A FEW MINUTES WITH: Karen V. DiChiera of MOT's Learning at the Opera House

By Donald V. Calamia

Michigan Opera Theatre's Department of Community Programs presents its 13th year of summertime fun with Learning at the Opera House. The program features a unique offering of classes, workshops and lectures taught by recognized experts in their fields - including educator and composer Karen V. DiChiera, who created MOT's Department of Community Programs and Learning at the Opera House. DiChiera, a longtime advocate for the arts both locally and statewide, talked recently with EncoreMichigan.com about the program, providing an in-depth look at its history, its noted instructors and the popular classes and workshops that are available to people of all ages.

You're about to launch the 13th year of Michigan Opera Theatre's Learning at the Opera House. What prompted you to start this summertime program?

Actually, the concept for Learning at the Opera House had been on my mind for years before the program was ever started. Even in the '70s at Music Hall Center for the Performing Arts (Michigan Opera Theatre's first home), I had summer programs for young people with funding from the Detroit Council for the Arts when it was run by James Hart.

Even when our performances outgrew Music Hall and we moved to the Fisher Theater and the Masonic Temple, I did a Create and Perform workshop with children from Orchards Children's Services – a service center for children from broken and/or abusive families - in the large rehearsal space in our offices on Second Avenue. Create and Perform workshops encourage children and adults to create their own works and then perform them in front of an audience.

Members of our Community Programs Department and I gave lectures and workshops to schools and adult groups about a variety of topics including opera, Detroit history, women composers, legends and fairy tales and the uses of improvisation. I have also worked with schools on music composition with their students during the school year.

Again, these programs were happening well before the beginning of the opera house programs, but were a part of a growing interest on my part of putting people together in discussion groups to discover what they would like to learn.

Some of the wishes of these groups were to go to a nice place where lectures could be heard in a non-academic atmosphere, sort of like having a group of friends over. No grades or study requirements would be enforced. In fact, everything that they found interesting to learn could be delivered in one quiet, enjoyable productive and interesting evening with people who became your friends.

Moving to the Detroit Opera House just seemed like a perfect opportunity to begin the process of creating these programs. We began holding workshops for all ages on all types of things, mainly centered around music, opera, operetta and including lectures for adults in opera history, field trips and video-taped oral histories.

What programs did you start with?

Before the Detroit Opera House opened, I started with Create and Perform workshops with children at Your Heritage House Museum, a wonderful place founded by one of my former mentors, the late Josephine Harrold Love. I taught the workshop for her young students at the museum. When the first floor lobby of the opera house (now the Smith Lobby) acquired an actual floor, I invited Ms. Love to be the first to bring her students to the still unfinished Detroit Opera House. The workshops were named Learning at the Opera House, after that in 1998.

The next programs that began were the Operetta Workshop and various lectures aimed at adults and interested young people.

And how has the program changed over the years?

As for things changing, we are now trying to redevelop some of our programs for adults. With the busy baseball and football stadiums around us, parking and getting around has become increasingly more difficult than when we first began offering the programs.

I will be putting together some brainstorming sessions with people who are interested in continuing with the "Learning" programs. We have already tried some new ideas, locations and times, and we're continually looking for new ideas.

Besides, I really enjoy getting lots of interested people together to feed off of each others' ideas and suggestions. I think they do, too. It becomes an investment in how they love learning. If you have any great ideas and would like to participate, call me at 313-237-3406!

Who teaches the classes?

Even though we have foregone some of our adult education programs this year, we have two programs for young people from the fourth grade through high school and an opera camp for more advanced adult singers. These are Create and Perform and the Operetta Workshop.

I teach the Create and Perform workshops and have other people come and add their special gifts to what I teach.

Former Detroit Public Schools educator Lamar Richardson will be joining me again this year. Fran Dent (Detroit's Sit Down Comedienne...Fran says, "The knees go first!") will be giving a workshop called Hip-Hoppera in the midst of the first week. We will be having another teaser for improvisation ideas - visits from members of the Detroit Audubon Society.

The Operetta Workshop will once again be taught by the Julie Smith and Wendy Bloom. Both Julie and Wendy have M.A.s in music and we will soon congratulate Dr. Julie Smith who will be completing her Ph.D.!

Candace de Lattre, who heads up the Opera Camp and Opera Workshops, came to me with her ideas as soon as I began Learning at the Opera House. Candace has had a career in Europe with Wagnerian roles at Bayreuth, Germany and with American opera houses including roles with Michigan Opera Theatre. We have created quite an unusual program that is attended by students from throughout Michigan and Ontario. In the past, students from New York State, Indiana, Ohio, California, Quebec and Bermuda have attended the program.

Instructors with Learning at the Opera House often suggest other lecturers and people who give workshops because they are in contact with lots of interesting people who can teach fascinating things. In fact, often people have called me themselves wanting to a new idea for a presentation. I am always delighted to hear from people about themselves or friends and former teachers of theirs. Fine teachers are usually not shy!

