A Conversation with 2010 Young American Artist Jamilyn Manning-White

 

Jamilyn Manning-White

Jamilyn Manning-White

Jamilyn Manning-White is a member of Glimmerglass Opera’s 2010 Young American Artists Program, returning from her Glimmerglass debut last year as Clorinda in La Cenerentola. This season, she has performed the role of Mrs. Jenks and covered the role of Laurie in Copland’s The Tender Land, performed with the chorus in Puccini’s Tosca and sang in Steven Blier’s concert, the Killer B’s: American Song from Amy Beech to the Beach Boys.

Jamilyn was raised in Smithfield, Utah. She studied at Utah State University, where she received her Bachelor of Music in Vocal Performance. She went on to receive a Master of Music in Opera Theater Performance from Arizona State University. At the Arizona State Lyric Opera in Phoenix, Jamilyn performed the role of Belinda in Dido and Aeneas as well as the role of Najade in Ariadne auf Naxos.

Jamilyn will return to Arizona in the fall to perform the role of Frasquita in the Arizona Opera’s production of Carmen as well as Edith in the production of The Pirates of Penzance. She will also be covering the role of Mabel in The Pirates of Penzance and Konstanse in the company’s production of The Abduction from the Seraglio.

A Conversation with Jamilyn Manning-White

Jamilyn Sings a Solo in the Killer B's Concert Accompanied by Steven Blier

Jamilyn Sings a Solo in the Killer B's Concert Accompanied by Steven Blier

 

 Brittaney Brentzel (PR Intern): Jamilyn, you’re originally from Utah. Does your family still live there?

Jamilyn: My family is currently spread out throughout the United States. I have a brother studying at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, another brother in graduate school at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, Kentucky, who is also serving in the military and a sister in Provo, Utah. My youngest sister and my parents are in Lima, Peru.  My father, Roger, has worked in the LDS Church Educational System all his professional life, most recently teaching at the LDS Institute of Religion in Logan, Utah.  My parents are currently serving as Mission Presidents for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Lima, Peru South Mission. My mother, Lyn, has worked at home teaching piano lessons while raising her family, and she is currently finishing her bachelor’s at Utah State University to be an elementary teacher. 

BB: Were you active in your community in Utah?

Jamilyn: I have always been very active in any community I have lived in.  I lived in Fruit Heights, Utah, for a few years growing up and participated in several community service projects to beautify neighborhoods. I raised funds for Food Drives and was a member of the National Junior Honor Society.  In Smithfield, Utah, I served on the Smithfield Youth City Council, participated in the Cache Valley Community Theatre, did community service projects and was a Sky View High School Cheerleader.  From 2001-2002, I served as Miss Cache Valley, a part of the Miss America Pageant.  I attended most elementary and middle schools in Cache Valley to promote youth literacy. I was featured on several local radio broadcasts and local television and performed the song “Tell me a Story,” a song composed specifically for this school tour and other youth literacy outreach by Jay Richards, a local composer in Logan, Utah.  In the course of my year reign as Miss Cache Valley, I received the Spirit of the Valley Service Award.

Jamilyn as Laurie in the Cover Run of The Tender Land

Jamilyn as Laurie in the cover run of The Tender Land

BB: When did you first realize you were interested in music and performing arts?

Jamilyn: Growing up in a very musical family, I’ve always been surrounded by music and the performing arts.  I remember listening to Chopin, Debussy, Gershwin, Beethoven, Mozart, Greig, etc. and learned all the piano classics from listening to my mother play at home.  My parents took me to see ballets and musicals in Salt Lake City and at the Cache Valley Civic Ballet and I absorbed every minute of it.  My Grandma Bennion (mother’s side) was a prominent strings teacher in Cache Valley and Northern Utah, and I remember visiting on Sunday evenings and she would play for us.  I remember telling my Grandma, “One day, I will play the violin and I’ll be good at it!”  At an early age, I’ve always been determined to work hard to pursue my dreams.  I later did study violin with her for several years until deciding to pursue singing  full-time.

I grew up dancing at the age of 5 and started taking piano lessons from my mother at the same age.  My Grandma Manning (father’s side) was an opera singer and I’ll never forget when she gave me my first voice lesson at the age of 8.  I still have her hand-written vocal exercises she wrote out for me and I’ll always cherish that small piece of paper!  I continued studying Tap, and Jazz, but Ballet was always my favorite.  I loved how challenging the technique was and when I did it right, it was so satisfying and so beautiful to watch. 

At the age of 12, I started taking voice lessons and violin lessons from my Grandma Bennion.  I think it wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized I wanted to pursue singing.  I received a full-ride scholarship my senior year in high school to study at Utah State University and I’ve been singing ever since.

