Courtesy of Winter Opera St. Louis
Winter Opera St. Louis
This weekend, Winter Opera St. Louis will launch its 16th season with Giacomo Puccini’s La Rondine, an opera in three acts following the tale of a kept woman and the decision she must make between the pursuit of luxury or love. It’s just the first of three mainstage productions for the company, which will also bring Macbeth and a reimagining of The Desert Song to the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center this winter.
Ahead of La Rondine’s opening night, we caught up with Winter Opera founder and general director Gina Galati for a full rundown of the season, as well as the company’s events and other offerings.
Can you tell me a little bit about the mission of Winter Opera St. Louis?
We produce three operas a year with an orchestra, full costuming, and sets. Our mission is to bring in world-class talent and produce and put on the best offerings we can. We try to make it affordable for our patrons, and we try to also encompass a lot of St. Louis artists throughout the season, to give them different opportunities and so forth. Just bringing the community together is really an important task for us. That's kind of what we've always hoped for.
You're launching this season with La Rondine. Tell me about this opera.
It's a Puccini opera with beautiful melodies. It's not a tragedy by any means. It does have kind of a sad ending, but it's the story of a kept woman who has a very stable lifestyle monetarily…she enjoys this sort of luxurious lifestyle. But then she falls in love with a young country boy who doesn't have any money, and she has to decide whether she wants a life of luxury or a life of love, you know? What does she want, what does she choose? That's sort of the allure of this particular production. It has some of the most beautiful Puccini melodies, I believe, and it may not be done as much as some of the bigger names, but it's a beautiful opera.
What drew you to this production for this season?
Winter Opera has never repeated an opera yet. We're in our 16th season, and we try to produce something new every year. We try to coordinate with the other two companies to make sure we're not repeating something they're doing. We've done some of the other big Puccini operas, and this is actually selling very well. People really like this opera, so we decided it's time for us to try and put this production on. We try to put things out there that maybe are not done so much so people have a chance to see all the different operas. We've done a lot of different varieties of things, so we try and keep things fresh and and new for the community,
We’re sometimes spoiled for choice with opera in St. Louis, which is a great problem to have.
There's so many great operas out there that maybe companies are worried about doing or nervous to put on because they’re not as well known, but I just feel like people really need to see all the operas out there. There's always something beautiful in every show. [A particular show] might not be everyone's favorite, but just to experience something new and exciting, I think, is really important.
How have things been producing La Rondine thus far? What's it been like working with this cast?
Everyone seems to be gelling very well. We have a couple people we've had in the past come back, and some new artists also. Everyone's sounding good, everyone's working well together. We're happy with the way things are going. No major issues, but you never know what you’ll run into. I’ll try not to jinx us!
What would you really like audiences to know about this production?
We’ve set this production in Paris in 1929, maybe 20 years later than when it was supposed to be, so it has that 1920s look. It's going to be something that really sort of transports you into a different era. We try to do things as close to the time frame as possible, but for this one, we thought it would be kind of interesting to set it about 20 years later than what it's supposed to be. We haven't really done anything set in the ‘20s yet. So it should feel very different. We have beautiful scenery and sets and a lot of fabrics are going to be on stage. We're just excited about having a different look for the show. It'll be very traditional, of course. We don't really ever do anything that doesn't follow the actual time period or the tradition of the piece. We don't modernize things much, but I don't really consider 20 years later much of a modernization of the piece. I think it's really important to produce what the director or composer originally intended.
This is just the first production of the season, of course. Can you tell me a little bit about the other two operas you're producing this season, Macbeth and The Desert Song?
What's nice is Macbeth is going to be a complete change from La Rondine, which is a lighter opera. Macbeth is going to be more of a psychological thriller. Very powerful music, very strong presence, dark—there's the big witch scene around the cauldron. We're already getting ready to get those costumes prepared. The challenge, I think, of Macbeth, is going to be all the psychological things—he has a lot of crazy stuff in his head—and trying to show that on stage. So we've already been discussing how we're going to handle that. He has different personalities in his mind that come through the music and the story. So we're already thinking about how we're going to produce that and make it as poignant as possible with the power of the piece. That's going to be a real change from La Rondine. And then we move into The Desert Song, which hasn't been produced in St.Louis since the mid ‘90s. I've had more people say that they wanted to see The Desert Song since we've started than maybe anything else. It was done in St. Louis numerous times and always did very well. Now the show is going to be in the public domain in January. We've rented the scores already, but we're revising the dialogue to modernize it slightly. It was written such a long time ago. We're trying to just clean it up a little, and change some of the dialogue. It's going be our own revision, which is gonna be kind of neat.
We're keeping all the music the same, of course. It'll still be very traditional, but some things are going to change just to make sure that it's not offensive. It was set in Morocco, and we're making a fictional country. So it kind of eliminates some of the strange things about the show back [when it was written.] We're changing a little bit of the background of the story.
That must be a really interesting creative process, to be taking something that people are familiar with and creating your own update.
Right. We have a professor from Ball State University who's re-writing the piece. And what's nice is the director is from Ball State University as well. He's worked with us numerous times and he suggested hiring this gentleman to revise this show. We're hoping this will kind of get this show out there again, because it hasn't been done [in decades.]. When we rented the scores for this, the company didn't even know where the scores were. They had to go into the warehouse and find them. It took forever. We didn't even know if we were going to be able to do it. I guess they just sort of put it away. We're excited, but our patrons have been asking for this for so long now.
Why do you think that is? What is it about this show?
Apparently The Muny used to do it almost every year for many, many years. It just has really beautiful melodies. I think people really liked the music. People always ask for songs from it when we have our events, and I guess it's an old traditional musical that people don't see anymore, so they just miss it, you know? Everything's so difficult anymore. I think they just miss the simple things in life—the beauty of music and a simple story. It's kind of an old-fashioned story. We're excited to put it on. I think we're selling a lot of tickets for it already.
You also of course have a couple of additional events this season. You've got Holidays on the Hill and the Royal Tea. Can you tell me a little bit about what folks can expect from those?
Holidays on the Hill we do every year at Dominic's on The Hill. That's actually my parents' restaurant. We have these holiday events where we sing Christmas songs and have a couple artists sing in between courses of a four-course meal. We have those this Christmas, and then we do the Royal Tea at the Ritz-Carlton, which is always a beautiful event. It's a high tea with champagne toast, and we usually have two or three male singers come in and kind of serenade the ladies, and it's a really nice event. It's really beautiful….everyone wears their hats and it's just a fun event.
Is there anything else you’re excited to share with people about this season at the Winter Opera?
Winter Opera has just a lot to offer. If you don't like opera, we always have some sort of lighter opera, or we have these events, which we have all throughout the year. At our offices, we have a costume shop and alteration so people can come and get things altered or rent costumes. That's one nice thing that we offer. We make all our costumes, we produce all the shows, and then, at our offices, we also have studio space. People can rent pianos to play or come in and teach at the space. So it's a kind of a community center that we've created on The Hill. We have a lot to offer everybody in the community.
