The School of Music’s upcoming socially distant opera will be led by a guest director.
The opera, “Così Fan Tutte,” was written by Mozart and tells the story of two officers, “Ferrando” and “Guglielmo,” and their friend “Don Alfonso” as he makes a bet with the pair that their fiancés will inevitably be unfaithful to them. The two take the bet, tell their fiancés they are leaving for war and disguise themselves to try to seduce the women as their alter-egos.
Matthew Sipress-Banks, company manager and associate production manager of Lyric Theatre of Oklahoma, said he was asked to direct less than a week before school began.
He said he needed to quickly come up with a concept that fit within university safety requirements.
“These are the parameters I was given: no touching and no singers within 10 feet of each other,” Sipress-Banks said.
Sipress-Banks said the parameters were difficult due to the intimate nature of the opera.
“I thought to myself, ‘when was a period in time when intimacy meant something different,’ or ‘when was a period in time when intimacy was portrayed to the masses in a different way?’ And I thought of 1950s television,” Sipress-Banks said.
Sipress-Banks said the hijinks, disguises and romance of “Così Fan Tutte” reminded him of the TV show “I Love Lucy.”
He said the two couples central to “Così Fan Tutte” will be translated directly into the “I Love Lucy” format.
“Fiordiligi” and “Guglielmo” become “Lucy” and “Ricky”, and “Dorabella” and “Ferrando” are “Ethel” and “Fred.” Side character “Don Alfonso” will be translated into “Mr. Mooney” from “The Lucy Show.”
“They are working on how we can put Lucy’s apartment on the stage. Her apartment has three separate room and twin beds in the bedroom. That’s the perfect place for our two women to live,” Sipress-Banks said. “And rather than going out to the garden or going to all these thousand different locations in this one little opera, we can bounce back and forth between the kitchen, the living room and the bedroom.”
Sipress-Banks said the only scene change will be the transition into the two weddings at the end of the opera. He said that scene will take place across town at “Ricky’s Tropicana Club,” a hallmark location in “I Love Lucy.”
Delanie Kinney, music theater/vocal performance senior, is playing “Despina” in the production. She said she is excited to work with Sipress-Banks with the new concept.
“I have never worked with Matthew Sipress, but I did see his “A Little Night Music” on campus last year, and it was great,” Kinney said. “The directing was super innovative for the Burg Theater, and the acting was supreme.”
Sipress-Banks said directing this production will be a unique challenge since it is his first opera.
“Since I haven’t directed an opera before, I’m just going to have to go to the text,” Sipress-Banks said. “I can play the text like anything else, right?”
Sipress-Banks said the only difference in opera from the musicals and plays he has directed is the reiterative music.
“With opera, things are repeated 700 times, so that will be a challenge,” Sipress-Banks said. “At the same time, it’s very similar to know what is happening in a musical. The reason people sing is because it’s so important that you have to sing about it and sing it. I imagine with an opera, saying something a hundred times is the emotional equivalent of singing in a musical.”
Sipress-Banks said directing a socially distanced production will be a challenge, but the nature of opera will allow more flexibility than he might otherwise have.
“From what little I know about the opera world, there’s a lot of parking and barking. You know, Dorabella has this great aria where she is like, ‘I love him and I’m going to say it in 450 ways,’” Sipress-Banks said. “You don’t need to be near somebody to do that.”
Sipress-Banks said there will also be scenes where all of the actors will be interacting and will have to stay on their marks to maintain distancing.
Sipress-Banks said the production team is experimenting with ways to utilize the streaming format to make unique creative decisions.
“Today, we even spoke about the possibility of creating a commercial before the one big scene change. We’re going to have to do some kind of something to get from the apartment to the club. If we are streaming, we can absolutely splice in a premade commercial using the off-night actors,” Sipress-Banks said.
Sipress-Banks said many of his creative choices will depend on the limitations of the technology, which he does not yet know. He also said he is encouraged by the community’s motivation to continue making art despite the setbacks.
“People are hungry to get back to the theater. They’re hungry to sit and commune with other audience members and those people on stage, and so I think whatever is being given to them will thrill them,” Sipress-Banks said. “People are so hungry for live entertainment. Whether it is in person or streamed, it is still live. It’s still happening right then, and anything could go wrong.”
Sipress-Banks said by taking “Così Fan Tutte” and altering it a bit, the production may be more interesting than it would be in person. The streaming format for “Così Fan Tutte” will be better in some ways because it will allow people to attend who might otherwise not be able to, he said.
“What I think is great about having a socially distanced version and a live stream version is that people anywhere in the US can watch your performance. So, all of my like relatives that wouldn’t be able to come to a monitor can still see the show,” Kinney said. “I’m really excited that it’s gonna be live streamed.”
“Così Fan Tutte” will stream Oct. 30-31.
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