Jamilyn as Laurie in the Cover Run of The Tender Land

Jamilyn as Laurie in the cover run of The Tender Land

BB: What made you pursue the YAAP at Glimmerglass Opera?

Jamilyn: Back in 2008, I did a lot of research of several Young Artist programs. Glimmerglass was one of the top of my list.  The 2009 season offered several roles that I could sing, so I applied.  I sang for Glimmerglass in Chicago and had a great audition.  When Don Marrazzo, formerly Glimmerglass’s Director of Casting and Artistic Operations, called me in November to offer my singing contract I was actually about to compete in a competition in Palm Springs, California.  It was all I could do to not burst with excitement!      

Jamilyn Performs Alongside Other YAAP Females in the Killer B's Concert

Jamilyn Performs alongside other YAAP females in the Killer B's Concert

BB: As an opera singer you are frequently traveling. What three possessions do you make sure to have with you while on the road?

Jamilyn: I always keep a picture of me and my husband on our wedding day wherever I travel.  I always keep my music on my person with my roll-up piano keyboard that fits in my music bag.   Lastly, I always bring my vitamins, sinus rinse and medicine with me, just in case I start feeling under the weather.

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Brittaney Brentzel, August 17th 2010 | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in 2010 Festival, The Tender Land, Young American Artists

Glimmerglass on WSKG

WSKG’s Bill Snyder and Greg Keeler joined us in mid-June to record several interviews with cast and creative team members of the 2010 productions.

They met and spoke with Tosca‘s Lise Lindstrom and Adam Diegel and director Ned Canty. You can here the interview online here. Next, Bill interviewed The Tender Land director Tazewell Thompson, conductor Stewart Robertson and Lindsay Russell, who sings Laurie in the opera. Listen to their conversation here.

To hear Anthony Roth Costanzo, Joélle Harvey and director Chas Rader-Shieber discuss Tolomeo, click here.  Michael MacLeod discusses The Marriage of Figaro, here.

Visit WSKG’s blog for more on their trip to Cooperstown.

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Brittany Lesavoy, July 26th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in 2010 Festival

Time to Dry Rye

The Tender Land is an American opera that takes place in the Midwest. Set Designer Donald Eastman has incorporated a field of four-foot-tall wheat into his design for the opera – not an uncommon sight when traveling through the plains. You may remember our previous post on our visit to Cooperstown’s Farmers’ Museum for research on which grain might work best for our purposes. We had discovered that wheat doesn’t actually grow to be four feet tall. In an ideal world, we would probably have triticale, a rye/wheat hybrid. However, we don’t have quite enough growing in this area for our uses.

Farmer Rick at The Farmers’ Museum put us in touch with Paul Newjack, a farmer in nearby Milford. He donated 400 square feet of rye to the set of The Tender Land. Abby Rodd, Director of Production, and some of her team members went to harvest it last week. We borrowed the sythes seen in the pictures below from The Farmers’ Museum. After a quick lesson on using the sythes from Farmer Rick, the team was off to Paul Newjack’s farm. The wheat was laid out to dry in front of our scene shop yesterday. Next, we will spray it all down with water to help bleach it and then we will fire proof it.

Rodd said we will probably have to purchase some triticale to mix in with the rye. Designer Eastman prefers the bigger head on the triticale, but the rye will be used to create a thicker field of wheat on stage.

Abby gathers rye.

Abby gathers rye.

 

Bret and Kirby, both on the stage operations staff, hard at work.

Bret and Kirby, both on the Stage Operations staff, hard at work.

 

Keegan, Production Management Intern, in the rye field.

Keegan, Production Management Intern, in the rye field.

 

Kirby surveys his work.

Kirby surveys his work.

 

The rye dries outside the scene shop. Photo: Claire McAdams

The rye dries outside the scene shop. Photo: Claire McAdams

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Brittany Lesavoy, June 3rd 2010 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2010 Festival, Production Department, The Tender Land

Introducing the 2010 Young American Artists

Young Artists in last year's "Latin Lovers" concert

Young Artists in last year's "Latin Lovers" concert

Our 2010 Young American Artists joined us in Cooperstown this week, and their days are already filled with orientations, costume fittings, coachings and chorus rehearsals.

We are very proud of our Young American Artists Program (YAAP), which provides training and performance experience for talented singers at the beginning of their professional careers.  The program, founded in 1988, has become a core aspect of our Festival. Each year, the program receives about 700-800 applications. About 200 singers are heard in live audition, and between 30 and 40 singers are granted positions. Click here to read about the 2010 program participants.

