Robert Wood, Founder and Artistic Director
This April Fool’s Day, I am choosing Rigoletto to illustrate the dark side of practical joking and fooling. It’s all fun and games until your daughter falls in love with a gigolo and karma takes your assassination plot and bites you in the ass with it.
More seriously, many of my favorite operas are works that examine humanity and don’t shy away from the ugly parts.The audience both pities Rigoletto and is disturbed by him. Verdi’s incredible music elevates this character into a deeply flawed man full of pathos. Rigoletto is a joy to conduct from start to finish – as is all of Verdi, really.
Anne-Carolyn Bird, Executive Director:
My favorite opera “fool” has to be Figaro from Le nozze di Figaro. Throughout the opera, Figaro willingly acts a fool, turns the tables to make his master look a fool, and in the end is completely fooled by Susanna, who is his equal in every way (although maybe not so foolish). We first meet this character being a “fool for hire” in The Barber of Seville, using his smarts to create a foolish diversion in order for his master to sneak away with the girl.
By the time we get to Nozze, however, Figaro’s stakes are higher and his foolishness – intentional or otherwise – almost gets in the way of his marrying his match. In Act IV, he recognizes Susanna’s trick at the very last minute, turns the tables once again and fools her back. After a wicked fight, they end in perfect harmony – “La commedia, idol mio, terminiamo” “My love, let’s stop this foolishness!” It is a beautiful moment of reconciliation, and will always be my favorite moment in this perfect opera.
NB: I sang Susanna many times and am married to my very first foolish Figaro… Smartest decision I ever made.
Paul Peers, Artistic Administrator
As a director I have always loved the archetypes from Commedia Dell’Arte; Arlequino, Il Capitano, and Pucilnella to name a few. So when given the opportunity to direct opera from the Baroque period I jump at the chance. Elviro from Handel’s Xerxes was a lot of fun to collaborate on with a singer. He is a Basso Buffo role, a Zanni who is a fool who plays the astute servant. Although I would not call Elviro astute, his heart is always in the right place no matter what crazy situation he finds himself in.
NB: My wife and I first met working on a clown show titled Love is in the Air. Five years later when we married, we had all of our guests wear red clown noses during the reception.
Susan Derry, Board President
Ah the fool. She’s in a million love songs: fools rush in, so I’m a fool, but falling in love with love is playing the fool. I’m a fool to want you, fool that I am. Weren’t we fools? April has her fair share of songs too and as an April baby, I love them all – give me half a chance and I’ll even work spring songs into a Christmas show. But there aren’t that many that put the two together. One that I love: Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields’ “April Fooled Me.”
Once April Fooled Me
With an afternoon so gold, so warm, so beguiling
That I thought the drowsy earth would wake up smiling
But April Fooled Me then
The night was cold
Jerome Kern wrote some really famous music: the luminous “All The Things You Are” has been called the perfect song, and of course his music for Show Boat completely changed how we integrate story and song in the musical theatre. But it’s the tunes he wrote with Dorothy Fields that are among the most-performed in his canon. The two began writing together in the 1930’s, penning such hits as “The Way You Look Tonight,” “I Won’t Dance,” “Remind Me,” “A Fine Romance,” and the musical A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. By all accounts they were great friends.
They were slated to start work on Annie Get Your Gun when Kern suffered a stroke on a New York street and later died. Fields was heartbroken to lose her friend. Kern’s wife Eva sent Fields a wordless melody Kern had written, “one of his treasures – and I simply had to write a lyric to it.” And so she did – it’s a lovely tribute.
Once someone fooled me
With a kiss that touched my heart beyond all believing
But like April that sweet moment was deceiving…
It was not really spring nor really love
You were alike, you two
Restless April Fooled Me
Darling, so did you.