Student-led Local opera company to live-stream Poulenc

Article published in the Herald Times, Jan 24, 2021

Bloomington has a chamber opera company, and it’s not part of Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. The Bloomington Chamber Opera is an independent, nonprofit organization and is preparing to live-stream Poulenc’s gripping one-singer opera “La voix humaine” (The Human Voice) on Jan. 29 and 31.

Opera lovers, and others, have been partaking of spellbinding productions at Jacobs for years, and since autumn of 2019 area residents have enjoyed a smaller opera company as well.

“If (scheduling is) an issue for people, they can buy a ticket and watch the recording later,” company cofounder Annaka Grismer said in an email.

For people who disdain reductions and the resulting loss of instruments, this production just might thrill regardless. Poulenc wrote this version, for which he sometimes played the piano himself, for a piano score, with no orchestra.

“Since this piano-vocal version was prepared by the composer,” cofounder and pianist Benjamin Watkins said, “it is musically fulfilling in a way that other reduced versions might not be.”

In addition, the plot tackles how we communicate through technology, a fitting theme in the midst of the pandemic.

Francis Poulenc wrote “La voix humaine” in 1958, and his opera is the setting for a monolog by Jean Cocteau. (The monolog was originally performed in 1930.)

The story shows the demolition of a relationship during a miscommunicated phone conversation. The audience sees and hears only the woman — in this case Rebecca Achtenberg, soprano — not her ex-lover on the other end of the phone.

Suicide and other loss dominate the story, with rage, sadness and jealousy ever present. Finally, however, acceptance breaks through, but not without a devastating ending.

Cocteau’s monologue, written well before the opera, displays only the one character and her (unheard by us) phone call. Poulenc’s music adds another dimension, even though it’s sometimes just a jazz riff wafting from the phone.

Bloomington Chamber Opera was founded by Watkins and Grismer. Grismer graduated from Jacobs in 2019 with a bachelor’s of music in voice performance. After a career shift, she is now a student in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs. Watkins, who had collaborated frequently while pursuing his master’s of music and doctor of music degrees at Jacobs, grew to realize the importance of attracting musicians to give performances for the Bloomington community.

The spark that got the company going was Watkins’ idea to produce its first performance, Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”

“It’s no secret that there are less-than-flattering ideas about opera in the popular imagination,” Grismer said. “But most of those perceptions are based on the trappings of wealth, privilege and social status that have become associated with the experience of attending an opera.”

“We realized just how much untapped talent there is in Bloomington,” Grismer said, “mostly because of the Jacobs School of Music.” She kept noticing the excellent vocalists who didn’t get opportunities to perform opera roles.

The opera company is doing research on works by Black composers for coming seasons. As their budget grows, the organizers plan to commission an opera, as well. They plan also to diversify their artistic team and board.

And, Bloomington Chamber Opera is not only for young people. While management recognizes that many of the artists with the relevant skills are IU students or alumni, they accept auditions and applications from anyone in the Bloomington area. They are also seeking community members for the board of directors, in order to continue linking the university to the community.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply