Copious Notes

Ann Rutledge (Amanda Balltrip) and Abraham Lincoln (Nick Provenzale) at a town dance in New Salem, Ill., in the world premier production of Joe Baber's "River of Time." Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Note: Space is finite in newspapers, really more finite than ever. This being a new opera, I wrote a bit longer than a usual review, and a little bit longer than the printed page in Saturday’s paper will hold. This posting of our River of Time review contains portions that will not be in the print edition.

No one in Abraham Lincoln’s home state has celebrated the bicentennial of the 16th president’s birth as well as the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre.

At the start of the celebration in 2008, the Opera Theatre teamed with the Kentucky Humanities Council to present Our Lincoln, a multi-faceted tribute to the Hodgenville native that eventually traveled to Washington, D.C.

Before that show was even conceived, UK Opera Theatre director Everett McCorvey had commissioned an opera about Lincoln from composer Joe Baber and librettist Jim Rodgers.

That opera, River of Time, had its world premiere Thursday night at the Lexington Opera House. It’s not the unqualified success of Our Lincoln, but there is much to like and even potential for Baber’s opera to endure as a portrait of the president before he was presidential.

River of Time’s story takes Lincoln from birth through the death of his first true love, Ann Rutledge. Along the way, he fights with his dad, becomes a bookworm, grieves the deaths of the three most important women in his life and even wrestles.

That story makes for some great moments, including a slave auction in New Orleans where Lincoln declares that if he gets a chance to fight slavery, “I’m gonna hit it hard.” The scene, with a heavy dose of spirituals, is the grand opera spectacle of the show.

But for the most part, this opera strives for a soothing — sometimes too soothing — Midwestern feel, in the spirit of Aaron Copland or Samuel Barber. That’s exemplified in a small-town dance scene in which Lincoln and Ann realize that regardless of whether she is engaged to another guy, they are in love. Read the rest of this entry »

Click the play button to hear a podcast of our River of Time report for WEKU-FM 88.9:

Copious Notes podcasts are available on iTunes.

The University of Kentucky Opera Theatre presents the world premier production of composer Joe Baber and librettist Jim Rodgers’ River of Time Oct. 8-10 at the Lexington Opera House. The opera, commissioned by UK Opera, looks at Abraham Lincoln’s early years including his search for purpose in his life and the roots of his desire to fight slavery. Photos by Rich Copley | staff.

Feature: Lincoln Opera portrays a ‘journey to greatness’

Byron Johnson of Jackson, Miss., won second place in the UK Opera's Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition on March 8, 2009, at the Singletary Center for the Arts. Photos by Tim Collins.

Last Sunday was a good day to be a Johnson from Jackson in the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre’s Alltech Vocal Scholarship Competition.

Dione Johnson of Jackson, Tenn., was the first-place winner in the graduate division of the scholarship competition.

Taking home the graduate grand prize of $10,000 plus full tuition and a graduate assistantship was Dione N. Johnson of Jackson, Tenn. She was also the recipient of the Kentucky Opera Prize guaranteeing her a main stage role in a future production by the Louisville company.

The second graduate prize of $7,500 plus full tuition and a graduate assistantship went to Byron Johnson of Jackson, Miss.

In the undergraduate division, first prize of $5,000 and full tuition went to Elizabeth Maurey, a soprano from Brazil, Ind. Second prize of $2,500 and full tuition went to Keymon Murrah of Louisville.

This was the fourth annual edition of the competition, designed to attract students to UK’s voice program. Students must come to UK to receive the prizes. The impact of the event can be seen throughout the UK Opera Theatre’s current production of Lucia di Lammermoor as numerous leading singers are Alltech winners including David Bellamy Baker, Bruce Bean and Megan McCauley, who sings Lucia in one of the casts of the production, which closes Saturday night.

Here are the rest of the prize winners, as provided by the UK Opera Theatre:

Bio-Cat, Inc. Encouragement Award: Undergraduate - Keymon Murrah, $500; Graduate - Christine Jobson, $500.

McBrayer, McGinnis, Leslie & Kirkland, PLLC Audience Favorite: William Clay Thompson, $1000.

Anonymous Best Communicator Award: Jondra Harmon, $1,000.

Stoll Keenon Ogden PLLC Musicianship Award: Samuel McDonald, $1,500.

Powell ~ Walton ~ Milward a division of J. Smith Lanier & Co. Outstanding Transfer Student:
Matthew Gamble, $1500 plus a tuition waiver.

Mr. William L. Rouse III “The Barbara Rouse Kentucky Prize,” for a student born or educated in Kentucky: Ellen Graham, $5000.

Study at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria in 2009 or 2010:
Graduates - Dione Johnson, Byron Johnson and Samuel McDonald, $2200 each toward tuition.
Undergraduates - Elizabeth Maurey and Keymon Murrah, $1750 each toward tuition.

• Here’s our slide show from the University of Kentucky Opera Theatre’s production of Lucia di Lammermoor. Mouse over the bottom to get controls. Click on the little comment cloud to the left to activate captions. If you click on a photo, it will take you to a larger version of it at Picasa, and you can click the link at the bottom left for a larger version of the whole show.

• This week, we bring you Live this Weekend video style, with the stars of Lucia di Lammermoor discussing the famous mad scene. Click play to watch the film.

As the plot thickens in Psycho, Norman Bates delivers a foreboding understatement: “We all go a little mad sometimes.” It’s meant as a general — albeit creepy, in context — assessment of life. But if you are an operatic soprano, going mad comes with the job.

The operatic repertoire features several mad scenes of note. The next two weekends, a pair of University of Kentucky sopranos will tackle one of opera’s most iconic scenes of a woman going insane as they take on the title role in Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor.

For Lucia, “the mad scene is a release for all the torments she’s had to deal with the last several months,” says Megan McCauley, one of the sopranos who will share the title role in the 1830s Italian opera.

Darla Diltz, the other Lucia, says, “It’s finding a balance between being angry and delusional, which is really happy. I have to remind myself that if I was really crazy, I wouldn’t always be mad.”

Lucia is a victim of circumstances, forced to marry a man she does not love so that her family can maintain its home and position. To make that happen, Lucia’s brother has tricked her and her true love, Edgardo, into believing that they have renounced each other. Lucia goes through with the marriage, but as soon as she gets in the bedroom after the wedding, she stabs her new husband to death. She comes back out to the wedding party, her dress and the knife bloody and her mind occupied by wild hallucinations.

It’s 15 minutes that look ripe for theatrics. But the singers and director say they have to remember that this is opera. They have to be able to sing the soaring melody while moving erratically around the stage.

Read the rest of this entry »