In general, who is the program designed for: experienced young people who want to pursue a career in the opera, youngsters of all performing arts skills or all of the above?

Your own answer is the answer because it is all of that!

We enjoy having people with or without any experience and we enjoy adding to the experience of other gifted people.

In fact, Betty Lane, operations manager for Learning at the Opera House and herself a Julliard educated-soprano with performance credits in Europe and the United States, offers a course called All About Voice. This course is for singers, speakers and hip-hoppers from teenagers to adults to senior citizens. Ms. Lane is experienced in the field of vocal health and has participated in vocal health seminars throughout the United States.

Candace De Lattre is also a vocal health practitioner, but she specializes in the serious college and adult singer and speaker who may be experiencing vocal problems in their profession or professional training. Ms. de Lattre also is a fine voice teacher and teaches teenagers and adults who have and have not had vocal training.

We have had such delightful and gifted presenters throughout our Learning at the Opera House offerings. People such as Dr. Wallace Peace, our pre-opera lecturer, began lecturing with me and for me as soon as he moved to Detroit. Dr. Martin Herman, Wayne State University professor; former diva and current educator, Dina Winter; virtuoso pianist in all styles Alvin Waddles has performed and taught. In fact, Mr. Waddles will be helping me with young composers in the Create and Perform workshop and award-winning poet Dawn McDuffie will be teaching poetry and short story writing at Learning at the Opera House this summer.

I am always so happy when such gifted presenters love to share with all kinds of learners!

The most popular program, I hear, is the Operetta Camp. What does this camp entail - and why is it the most popular?

Operetta Camp is devoted entirely to the operettas of Sir William Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. Gilbert and Sullivan operettas are fun and funny with a little romance thrown in. The music is both easy and sparkling and is honey for the voices of our young performers and for anyone else as well.

This camp is three weeks long, and the final performance is presented on top of our orchestra pit raised up in front of the main stage curtain of our opera house. This way, the youngsters are closer to the audience and they don't have to speak lines and sing the music across a big empty orchestra pit. The performance, accompanied by piano, is fully staged and costumed. The accompanist is Wendy Bloom and the piece is staged and conducted by Julie Smith.

Julie and Wendy are experienced as performers, singers, stage directors, music teachers, acting teachers, pianists and have many years of experience with young singers. Wendy has sung with both Michigan Opera Theatre main stage and the touring Community Programs Department. Students love these teachers just as much as the teachers love teaching them!

College students and adults also get into the action with the Opera Camp and Workshop. How does this camp differ from the Operetta Camp - besides the age of the participants?

I'm glad you asked this question for two reasons. Many people are confused by the terms "opera," "grand opera," "operetta" and "musical."

Opera is a story that is sung. There are lots of extra terms that are used with “opera.” Grand Opera means "BIG opera," "opera seria" is "serious opera," and there are many more subdivisions.

When Michigan Opera Theatre was using Music Hall as our performance venue in the 1970s, we produced the opera Tosca by Puccini. We just produced Tosca here a few weeks ago. After the performances we used to do at Music Hall, no one ever called them grand operas. However, since saving our second theater in the city from demolition (Music Hall was our first) and we perform operas on THIS STAGE, people say that we do "grand opera." The stage at the Detroit Opera House is HUGE. So "grand" opera also has to do with the size of the venue.

In addition, the word "grand" implies that there are LOTS of PEOPLE on stage, in the chorus, as supernumeraries ("supers" for short. These are like "extras" in movies), huge scenery that moves or fills the entire stage and at least 100 musicians in the orchestra pit.

"Operetta" literally means "small opera." This form began in the 18th century and combines music and spoken dialog. In Germany they are called singspiel or music drama. We are doing a singspiel in our next season – Zauberflote or The Magic Flute by Mozart, and an operetta, The Mikado by the English librettist and composer Gilbert and Sullivan. The form also developed in France, Austria and other European countries. After Gilbert and Sullivan began bringing their operettas to New York, Americans began creating operettas by composers such as Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern and even John Philip Sousa.

Operettas are usually lighthearted, romantic and fun. However, Americans began to call operettas "musicals."

Now people usually say "opera" for pieces that are sung throughout, and "musical" for pieces that use dialog and music. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Phantom of the Opera and a bunch of musicals such as Les Miserables that are sung throughout. However, purists would point out that these are musicals because they are amplified and real operas are NOT amplified, but there are exceptions to this, too!

Back to your question!

The two camps (Operetta Camp and the combined Opera Camp/Workshop) differ in that the Operetta Camp involves performers between the ages of 10 and 18. They do not have to audition for Operetta Camp. The young students learn about the lives of Gilbert and Sullivan. They learn the music, dialog and the choreography in the camp. They audition after a few days for the parts they would like to have. Every child in the operetta chorus chooses or is given a name and a character type that they can work on even if they don't receive the part they requested.

