 This is St. Tech, Hawaii. The community matters here. Passion, right? Okay, we're back, we're live. We're into the passion of opera. It always, nearly always makes me cry. I'm Jay Fidel, and I love opera. This is opera in Hawaii, and my co-host is Lynn Johnson. She's member of the Opera Board. She's also an instructor of opera in various places. We'll ask her about that. Welcome to the show, Lynn. Thank you, and thank you for having me. This is a great show, and opera's fabulous. So that's why we're here. It is indeed. And our special guest today, Leslie Goldman McInerney, who's an opera singer with Hawaii Opera Theatre. She's also part of the education department of Hawaii Opera Theatre, and she's part of Carmen. She's a gypsy in Carmen. The name of her character is Frasquita. Yes. Yeah, we're gonna talk more about that in a minute. But let's have a full discussion, Lynn, of, well, first, let's have the news. You had a talk last week, a few days ago. We did, yes, a week ago, Wednesday, and I guess I give this for every opera. And this is at the Doris Duke Theatre, and it's 10 o'clock in the morning, about a week and a half before the actual first performance of the opera. And I talked about a half an hour. I have a PowerPoint, and then I interview the cast. And so it gets people geared up. It gets people geared up, and it's lots of fun. And of course, with Carmen, there was a lot to talk about. Yes, what did you say? Well, okay, this is gonna be fun. I talked about basically the basic plot of most operas. And you know what the basic plot is? It's like high school. A likes B, and B likes C, right? You're in love with somebody else, but they like somebody else. So you have this in Carmen. So the plot of Carmen is A likes B, and for a while, B likes A. But then B falls for C. And C and B like each other for a while, and then C falls in love with D, so B kills C. And there you have the plot of Carmen. It sounds a little bit like a Seinfeld episode, except it's more serious. It's very serious, but it's a wonderful story. It's a wonderful story. And what's interesting is not only the story itself, but the background of the opera. And it's Bizet, here is this fabulous, George Bizet, fabulous French composer who hasn't quite made it. He's only like 36 years old. He's had almost hits, but everybody knows he's a good composer, and he knows that Carmen is gonna be the turning point of his career. The problem is that this wonderful opera Carmen is presented in the Opera Comique, which is a family theater. You're just supposed to have Walt Disney stuff at the Opera Comique. This is the Opera Comique venue in Paris, right? In downtown Paris, yeah. That's right. And so what happens is that you have Carmen, and there was the assistant, I guess, producer of this, or director of this wonderful opera theater, and they said, you're gonna have Carmen. I mean, doesn't she kill by her lover? I mean, you have all these gypsies, and then you have these thieves. We can't do this. It's not funny. We cannot do this. This is a family theater. People do not die, do not have or die. You cannot have this. And then the librettist came to him and said, look, I mean, we're gonna soften her character, and we're gonna have gypsies, but they're gonna be comic gypsies, and we're introducing a woman that is totally chased with wonderful family values. And she's gonna, Micaela, and she's gonna be in there, and then she does die, but we sneak it in at the end, and after a wonderful fanfare and celebration and the bright sunlight, it's gonna be fine. And his answer was, you can't have or die, and he finally resigned. Over that issue. Over that issue. And then they went on. But the opera went on. The opera went on, and they found the perfect Carmen, and Gali Margiel. Ooh, Celestine, she was like a Carmen herself. She was married at 15, a widow at 21, and then she was having an affair with another composer before the opera began, and then she and Bisey had an affair. I mean, she was perfect, she was perfect, but the audience was shocked. They were totally shocked, and they didn't know what to make of it, and it bombed. Ooh. Actually, it didn't totally bombed. People said, this isn't quite right, and then it was sort of dammed with faint craze. And so it never made any money. Bisey died three months to the day after this opera. Oh, what a shame. He never knew that Carmen was gonna be the fabulous master. It's the C in ABC, isn't it? That's right, it is. Aida, Baram, and Carmen is one of the most popular operas in the world, and he died three months after it opened, what a shame. Yes, yes, yes. So anyway, it's really something, yeah. Well, okay, so you spoke about that at your talk, and then you will speak about that again at your Lanai talks just before the opera, and the opera is opening this Friday. It's opening this Friday. Friday the 13th, not a good day for Carmen, not a good day for Carmen, but you know what, it's worth it. It's got absolutely gorgeous music, and what's really neat about it is that when Carmen was first written, it was written for the Apocome, which has spoken dialogue, and we usually think of Carmen with recitatif. We have spoken