 This is Think Tech Hawaii, Community Matters here. It must be Monday. Think Tech Hawaii here at the 11 o'clock clock. And we're going to talk about opera here in Community Matters. We're going to talk about training, rehearsing, coaching opera stars in Hawaii today. Okay? And let me just say a word about opera. Okay? We have two heavyweights here. We have Lynn Johnson. She's a member of the Board of Directors of Hawaii Opera Theater. We have Maikai Nash, who just joined the opera, actually, came back home to help on rehearsing and coaching opera singers in Hawaii today. Very, very important people, and we're going to talk about opera. But a word about opera, which is what distracts me, I just need to say this, okay? Opera is multi, multi-arts, multi-cultural, multi-everything. You think about it, you know, it jumps from one country to another, there's art coming from so many places in the world, really, and more places now than ever before, actually. People are writing opera. It's alive and well. It's an art form that has not only traction, but evolution right now. Okay? And it involves, and think about all of the disciplines involved. You're talking about stage management, you're talking about stage sets and scenery, you're talking about props, you're talking about wigs, you're talking about costumes. All these are art forms. You're talking about, I started acting, and singing, and you're talking about writing a brilliant libretto. I'm talking about studying history and putting it in the context of history. I know I missed a few things, but I'm talking about the music, instrumental music, and the way you play it, the way you sing it, the way people, when I say stage management, I meant the whole director thing, and all of these are being more refined now than they ever were, even in the heyday in the 19th century. So wow, this is something to watch, it's something to learn, and we have it. We are so lucky to have this here with all the panoply of all of these disciplines all coming together. And Lynn, you are in substantial part responsible for this. Lynn was a teacher of faculty at the School of Music at UH Manoa, and now she gives these fabulous lectures on the Ward-Linai, I write the Ward-Linai every hour before the opera begins at Blaisdell. So welcome to the show, Lynn. Thank you. To be here, and to talk about the most wonderful genre in the world, far from dessert. Yeah, it really is. And it makes me cry. That's the way it is. I have to tell you, I saw a brand new opera in Santa Fe, my husband and I went to the Santa Fe Festival, and we saw a brand new opera that was all about Steve Jobs. It was about Steve Jobs, and you know what, I cried at the end. It was beautiful and moving. Well, he dies, you know, he dies. But you know, his vision, I mean, every one of us has a phone that is now silenced during the show. Disruptive technology for the world. But it was a beautiful opera, and it just got written. It was premiered here, and the reason, part of the reason I went is that it was starring my first cousin once removed. It was starring the daughter of my first cousin, Sasha Cook, and her husband. And her husband played Steve Jobs' father, and she played Steve Jobs' wife, Lorraine, who basically is the redemptive figure in his life. And the two of them are going to be coming here in January and doing another relatively new opera. It was written in 2014 called As One about a transgender, and her husband will play Hannah before and she, no, he will, no, wait, yeah, he plays Hannah before and she plays Hannah after. So he goes from a man to a woman, and what he told me, because I got to meet both of them and talk to them, and what he told me was that people who have seen this show come to have a deeper understanding and appreciation about what it means to be a transgender and what it means to make that choice. There's a couple of points in there that I respond to. Number one is, I forgot to mention, literature. All of opera is literature. That's right. It's great stories and not only historical context, but literature that can be right now. That's what I'm talking about. This current events almost. So it can follow. That's my second point. It can follow the events, the news of our time, the change in our global culture. So Lynn, so we have Maikai Nash. We have the best guy here. We at Hawaii Opera Theater are so lucky to have Maikai Nash. So often, if you want somebody to be in Hawaii and to work in Hawaii, it can be a challenge. You know, they come from the mainland, right? And we get them from the mainland because they're so talented, right? Oh, gosh, I don't know if we have the talent here in Hawaii to have somebody come and do this important job. He was born here. He took, who did you take piano from? Ernest Chang. Ernest Chang. And tell us about some of the rewards that you won as a piano player. Well, I did all the local competitions and I played with the symphony when I was a