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Unknown: Music Director and maestra Marin also joined tonight by stage director of Little Women, Peter khazars. Join me in welcoming. Good evening, everybody, another year. Here we are. It's great to

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see you. I hope you've had a warm meal tonight. But as Peter just said, it's very much like being in New England, which will set you up well, for the opera tonight. And I thought we'd start by talking a bit about this wonderful opera, written in

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1998 by a very close friend of mine named Marga, Damo. And it's, it's great to see a new opera and American opera, getting so many productions. I don't even know how many over 20 i think i

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think well, there are, I think there have been at least 12 new productions, which is kind of amazing. And I think there have been including revivals, I think we're up to 20. Or this summer alone, there are four, there's cabrio should talk well,

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Glimmerglass Opera in the Ozarks, it's phenomenal, we're gonna win new PCs will definitely win. I don't know what will win. But the I think that, that it's always very, very encouraging for a new piece to get that kind

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of reception. And I think part of the popularity of the piece, not only is it's very melodic and very, very listenable, but also the subject is one that we all remember from reading the book is as kids or even more recently, and I think this idea

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of combining something old with something new is extremely appealing. And it lends itself well to I think all kinds of creative inspirations I have to write, we have to have True Confessions here. I never

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read Little Women when I was a kid, because why I wasn't a little woman. I'm not gonna read that. So I tried reading little men. And I thought, you know, that was that. But I did see the Winona Ryder movie a few years ago. And I thought this is a

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great movie. Yeah. And after I got involved in this project, I started looking at some of the other ones. And it's, the fact is, then I read the book. And so there I am proudly displaying Little Women on the subway in New York reading it. And I'm I

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guess I'm reading other women. And it's a great book. It's a great book, because the characters are so real, and the that what we've found in working on this ETS, is just that there are so many times when the dilemmas that they're going

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through are things that you that we've all gone through. That's basically what it's about. It's not a big surprise that it's it's hard to the growing up is about accepting what is in the world and moving on and moving ahead and just understanding

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that you've been given a certain hand, which may change in a year or tomorrow. But you still have to go with it. Yeah, I love that. It's so different though from from me. I'm always trying to grow up away from things and Joe's

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always trying to hang on to Well, yeah, sure, a little bit different. So tell us a little bit about how you, you know, conceptualize this production. And you know what your process is?

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Well, I should ask, since I sort of feel like I don't want to give away any surprises. But are most of you coming to the show tonight? Then we'll stop talking now. No.

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So finish your dinner say later? No, it's well, there's certain how do I say this is a certain things that you have to do if you're producing Opera in a situation where they have to do a performance on a Sunday afternoon, which ends at 430 and

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then put on a concert for an orchestra at 8pm. In a theater in the same theater, right. So we had to have a set which could come out and in very quickly. So I think we achieve that. And you will see probably in half an hour just how we did that I

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won't. I'll just keep the surprise going. But we have seven objects which we have on stage, which are living and the singer sides, the singers, besides the living singers and which help us provide a beautiful atmosphere and then a

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few built set pieces. And that was very much about what we have at our disposal here at cabrio. Right. So it really was it's a funny thing because Ellen when she was

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asking me to do that, she said, Well, you know, there's we don't have a huge budget for this, but we want you to do something creative. And I think we actually the fact of not having a huge budget really forced us to be creative and I hope

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artistic so it was great. It really worked wonderfully. I think it's absolutely stunning because there's something for me, there's something so innocent and and simple but not simple in a pejorative sense about the story. And I find the

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way you've done it absolutely brilliant. Thank you. I appreciate that. The point about Little Women is that it is a story which is Full of sentiment, it's full of emotion and full of rather strong emotion, sometimes

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actually rather dark emotion. But it cannot be a story that is full of sentimentality. So it has to be something that is real. That's why the book has been around for as long as it has, I'm convinced that it's not just about saccharin, or, you

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know, we're all supposed to be good little girls, because the fact is, a lot of the time, they're not good little girls. And the boys aren't good little boys, things happen to these people. And they really make difficult and important choices.