Opera Camp can feature young people in high school, but not usually. The high school student would need to be quite advanced in singing lessons!

To participate in Opera Camp or Opera Workshop, one would have to possess a fine voice or have that potential. Recorded auditions are mandatory, and they are assigned music for the student voice types after the staff has heard the recorded audition tapes. This music must be learned before the singers arrive for the camp or workshop.

The Opera Camp students have workshops, lectures, master classes with fine professional singers, historic dance with Harriet Berg (including a final dance performance), opera scenes rehearsals, drama classes, and a reading performance. They participate in a recital class that prepares them in how to create recitals. They help choose the repertoire for an actual recital in which they all will perform. In this process they also learn stage etiquette peculiar to formal recitals. In another workshop, they prepare for a performance of a staged reading of an opera libretto without the music. Opera Camp meets all day and all evening from about 9:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Opera Workshop is usually made up of advanced singers who have a job or have another reason they cannot attend during the daytime hours. They join the Opera Camp class at about 6 p.m. and work together on the opera scenes program which will be the final performance in Learning at the Opera House on Sunday, August 8 at 3 p.m. on the Detroit Opera House main stage.

College students can receive credit for this workshop. How does that work?

Sometimes college, university or conservatory students can receive credit from their own places of study for work done in Opera Camp. In the past, Marygrove College has provided college credit for the camp, and we do have connections with several other local colleges and universities that may also be able to provide credit.

If a student is interested in college credit, they should contact Opera Camp director Candace de Lattre at cdelattre@motopera.org.

A camp I would have loved as a teenager is Create & Perform, which brings young writers and composers into the mix. How did that particular camp get started? And what type of performances come out of the camp?

I would have loved something like this too, Donald! I began composing when I was very young and always wanted a place where I could learn and perform. I found programs that helped me develop these skills later in my teens and in college, but now I can offer this to young people.

As a young person I became interested in many different things, including acting, dancing, singing and music. I didn't have a music teacher until I was 13 or 14. In college, I majored in drama, and the sum of all of these experiences gave me an extensive background in theater and music. I began experimenting in putting all of these elements together while as a composer in residence for the elementary schools for the Birmingham School District.

Create and Perform workshops began during Michigan Opera Theatre's early years and became an essential part of Learning at the Opera House during the very first year of the program.

So here is a description of how the camp is run.

The camp begins with acting improvisation exercises and moves to sound, music, movement, acting, directing and refining improvisation skits that can be kept and improved. We begin developing ideas for a larger performance piece, and in the last few days before a performance we put everything together, throw out what we don't like, refine what we do like, finish our dialog and compositions and choose conductors and performers. It is whipped all into shape and the campers perform the things we think are best.

The performance is free to an audience of the students' choosing, but is usually family and friends plus a few people who simply love attending this performance to experience what the kids create and compose each year.

Create and Perform developed from what I would have loved to participate in between ages 10 – 18. However, if there is an 8- or 9-year-old who composes, they are welcome to participate in the camp as well!

As far as what kinds of pieces are created, there have been re-workings of fairy tales, happenings at specific places such as a carnival or a fair, and historical events. During the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Woodward Avenue, the campers performed a piece about Augustus Woodward and his times in Detroit. This year, Richard Quick and Andy Howell, who are members of the Audubon Society of Detroit, gave me a call. They are going to do some presentations for the class. Now, something might emerge about birds and other wildlife for the final performance. Maybe we’ll orchestrate a BIRD Chorus!

I would have loved to have you as a student in this class, Don!

Lens on the City sounds like a cool program. What's it about - and must the participants supply their own cameras?

Karen Nagher, director of Preservation Wayne, and I created this program last year under the auspices of the Michigan Intergenerational Network. We brought together people and families of all ages to bring whatever kind of camera they have and to visit three places for three mornings and take pictures. The pictures are developed and then we choose photos for an exhibit that will be in the Detroit Opera House during the Opera Camp/Opera Workshop performance of opera scenes.

We had a fabulous helper, professional photographer Ara Howrani, who gave great hints about how to photograph people, buildings, lighted chandeliers and many other things we hadn't thought of. Some of our guest photographers were also experienced and provided assistance as well.

This program was so much fun in its first year that we decided we would keep doing it. We are keeping two of last years visits: The Detroit Opera House and the Main Branch of the Detroit Public Library on Woodward. We are thinking about other places that people normally don't get to see. Grab your children, grandparents, teens, neighbors, godchildren, aunts and uncles, and go, register!

Learning at the Opera House also offers private lessons. In which disciplines are these lessons available? Is there a certain level of achievement that a potential student must possess before he or she is allowed to participate? Or can beginners sign up, too?