While here, the singers receive coachings and master classes. Each singer either presents a solo recital in Cooperstown or Cherry Valley or performs in a concert, such as this year’s Killer B’s concert featuring Steven Blier. The Young American Artists generally sing smaller roles in the operas and cover or understudy principal roles (like that of, say, Tosca). This year, however, the entire cast of The Tender Land, which composer Aaron Copland wrote for young singers, will be made up of Young American Artists. Stewart Robertson, who helped found the program in 1988, returns this summer to conduct the American opera.

Introducing the cast of The Tender Land (in order of vocal appearance):

Beth Moss: Rebecca Jo Loeb

Ma Moss: Stephanie Foley Davis

Mr. Splinters: Chris Lysack

Laurie Moss: Lindsay Russell

Top: Mark Diamond

Martin: Andrew Stenson

Grandpa Moss: Joseph Barron

Mrs. Jenks: Jamilyn Manning-White

Mrs. Splinters: Claire Shackleton

Mr. Jenks: Will Liverman

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Brittany Lesavoy, May 26th 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in 2010 Festival

Glimmerglass Lighting Designer Nominated for Tony Award

Robert Wierzel

Robert Wierzel

Robert Wierzel, lighting designer for this summer’s The Tender Land and Tolomeo, has been nominated for a 2010 Tony Award for his lighting design for Fela! on Broadway.

“I saw Fela! a couple of months ago, and the lighting totally blew me away,” said Abby Rodd, Glimmerglass Opera Director of Production. ”I’m so proud of Robert.”

Wierzel has been designing for Glimmerglass Opera since 1989, and after the 2010 Festival, he will have designed 35 productions with the company. You may remember his work on 2008’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto or 2009’s La Traviata.

When he isn’t designing at Glimmerglass, his work takes him across the country and beyond. In addition to his other Broadway credits, David Copperfield’s Dreams and Nightmares and the play The Deep Blue Sea, he has designed Off-Broadway for New York Shakespeare Festival/Public Theater, Signature Theatre Company, the Roundabout Theatre Company and Playwrights Horizons. He has collaborated with Grace Jones (Hurricane Tour), the composer Philip Glass and with opera companies of Paris (Garnier), Tokyo, San Francisco, Seattle, Houston, Washington, Chicago and New York. Wierzel has also collaborated with Fela! director and choreographer Bill T. Jones and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company for 25 years, including work at the Lyon Opera Ballet; Berlin Opera Ballet and The Louvre Museum (Walking the Line). 

Fela! is the true story of the legendary Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, whose Afrobeat rythms ignited a generation. Inspired by his mother, a civil rights champion, he defied a corrupt and oppressive military government and devoted his life and music to the struggle for freedom and human dignity.

Click here to read an interview with Wierzel about his design process for Fela! on LiveDesign.com.

The 2010 Tony Awards will be telecast, live on CBS on June 13 at 8:00 p.m.

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Brittany Lesavoy, May 18th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in 2010 Festival, Artistic Department, Production Department

The Faces Behind “The Tender Land”

On Monday evening, the Glimmerglass Opera Guild held the first installment of the annual “Talking Opera” series at Christ Church in Cooperstown. The free series is presented each spring and includes educational seminars that delve into the upcoming Festival productions.

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

About 70 people arrived to hear the first seminar offered by Dr. Fiona M. Dejardin, Professor of Art History at Hartwick College. Dejardin’s teaching at Hartwick centers on 19th and 20th Century Art, history of photography and print, women and art and more. She was the perfect person to discuss the inspiration for Aaron Copland’s second opera, The Tender Land, which was ultimately inspired by Let us Now Praise Famous Men, by writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is a mostly documentary-style book that explores the lives of three sharecropper families in the South during the 1930s.

Dejardin led the audience through Copland’s thought process in discerning the subject matter for his only full-length opera, and we learned that there were initial thoughts of using Erskine Caldwell’s novel Tragic Ground. Actually, “Stomp Your Foot Upon The Floor” from Act II of The Tender Land was drafted for his original concept. Dejardin played this song for the audience and then remarked, “If you didn’t know this was The Tender Land, you would probably still know it was Copland.”

But it was the photographs in the beginning of Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, which only sold 1,000 copies when it was initially published, from which librettist Erik Johns took his cue. In fact, Dejardin said Johns did not actually read the book, but merely looked at the photographs of the Southern tenant farmers and their living spaces.

Lucille Buroughs

Lucille Buroughs

Photo historian Dejardin displayed the photographs of the people who inspired the characters in The Tender Land – Allie Mae Burroughs (Ma Moss) and Lucille Burroughs (Laurie).

She also discussed the differences between Let Us Now Praise Famous Men and The Tender Land. While both take place in the 1930s, The Tender Land takes place in the Midwest as opposed to the South, and Laurie is much older than the character’s initial inspiration – 10-year-old Lucille Burroughs.

