From Wildflower to A Midsummer Night's Dream, to Die Fledermaus, The Bat, Wichita State University's opera offerings did not burst forth full-grown like Athena from Zeus' mind.
But through the decades and with the combined talents of scores of directors, voice teachers, singers, actors, conductors, instrumentalists, choreographers, dancers, set designers, costumers, lighting technicians and at least one association professor of speech, the productions of what has become WSU's Opera and Musical Theatre program have flowered into sophisticated, musical works of art.
In their myriad timbres of color and meaning, these works have served to express and explore the full range of human emotions.
Die Fledermaus is Marie Allyn King's most recent operatic endeavor as director of WSU Opera and Musical Theatre, a position she has held since fall 1997, after the retirement of long-time opera director George Gibson.
Like its many predecessors, the March 2001 WSU production of the exuberant Viennese operetta with music by Johann Strauss served as an incomparable training ground for new talent, including soprano Katelyn Mattson. Mattson was one of two students who on alternate nights sang the role of Rosalinde. One of WSU's most promising students, she is a Samuel Ramey Opera Scholarship winner and a student of associate professor Deborah Baxter. In 2000, she won the junior division of the National Opera Association vocal competition.
"One of the most rewarding aspects of my job," says King, who brings to her WSU position rich experiences as an actor, director and producer, "is watching our students succeed." She stresses that the focus of WSU's program is student training: "The young people in our program are entering one of the most competitive fields in the world. Our goal is to give them a broad experience of repertory during the time they spend with us."
And that, according to many of its graduates, is just what the program has always done exceptionally well. “WSU provided a very good foundation," says Sam Ramey '68, over the phone during a morning break from rehearsals for the Metropolitan Opera's production of Nabucco. He plays Zaccaria. "I learned the real basics at WSU," Ramey adds in that beautifully deep, resonant voice of his. "Learning an opera is much more than learning the music. Like a play, you have to learn the role, the character, how that character moves on stage. That was the hardest part."
Joyce DiDonato '92 takes a break from packing for a performance trip to Paris and later on to Tel Aviv. She is to be at the airport in only hours now.
"WSU provided me with phenomenal performance experience," the award-winning soprano says. "I played some great roles there. The faculty had such a unified idea of teaching. There was never the sense of one voice studio against another, and sadly I've since learned that that's common at other places. Most importantly, WSU faculty instilled in me a joy in music, a joy in singing."
Julie Schmidt '84 relates, "My years at WSU were some of the most rewarding and fun times of my life. I was there from 1979 to 1984, and some of those years we did four or even five productions. I compare that to my graduate study at Florida State University, where we only did two operas a year — and am grateful that I got so much experience at Wichita State. All the teachers there were committed to doing the best for their students. It was a marvelous atmosphere to learn in."
Andrew D. Whitfield '00, baritone, recently performed the role of Dandini in a touring version of Rossini's Cinderella with Portland Opera Works, the resident artist program of Portland Opera. Upcoming engagement include a return to Des Moines Metro Opera as Marco in Gianni Schicchi in summer 2001.
To many people, opera is an acquired taste, like fine wine or sushi. Alan Held '83, a Shocker basketball enthusiast who admits not even sheepishly to wanting to be WuShock for a game, began his studies at WSU as a tuba and piano major. He's now an internationally acclaimed opera performer.
Shocker magazine is Marie Allyn King, who directs
Wichita State's opera and music theater program.
The university's division of opera has launched the
careers of scores of dynamic performers.
"I did not instantly fall in love with opera," he says after relating how happy he is to be home again with his family after an extended performance run in Spain. "It took awhile. I knew I enjoyed working and being on stage, and in time I discovered that opera music, especially German music, reaches me. It takes me to a very special place that's hard to explain, but every time I come to the theater that's exactly where I want to be and exactly what I want to be doing — performing and communicating."
For Ramey also, opera was a relatively late discovery. When he was young and growing up in Kansas, the world's leading interpreter of bass and bass-baritone operatic repertory admits to daydreaming about becoming a singer and a star.
But he wanted to be like Elvis or Pat Boone. Opera and opera stars were not in his ken. “I was in an opera before I saw an opera," he says with a laugh.
And it wasn't literally opera that first captured King's imagination, either. "I must have been 11 or 12," she recalls, "and I fell in love with West Side Story."
