Opera on East

It is the morning after the first full dress rehearsal, and Director Harry Davidson is tired. In less than twelve hours, the red-velvet Baldwin Auditorium curtains open on the second Duke Symphony Orchestra opera concert since he took over the program five years ago. Following the precedent set by 2001's performance of Mozart's "Don Giovanni," the Orchestra will play the full score of Rossini's "The Barber of Seville" while seated on-stage. After only four hours of rehearsals per week for less than a month, a dedicated group of sixty-some students has learned more than sixteen pieces of music. The vocalists include various professionals--most notably Brian Johnson as Figaro and Janine Porter as female lead Rosina--recruited from the area and also imported from out-of-state. Although the production has both a vocal consultant (Clifford Billions) and a stage director (Alfred Anderson, who is also singing the part of Dr. Bartolo), minimal props and simple costuming will be used to maintain the focus on the music, not on theatrics.

This "concert version" of the opera is a method frequently used by symphony orchestras to highlight their performances as more than just accompaniment to the singers: Instead of being relegated to the off-stage, dimly-lit orchestral pit, the musicians enjoy the benefits of their top billing--such as being recognizable to their friends and family in the audience. Since the vocalists are placed strategically downstage from the instrumentalists, and therefore have their backs to the orchestra, digital video monitors trained on the conductor have been set up in the pit so that they can take their cues and follow rhythmically. English "supra-titles" ("Barber" will be sung in its original Italian) will be projected from slides onto an unobtrusive screen above the stage.

The scheduling of this production fits into the Music Department's 2006 celebration of the 250th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's birth. Davidson's idea is to introduce the storyline of "The Barber of Seville" this spring to pave the way for a nice follow-up with Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro." Both are based on a play by 18th-century French writer Pierre de Beaumarchais. The philosophy behind the alternate-year opera is that the musicians will have the opportunity to participate in a large-scale performance twice in their undergraduate career, giving them a taste for one type of professional-musician experience, regardless of how they may continue with their instrumental study.

Although learning an entire operatic score may be daunting to a first-timer, most musicians come to enjoy the process by their second time around. "It takes a couple times to appreciate how beautiful the music actually is...." explained Ian Han, a violinist in his third year of involvement in the group.