, and boat saboteurs. Stephan Alexander Parker guided whitewater raft trips, drove buses, and worked at the Jackson Hole Cinema during his years in Wyoming. He is working on his show business memoir, I Rode With Ben Johnson.”
Thanks to Artomatic for the community, support, and encouragement. Here’s hoping we get a production at International Artomatic 2015: as announced this week, “Artomatic is collaborating again with our Sister City Sunderland England, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), Solas Nua and others in advance of an International Artomatic in the 3rd quarter of 2015 on the campus of Walter Reed Army Medical Center (WRAMC).”
Four-time Artomatic exhibitor, photographer DJ Choupin, at the reception for Artomatic Takes Flight. George Koch is in the background at far right.Singer Nanda Srinivasan stopped by the opening reception of Artomatic Takes Flight to chat with Stephan Alexander Parker and DJ Choupin.Brian Jerome Murphy models his vintage chop shop shirt. Murphy’s Spirit sculpture is one of the highlights of the show.Brian Jerome Murphy’s Spirit sculpture is on display at Artomatic Takes Flight through January 9, 2015. More information is available at www.airport.artomatic.org.
During the 2014 Grand Teton Music Festival, advertisements are being run in the Jackson Hole Daily regarding the availability of A Roadkill Opera in local stores.
The 2014 Grand Teton Music Festival is under way, and A Roadkill Opera is being featured in an in-store display at Gifts of The Earth.
Gifts of The Earth is a long-time fixture of the community in Jackson, Wyoming. If You See Roadkill, Think Opera and A Roadkill Opera are featured prominently in the store’s display of local authors.
During a recent trip to Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Yellowstone, If You See Roadkill, Think Opera author Stephan Alexander Parker had a chance to revisit the sites of two of his best-known stories. His first stop was at Nora’s Fish Creek Inn in Wilson, Wyoming, which is the setting for “Loose Lips,” a one-act play in that story collection. Stephan met briefly with Nora Tygum, founder and namesake of the restaurant, and for a bit longer with her daughter and the Inn’s current owner, Kathryn Taylor. He had a chance to tell Kathryn this story:
In October 2000, Stephan was exhibiting his writing for the first time at Art-O-Matic 2000 in Washington DC. Stephan had moved to DC only a few months earlier. Among the items in his exhibit were clipboards holding his one-act plays set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, including “Loose Lips.”
“Loose Lips,” a one-act play in the story collection If You See Roadkill, Think Opera, is set at Nora’s Fish Creek Inn. Author Stephan Alexander Parker is shown at Nora’s in July 2014, carrying his signature red, cello-shaped, fiberglass viola case.
One of the other participants in Art-O-Matic 2000 introduced himself as Jay Marx. Jay said he had worked for his cousin Nora’s concession stand at the Jackson Hole Rodeo for six summers (before she started the restaurant). He told Stephan that Washington “needs a good dose of the West, real bad.” Not only did Jay suggest that “Loose Lips” get a table reading, he recruited actors and organized the reading on the roof of the old Hechingers Department Store. Meanwhile, the official Art-O-Matic went on inside the building.
A Roadkill Opera and “Loose Lips” are set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Above is the red, cello-shaped, fiberglass viola case under the elk antler arches in the town square in Jackson, Wyoming.
That table reading of “Loose Lips” was the first public performance of any of Parker’s writing since 1992’s Roadkill’s Greatest Hits!!!. It gave him the conviction that he needed to write a third play to round out a full night of one-acts (Parker’s one-act play”Two Cases” had received a closed table reading in the tented venue at Teton Village after a performance of Greater Tuna). That third one-act turned into A Roadkill Opera.
Debby (DJ Choupin) cheered on the cast prior to the 1988 opening night of Roadkill Live!!! at the Wort Hotel in Jackson, Wyoming.
Parker’s second visit was to the Silver Dollar Bar at the Wort hotel, which is the setting for A Roadkill Opera. Those who have read the book or listened to the CD (or heard it played live) will recall that A Roadkill Opera tells the true-ish story of the hour before opening night for the Roadkill On A Stick Frozen Foods Theatre Company in its first-ever production on July 4th weekend in 1988. The story largely focuses on the characters and what they are wrestling with: the running order of the show, which sketches stay in, delusions of adequacy, butterflies, and what happens if the show is (or is not) a success. The central dramatic plot point is when the cast learns that the showroom is being torn down.
Exciting news: Sources at the Wort Hotel said in July 2014 that the showroom will be restored in 2015. Wouldn’t it be great to have A Roadkill Opera performed in the same venue that it takes place in?
Author Stephan Alexander Parker is optimistic that Roadkill will ride again, after learning in July 2014 that the Silver Dollar Bar plans to restore the showroom.
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