High Notes in New Haven

[music] This year's shet performance is Puchini's Laboum which is one of the most popular operas of all time. >> Rent the musical is based on Laboum and you know many movies have used Puchini Moonruck. It features in the movie movie Moonruck very heavily. It's just a classic love story, but it's perfectly composed by Puchini to be just the right length, the right mix of comedy and tragedy. >> Oh, it's the best opera in the world for your first opera. It is so romantic and wonderful. I've conducted LabO in several theaters in Europe, which is always in rehearsals. This is my first time conducting performances on Laboam. a conductor um is there to help facilitate what the composer wrote down >> [snorts] >> uh to get it out of the orchestra and to get it out of the singers. >> When you go from Laura, I don't think she has this was perfect. I don't think she quite as the breath. >> Yeah, >> this is my second contract with Yale Opera. It's thoroughly enjoyable. It's it's incredibly well organized. These are grad students who are on the cusp of uh starting careers. So there it's nice to hear fresh voices. Um it's nice to see good habits settling meaning you know how do you prepare um a role quickly and efficiently? How do you start like a tabulazza with no preconceptions about how it should be sung culturally or contextually or characteristically. [singing] >> [singing] >> The Y opera program is uh kind of unique in in schools because it's it's so small. There's like a total of 17 singers this year. The normal amount is 16. Due to the nature of it being small, I'm able to curate very much towards their strengths and pick repertoire that shows the best features. [singing] I think that the Yale opera program has poured so much knowledge into me, not only into how I do this craft, but into what it means to be an artist. Um, it's very very easy to pick up a piece of music and read what's on the page or uh pick up a pencil and write about a composer and how they have affected you or you know influenced your musical journey. But it's another thing to understand and digest that material and repurpose it in a way that can touch others beyond just enlighten yourself. I think Yale has really given me the tools to do and begin that process for myself and others when I'm collaborating in, you know, these kinds of works. I think that what really resonates with audiences that come to see performances in opera houses is that sense of humanity that fostering connection that makes you think I understand what you are going through. So beyond just preparing the music and the beauty of the notes and the tone, of course that's our everyday technique. It really is about finding that human aspect of the character and finding a way to bring that to the forefront to really allow people to latch on to that personality, that identity so that they can follow you through this journey. >> [music]