Her early love of musical theater eventually led her to study acting at Florida Atlantic University, from which she received an undergraduate degree, and later to study directing at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, where she earned a graduate degree.
She also took to the bright lights of the professional stage and says one of her favorite memories is performing on Broadway in Tintypes with Jerry Zaks.
She still likes "treading the boards" occasionally at Music Theatre of Wichita, where she's played, to name just one, the dotty Mrs. Shinn in The Music Man.
Karla M. Hughes '99, soprano, is the second recipient of the Samuel Ramey Opera Fellowship at WSU and a resident artist with the Toledo Opera. She has performed leading roles in works ranging from Don Pasquale to A Little Night Music and Pirates of Penzance to Un Ballo in Mashera. Future engagements include roles as Yum-Yum in Light Opera of Oklahoma's upcoming production of The Mikado and as Laurie in Michigan Opera Works' The Tender Land.
Today, King' focus is on the creative challenges of her opera and musical theater directorship at Wichita State, where she is showcasing the expertise acquired from 10 years as the producing artistic director of Cortland Rep., an Equity summer theater. She also served as general director of the NYC-based Broque Opera Co., which boasts U.S. tours to such prestigious venues as Pepsic Summerfare, B.A.M. and the Kennedy Center.
Other directing credits include the Opera Theatre of Lucca (Italy), Sakai Opera (Japan) and Cincinnati Opera. And she is the co-author of The Ring of the Fettucines, which was videotaped and aired nationally on CBS Cable.
During her years at Wichita State, the university's original opera theater program has grown to include musical theater. In spring 1998, the Kansas Board of Regents approved a musical theater major, and WSU now offers these degrees: Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance, Master of Music in Opera/Vocal Performance, which are housed in the School of Music, and the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre, which is housed in the School of Performing Arts.
All of the degrees meet NASM certification and are structured to provide a high technical level of musical and vocal ability while also developing the acting, movement, language, auditioning and business skills necessary for students who plan to enter the operatic market.
Joyce A. DiDonato '92 has performed with the Houston Opera Theatre for the past several years in roles such as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and Cherubino from Le Nozze di Figaro. A Sullivan Award winner, she also won the Marguerite McGammon Competition and is a grand prize winner of the Mario Lanza National Vocal Competition.
Excited about the future, King is working to fine tune the program with current Opera and Musical Theatre faculty members, including Linda Starkey '90, the program's associate director; Teressa Wylie McWilliams, who oversees theater dance and choreography; Michael Palmer, director of orchestras; Robert Glasmann, chorus master and conductor; and Thomas Grubb, coach and accompanist.
More specifically, King is collaborating with professors and instructors of voice Dorothy Crum, chair, Deborah Baxter, Vernon Yenne, Brian Steele and Scott Wichael to enhance the already high quality of voice teaching and with assistant and associate professors of theater Nyalls Hartman, director, and Joyce Cavarozzi to effectively incorporate an acting curriculum into the program. She also plans to place an even stronger emphasis on the study of foreign languages.
Catherine Cook '87, mezzo-soprano, has been featured in a wide range of roles with leading companies throughout the United States. During the San Francisco Opera's 2000-01 season, she created the role of Jade Boucher in the world premier of Heggie's Dead Man Walking. Other engagements include Faust at Los Angeles Opera and her Lincoln Center debut in Poulenc's Les Mamelles de Tiresias with L'Opera Francais de New York.
Much of King's enthusiasm for the future is founded upon the accomplishments of the past. "WSU has a long and proud tradition of high-quality teaching and high-quality productions with orchestra," she says. "Students in most other programs our size don't have the opportunity of performing with an orchestra because of the cost. Here, both the university and the Kansas arts communities understand the importance of investing in the complete experience. The fact that opera is a costly venture is accepted and honored here — and that is a function of support for George Gibson's long and successful efforts."
Gibson, a gifted voice teacher with a powerfully expressive bass-baritone voice, a passion for teaching and a deep love of music, served as director of opera theater at WSU from 1967-97, with a one-year absence during which Vernon Yenne stepped in as director.
Gibson continues to teach voice students at his Washington, D.C., studio, commuting from his home in Tucson, Ariz. During his tenure at WSU, he certainly hit the right notes with students, many of whom credit much of their own success to his insightful coaching.
Julie A. Schmidt '84/84 performs with the national touring company of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera, performing the role of Carlotta for the past five years. This spring, she has been nominated for a Best Actress award to be presented by the League of American Theatres and Producers in May.
