From the Opera Vault Dept.: Paulette Haupt made her conducting debut at the Lake George Opera in 1973, with “The Barber of Seville, and liked the experience enough to continue conducting in Kansas City and San Francisco during the ensuing years. She moved to the producing end and served as artistic director for the Lake George Opera from 1981 to 1985 – which means she was already on her way out when she spoke to me for the piece you’ll find below. She was co-founder and served as Artistic Director for the National Music Theater Conference at the O’Neill Theater Center from 1978 to 2017, which she left in order to concentrate on her company Premieres, which she founded in 2001. She also founded the Music Theater Mentor Program, but it was killed by the pandemic. She continues to be very active in the development and production of new works.
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| Paulette Haupt |
“Romeo and Juliet,” which opens the LGOF season July 13, was written by French composer Charles Gounod to a libretto fairly faithfully based upon the Shakespeare play: according to the Victor Book of the Opera, “If there are fewer words than in the original,. there is, at any rate, the consolation of the music that is sweetly sentimental and sometimes of a dazzling brilliance.” The opera was first performed in Paris in 1867; the first American performance took place, in Italian, that same year. (That follows a tradition best expressed in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence, describing New York Society in the 1870s: “An unalterable and unquestioned law of the musical world required that the German text of French operas sung by Swedish artists should be translated into Italian for the clearer understanding of English-speaking audiences.”)
The LGOF presents all its operas in English and puts a lot of emphasis on the theatrical aspect of operatic performance. “For me, that’s what opera is,” says Haupt-Nolen. “No matter what century it was written in, at the time it was written it was the musical theater of its age. And unless we really pay attention to the fact that the composer and the librettist intended that it be theater as well, all we’re doing is putting on a big concert with a lot of pretty costumes.”
Casting an opera, then, requires that the candidate be as capable an actor as a singer: for Romeo and Juliet, it was necessary as well to cast a good couple. “You’ve got to have believable people on the stage to make theater, and I think that our couple is going to knock the audience right out of their seats. They’re both just beautiful people, and together they look electric.”
They each will he making debuts at Lake George: Soprano Jennifer Ringo and tenor James Schwisow are veterans of many regional performances, and Ringo sang the part of Juliet to great acclaim last November with the Florida Opera.
“Romeo and Juliet,” with staging by LGOF veteran Leon Major, opens Saturday, July 13, at 8:15 P.M. and runs in repertory through August 2. The second opera of the season, Donizetti’s “The Daughter of the Regiment,” will open on July 27. It’s a first for the LGOF, according to Haupt-Nolen. “It’s the very first time the Festival has done ‘Daughter of the Regiment,’ the first time ever in 24 years, and we’re building a new production as well. It’s going to be funny from beginning to end. Plus. we’ve added an unusual twist at the end. Usually, the Marchese finally admits that Marie is actually her daughter, and because her love for her daughter is so strong, she can’t force the girl to marry the Duke, and so Marie is allowed to marry Toni. But in this production, there’s going to be a twist. Which I’m not going to tell you.
“Jeanne Ommerle, who sings Marie, was Olympia in our ‘Tales of Hoffman’ a few years ago, and she’s since been singing all over the place. I probably auditioned 25 Maries – I heard Marie’s arias 25 times! – but when Jeanne came in and sang the three arias for me, it was like I’d never heard them before. She sang them as if they’d just been written and I’m very pleased that she’s coming back. And it’s hard to find a tenor who can handle the part of Tonio, with nine high Cs right in a row, but Marcus Haddock has about nine more in his pocket, so I’m sure they’re going to be great together.”
The season closes with more comedy, from the unlikely pen of Anton Chekhov. Two one-act operas based on the Russian’s work will be featured: “The Seduction of a Lady,” the world-premiere of a setting by the young American composer Richard Wargo, and Dominick Argento’s “The Boor.” There are three people in each cast: tenor Joseph Evans, baritone David Barron and soprano Pamela South. Conductor Joseph De Rugeriis makes his second appearance with the Festival, having conducted last season’s production of Menotti’s “The Consul.”
“Richard Wargo is now 28 years old,” says Haupt-Nolen, “and he writes beautiful melodies. So many people think of 20th-century opera – and music in general – as being all intellectual, with no melody. Wargo’s work is melodic and lyrical – I think he’s one of the most talented young composers I’ve ever come across. He has real potential to become a major American composer. And it’s interesting that Argento. who is now very much established as a composer, wrote ‘The Boor’ a number of years ago, when he was 28.”
The opening performance of the double bill will take place on August 10, and the pair will be performed through August 20.
This is Haupt-Nolen’s fifth season as general director of the Festival. She made her conducting debut there in 1973, which was also her debut as a conductor. “I was part of the Exxon Arts Endowment Conductors’ Program after my debut here and conducted for a year at the San Francisco Opera. I’ve conducted regionally at the Minnesota Opera and the City Lyric Opera, as well as in Omaha and Philadelphia. I was also associate conductor and artistic administrator for the Opera Company of Philadelphia.”
She also is a concert accompanist, having worked with Walter Berry, John Reardon, and Leontyne Price, among others. “And quite a few,” she adds, “with Timothy Nolen,” to whom she has been married for almost 15 years.
Another traditional LGOF offering is the series of Opera-on-the-Lake cruises, which will be held on four consecutive Sundays, beginning July 14. This season there also is an Opera-on-Wheels program, which will present American composer Tom Johnson’s comic satire “The Four-Note Opera” in various locations around the area. In Albany, it will be performed at the Lakehouse in Washington Park on July 16 and August 5, both evenings beginning at 8.
On Friday evening, July 26, the LGOF Orchestra will play a pops concert at the Sagamore Resort and Conference Center on Green Island at Bolton Landing, combining a program of popular overtures and interludes with a gourmet dinner prepared by the Sagamore’s chef. Bruce Ferden will conduct, and James Schwiow and Jennifer Ringo will sing from another Romeo and Juliet setting: Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”
Capital District opera fans will be pleased to learn that the LGOF is working on more local presentations of their product. “We hope to begin a fall or spring festival at the Palace Theater as early as 1986 or certainly by ‘87 – at the Palace and elsewhere. We’d like to go to Proctor’s again, and I’d love to present a concert at the Troy Music Hall. We’re also hoping to have an artist-in-residence program by ‘86, So that we’ll have singers here during our non-production period who can introduce opera to schools and organizations in the area prior to a season.”
Of course, the best way to understand how good opera can be is to pay a visit to the Lake George Opera Festival itself, which performs at the Queensbury Festival Auditorium in Glens Falls. The single ticket prices range from $11 to $18.
– Metroland Magazine, 27 June 1985
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