Has this ever been an adventure with Ed lamenting he is in much too over his head. His voice teacher, John Koch asked Ed if he wanted to be in an opera this summer, The Pirates of Penzance. Why not? When John asked Ed to be the Sargent of the Police -- the same role he played when he was at Deerfield Academy in 1959, this was too much of a coincidence. The only difference? Ed was a young man when he played the part in 1959 and now he is not so young. Rehearsals were for ten days, from 9 - 9 to include two weekends!
This Midwest Institute of Opera (MIO) is only 2 years old, developed by John and his wife Tracy, a truly unique opportunity for young opera students. Besides Pirates, MIO also did Don Giovanni. Three of the Giovanni actors, delightful young men, stayed with us for the entire ten days.
The institute is much like a school with everyone in the cast paying tuition. There was one cast for Pirates but two entirely different casts, the principals, that is, for Giovonni -- four performances of Giovanni!
And -- there was a different cast for "covers" - what we term understudies. A total of 5 Giovanni performances! Amazing. Pirates was for talented local high school students. Giovanni was for talented 35+ year olds. What voices!
Joshua Greene, an assistant conductor from the Metropolitan Opera Company directed Giovanni.
Ed had his music memorized perfectly but he had an awful time doing the singing along with the staging so unfortunately acquired a new status in his distinguished career, that of dropout. Happily, another person stepped in as the Police Sargent but as everyone said, Ed was the best!
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