When Barbara Honn '66/74 first began working with Gibson, she thought of herself as an alto, or rather, to use the proper operatic lingo, a mezzo-soprano. It was Gibson who heard her potential to be a true dramatic soprano. "It never crossed my mind to go into opera," Honn says. "I had a family and plans to teach, but no experience with opera. It was simply not a part of my reality — not before WSU and George Gibson."
Like so many other WSU-schooled professionals, Honn believes her time at Wichita State set the stage well for her own forays into performing and teaching. Spurred by Gibson and other faculty members, especially Harrison "Bud" Boughton, professor emeritus of music, and Ines Jamison, who passed away last year, Honn went on to wow European and U.S. audiences with crititcally-acclaimed performances in many roles, including Donna Anna in Don Giovanni.
Today, she is a world-class vocal instructor, teaching master classes all over the world and serving as professor of voice at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. "WSU's opera division owes its success to George Gibson," she says. "His love of opera was consuming. He was totally dedicated and took responsiblity for the quality of the entire program. I consider WSU's program to be well above the level of other programs its size."
Annette R. Daniels '84, mezzo-soprano, has gained critical acclaim in performance with numerous opera companies in the United State and Europe. Her international performances include the French premier at the Nantes Opera in Carlisle Floyd's Susannah and Nicklausse in Les Contes d'Hoffmann with the New Israeli Opera.
Always excited about exploring new territory, Gibson and his wife, Mary Jane, are looking forward to a trip to Australia and New Zealand this spring, as a break from his "retirement." In addition to the 43 voice students he instructs at his D.C. studio, he also teaches 12 students at the University of Arizona at Tucson, where he is filling in for a professor on sabbatical.
And while he says he misses his friends in Wichita, he believes he retired from Wichita State at the right time. "I left with a sad note in my heart," he says. "But new blood is good for a program. I've not yet seen one of her productions, but I think Marie is very innovative and creative, very liberal in the sense of directing. I was a conservative director. She is a shot in the arm for the program."
One of his goals while director was increasing scholarship money, which he did. Wichita State now has six endowed opera-performance scholarships avilable each year. Another aim of his was to establish a resident quartet, each member of which would be a major scholarship recipient — and also serve as a program promoter.
"Any opera program," he says, "facs the challenge of recruiting the best talent. WSU has a good nucleus of scholarship money, but recruiting students, especially graduate students, is becoming more and more competitive. The students themselves are a big factor in promotion and recruiting. I think you've got to have something resident to do that effectively."
Looking back, Gibson recalls many high points. Most of them center on the accomplishments of students, but he even admits to having "fond memories" about going out and meeting people for the purpose of raising money for the program, an opera-business duty he detested, except for the meeting-people part.
He also looks back with some amazement on how many operas were produced, how many students made the transition to professional performer, how many singular voices he helped shape. Or as he charmingly understates the entie matter of his career at WSU: "As I look back on it, we did an awful lot."
Steven Tharp '80/82, tenor, has built a career balanced evenly between concert, opera and recital. His operatic repertoire of more than 40 roles includes the major tenor parts of Mozart and Handel, Nemorino in L'Elisir d'Amore, Almaviva in Il Barbiere de Siviglia, David in Wagner's Die Meistersinger, the Steersman in Der Fliegende Hollander and Lysander in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Gibson says he was "extremely fortunate to be led to WSU" back in 1967. Hired by Walter Duerksen, then dean of music, the new opera director inherited an established and healthy program. A year earlier, WSU Opera Theatre, under the direction of Robert Mesrobian, staged A Midsummer Night's Dream. According to the 1966 Parnassus, Benjamin Britten's operatic version of Shakespeare's comic fantasy "had its Kansas premier on the Wichita State University campus and was a big success."
The production remains one of Eugene Spangler's favorites. And Spangler '39, a retired associate professor of speech, has perhaps seen the broadest range of WSU productions, from King's all the way back to the very first one, Wildflower.
As the 1942 Parnassus describes it, Wildflower was "presented hopefully as the first of an annual series by the University Players in collaboration with the campus glee clubs. The musical began with a snappy overture from an orchestra rehearsed by Anthony Chiuminatto, new music master. Then it proceeded on its tuneful way."