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So it's kind of great. From that point of view. It's it I think we're trying to make it on saccharin is what we're going for here. And we have a fantastic cast Ray cast. Yeah, they're really

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spectacular. Just pass the Joe. The Joe in the lorry in the hallway, one was made up, the other one wasn't made up and they were walking past each other like a scene from dead man walking. They were

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just like walking in the halls talking to themselves, going over lines. And I was like, Hi guys. And they were like, Oh, hi. It's great. It's that pre show performer thing. And the somehow the the four sisters for me, they they're

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perfect together, too. They all have very, very distinctive personalities, but they also share some kind of sentiment, um, well, amongst it's interesting. They all, they all have done the roles before. Three of them have

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done them together in one production. So that meant they were pretty close. And it was very fun. Three of them are living together here in Santa Cruz. So it was very funny when we were first starting rehearsals, and I would say

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something to one of them. You know, I don't know if you understand when I say this kind of thing. The other is like, Oh, she knows Oh, yeah, she's really good at that. They were very much like sisters, sort of all in each other's face and

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everything. It was a lot of fun. And how about putting a production together in such a short timeframe. I mean, this was, this was pretty unusual, because what day are we on now? I can't have lost track of time.

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As soon as I get here. We're on Friday. So I guess the first time I saw you was last Friday? Yeah, right. Well, we started rehearsals two, Monday's ago. And the first day was just sort of Meet and Greet, see everybody get together

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fittings. One of our singers had to go off and do another job in the middle of the rehearsal period. So it was imperative to go and stage everything that he was in before he left. So we began staging at two first, which we started on Tuesday. So

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we started staging on Tuesday. And on Sunday night, we had a run through that's basically six days of staging, minus a few sessions for music, which is insane. That's very unusual. I mean, when I do an opera production,

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it's several months. You know, I mean, at least several weeks. Well, yeah, man, I'm usually in this country. It's like three weeks, four weeks, three

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weeks, four weeks, sometimes even a little bit more. So this is we've also it's interesting, because one of the things which I had, do you know, do you remember that there's actually a

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game in the in the book called truth or fabrication, which is a game they play with laundry, where they all sort of just they clean up the laundry and folded up and the person who finishes first, who whose finishes last has to answer questions about

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you know, who's your boyfriend, that kind of thing. And I always knew that this would be a difficult scene to stage. And indeed it was, but I had wanted to do it in a specific way, which has never been done before. And Mark was very happy

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to hear that we were doing it in a little bit of a different way. And the girls when they heard when I said the girls, I mean the Little Women. They said, Oh, it'll be much easier that way. Because it's so difficult to stage the scene. We spent four

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days on it, and Ashkelon it's great that you're doing it this way. Well, of course, it still took forever. We're doing it in a in a different way. Which was, of course, just as difficult as the original way. That's life.

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Yeah, there's a lot of running around. I mean, it's one thing you know, when you're conducting you rehearse the music, and they're all sitting right in front of you. Then suddenly, you know, I go to cue people. And there's all kinds of interesting

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things on the stage. I can't find anyone and then there's laundry everywhere, you know, and they're buried deep, doesn't help you when we have when we have what we call a zip probe when just

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sing it's no action. People are just standing on stage or sitting. Does it help when they are in their relative positions on stage? I think it's better.

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Yeah, sort of teaches you that that cue is there when you only have one shot, you know, you get used to things extremely quickly figured. But I also think we should talk a little bit about the score. Because Mark Adama, he's the

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presently the composer in residence for New York City Opera. Is he working? I think he's starting a new opera now. Well, the the Dracula one. Yeah. Yeah. No, because lysistrata is something that's coming back. Actually, he's going to do it

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but later, and I think he's starting a new opera based on Dracula, which should be quite amazing. Yeah. And he's, I think you'll be interested because he uses a we're not amplifying the singers at all, but he uses an

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incredibly intelligent orchestration. It's really it's strings and then it's just 12345 wins being flute who has to play she has to play All three instruments the piccolo flute and the alto flute, and then oboe, who also has to play

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English horn clarinet who has to play bass clarinet. bassoon plays contrabassoon, but it's just one player. So it's never more than one of those lines going at once and horn, and then strings and keyboards and percussion. And I think the way

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he's orchestra mark is, I don't know if any of you have ever heard him talk. He's unbelievable. He's kind of his mind. He thinks, not only in sentences, he thinks in paragraphs and an entire pages.

