REBECCA HALE
Reverb Editor
The Student Opera Theatre Association presented its annual Opera Scenes this past weekend at the Fredonia Opera House, which featured the popular musical, “Into the Woods,” as well as a lesser-known pastiche, “The Enchanted Island.” A pastiche is a work that imitates another work, artist or period.
This is a notable change, as in recent years, Opera Scenes has included three or four different sets of scenes. The biggest difference in only taking scenes from two shows is that, as a whole, it is easier to understand and more cohesive for the audience.
“Last year we did four scenes, and they were even more condensed [and] maybe didn’t even have continuity; but this year, we’ve taken a two-hour show and made it an hour,” said Lucia Helgren, a sophomore vocal performance major who played Jack’s mother in “Into the Woods.”
For “Into the Woods,” the scenes included an edited version of the entire first act, and “The Enchanted Island” included a condensed version of the entire pastiche.
Both shows are also kind of compilations in and of themselves. “Into the Woods” combines many classic fairy tales, including “Cinderella,” “Rapunzel,” “Jack and the Magic Beanstalk” and “Little Red Riding Hood,” while “The Enchanted Island” combines “The Tempest” with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
The musical score for “The Enchanted Island” includes many familiar baroque melodies, such as Handel’s “Zadok the Priest,” but with new lyrics written by Jeremy Sams. Zach Delcamp, a senior music performance major who played Prospero in “The Enchanted Island,” explained the concept.
“‘The Enchanted Island’ is just a mix up of a bunch of different arias that Jeremy Sams picked, and then he wrote his own libretto, so he took the Italian out, and made it his own story. It’s a mashup of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’”
The baroque music presented a challenge for the singers, while Sams’ lyrics made the content more modern.
“It’s pretty amazing that it’s baroque music, which most people maybe would be afraid of or they don’t listen to all the time. But with a whimsical English libretto, it makes it accessible to any audience, rather than [just] a regular opera-goer,” said Delcamp, who is in his fourth year of participation in Opera Scenes.
While “The Enchanted Island” proved a new viewing experience for many, the popularity of “Into the Woods” provided a juxtaposition.
Helgren, who is in her second year of involvement, mentioned that the recent release of the film version of “Into the Woods” made the play more well-known and possibly drew more of a diverse audience to Opera Scenes.
“If people have never heard of the musical before, they’re less likely to go,” she said. “If you’ve seen the movie, you already know the storyline, and it gets you more excited to go see the show.”
Although “Into the Woods” is less operatic, it still incorporates more singing than the average musical. Antonacci said that it’s been nine years since a musical was featured in Opera Scenes, and he chose it for many reasons.
“The music is much more challenging than many might think, and there are a lot of lead roles,” he said. “The show is dense with thematic development, both musically and dramatically, which gives our young actors lots of opportunity to step outside the box and experiment with character development.
“For me, scenes has always been about providing students opportunities: the opportunity for young singers to gain stage time, the opportunity to sing repertoire different from that of curricular programming, the opportunity for young performers to collaborate, the opportunity to get out into the community and to perform at this beautiful historic venue.”
Participation in SOTA’s annual Opera Scenes is open to anyone who is an active member of the Student Opera Theatre Association.