"It was a hybrid, to begin with," recalls Spangler, who during his 45 years at the university served as coordinator of theater services and then as chairman of speech communication. "The 1941 production of Wildflower was a joint effort of the department of music and the speech department, which did staging and some financing. It's interesting to note that opera grew out of the speech department. There for awhile, we did productions peicemeal, but an effective collaboration developed between George Wilner, who was the stage director, and Harold Decker, who did music direction. That combination lasted for awhile."
Opera and many other musical and theater productions were canceled or scaled back during the years of World War II, but by the late '40s true operas were being staged as combined efforts of the university's music and drama departments. In 1949, the production was Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro.
On July 1, 1949, the department of music was approved as the School of Music by the Board of Regents of Wichita University, and by 1951 Robert Minser had joined the faculty as the first director of Opera Theatre. Another milestone was reached in 1957 with the dedication of the Fine Arts Center, now named after Walter Duerksen. Proudly considered at the time "the campus centerpiece," publicity pieces touted it as the "best all around music facilty in the U.S."
Darleen Kliewer-Britton '68 is a professor of music and voice at Arizona State University. In 1997, she was named Distinguished Teacher of Fine Arts at Arizona State.
From Wildflower to A Midsummer Night's Dream to Der Fledermaus, whether under the direction of Minser, Mesrobian, Gibson or King, whether sung by DiDonato, Honn, Ramey or Mattson, opera teaches us nothing if not the beauty of collective effort, the beauty of gesamtkunstwerk, literally the synthesis of the arts. Or as Alan Held translates it: "everything combined."
WSU's Sublime Five
Karla A. Burns '81/81 is at home on opera stages throughout the United States, England and France. Yet it is her work in music theater from New York to London to Paris and Cairo that has garnered her the highest acclaim. In addition to receiving the Drama Desk Award and a Tony nomination as best featured actress for her portrayal of Queenie in the 1982-83 Broadway revival of Showboat, she also won the prestigious Olivier Award in London for her performances in the London revival of that musical. She made her New York City Metropolitan Opera debut as Lily in George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess and has appeared in many operatic works, including Falstaff, The Mikado and Die Fledermaus.
Alan Jay Held '83 has earned international acclaim in the world's leading opera houses, such as the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera Covent Garden, Bavarian State Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Theatre Royal de La Monnaie and many others. Winner of the 1991 Birgit Nilsson Prize, he has been a regular guest at the Met since his 1989 debut there in Billy Bud, returning to sing more than 100 performances in more than a dozen productions, including Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Tannhauser, Samson et Dalila, Die Zauberflote, Peter Grimes and The Ring. In the met's Ring cycle this season he was heard as Donner in Das Rheingold, Wotan in Die Walkure and Gunther in Gotterdammerung.
Beverly J. Hoch '78 has sung to rave reviews for operatic performances around the globe, triumphing in many roles, including Rosina in Il Barbiere de Siviglia, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos, Olympia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann and Blondchen in Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail. The demand for her sensitivity and skill as a concert and recording artist has grown to provide her opportunities to sing with some of the world's finest symphony orchestras. In 1998, a major-label recording of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with Charles Dutoit and the Montral Symphony captured this coloraturo soprano's "extravagantly beautiful voice." She is an adjunct professor at Texas Women's College in Denton.
Barbara A. Honn '66/74 sang as the leading soprano at three German opera houses, as well as performed throughout Germany and in Belgium, Italy, Austria, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, Portugal and the United States. A few of the roles she has sung to critical success are Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Leonore in Il Trovatore and Elizabeth in Tannhauser. Recognized as one of the world's premier vocal instructors, she has served as professor of voice at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music since 1986. She has also taught at the Israel Vocal Arts Institute, Tel Aviv, and at the Paris Opera, among many others, and gives master classes, concerts and recitals nationally and internationally.
Samuel E. Ramey '68 reigns as the foremost interpreter of bass and bass-baritone operatic and concert repertoire. With his charismatic stage presence and his voice's unique expressiveness, he has established an unequaled reputation for his portrayals of devils and villains in such works as Gournod's Faust and Boito's Mefistofele. With astounding versatility, the most recorded bass in history commands nearly every musical style from the fioratura of Argante in Handel's Rinaldo to the dramatic proclamations of the title role in Bartok's Bluebeard's Castle. His interpretations embrace the bel canto of Bellini, Rossini and Donizette, the lyric and dramatic roles of Mozart and Verdi, and the heroic roles of the Russian and French repertoire.