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At the beginning, he knows you need to have a lot of time to me to have a lot of time. And he he's so the opposite of me, because I start and half the time I don't even know where I'm going. But

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he really, it's amazing what, how articulate he is. And he's also incredibly well read and incredibly well educated. I know he's a big fan of Benjamin Britten. And because we've talked him, I've done a lot of written stuff. And you know,

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Britain wrote a lot of art pieces for small group for the English opera group for Albert herring, turn of the screw, a rape of Lucretia pieces like that. And I am sure that mark really spent a lot of time figuring out who did what, in

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these in these orchestras, so that he could make it easier. And he also, we should say that he also wrote the libretto himself. So that's no small feat for a composer but it also I think, makes it much more of an organic. Well,

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the thing is, he really knows what he wants, which is also it's not only a challenge, it's sometimes it's scary. Because we sat down, we sat down for a lunch, which, you know, we both thought it was going to be two hours was four and a half hours

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at this restaurant, where he basically went through this piece and said, these are the things that have never worked. I wanted this to be like this. No one has ever gotten that I wanted this to be like that. No one has ever done that. Right

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either. Good luck, and which is a challenge, of course. And then sometimes you come to the point what if you disagree with him? What if you think you know better, that's scary. Especially because he's,

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but he's not here till Sunday. So by that time, he won't be able to change anything. So that's the that's the key as to when you invite a composer. Live and learn with Marinol brought to

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you by but I should mention also, I mean, it's interesting because we're also doing a wait and hopping if you want or we'll go back to the upper also. But we're also doing a concert on Sunday night of music first time ever in the entire world. That

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full concert is devoted to the music of Christopher Rouse. And it's been very exciting to put his music together. As you know, I'm I'm a huge fan of his I love Mark's music, john corigliano Chris Ross, these are top of my list people. And today he came

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to the rehearsal for the first time it was our dress rehearsal because of the opera. We I know, it's like two days, but suddenly, then to have the composer come in after you've done the bulk of the work, and, you know, with ideas and

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tweaking things that you hadn't really thought of and hadn't been able to get to. I mean, it's hard to change and adapt. I mean, so he was was this was he coming in for the first time the first

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time so yeah, yeah. That's always did you have the session with him afterwards where he's like, just a few though. He said, Can we have lunch and I said I was busy. No, of course not. No, I could tell I can kind of read him, you know, his eyes

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now. And I didn't see any looming disaster. So I thought it would be I was okay. I've been involved in a bunch of world premieres in my life. I've been lucky. I also sing and I have over the past 20 plus years

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I've been in world premieres of operas BY JOHN corigliano ghosts of Versailles at the Met. Bernstein, quiet place, Tippett and fascinating to see the different ways these things come together a Tippett piece, we received a printed bound score

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nine months in advance from shot. I mean, all done finished. And I kept thinking, you know, even in pieces like Madame Butterfly, I mean, Puccini didn't get it right the first time and he had to go back and fix it. How does this guy know

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that people can even sing this stuff? Because it was really, really hard. But seeing it he did. And of course with Bernstein, we would sort of come into rehearsal and the ink would be wet. Right? And it was fantastic. But it's it's amazing

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how that some places where they do pieces, they will go to any lengths to keep the composer away. Yeah, for like the first. I don't know, sometimes two, three weeks, I just did it Tobias picker piece and we were late. He was there. And it was

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great. He because he's very, very attuned to what works and what doesn't work. And actually, he'd written a whole bunch of stuff that was so difficult that no human could sing it and he was like, oh, gee, I guess this is really difficult. So on the

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spot, just recomposed Oh, wow. He just precomposed right there in the room. And he was willing to Absolutely. When we heard the girls wonderful sing, young,

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young, very young, very talented woman doing terez rock had a role which really has the vocal requirements of his older, low to high dramatic it's he's built it as a dramatic metso it has high seas. Oh my god ology It's unbelievable. Yeah. Which is

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kind of what this role is too. And she would be singing along and it wasn't even a question of high notes. It was more TESSA tura She'd say, I can sing high A's. I can sing high B flats. But come on, I can sing eight in a row, but I can't sing 12.

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Right. And he's like, Okay, well, how about if I give you five? Will that make you happy? I don't know if you know, kind of like he or he's like, I'll give you five. She's like, thank you.