dialogue taken from the original production. In this production opening Friday, that's faithful to the history of the opera. That's faithful to the history, so it moves the dialogue right along, and we have superscripts. If your French is in the top form, you can read those superscripts, and you know what's going on, and Leslie plays one of Carmen's very close friends. I think it's time to introduce Leslie to our audience. Yes, I'd like to introduce Leslie, Goldman Machiner, and she was born in Hawaii, born in Hawaii. I think, I'm not sure when you realize your talent, but instead of going to Punahou, everybody goes to Punahou or something like that, she went to the Interlaken Arts School in Michigan, because she was so talented, and then to the Manhattan School of Music, and I can tell you she's very talented. Thank you. We're all gonna see you on Friday, yeah. Yes, uh-oh. Yeah, so we don't get super titles. You said that you were actually born into music. Tell us about it. I wasn't necessarily born into music. My family all loves music, but my mother said when the doctor was bringing her her new baby, she heard this loud, loud screaming from the other end of the hospital, and she was like, oh no, and it was me, so I suppose I've always wanted to express loudly. Yeah, that's not screaming, it's rehearsal. Right, that's a, it's my welcome to the world, Aria. Well, this is the thing about opera singing, and this is the thing about opera. You don't have mics. You have to project. So she has a big voice. You have to have. And it's a beautiful voice, and it's gotta be big. It can't be pretty and nice. It's gotta be beautiful and powerful. That's also why we always have a day in between to rest. They don't do operas back to back to back. Yeah, and you have to warm up, too, before you're actually singing on the stage. So it's like bookends. You have to warm up, and then you have to cool down. Exactly, yes, yes. The next performance, yeah, yeah. And this is your debut, right? This is my debut. Oh, wow. This is news. We have a scoop here. Beyond excited. Yeah, I can see. So what's your character like, Leslie? So my character, Fraschita, she is a thief. She is kind of flaky. She is a horrible, horrible flirt. She is absolutely obsessed with money. She kind of, she's all over all the guys. And I really enjoy playing her. It's a stretch, I know it's a stretch. I really have a hard time tapping into that part of myself. But I'm just kidding. I'm a flirt. She's not a shrinking violet. She is a supporting role, but there are no small roles. There are only small actors. There's nothing very small about me. So I'm really, really having fun. So did you know the role before? I mean, you had to study up for this particular performance, this opera. I never performed this role before. I had, of course, seen the opera. And I'd been in several Carmen choruses, but I had never actually performed her. So it was super fun. Yeah, it is super fun, yeah. So can you tell us the relationship of your character and Carmen? So I kind of, I'm a little bit jealous of Carmen sometimes because I have a very big crush on Escamillo, the Corridor. But we're best friends. We're her Mercedes, who is like my counterpart. We're with her all the time. We're the three female thieves. There's a point where the three of us are singing together, trying to lure Don Caillero or flirt with him. And it's fun. It's just like, we're three best friends. The girls out, yeah. And then there's one point where Micaela comes in and we're all standing just sneering at her. So we're like the mean girls. That's my favorite part. I said that. We're just like, who does she think she is? Is this sitcom, I tell you? So before we began the show, it was a scoop to me to find that the word Torridor was actually invented for this opera by Bizet. Can you talk about it? Yeah, that's right. No, he had, you know, he's a fabulous composer, as you know. And Carmen is his big piece. And he has this wonderful character, Escamillo, who Carmen eventually falls in love with and leaves down to the day before. So he, I mean, Escamillo is perfect for Carmen. He's got a big ego. He's gorgeous. He's a hunk. He loves women. And the two are very well matched. And he sings this song. Well, they have this Torridor song, but actually, I guess it was Torto. Torto means bull. And he needed four syllables. So he came a Torridor. And we all think of it, oh, that must be Spanish, right? We assume that that's Spanish. That was invented by Bizet. And it works. It works. It has worked for 100 years around the world. Absolutely. And it works around the world. When did this opera actually premiere? This 1875, I think it was, yeah, I think it was 1875, yeah. So since then, this word has found its way into every corner of the universe. That's right. That's a regular word, not as an opera word. This shows you the influence that opera has on the language in the world. It does. It absolutely does. And I'm thinking, you sing French. And usually we think of, you know, what's interesting about this season, with the Hawaii Opera Theater, we don't have one Italian opera. We have one French opera by Bizet. Then we have an Italian