On Wednesday, Long Beach Opera Artistic and General Director Andreas Mitisek will receive the Distinguished Arts Leader award from Arts Council for Long Beach during it’s reformulated State of the Arts event, taking place at the Art Theatre. Under Mitisek’s leadership, the LBO has presented bold and innovative productions, utilizing a variety of alternate venues, including swimming pools and parking garages. Andreas took some time to talk about the upcoming 2010 season.
Sander: Let’s start by speaking about the upcoming season which, to me, seems fantastically varied and ambitious. Tell me how you chose the three works you’ll be presenting?
Andreas: Our season features American composers, showing the immense imagination this country has. These are composers of significance, taking on very different stories that you can’t see in one place. I don’t know one opera company around that would do what we do. “Made in the USA” is our motto for this season, being proud of the role America takes in creativity.
Robert Kurka, who died too young in 1957, had just received the first Creative Award from Brandeis University, “to a composer on the threshold of a promising career.” John Adams is the most prominent and most performed American composer today, and still his fantastic “Nixon in China” hasn’t been here for 20 years (thats one generation). Ricky Ian Gordon is the upcoming and already established composer from Broadway to the Metropolitan Opera. All the operas are sung in english by the way.
Sander: The pieces span a fairly wide range of eras, from the 50s through the 90s, and the stories cover a vast time span as well.
Andreas: You’re right. It is a wide range of emotions and stories that are covered this season, from Greek mythology of transcending love to the first opera about a significant political event of American History in the 20th century. All of it changed the world in a way. The good Soldier Schweik from Robert Kurka is so timely in this time of multiple wars going on.
Sander: Let’s talk about about The Good Soldier Schweik for a moment.
Andreas: Written in the 1950’s during the Korean war, it was a statement back then, and is today.
Sander: About Schweik, one thing that really stands out in this story is the humor. It really is a black comedy, and reminds me of Sgt. Bilko or something like that. But it also deals with a kind of brutal indifference by the state to both its enemies, and its citizens.
Andreas: Schweik story is basically the prequel for Catch-22. [Joseph] Heller said he couldn’t have written his story without Hasek’s novel about the Soldier Schweik, and I think to deal with these indifferences using satire is a great way to make us aware of all these things.
Sander: I noticed that you’re staging this World War 1 epic in the rather intimate setting of the Center Theater. Was that a practical or artistic choice?
Andreas: I like the intimate seating of the Center Theater, which helps to bring our audience so much closer to what is happening: They are practically sitting “in the story”. The orchestra is placed behind the singers so, there is no “trench” between the audience and the singers. The first row is about 3 feet from the stage.
Sander: It is one of my favorite venues!
Andreas: Our audiences love it, and people who are new to the art form get drawn into the action. You just cant escape it.
Sander: The opera was originally scored for a small music group. Are you using that original arrangement?
Andreas: It’s interesting that the orchestra only consists of wind and brass instruments, like a big band or military band. The cast is about 20 characters played by 8 singers and actors. There is a lot of sarcasm, parody, burlesque and irony in there. In satire, irony is militant, often approving or accepting as natural the very things that the opera wishes to attack. Abel Meeropol (AKA Lewis Allan), who wrote the libretto (the words for the opera) was the same man who wrote the text and music of “Strange Fruit.” He was a Jewish teacher condemning American racism, and the lynching of African Americans that had occurred in the South. That song was included in the list of Songs of the Century by the National Endowment of the Arts, and was made famous by Billie Holiday.
Sander: Also, about the music, I’m sure it sounded very modern to folks who first heard in back in the late 50s but to people today, I suspect it sounds very accessible.
Andreas: The music is very accesible. It could almost pass as a Broadway show in some ways. There is jazz-influenced writing like Kurt Weill, and a lot of drive in this genre-defying score, including some Czech polkas by this son of a Czech immigrant who grew up with the story of Schweik.
Sander: If you don’t mind, I’d like to move on to Nixon in China. John Adams is a modern minimalist, not unlike Phillip Glass. This opera, when it first came out, was really revolutionary to typical opera goers, partly because of the subject matter, partly because of the music, and partly because of the staging. How is this story relevant to this current generation?
Andreas: Mostly the similarity with Glass can be reduced to “minimalist” as a style, but Adams only uses it a tool to embark on a much wider range of language, almost like Wagenr going minimalist: A combination of lush and grand orchestration with soaring melodies and an irresistible underlying rhythmic fabric.
I conducted the Austrian premiere of Nixon in China, and also last year the Italian premier. I was wondering back then what relevance it had for these audiences, not being American. But I think we have to pull out and see the bigger picture of history. In the 60s and 70s (almost unimaginable today), China was totally withdrawn from this world, and little was known about it. With Nixon’s visit, the whole world changed. It was a bold move back then. Our economy (look at the Made in…. labels) would probably be different without that. But the opera goes beyond the [historical] facts. It is also a portrayal of humans, people filling the roles of politicians, their hopes, desires, egoism. It is all packed into a fabulously written text by Alice Goodman.
Now a landmark and grammy awarded opera, back then (like with many other first reviews) it was not favorably received by the NY Times. They wrote, “Mr. Adams does for the arpeggio what McDonald’s did for the hamburger: Grinding out one simple idea unto eternity.” That review is still one of John Adams’ favorite quotes, and he keeps it in his collection. Now we see his music in a much different way.
Sander: Lets talk a bit about the third opera in the season.
Andreas: The infamous Opera in the pool.
Sander: Yes! Does it involve swimming?
Andreas: Yep. It takes place outside and inside the pool. For me, the water is a metaphor for the River Styx, the river into the underworld that Orpheus crossed to beg for the return of his dead lover, Euridice. It is also a metaphor for life and death in general. It becomes the meadow of love, the giver of life, but also drowns all our hopes and lives. It is a great example for me of how a non-theatrical space can become a place of art: Transforming everyday places into a magical scene.
Sander: Are there unique challenges to working in a non-traditional space?
Andreas: There are certainly lots of logistic challenges, but that makes it more interesting. We make the challenges part of the production, using what’s there and turning it into something else, like the famous tomato can by Andy Warhol. I love to take our audiences on a journey like that, where they wonder how we’re going to do it, and what they will experience. I think that makes us so different, and keeps people stimulated. We’re certainly not your Grandma’s opera company.
Sander: Well, that was going to be my closing topic: You’re clearly producing works for a sophisticated and modern audience. I doubt that you’re relying too much on the more traditional opera goers, who might subscribe to the Symphony concerts. How do you keep your audience growing, and engaged, while taking creative risks.
Andreas: I think we are a place for both sophisticated and novice opera goers. I believe that there is no “Holy Grail” that you need to find before you are sacred enough to enjoy what we do. My requirement for all our efforts is that the work itself, and the way we do it, speaks through its’ story. I am proud of our 80-something patrons who sit in a parking garage to see a performance of The Diary of Anne Frank, as I am proud of the high school student that gets excited by a new view on a story like “Montezuma” by a baroque composer. Interestingly though, for me as an Austrian, there is little overlap between opera and symphony audiences. But we are here to change that. If you like opera you need to come to LBO and, if you don’t like opera, it certainly is the place to get your feet wet. We increase our audience through the creative approach we take to things, making it an intimate, fun and stimulating experience.
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The Long Beach Opera will be presenting an in-person discussion with world reknowned composer John Adams on Februdary 1st, and present some excerpts in preperation for this premiere. Details about all three upcoming productions can be found at LongBeachOpera.org.