LAYLA VINSON
Staff Writer
In the heart of a sleeping winter season 10 years ago, renowned librettist Jerre Dye hid in the Chautauqua Institution Archives researching and gathering 18 stories for potential operas to share with Director of Chautauqua Opera Company Steven Osgood. Striking in their vibrant history and universal themes, Osgood received the stories and began to reimagine his original goal of commissioning five, short standalone operas as something bigger — an all-encompassing evening piece titled The Summer Place.
“It’s called The Summer Place because [Chautauqua] really wakes up and comes alive,” Dye explained, recalling the stark contrast of his summer and winter seasons spent at Chautauqua Institution. “ … The overall structure of the whole opera is unique in many ways because it’s kind of a component opera. When finished, the whole piece will be a little over an hour.”
Joined by Richard Wargo’s zany one-act, The Music Shop, Chautauqua Opera Company will showcase two of those component pieces — A.E. Reverie and Ida by Lamplight — as part of a triple-bill performance at 8 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater. This will be preceded by an operalogue including excerpts from the opera performed by covers — artists who have prepared for the role in the case of extenuating circumstances — at 5 p.m. at Smith-Wilkes Hall.
Last seen at Chautauqua where it premiered in 1993, The Music Shop welcomes audiences with levity as the first and longest piece of the triple-bill, spanning approximately 50 minutes.
Citing the opera as joyous and fun, Osgood said he hopes to grant audiences the gift of laughter for the opening performance.
“The composer is definitely drawing on a lot of different styles of comedy,” said Tyrese Byrd, tenor and apprentice artist returning to Chautauqua Opera Company in his lead role as Ivan Stepanovich. “There’s some stuff that feels like sitcom stuff, but then there’s also a lot of ‘Monty Python’ type comedy in it, a little more slapstick. So I think it really is all across the board.”
While the decision to begin with comedy before transitioning towards more serious dramas goes against the grain of many traditional programs, Osgood’s creative decision is fueled by his belief that “the Chautauqua connection of A.E. Reverie and Ida by Lamplight completely wins out” over following typical multi-bill structure.
The composer and librettist of A.E. Reverie — Kamala Sankaram and Dye, respectively — upheld their own artistic proclivity in both the rhythmic format of the music and the unnamed lead within their opera reflecting on Amerlia Earhart’s 1929 lecture in the Amphitheater. After sitting on a bench on Bestor Plaza and chatting with Chautaquans, Dye felt that while everyone had an individual experience within the community, “there were these galvanizing principles that existed,” resulting in the lead character forming as a sort of across-the-board audience surrogate.
Tackling the one-woman production with excitement, Kelsey Watts, soprano and apprentice artist who previously studied with Chautauqua Opera Company in 2024, emphasized the opportunity to work alongside composers providing creative freedom.
“[Sankaram] even puts it in the score itself. Essentially what she’s saying is, ‘Let the drama inform your pacing as a singer,’” Watts explained. “I feel like in school we’re told to be very precise, so I like that in the end we’re given artistic license in this piece, and there’s a lot of room for every singer to make it their own. And, it’s actually encouraged by the composer.”
That opportunity for individuality in the performance is further heightened in the absence of contact with other singers, subsequently creating no lines that dictate how Watts should react. With such an open slate, the role harbors a rare quality that makes each performance distinctly innovative, setting the tone for the debut opera concluding the performance: Ida by Lamplight.
Celebrating the 150th anniversary of The Chautauquan Daily, the opera dives into the early years of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, headed by Kate Kimball alongside Ida Tarbell, editor of The Chautauquan and writer for The Chautauqua Assembly Herald. Composer Jeremy Gill and librettist Dye hope to relate to audiences on a highly personal level.
“There are some references specifically to the Amp in Ida…I think everyone here has had the experience of getting a backache in the wooden benches of the Amp, especially the old ones,” Gill laughed, drawing on his own experience at Chautauqua since first cresting the hill over Mayville in 1996. “It was fun for me to have been there and to have experienced that, and I knew that everybody would empathize with that.”
Despite the story unfolding entirely at night, Gill deemed the music energetic and fast as an embodiment of Tarbell’s spirit. Further emphasizing her intensity and passion, the unique and primary musical motif encompassing the opera serves as a “literal manifestation of the written word.”
“[Ida is] very eager; she does not know how to turn it off in her mind. She’s always thinking about writing these letters for this next generation, because if they don’t learn it now, then no one will teach it but her,” said SarahAnn Duffy, a mezzo-soprano and apprentice artist who first worked with Chautauqua Opera Company in 2023, who now plays the lead role of Ida Tarbell. “There’s a lot of urgency in it, and I think with the way the lines are in the writing of the music are kind of windy. And I think it can very well go along with that aspect of her character.”
Osgood has described the multi-year production experience to be “extraordinarily gratifying” as he observes growing appreciation for new work and its ability to communicate in such direct ways. Upholding the values of Chautauqua and its history, Osgood said he hopes pertinent themes of respectful dialogue and empathy are ones that can someday sail beyond Chautauqua Lake upon the eventual completion of The Summer Place.
“Families have been here for generations, back to the time when Amelia Earhart landed her plane. Back to the time when Ida and Kate were doing their thing,” Watts said. “People were probably here when The Music Shop premiered. There’s that thread that’s unique to this specific place. People move around all the time, and they always come back to Chautauqua.”