composer writing a French opera because he's in Paris. And everybody in Paris loves opera, which is the daughter of the regimen. That you've done that before. We've done this before. And the last one is Eugene O'Nagan by Tchaikovsky, who everybody knows for all his wonderful symphonies. And he wrote this beautiful opera called Eugene O'Nagan. And it's in Russian. It's great. It's great. It's international. It's global. And right here in Hawaii, we're doing ourselves a little fabulous. So what's it like singing French versus Italian? I tend to be a little explosive with my consonances. And what I really learned through doing this opera is I don't always need to be like, or, you know, I, well, I guess we do that more in English than Italian, but I've learned to sort of soften things. And we do sing a quintet, which is very, very fast. And I was like, how many, I couldn't get all the words of you. And I'm like, if I just put my mouth like I'm kissing the whole time, I can do it easily. So with French, you want delicate consonances. And you want to just always be like, you're kissing somebody. And then it's much easier. And it's very French. She writes, that's a cultural French. And that's a wonderful quintet. And that's in the second act. And you are with Mercedes and Carmen and then these two smugglers come in and they need help moving merchandise. They need to help. And they say, news of what was on the move, which means we need your help. And so it's a very rhythmic and exciting and it's wonderful, just a great quintet. So we're going to have a break in a minute, you know, but Leslie, you could, could you sing us out into the break with that rapid, that rapid French culture? The rapid one or the toreador? Whatever you prefer. Why don't we do a little toreador? Okay. Toreador, Phoenix, You have to take a break. My heart, my heart. Fantastic, fantastic. Yay! You know, it's really interesting that when you're next to somebody who's singing opera it's just, it's just mind blowing. Well, I'll tell them what I'm singing right now. I'll take that. We'll take a short break. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. With my gear. Research says reading from birth accelerates the baby's brain development. And you're doing that now? Oh, yeah. This is the starting line. Push. About 15 minutes. Every child, every parent, every day. I'm in a state now because you sang so close to me and I felt the power of your voice and your emotive strength. I felt it all. Wow. I'll be looking. I'll be there. I'm in the second row. Right near the end, you know? Yeah, please. I'll be waiting for you. So saying in the break is very interesting, that in terms of character development, Don Jose, his character evolves and develops. You see a different person from beginning to the after till the end. But Carmen stays constant. She's always what she was to begin with. And it's a really interesting sort of literary evaluation of how this works. Talk about it? Yes, yes. And of course, the name of the opera is Carmen. And she's so gripping because she's so against the convention. She's so against the way women should be. And she's strong and she's powerful and she's confident. And that was a real threat to households. She's the kind of woman that men fall for and women are threatened by. Nice women are threatened by. But she stays the same. And she never gets up for independence. She never gets up for freedom. And then you have Don Jose. He's a nice soldier. He comes from a nice background. He has a nice girlfriend. And then he becomes a deserter. And then he becomes a vagabond. And then eventually he becomes a burger. And he's lost his career, his girlfriend. And he gives it all up for Carmen. And she tells her for somebody else. And so at the end, he's a broken man. He's a broken man. And to me, he's, I mean, yes, Carmen dies. And that is a tragedy. It's also a tragedy what happens with Don Jose. Yeah. And as we leave the opera, he's broken. And he's about to be arrested. And who knows what's going to happen to him. It isn't going to be good things. No. But he won't care. He won't care because his life is ruined anyway. Yeah. Wow. That's great. So that touches you. And it touches you because Carmen is, in a way, I mean, you look at her today, she's an abused woman. She was, you know, she's killed by her lover because he can't control her, right? He can't control her. I was telling you before, I cry for Bo-M. I cry for her every time. But I don't cry for Carmen. Maybe I should cry for Don Jose. I think you should cry for Carmen, too. I should, too. It was not her fault. She never said, I'll marry you and have your baby. Isn't it quiet? She never said that. And, you know, she and Escamillo are perfect together because he, I mean, when he decides to go after Carmen and she's kind of getting tired of Don Jose, Escamillo says, well, she never is with anybody longer than six months. So, you know, he'd drawn his card and his time was there. And he's ready for Carmen. He knows it's not going to last for more than six months. And he's OK with that. He's OK with that. I mean, Don Jose was going to love her forever. That's not the way she's made. He's