- [Announcer] In partnership with the Curtis Institute of Music, WHYY presents the following program.

- Prologue.

We good?

Let's do it.

(upbeat jazz music) (pensive jazz music) ♪ Don't stand there like a fool ♪ ♪ Come into your room ♪ ♪ Leave him alone ♪ ♪ He'll take care of himself ♪ (threatening music) ♪ Mother, mother, are you there ♪ - Who's there?

Is it you, Monica?

(anticipatory music) (ominous music) ♪ Mother, mother, are you there ♪ ♪ Mother, mother, are you there ♪ Stop it!

(curious music) - Nothing can replace the experience of live opera or live performance in general, but the digital age has finally arrived with opera.

(tense music) My name is Alek Shrader and I'm directing, and I also wrote the screenplay for our adaptation of Marc Blitzstein's "Triple-Sec" and Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Medium."

"Triple-Sec," Blitzstein wrote this around 1928.

It premiered in 1929 at the Bellevue, here in Philly.

And it deals with overconsumption of alcohol.

And keep in mind, you know, this is during Prohibition and so the themes of drinking too much were very much comedic.

And a party atmosphere, you know, you go to these speakeasies or a nightclub or a burlesque and you have a great time drinking champagne or cocktails or whatever and everyone gets kind of nuts.

(laughs) And so we paired that with "The Medium," (discordant tense music) (glass clinking) (pendulous music) ♪ Afraid ♪ ♪ Am I afraid ♪ ♪ Madame Flora, afraid ♪ The overconsumption of alcohol as being one of the sort of factors in the decline of the mental state of our main character Baba.

So we've got the theme of alcohol, but that's really beneath the surface.

It's kind of, it's there and you see how characters interact with alcohol.

While we're telling the story of Baba's, I don't know struggle to deal with the trauma of her life and how it impacts those around her.

Action.

(door slamming) ♪ Baba, what has happened ♪ ♪ Give me something to drink ♪ - And we've worked in how to tell "Triple-Sec" in that world.

In the world of Baba.

♪ It's a pity you can't keep your mouth shut ♪ (darting music) (maid singing shrilly) ♪ You have ♪ Marc Blitzstein was among the first crop of composition students here at Curtis as was a little bit later, Gian Carlo Menotti.

And when Blitzstein was premiering "Triple-Sec" in 1929, Menotti was also here in Philadelphia meeting his longtime associate Sam Barber, while they were composition students at Curtis.

So the lineage, the pedigree of Curtis specifically in 1929 was very strong for everyone involved with this production.

We need to do something physical on that (imitating piano) chord.

And so if there's a pull string, it's either that or if there's not, (laughs) it's your hands on the table and then you sit down and now we're gonna seance, (speaking Spanish) okay?

"The Medium" is a little bit short to be considered a a full evening.

And though I think it would work well as a film on its own, we just want it to take advantage of the flexibility of using some more time.

And we wanted to use all of our singers that were available here at Curtis.

And we had the production design for both.

And it was a nice pairing, just wanted to make use of all the resources that were available, you know?

If we're gonna make a movie, why not do as much as we can?

(dour music) (fanciful music) ♪ Where, oh where, are my new golden spindle and thread ♪ ♪ If I don't bring them home ♪ ♪ The king will strike me dead ♪ ♪ Thus spoke the weeping queen to the gnome ♪ ♪ Where, oh where are my spindle and thread ♪ ♪ Oh, Toby, you foolish boy ♪ ♪ Baba will soon be home ♪ ♪ And nothing, nothing is ready ♪ ♪ Besides, you know she'll beat you if you touch her things ♪ (fanciful music) ♪ Queen, fair queen, if you give me the crown on your head ♪ ♪ I'll tell you where I have seen ♪ ♪ Your golden spindle and thread ♪ ♪ Thus spoke the wicked gnome ♪ ♪ Oh, Toby, how handsome you are ♪ ♪ Behold the king of Babylon ♪ ♪ Oh his purple throne ♪ ♪ I shall be your servant ♪ ♪ I shall be your princess ♪ ♪ I shall be your foreign bride ♪ ♪ Come from distant northern seas ♪ ♪ How do you do, my master ♪ ♪ How do you do, my king ♪ - Suddenly digital content is blooming all over the industry, and so it needs to be a part of the education of the next generation of professionals.

So I'm obviously personally grateful that Curtis wants to make films, but I also think it's really vital for the art form of opera to be able to evolve like this and keep up with the times.

For the prologue, let's lose the blanket and can we put the veil back?

Or does that ruin the hat?

- [Designer] I get what you're saying.

I'm not sure.

- [Veiled Singer] I don't know.

I think so.

- Can I help?

I would never say that we can do what we do on stage and have it translate perfectly to a movie, but I think that marriage is really important to start to discover and start to evolve so that eventually we get to a place where seeing an opera on stage is as enjoyable as seeing it on film and vice versa but just different.

So we're trying to give the tool set to the performers, but we're also trying to introduce the concept to the audience.

