Opera at TCU

By Laura McFarland
Skiff Staff

For most people, “Hansel and Gretel” is a fairy tale that remains a distant memory from their childhood, but this Friday the tale will be brought to life by the TCU Opera Theater.

Richard Estes, associate professor of music and the opera theater director, will direct the English version of Engelbert Humperdinck’s German opera.

Photo by Laura McFarland - Skiff Staff “Hansel and Gretel” begins Friday with performances by both undergraduates and graduates.

“Hansel and Gretel” will run at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Ed Landreth Hall Auditorium, with different students performing the major roles Saturday. The TCU Symphony Orchestra, which has been working on the score for more than two weeks, will accompany the students.

“In an opera, you can’t make up how long it takes to deliver a line,” Estes said. “All of the timing of the drama is dictated by the music. With the opera, you have to make the timing of the composer work.”

Emily Lee, a voice performance and pedagogy graduate student, said this is the first time she has worked with a full orchestra, and she said the experience has been amazing.

“It’s like you’re floating,” Lee said. “You have this full sound to ride on.”

Megan Bartlett, a sophomore music major who will play Gretel at the Saturday performance, said her first opera performance is making her a little nervous.

“I was very frightened when I found out I got Gretel because I knew I had a lot of hard work ahead of me,” she said.

“It’s very intimidating to work with a full orchestra because there are so many wonderful musicians.”

Margaret Tyler, a junior vocal performance major who will play the Sandman on Friday and Saturday, said she performed alongside full orchestras when she was in high school, but she is particularly excited that German Gutierrez will direct the orchestras.

“He is very passionate and he’s just a wonderful conductor,” Tyler said. “We’re lucky to have him.”

Estes said he finds most interesting is the way the musical score and the plot of “Hansel and Gretel” fit together.
“Even though the story is a tale that we tell young children, the music is rather heroic and large scale,” Estes said. “It’s an interesting combination of heroic German music and a simple folk tale.”

Humperdinck adapted his opera from the fairy tale created by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, but Bartlett said this performance is supposed to be more cheerful.

“I think it’s exciting to be able to portray a character I’ve known since childhood,” Bartlett said.

Even though Lee, who will play Hansel on Friday and Sunday, said she knew the story of “Hansel and Gretel,” she at first didn’t know if she would enjoy her role.

“It’s my first time playing a boy, so it’s a really new experience,“ Lee said. “There’s a whole body language associated with being a boy that I never thought of. Until we started the blocking I didn’t really think about Hansel’s physicality, but it’s a lot of fun.”

Lee will not be the only singer playing outside his or her gender. Christina Hager, a sophomore English and vocal performance major, will be playing Hansel on Saturday and Carlos Vicente, a junior vocal performance major, will play the witch.

Estes said when was deciding what opera to perform, he had to take in a number of considerations — the opera needed to be a project which works well with the orchestra, could be staged with their current resources and could be cast with the students available.

Most of the cast is comprised of undergraduate students, a fact that isn’t common in a college opera, Estes said.
“One of the things that is unusual about our opera program at TCU is that undergraduates have a great deal of opportunity to get stage experience in opera,” Estes said. “In some of the larger universities, all the major roles are cast with graduate students because they’re older voices, more mature.”

On alternate nights, the leads will sing the parts of the gingerbread children and the angels. Senior music major Hannah Smith, who will be playing the mother on Saturday night, said she didn’t think she would like the opera when she first got the part.

“It’s contemporary, so I thought I would really hate it at first, but I’ve grown to love it,” Smith said. “It is hard because it requires you to put both your musical and acting skills together, but it is really rewarding.”

Laura McFarland
l.d.mcfarland@student.tcu.edu