the only one on the stage who doesn't realize that she's flighty. Exactly, yeah. Well, let's talk about the scenes in which you are singing. OK? So there's three of them. Let's go through them. One is the cafe scene. Yes. One is the mountain scene in the remote village, I guess. Remote, remote. It's actually not a village. It's just the countryside. Yeah, because these guys are crooks. I mean, they're thieves. They have to be, you know, they have to hide in the mountains. Mugglers, as it were. We're camping out, reading our tarot cards. Oh, you should tell about that scene. That's a wonderful scene. That's a fabulous scene. That's where you sort of get to know Medesades and I's person and my personality. We are reading our cards. And Medesades, my friend, she is only drawing love. She's like, oh, I'm going to meet a man. And I'm so in love with him and he loves me. And then I'm drawing cards and I'm saying, I met someone. He is old and he is rich. And he is going to put me up in his castle. And then the final thing, where I get this fun high note, is I say, oh my gosh, he dies. I am his real and his heirs. And then Carmen comes in. Oh, it's so fun. And then Carmen comes in and she takes some cards and it's all death. And we're kind of like, oh, she's such a bummer. Yeah, absolutely. But I mean, it's also kind of serious because we as gypsies full-heartedly believe in these cards. What is a gypsy? I mean, what's the difference between a gypsy and another person between the gypsy and Micaela or the people in the town? Micaela is not a gypsy. Right, what's the difference between a gypsy and the straight person, if you will? So these gypsies, while they're thieves, they don't have a home. They live in the mountains. They essentially, they have very fluid living situations. And they... They're on the run, they're smuggling. And as you can see from our costumes, they care more, we're wearing as much jewelry as we possibly can be, where we have sort of dirty makeup, our hair is crazy. It's just a whole different culture. We're constantly trying to earn a dollar. We don't really care how. However, yeah. Yes. They're not necessarily long-term planners. No! You heard it here on Tiktok. Right. Right. Okay, so... They don't hack out, they don't plan out career paths. No. No. So how does that, how does that, we're focusing on that scene in the mountains then? Yes. Where does it start, where does it end? I mean, in terms of the, you know, its position in the direction of the opera. Okay, so we start, the five of us, Don Quero, Remindado, Carmen, Mercedes and myself, we start sort of staring at the audience, singing about how our job is hard, but it's strong and we must do it. We're just kind of like staring at the audience and intimidating them. And then the chorus joins in and we sing this beautiful chorus, like saying, listen, listen. And it's very powerful. And then we go into the card trio, which I love. And then after the card trio, we sing this wonderful chorus called Conto Duenier to, we are singing it to Don Quero saying, don't worry, you can get past, we can get past the customs man, we'll just lure them with our feminine ways. That's a pretty tune. Can you sing that tune? Can you sing it now? We'll sing that tune. Of course. Wow. Wow. Beautiful. That's for a company right next door and they love to hear our opera shows. Wow. And that's in the harmony that is so beautiful. Yeah, imagine. It's a beautiful harmony. It doesn't do it, Justin, when I just do it on my cell. No, but it's beautiful. Yeah, it's beautiful. Thank you. Wow, what a treat. What a treat. What a treat. Yeah, so you're a soprano, yeah? Yes. And so what does that mean? Well, that means on most days anyway, unless I'm very tired, I can sing very, very high. Yeah. Which I love to do. Yeah. I'm clear, like a bell. Yes, on most days. Depending on how well my daughter sleeps. No, yes, that's what it means. So warming up helps. So would you, if you were to say soprano and then you would put another adjective next to it, would you say anything other? I would say I'm a high lyric soprano. So like you have the color tours, which are much lighter, which I actually used to be when I was young, which are like, they do all that chirpy stuff. And then you have your more dramatic sopranos, which are a little deeper and louder. And then you have your lyric sopranos, which thankfully get to do a lot of the, like, lead roles. Yes. Yeah, the lead roles. Yes, Mikael is also a lyric soprano. That's great. But I think Freski does a little more fun. I don't know how I do all pinned up and no. I can't quite see you if Mikael never do it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I would go punch Carmen and be like, come on Jose, and let's give you a hug. Does your character evolve? She does a little bit. Has at the very end, the very last scene, you see her concern for Carmen and Mercedes and Freski, we go up and we're warning her. We're like, do you need to be careful, Carmen? Don Jose's here. So you see very flighty and fancy free women turn into some people that are very concerned for their friends. Ah, so now the relationship is revealed even further. Right. And