Roll sound.

- Sound rolling.

- Orchestra ready?

- Orchestra is now ready.

- Roll camera.

- Speeding.

- Mark.

- Doing operatic film has been such a new and interesting experience for me as an artist because it's a kind of different way to tell the story.

Still the music is what's important but it's a different way at accessing what the composer wanted to say, so it's very interesting.

(threatening music) Opera is a live theatrical art form so it's definitely meant for the stage.

(sweeping music) When you're doing a film, you have multiple takes to try a scene so you can kind of do it in different ways and see how you feel in the moment.

And when you're performing live, you on stage you have one chance to do the scene and tell the story.

So it's just different.

I think it's a different kind of stamina that you need to have.

On stage, you need to give everything all in the moment.

And then when you're doing a film, you have hours to wait so you need to rest and then you need to go and then do it five times.

So it's just a different kind of energy level that you need.

♪ Anything goes wrong tonight ♪ ♪ I'll make you pay for it ♪ (briefly stirring music) ♪ What do you think I'm ♪ - My character is Monica, she's Baba's daughter and she basically plays the ghost in their fake seance that they set up.

And I really love Monica as a character.

She's kind of on the verge of womanhood.

She's about 16 or 17, so she's still naive (hairspray fizzing) and innocent and childlike but she's also experiencing a lot of more mature emotions.

And throughout the whole show, she kind of becomes a woman because of the tragic things that happen to her and to her family.

(dark music) (fanciful music) ♪ Where, oh where, are my new golden spindle and thread ♪ ♪ If I don't bring them home ♪ ♪ The king will strike me dead ♪ ♪ Thus spoke the weeping queen to the gnome ♪ ♪ Where, oh where are my spindle and thread ♪ ♪ Oh, Toby, you foolish boy ♪ ♪ Baba will soon be home ♪ ♪ And nothing, nothing is ready ♪ ♪ Besides, you know she'll beat you if you touch her things ♪ (fanciful music) ♪ Queen, fair queen, if you give me the crown on your head ♪ ♪ I'll tell you where I have seen ♪ ♪ Your golden spindle and thread ♪ ♪ Thus spoke the wicked gnome ♪ ♪ Oh, Toby, how handsome you are ♪ ♪ Behold the king of Babylon ♪ ♪ Oh his purple throne ♪ ♪ I shall be your servant ♪ ♪ I shall be your princess ♪ ♪ I shall be your foreign bride ♪ ♪ Come from distant northern seas ♪ The technique always remains the same.

And my priority all of the time is to make sure that I sang the healthiest and that I never hurt myself.

And sometimes I found in doing film, since we're doing scenes over and over again, it makes me a little bit more tired than I would be just doing it on stage or rehearsing 'cause you have more time to mark and not sing full out.

But here, if you do the scene three times you need to sing full out for everything.

- [Hairdresser] I'll just hold it.

So I always try to make sure that I'm prioritizing my health and my vocal wellbeing 'cause I never want that to be at the expense of what I'm doing.

Can I take it off?

(crew chattering) (singer vocalizing) (discordant music) - [Alek] I wanna make sure that the vocalists are all very healthy.

We have five days of singing with orchestra.

(discordant music continues) It must be the priority of everyone on the set to make sure that the singers are vocally healthy, you know?

So even if we call to do another take, we're not gonna spend too much time.

We might do three or four takes, but that is, I'm not concerned with that because the Curtis students are amazing musicians already and they have amazing musical staff here.

So I'm confident we're gonna get it two or three takes.

- [Conductor] We're starting after Kurt.

- We're starting with the entrance of crickets one.

The audience is a double-edged sword.

You know, they can absolutely inspire your performance they can be your fuel and at the same time, they can be (laughs) the cold concrete wall that you're desperately trying to talk to, you know?

And I think it's really important for any performer to understand both of those edges.

♪ Where have you been all night ♪ (plodding music) With the camera, although it is faceless you know, it is a listener.

It is participating ♪ Monica ♪ ♪ Yes ♪ ♪ I must never lose again ♪ In the capture of the performance and obviously we'll have people around.

It's not a sea of seats, you know?

But I find that the camera is both anonymous and intimate.

And so in that way, the performance really can, the performance can attach to that receptor in the same way that an audience does in that, you know, dark, empty cavern.

And there's people, you know, there are people there, but often you don't actually get to look into the eyes of of the people anyway.

Maybe the first row, right?

But in that way, the camera can absolutely participate in a performance Another tool set that we were hoping the students would latch onto in that I provided them the screenplay which was new to them.

You know, they get the score and they learn the music.

Well, here's the screenplay and it says exactly what I want you to do and how the camera's gonna capture these actions.

And then, this is like a basic stagecraft thing, when you're done singing, get to a downstage position so that your partner can sing across to you.

So I gave them that to work with.