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It's a there's a great story about a friend of mine who played horn. Long time ago in the Boston Symphony, he said, when koussevitzky was there, conducting the premiere of The Bartok Concerto for orchestra Bartok was there. And he was,

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you know, yelling out things like no, no, no, you know, from the audience just going crazy. And koussevitzky said, someone get him a pad and paper, you know, and let him and the musicians looked, and he was just, you know, page after page

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after page. And so then, because of this, he said, Okay, let's take our break now. And so the musicians thought, Oh, God, you know, we're gonna be here for five days. And he came back after the break. And he said, Well, Mr. Bartok says, It's

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perfect. I thought that was great, you know, worked him over in the back room. But you probably didn't have a chance. Or maybe you did have a little chance that the another exciting part of this festival, and especially I think, in

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celebration of the 40th anniversary, because this festival is all about sharing and participating, you know, and it's open to each one of you to participate to whatever degree you feel comfortable and and want to. But we added last year,

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for the first time a workshop for young conductors. And then we expanded it this year, and we added a workshop for young composers as well. And I think that was an incredible experience and an incredible awakening for the composers and

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the conductors, the seven conductors that we selected stayed on. And we're assigned three, two and two, to one of each of the composers pieces. And watching the composers have to change things, you know, when they hear it for the first time.

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And what's very hard for the conductor to do. I mean, I think this is an important educational process for some composers just aren't in touch with what's really going to end up an app. No kidding. Yeah. And how much time they'll actually end up

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having with the orchestra or how to even behave, you know, when talking to investors. And so this was a fantastic so maybe next year, we have to, you know, have young directors in your free time. That's Yeah, right. Yeah.

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It's an interesting it's an it's, well, I did hear that composers that conductors workshop because we were hard at work doing and it was like a huge note session or something. And all of a sudden, I'm hearing Brahms. And I'm like, Where's

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the cabrio festival here? Wait a minute. This is Fred Brahms. It was great, though. And it was fun for the orchestra to to play wonderful play a little bit of Brahms in the, in the midst of all this Rouse. And I was really glad that Chris wasn't here,

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because we have this argument every summer because he hates Brahms. It's his most hated composer. So I purposely put Brahms and Rouse on the workshop, but I haven't been able to tell him yet,

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together in music, Kevin, I will definitely do that. So I want to just say something because I dropped the I dropped the ball on one of your questions. And I just wanted to

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say I don't want to oversell it. But the thing about the singers is that they are really great. And what you will also notice is they really look like and act like the characters whom they're playing. The you know, the we call them, the kids and the

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grown ups and the grown ups are grown up but not to grown up. And the kids are kids but not to kids because they after I mean, there are certain things you just have to be able to do you couldn't do if a 19 year old singer tried to sing this opera

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she would. That would be the end, because it's really, really difficult technically. But I think it's been amazingly cast. I really, really lucky, absolutely be incredibly lucky. And it's funny because four of the older singers, our friends,

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older singers that kill me, they're back there right now sharpening their knives are friends of mine, whom I've known and worked with for 20 years. And they're all they're all wonderfully quirky, and inventive and different. And

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they have, there's no one who's white bread. And this cast, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. Well, I think I think that's what makes it exciting. And I think also that, that you've been friends for a long time

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brings in the whole spirit of what we have here is which is really trying to bring good friends together to share new friends. Yeah, my hosts who are sitting over there being very

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supportive. We sit and have coffee in the morning and she's like, how was the rehearsal? And then she tells me what she thought about seeing this and then she's usually always like, right on and I'm like, Huh,

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and then you send me an email telling me what to do next. So it's really your host that's me rapping No, she's not given the music notes here with the music, but don't the hosts always direct the shows? So listen comes down to

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it. What can you say? Anyway, I think you'll really enjoy the performance tonight. And if you can please come to hear the all Rouse concert Sunday night and yet another fantastic singer you

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probably haven't heard her yet. Have her Yeah. Well, Dean Anderson is singing a piece some based on text by Kabir, who was an Indian philosopher around 1400 incredible sounds and she's phenomenal. And then next week, my good friend Michael

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Dougherty, who's also a wonderful composer. We've done a lot of his music. We're featuring several of his pieces and percussionist Evelyn Glennie will be here. So lots and lots of stuff to look forward to. And I'm sure the sun will come out

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by tomorrow at least, but it'll be on inside. Yeah, roast inside. That's the good news. So please enjoy the evening. And thank you so much, Peter, for being here.

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Appreciate it. Thank you.