the audience can see that you care for her and you know the tragedy that's taking place. Yes, I mean, it's a very short little vignette that we're on in the fourth act, but I think it really shows kind of the humanity of Carmen and of the Gypsies. I think it just shows sort of, you know, these people kind of all deserve to be treated fairly and, yeah. Oh, I'm beginning to really love this opera. Yeah, I got to see it with new eyes when I see it on Friday night, yeah, yeah, yeah. So how does that third scene that you're involved in, the boring scene, how does that evolve, what happens there, what's your role in it? So like I said, we come in right after the wonderful, wonderful children's chorus. We come in right after everybody's waving red flags and screaming for Eskimo. We come in and Carmen is just, she looks so fabulous. She's decked out in this wonderful outfit and she's having a little love moment with Eskimo and then Eskimo goes off and we come up to him where we say, Carmen, you need to go out to beware. Beware, Carmen, please, Don José. You see it, she doesn't see it, you see it. And she's saying, no, no, no, we're very upset and then she tells us to leave, but then she sort of pauses and hugs us. So maybe she knows, maybe she knows that something's gonna happen and then Don José comes in and they get into a fight and I don't wanna spoil anything, but it's okay. It's not a mystery ending. No, it's not, but what happens is, and I was watching it from the sidelines, Don José pulls a knife on Carmen and Carmen looks at him like, please. And she takes the knife and she pushes it down and he sort of looks like this and then she struts away in all of her fabulousness and then he runs and he turns her around and he stabs her. And it's just like, ugh. It's great stage direction, isn't it? It's great. Our director's fabulous. Who was your director? Tara, Tara Fairclough, she's fabulous. Our conductor's, we're very lucky. We're very, our conductor's just wonderful. And so, congratulations for putting together a great performance. This is a good selection. Well, this is really good. And you got all the right people. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, I had nothing to do with it, but I think we have a wonderful director with Simon Crookle and he got all the right players, I mean, it's gonna be really exciting. So let's take a minute, just a minute to talk about your educational activities at HOT. We're working with Eric Haines to educate the public and the children especially. Wonderful. I've been involved with the outreach program. This will be my third year. So basically, since I moved home and we take about, we take 30 minute long operas to like 80 different schools. I mean, and to the Outer Islands, including the Outer Islands. Did you say 80? I believe, I believe so. Like we did, yeah, we did about 80, we did 80 performances last year. We counted them and some, I mean, we do three performances a day sometimes and it's just such a pleasure because some of these schools have absolutely no music program. Nothing, you know? And they really should. Music is what helps our brains grow. So we're able to bring these operas to them. Blythe, Kelsey, Eric, Shank and Eric Haines, they also do these programs for about, I could be wrong, but I believe about six weeks, six to 12 weeks in schools where the children put on operas. I mean, so that's just amazing. They did Aida. We were at Blanche Pope Elementary. I helped with this one and we did a whole opera about the Ahupua'a, the, and these children are mostly Hawaiian and they just made it up. Oh, sure, I can imagine. It was wonderful. And then we have a new program, relatively new, called the Young Voices Program, which I'm one of the teachers with Eric Haines and it's basically any high school student from anywhere can join. It's free of charge, we get a grant for it and we get to do workshops and master classes with these wonderful high school kids and they're just wonderful. We have two of our girls in the adult chorus in Carmen. Wow. That's so great. Their lives have been affected by what you've taught them. And they would not be there if we didn't have this program. No, it's so important and you get kids from all different, from punahoe to wherever. Every different walk of life comes and they all come together and they share this camaraderie in music and it's just so special to be a part of. How gratification. But you're seeding this knowledge, it's a special taste all these kids are giving them a great gift. No, it's wonderful, I feel very blessed. And if you didn't hear, I was listening and I hope you remember and it'll be on the final exam, opera builds your brains. That is why I'm so smart. But singing is good for the solo. It's good for the solo. You know, you play music, you sing music, you have music in your life. It's good for you. Have music in your life and come around and see opera, see Leslie Goldman McInerney, see Lynn Johnson. Yeah, absolutely, come to my talk. Come to my talk. One of the great things about our community. Thank you much both of you. Thank you. Great to talk to you. Thank you for having us. Aloha till next time. Aloha.