Different instructors enjoy teaching different kinds and ages of individuals. We have three vocal music instructors. They are listed on our Web site (www.michiganopera.org) under the "Learn" tab.

I teach private lessons in beginning or early piano, music composition and singing to children all within a one hour long lesson. If children are 4 or 5 years old, I like to teach two children together. I take beginning and older students, too and have taught piano to beginning adults.

Is there a deadline for signing up for one of this year's camps or private lessons?

We still have room in Create and Perform, Operetta Camp and Lens of the City. Opera Camp and Workshop are filled.

For private lessons, the teachers have their own policies. Do read under the "Learn" tab on our Web site to determine what kind of teacher you would like.

There are fees involved for all of the programs. Are there scholarships available to needy students? And if so, how do they go about qualifying for one?

We have some scholarship funds for the two Learning at the Opera House programs for young people. To inquire about scholarships, please contact Betty Lane at blane@motopera.org or call 313-237-3238. If Ms. Lane suggests that you speak to me, please call me at 313-237-3406.

You've seen a lot of people come through the program over the years. Have any gone on to appear in an MOT production? Or moved into a career in the opera?

Yes! Yes! Yes! Some young students from Operetta Camp and Create and Perform have also auditioned for the MOT Children's Chorus and just appeared in Michigan Opera Theatre's production of Tosca. The MOT Children's Chorus also performs each year in an opera written especially for children's choruses to perform.

This year, the opera company will be looking for three treble voiced children to play the parts of the three boys in Mozart's The Magic Flute that will be performed in English. La Boheme by Puccini uses an entire children's chorus in Act II.

From the other camps and workshops, numerous young singers from Opera Camp and Workshop have performed in the main stage choruses and in small roles. Most notable are mezzo soprano Kristy Swann, who landed a main stage role after Dr. David DiChiera heard her in a recital in Opera Camp. She has since appeared on the cover of Opera News and in an accompanying article about the Manhattan School of Music where she is continuing her training. Bernard Holcomb, another Opera Camp alum, received a main stage role in Margaret Garner and then went on tour throughout Europe and Russia in Porgy and Bess. Steve Leslie Hill, who went through all of our Learning at the Opera House classes, leads the summer programs at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.

Lots of our Learning at the Opera House alumni audition to be supernumeraries, which are like extras in the movies. In the audition the director might be looking for someone to perform a non-speaking role as mothers, fathers, firing squads, nuns, angels, tramps, prostitutes, soldiers, towns people, etc., etc., etc. Lots of people really love doing this!

What's the one thing you're most proud of regarding Learning at the Opera House?

Actually I have a couple of things.

1) We have been able to teach urban young people skills through our programs that they wouldn't have been able to learn anywhere else. A man now in his 30s called me only this morning to say that he just got a job in an advertising firm because of the way he could speak, write and deliver a message. He started as a teenager with us. He went to college as a voice major, went into the service in the Middle East and now returned and has just found this job. He credits Create and Perform and the Opera Camp with his abilities.

A young woman alumnus of our programs is now a writer and reporter for The Huffington Post. Another young man in his early 20s who used to live in Pontiac is going for a pop recording career. He is being sponsored by an agent in Florida.

It's great when we hear from people with successful careers!

2) We didn't receive funding this year, but for many years we have been funded to work with groups of people, young and adults, who are mentally challenged. In working with these students and their helpers we have even had one person win a place in the Michigan Youth Arts Festival for music composition.

Our students fill me with pride - both while they are here and when they contact me later in their lives. Now we are receiving some of their children!

We hope to keep growing and changing with the times and producing life-long "learners" of all ages.

ABOUT KAREN V. DICHIERA:

Karen V. DiChiera is an educator and composer who created the Department of Community Programs Michigan Opera Theatre. More recently, she created Learning at the Opera House at the Detroit Opera House. When Michigan Opera Theatre founder and director Dr. David DiChiera took over the running of the Dayton Opera Company in Ohio and Opera Pacific in Orange County California, Ms. DiChiera also created programs on the American Disability Act at Dayton Opera and created the Department of Community Programs for Opera Pacific.

Ms. DiChiera is a popular lecturer on many topics including opera, fairy tales and legends, Detroit and Michigan history, women composers, education, disabilities, opera composers and many other topics.

Learning at the Opera House was awarded the Education Success Award by Opera America, the service organization for opera companies in North America. Many other awards have been given to Michigan Opera Theatre's Department of Community Programs. Ms. DiChiera is the second recipient of the Michigan Governors' Arts Award in Education.

2010 LEARNING AT THE OPERA HOUSE:

Michigan Opera Theatre's Department of Community Programs presents its 13th year of summer learning with Learning at the Opera House, running June 28 - Aug. 8 at the Detroit Opera House. CLICK HERE for complete information.

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