And then we also had coachings over Zoom, individual coachings and then even some stagings that I could see, you know, how they were gonna be physically, this is our set taped out here, how they were gonna be in the room, and in that way it was kind of this blend of a traditional opera staging.

The way we would prepare for a film which is essentially you get the screenplay and you show up and we might talk through some things but we're gonna roll camera, right?

So we have a little bit more of a relaxed preparation.

I don't wanna necessarily call it rehearsal.

We've had a relaxed preparation period before we get into filming.

All ready?

- Yep.

- [Alek] Action.

♪ Doodly, Doodly ♪ ♪ Doodly, oh please stop her ♪ ♪ Doodly, Doodly ♪ - Mrs. Nolan.

(singers talking over each other) Mrs. Nolan, you must get ahold of yourself.

Please, Mrs. Nolan.

- Typically in film, you would arrange your shoot schedule based on it's called the talent, the actors, when they can be there in the same place.

And you don't want to have anyone in town on days when you don't use them because that's expensive.

So they'll go completely out of order, jumping all over the screenplay to film most efficiently.

On the other hand, opera typically, and it's not always in this way, but typically an opera is staged from start to finish chronologically, it's just a little bit easier for everyone to understand the progression.

So we're gonna do kind of another, a blend of both of those things.

We will essentially go in order, we're skipping a few things at the beginning that we're gonna tack on at the end but we're getting what's called master shots which are gonna be long takes of unbroken music.

And so we stop when the music allows us to stop.

So we'll go for four, five-minute segments, and we'll get some takes of that.

We'll make sure everyone's happy musically.

- Christopher's ready.

- [Crew] Roll camera.

- Speeding.

- Speed.

- [Crew] Mark.

- [Crew] (indistinct) mark.

- [Alek] Action.

(wild discordant music) (droning music) ♪ How many times I've told you not to touch my things ♪ ♪ Look at you, dressed with silk and bangles ♪ ♪ Like a woman ♪ ♪ Fancying yourself a king or something ♪ ♪ Stop dreaming, you feeble-minded gypsy ♪ ♪ I told you not to touch my things ♪ ♪ Is anything ready ♪ ♪ Of course not ♪ ♪ And the people will be here at any minute ♪ (solemn music) ♪ If anything goes wrong tonight, I'll make you pay for it ♪ ♪ It sounds like his lordship, milady ♪ And then we'll move on.

We'll do both shows, then later we'll come back and we'll get closeups or special shots or things that we want to capture for the sake of, for cinematic purposes now that we know we got the music that we wanted.

Because we're performing live.

Everything that you will see in the film is with live orchestra and live singing.

And yet we want it to feel like, you know, a big budget movie.

(mysterious music) I personally am fascinated with the idea of highbrow and lowbrow, you know, and that these two forms of entertainment are no longer exclusive.

You can enjoy lowbrow things in a highbrow atmosphere and vice versa.

I mean, if you want to come see a movie in your white tails tuxedo, great, do it.

(laughs) You know, we won't turn you away.

But also we'll get the people who have a much more common appreciation for movies, right?

And they'll be introduced to this formerly exclusive highbrow operatic entertainment.

(eerily romantic music) I would like nothing more for everyone to be able to experience the art form that I grew up with, which is opera.

You know, and it's always been a tough nut to crack how to get new people to come see the opera.

To say that they will experience something from this.

That it's for them, it's for everyone.

The catharsis in a way can be experienced no matter if you're highbrow or lowbrow, you feel the vibrations of the music and you all communicate.

And for some reason opera had that stigma, you know, of being apart.

And it's not anymore.

Here it is.

You can put it on your TV.

♪ I, I'm very much alone ♪ ♪ Mommy, mommy, dear, you must not cry for me ♪ Learning by doing.

And that goes back to, you know, giving them experience on a film that they can rely on once they're out of this comfort zone of school.

♪ There's no end ♪ ♪ Mommy, mommy, dear, your sorrow's like ♪ ♪ A wound ♪ ♪ That keeps me away ♪ We were looking to do something that really exemplifies the the musical product in opera of Curtis.

(singers vocalizing) Marc Blitzstein is considered to be one of the founding fathers of American Opera.

♪ Where is Toby ♪ (strident music) Menotti is a great example of the American sort of opera sound.

♪ The way he grins at me ♪ ♪ He knows, he knows ♪ ♪ He did it to fright me ♪ And what better project to do than have two Curtis graduates, Curtis composers.

♪ The fact is ♪ ♪ A lady is waiting to see you, milord ♪ ♪ How dare he, at this time ♪ ♪ Your lordship must be prepared ♪ Featuring Curtis singers.

(measured brass music) Curtis orchestra.

- Roll camera.

- Speeding.

Scene 32 C, take three.

Mark.

(clapper slapping) - Movie made by Curtis.

(woozy jazz music) - It's very much a home team.

(woozy jazz music continues) (sliding trombone music) (woozy jazz music) (bright trumpet music) (sneaky clarinet music) (sultry trombone music) (bright trumpet music) (sultry trombone music)