Reinventing Tradition

William Inman

Atlanta’s first home for opera — the five-story Kimball Opera House  — was built circa 1865 on the southwest corner of Marietta and Forsyth streets, just steps from what would eventually become Georgia State’s bustling downtown campus. But the Reconstruction period proved a difficult time for its proprietors to bring in touring companies and to keep the seats filled, so in 1868, the building was sold at a loss. Its next life was as the state capitol from 1869 to 1889.

That inauspicious beginning was by no means a death knell for opera in Atlanta, but patrons of the art would likely agree that it has experienced some difficulty establishing itself here to the degree it has in other major metropolitan areas.

Lately, a handful of Georgia State’s talented alumni have set about to remedy the situation, starting two new opera companies — each with its own unique flair.

“[Atlanta has] every opportunity to become a powerhouse of opera theater in the Southeast,” says David Grabarkewitz, the director of opera studies at Georgia State. “Especially as singers are seeking opportunities outside of the traditional stomping ground of New York City.”

It’s that pursuit of new opportunity within the 400-year-old art form that led Evan-Marie Dozier-Stefanuk to begin the New Opera, and Jocelyn Rose Glicklich to help found the Peachtree Modern Opera.

Freddie Mercury meets Mozart

When Dozier-Stefanuk earned her master’s degree in vocal performance in 2006, she said, she went on an audition odyssey.

“I did more auditions than anyone I’ve known,” she says. “I went to London, New York, Chicago, Seattle… everywhere.”

But much to her surprise, she didn’t get many call-backs. “I was perplexed and irritated. I know it’s the nature of the business—it’s competitive, we all know that—but at the same time I was amazed. I just want to sing.”

When she learned that many of her friends had similar experiences, she decided she wouldn’t let all that talent languish. So she called on her husband — award-winning Russian-American composer Misha Stefanuk — to write songs that would showcase the best aspects of her and her colleagues’voices. Further, her new opera company—aptly named the New Opera—would work to scrap the perception of opera as boring and inaccessible to most audiences.

For the New Opera’s first production, “Wolfy,” based on the life of Mozart, the Stefanuks exercised their artistic license and kept the performance at just 90 minutes. “Personally, I don’t want to sit anywhere for three or four hours. My idea is anything that’s about the length of a Disney movie is good,” Dozier-Stefanuk says.

“The vocal technique is classical, but understandable. A lot of opera is overwritten and you can’t understand the words even if it’s in English, and you have to sit there and read the program along with it. That’s what we don’t want.”

“Wolfy” also is unique because it employs a narrator. “It’s hard to tell the story of Mozart through scenes in 90 minutes,” she says. “My husband loves Freddie Mercury, so one of the narrator parts imitates a Queen song.”

The first production of “Wolfy” was last October at Theater Decatur, and the majority of the company’s performers that night were alumni or current students in the Georgia State School of Music, including current graduate student and tenor Wesley Morgan (M.Mu. ’08), mezzo-soprano Jennifer Christie (M.Mu. ’07) and soprano Katie Baughman (M.Mu. ’07).

Upcoming operas include a jazz work titled “An American Story: George Gershwin,” an opera on the life of Emily Dickinson, and a children’s opera called “The Kitty Who Lost Her Meow.” Dozier-Stefanuk is also working to create an outreach program for children and hopes to have workshops where children get an on-stage experience in the performances.

“Opera can be a really daunting subject, so we’re trying to open it up.”

Big voices, “Little Women”

For the New Opera’s presentation of “Wolfy,” playing the role of Mozart’s love interest was Jocelyn Glicklich. Like Dozier-Stefanuk, she is all too familiar with feeling lost in the audition shuffle.

“It is not uncommon for over 1,000 singers to be competing for as little as eight positions,” she says. “The competition for female singers is even greater; there are typically more female singers than male.”

At one audition, she ran into a handful of old classmates from Georgia State: Beth Pettitt (M.Mu. ’06) and Emily Parrot (M.Mu. ’05), whom she attended graduate school with, and Kate MacKenzie-Susong, whom she sang with at Georgia State’s annual Harrower Summer Opera Workshop.

Glicklich, Parrott and Pettite all earned master’s of music in vocal performance and studied under School of Music director W. Dwight Coleman, who directs the Harrower Summer Opera Workshop. And in 2006, Glicklich and MacKenzie-Susong had worked together to found “OPERAtunities,” which was set up to give young singers in the Atlanta areamore performance opportunities.

At that audition, the group vowed that if their current pursuits didn’t work out, they would be singing in an opera soon. They still even knew which one it would be.

“We talked about the opera [adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s book] ‘Little Women,’ by Mark Adamo,and how each of our voice types matched the voice types of the four sisters,”

Glicklich says. “Kate and I developed a great working relationship [with OPERAtunities] and decided we were up to the challenge of starting an opera company and producing ‘Little Women.’”

Glicklich figures it was about a year later that they were ready to premiere ‘Little Women’ as the Peachtree Modern Opera. Much of the rehearsing, she says, took place around the piano in her living room. The cast was eventually able to move to a rehearsal space at Oakhurst Presbyterian Church.

In the meantime, MacKenzie-Susong had assumed the real-life role of expectant mother, so Maria McDaniel-Dikin (M.Mu. ’07) filled in as her character while MacKenzie-Susong took charge as general director for the company.

“‘Little Women’ was an amazing experience for all of us who were involved,” Glicklich says. “The idea to produce our own opera started as a vision, a dream, and through determination, passion, lots of support and a ton of hard work, the dream came true.”

Now, she and McDaniel-Dikin, the company’s managing director, are in the planning stages for their next production and intend to perform their second opera in early November.

“Our goal is to bring more modern opera to the Atlanta area and to provide emerging young singers with more opportunities to perform,” she says. “There is a wealth of talent and eagerness in the Atlanta area and we’re providing a space to enhance that.”