These are just a few of the interesting and insightful comments Dejardin expressed during her hour-long exploration of The Tender Land and its manifestation. The audience was thrilled with what they had learned about the American opera, which will open July 10.

Allie Mae Burroughs

Allie Mae Burroughs

“Dr. Fiona Dejardin’s presentation was a superb glimpse into the background of Aaron Copland’s opera The Tender Land. The talk touched on several areas of particular interest to me personally – photography, rare books, architecture, and, of course, opera,” said Guild President Ed Brodzinsky. “What makes this so fascinating to me is how so much history and art has come together in this work – the music of Aaron Copland, the libretto of Erik Johns, the photography of Walker Evans, the writing of James Agee – and how all of that is used to interpret a period in American history in such a real way.”

The “Talking Opera” series continues May 17 at 7 p.m., when General & Artistic Director Michael MacLeod will discuss Handel, Mozart, and the Early Music Movement.

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Brittany Lesavoy, May 12th 2010 | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Food for Thought

Copland on my mind

Set model for The Tender Land

Set model for The Tender Land. Photo: Gabriel Oshen

Our 2010 Festival will include performances of Aaron Copland’s The Tender Land, and I’ve spent much of the fall happily immersed in all things Copland. The Brooklyn-born composer was born in 1900 and lived until 1990. His life spanned nearly the entire century, during which he met and worked with many remarkable individuals—a study of his life very quickly become an survey of American musical/cultural life in the twentieth century. Two books he completed with the help of Vivian Perlis, Copland: 1900-1942 and Copland: Since 1943, weave in first-person recollections from people like Nadia Boulanger, Leonard Bernstein, Virgil Thomson, Martha Graham… to name a few.

In September, I spent some time with the Aaron Copland Collection at the Library of Congress, a truly marvelous institution. It takes about as much time to obtain a reader’s card as it does to renew your driver’s license at a small-town DMV. With that card, I was able to request boxes of correspondence between Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein. Not photocopies, but the actual letters, telegrams, etc. If you’re not planning to be in Washington, DC anytime soon, many of the letters have been scanned and are available here. 

Last Friday, the designers and directors of the 2010 season presented their preliminary ideas to a small group of staff and board members. The production for The Tender Land, designed by Donald Eastman and directed by Tazewell Thompson, reminds me of the music—spacious and simple, yet richly textured.

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Kelley Rourke, December 8th 2009 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Between Festivals

Wheat or Rye? Research for The Tender Land Scenery

Abby Rodd, Glimmerglass’s Director of Production, and Joel Morain (A/V Coordinator) traveled to The Farmers’ Museum, where Abby did some research on materials for the scenery of our 2010 production of The Tender Land.
The Farmers’ Museum is one of the oldest rural life museums in the country and provides visitors the opportunity to experience 19th-century rural and village life first-hand. The people who work there have a great understanding of the rural heritage that has shaped our land and culture.

 

Abby on her way to meet Farmer Rick and Farmer Wayne

Abby on her way to meet Farmer Rick and Farmer Wayne

The Tender Land follows the story of a farm family, and the scenic design calls for four-foot-tall wheat. Last week, Abby made a call to The Farmers’ Museum for advice. She spoke with Farmer Wayne and discovered that wheat doesn’t actually grow to be four feet tall – rye might be better, he said. He told her to stop by to discuss details.

 

Chatting about rye

Chatting about rye

Abby explained we will probably need 5 by 40 feet of rye to create a backdrop for the set of The Tender Land. Rye is usually planted in the fall, and we are hoping to find rye tall enough for our purposes come June. Farmer Wayne pointed out that the rye might be a little green so early in the summer. Abby said we will have to flame proof the rye anyway, and maybe we can tint the flame proofing material to adjust the color of the rye.

Rye

They had some rye on hand as an example.

Yes, this is about four-feet tall.

Yes, this is about four feet tall.

They also recommended we look into using triticale, which is a hybrid between wheat and rye. It’s a little stiffer, and since we want the grain to stand tall on the set of The Tender Land, it might be better for our purposes, they said. 

L to R: Farmer Rick, Abby and Farmer Wayne

L to R: Farmer Wayne, Abby and Farmer Rick

Joel bonded with Zeb, the museum's Percheron, on the way out.

Joel bonded with Zeb, the museum's Percheron, on the way out.

 (You can read more about Zeb on this blog, written by The Farmers’ Museum’s blacksmith.)

Now to fit the rye in the Subaru.

Now to fit the rye in the Subaru.

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Brittany Lesavoy, October 21st 2009 | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Between Festivals, Production Department