Super Party, X-Dressers and People in Black

Ulrica has emerged, once again, from another period of solitary contemplation. While there are still those who believe Ulrica might want to spend much more time in quiet seclusion they have, thus far, refrained from saying so to her face. So, partner in hand, she swept into the always fabulous scena that is any- gathering of the San Francisco Opera Supers.

A good portion of attendees had heeded the call to dress up in costume; most notably the lovely Katherine Braizaitis as either a Nutcracker or a Rockette (not sure which) and Larry Severino who, at the last minute, grabbed some scarlet fabric he had lying around the house and deftly fashioned it into a copy of his Forza costume. But the best costumes of all (and Ulrica is not ashamed in admitting a fondness for things nautical) were the busboys in their smart, white yachting uniforms.

Entertainment

…was provided by a pair of charming young singers, Matthew Trevino and Brian Frutiger, who had a unique opportunity to perform in front of two SFO General Directors (see below). Brian had Joan Imbeau and Kimberly Thompson all a-flutter crooning "Dein Ist Mein Ganzes Herz" to them, and Matthew was quick to point out that he was a friend to Supers and, knowing that we are not strangers to a vendetta, asked us to be kind to him if we ever happen to share a stage.

Other distinguished attendees included our Ohio Opera-tive Bruce McNaughton, who jetted in for the event and took in seven SFO performances in as many days; Don Stoddard who, happily, is back on the dance floor after his recent motorcycle accident; Spearhead News-er Lynn Meinhardt sporting a streamlined new hairdo; Super Sharon Castle who was deservedly applauded for making the Golden Gate Yacht Club available to us; and Star Wars costuming editorial authority Mark Burstein and his lovely wife Llisa who proudly announced that they are expecting child number 2, a girl, in April.

Hammy Awards were given out to, among others: Al Heiben for showing up before every Dr. Atomic performance as the Lt. Bush cover (“They also serve who sit and wait,” quipped Al); to another motorbike casualty, Walt Thorpe, for The Pearl Fishers; in absentia to John Gugliemelli for an onstage Forza collision with a principal: and to L’Italiana Supers Ron Mann and Eddy Gordillo for being Vlad the Impaler and for not being Vlad the Impaler respectively.

Hammy Awardees Ron Mann, Eddy Gordillo,
Walt Thorp and Al Heiben

Pamela Rosenberg and General Director Designate David Gockley both appeared at the party to rounds of applause, and Pamela turned out to be the evening’s star performer; admitting that, having had the Super Experience, she now knew what drives us to do what we do and that she hopes, one day, to appear onstage as a giant Redwood. Midway through her acceptance speech (she was also given a Super spear pin made by Super jeweler Keith Bartel), she acknowledged that she knew “we all had lives” at which one laconic partygoer (reputedly Michael Strickland) responded “well, not really”.

General Director Designate Schmoozing with A-List Supers

Carrie Murphy then took the microphone and gave special thanks to reptilian Grove Wiley for his Izod Lacoste impersonation, to the Season’s Production Super Captains and to all the Forza Supers for “hanging in there.” Getting his name engraved on the Super of the Year plaque for 2005 will be Tom Carlisle for his persistent efforts to photograph every Super and every principal, for his meticulous work on the archival scrapbooks, for his Spearhead interviews and for being a Super on top of all that.

One final, lasting image of the evening was the tireless Super Committee gathering up crumpled and soiled red napkins from the hastily abandoned dining tables. Oh the glamour of a life on the stage…

Leaving the party we were delighted by the brazenness of the raccoons hanging around hoping for party leftovers (they were sure to be disappointed: Supers are a plague of locusts when it comes to food).

Opera for Kids

Eager to see Pamela’s Hammy Award-winning turn, Ulrica took in the last performance of The Magic Flute for Kids. Overcoming her initial shock at seeing Supers in the house wearing costumes and make up, she was soon cheering the fuzzy animals and hissing the villains in their recycled Arshak II costumes (one assumes that means no revivals of that rarity in our immediate future) with one of the more enthuisiastic audiences SFO has seen all season. The show was wonderfully conceived, beginning with Maestro Runnicles leading the orchestra out while carrying a big bass drum.

Pamela “Dutch Elm” Rosenberg (far right) takes her final bough
at the last performance of The Magic Flute for Kids

Following the success of Flute for Kids, Eddy Gordillo wonders if next season we can look forward to Elektra for Kids. Tom Reed suggested Wozzeck for Kids but the Wardrobe Department is voting for Medea for Kids.

Maria Callas as the oh-so-maternal Medea:
appealing to grade-schoolers?

And while there has been no official word about the 2006-07 season, I have it on good authority that we will be seeing revivals of Il Barbiere, Tristan und Isolde and Carmen. So dust off your mantillas, ladies, crack open a pack of Marlboros and prepare for yet another trip to Sevilla.

Speaking of opera and kids, Junior Super Seth Durrant (Peter Oppenheimer in Dr. Atomic) created an incredible drawing of himself onstage in Dr A. Note the crib, the concentric circles on the floor, the hills in the background, Peter’s plaid PJs and, of course, the suspended A-bomb. SFO is planning to use Seth’s drawing to promote the opera in its future incarnations.

For those of us still missing Dr A, Keith King suggests that fans rent the DVD of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for a surprise reprise of the Vishnu Chorus.

Drag Kings

Well, what are the chances that one could see two operas, playing simultaneously, that both feature women named Leonora running around Spain in male drag? That would be Fidelio and La Forza del Destino. Throw the W2W Norma into the mix and we had a decidedly Sapphic ending to the season. No stranger to Gender Confusion and the L-Word herself, Ulrica applauds another bold move by the SFO’s Outreach Department.

Ulrica Appears on the International Scene

The New York Times reports that London’s Royal Opera has decided to abandon its policy of ‘blacking up,’ i.e., singers wearing black skin makeup, saying it wanted to be “sensitive to issues of racism.” The company made a last-minute change in its plans for Verdi’s opera Un Ballo in Maschera, with the mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe in the role of – yes – Ulrica, a fortune teller. Ms. Blythe was "blacked up" during rehearsals but after an article by columnist Phillip Hensher in The Independent, the company made the laudible decision to overrule the director, Italian filmmaker Mario Martone, at the last minute and had Ms. Blythe sing the role in her natural, Caucasian skin color. Stripped of her black makeup (above) Stephanie Blythe goes hirsute.

Also at Covent Garden, Super Andrew Korniej was delighted, during his recent travels, to happen upon an exhibition of jewelry and costumes worn by "La Divina," Maria Callas. He is seen here coveting the red-velvet, Empire-waisted gown worn by Madame Callas as Tosca in July 1965; her final appearance in Opera.

Crucible Fire Opera

Mike Harvey recommends that you check out this year’s Fire Opera at The Crucible in Berkeley.

The production of Kurt Weill’s The Seven Deadly Sins opens in January, is directed by SFO’s Roy Rallo and stars SFO favorite, mezzo Catherine Cook.

Also try and catch the SF Symphony’s upcoming Stravinsky Double Bill of Oedipus Rex (another …for Kids candidate?) and La Rossignol, which will include a rare Symphony Super appearance by stalwart Charlie Lichtman. Add also John Guglielmelli and newbie Harold Hardin (Norma and Fidelio) to the list of Supers (or should I rather say Actors, as they are listed that way).

Also appearing in Rossignol are Catherine Cook (boy, does she get around or what!), as, well, The Cook, Brian (the Super-party ladykiller) Frutiger as one of the Japanese envoys and courtier, Adler fellow Eugene Brancoveanu as another Japanese envoy, and former SF Opera chorister and Festival Opera artist Darla Wigginton as one of the courtesans.

The Fall of the House and Ushers

But this would not be an Ulrica column if there wasn’t something to moan about and this month the spotlight is on the SFO ushers...

For every friendly, smiling and professional Traude Albert or John G Martin, there is an usher or usherette, who, in the these security-minded times, feels that his or her role is to bully those less fortunate than themselves, the impoverished standees, and insist that they not – well - stand. One had an unfortunate run-in with one such usherette, over an hour before curtain, for the last Dr. Atomic. While chatting in the auditorium with standee friends, long before the pre-performance lecture, an usherette rushes over to tell me I could not stand where I was standing (safely behind the rail). Given that there was an enormous pile of programs stacked where she thought I should be, it was somewhat difficult to follow her directive. Unable to move and under threats of being reported to the head usher, I left my friends and retired to the safety of my dressing room.

While Ulrica is aware that ushers, too, are volunteering their time, surely they could try to remember that even standees are paying customers and should be treated with due respect. Increasingly I find myself distracted during operas by the rear-of-house conversations (sometimes not so sotto voce) of clusters of black-clad ushers, eager to dash into the empty seats they so fearlessly guard from occupation by anyone else.

Yet, the one time this standee could have used some usher support (when a party of Russian visitors refused to leave previously occupied standing-room territories) the usher forces were seen to actually flee the auditorium, leaving said standee helplessly crying for the House Manager to intervene and avert an international incident.

And, really, how many times have you been forced by ushers to let them give you directions to your seat, only to have them point you, counter-intuitively, in the completely wrong direction, or made to enter your row from the wrong side forcing the entire row stand to for you as you embarrassedly take your seat on the far aisle?

As it seems that the major requirement for ushering is not a desire to be of service but a desire to see shows for free, Ulrica anarchically suggests that next season, if funds are low, you wear a black suit, pin the attached cut-out usher badge to your breast pocket and noisily bustle into an Orchestra Rear seat during the quietest passage of the evening’s overture. If all the seats happen to be occupied, don’t worry, you can always sit in the aisle.

In Closing…

Saddened by the loss of so many of our Super colleagues this year, we were all cheered by the touching obituary for Paul Ricks in the San Francisco Chronicle and loved Sandy Bernhard’s remark that “he had been performing in Tosca longer than I’ve been alive.” This photo, from a Super calendar published 20 years ago, shows Paul in Katy’a Kabanova playing the disheveled village drunk; as Laurel Winzler puts it, a quintessential Ricks role.

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