couple of times when I was younger. Piano. And so I debuted with them, I think when I was 11, right there. So you played a piano concerto when you were 11 years old? Yes. Well, somebody's got to do it. I mean, that's super talented. That's super talented. And then you taught piano. I taught piano and then I left in my early 20s and just back. Where'd you go? I went to Seattle and then I went to Montreal and then I went to Toronto with a couple of years in between in Vienna, in Paris, and in Italy studying. And you didn't call me. You didn't write me. You didn't take me along with you. Never. Not once, but we can change that. So, more. Introduce. Yeah. So I guess I have a question for you because he is our, what we call, a repetitive or repetitive tool if we're going to do the slight French thing, which means that he coaches all the singers and he runs the rehearsals. All the rehearsals before the symphony comes in. So when you put a cast together, you have all these talented people coming from all over, they have to come together and create an ensemble, a group that works together and he helps make that happen. So tell us, why don't you tell us a little bit about, first of all, how did you come into your fad-less piano player, which means that not only can you perform well, but you can sight-read, right? Yes. He can sight-read like a demon. I mean, that is, I've studied piano, I've studied for 40 years. I can play hymns on Sunday if I really work at it, you know? And he sits down and just plays this stuff. So tell us, how did you get into being a coach like this? Well, I mean, it was kind of by accident. I went back to school and I was, I knew I didn't want to be a solo pianist anymore, but there weren't a lot of options that I knew were available for me and I took a class that was called Song Interpretation. And in that class, it was all about how to connect with your singer and to work more in that. And my teacher at the time, the teacher of the class, after the first couple of classes, he said, well, you should be doing this. This is obviously very simple for you and like a good spiritual. But you were natural. You were natural. It was a natural fit. It was a natural fit, for sure. And right then, I went to my current solo teacher at that time and said, I need to switch. I need to switch into this other program. So where were you studying? That was at McGill University in the Schulich School of Music in Montreal. In Montreal? Yeah. So I made the switch and I haven't looked back since. So interesting. One class, one teacher, one mentor experience, a revelation, and bingo, your life changes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I had always been interested in working in opera to a certain extent, but I didn't realize it was, it's an entirely different profession. I thought it was just something you kind of did. You played piano and you kind of did some opera stuff. I didn't realize they specialized, they went so heavily into their own art form. So once I knew that, I was like, well, this is it. So you committed yourself? I committed myself. It was opera. That was it? Yeah. Opera and art song, yeah. So you started with art song. Remember you telling me how much you love doing art songs, right? And so did you work with all different kinds of singers in art song? Yes, I worked with all the different singer types, personality-wise and their voice types. And I really, really wanted to make a career at that, but that's just not really possible. And I remember speaking to somebody at a summer program once and I said, well, I really want to be, she was an opera coach. So I really want to be a song pianist and she said, we all want to be song pianists. But you meet the good singers through being an opera coach and from there you can be a song pianist. So what is art song? Isn't all song, music, art song? No, art song is kind of like little gems of music where an opera takes you through a character over a two-hour period or a three-hour period. Art songs are a story in two minutes. It's a poem. It's a poem set to music. So you have two or three minutes to make that character come alive for the audience. Or sometimes they can be longer, five, six, seven minutes, but you have a shorter period of time to make that character something. Just thinking about interpretation, really, it sounds very important. I wondered first, I mean, isn't it primarily the job of the singer himself or herself to find interpretation in the art? Why do they need somebody else to help? That's a good question. It is a good question. Why do we need you? Why do we need you? No, I mean, the singer, you know, it's unlike any other kind of instrumentalists, right? As a pianist, you have your instrument in front of you. You have the working parts and the mechanisms that are already working on its own. You just have to coax the music out of it. A singer has to figure out how to use the mechanism here, how to use the mechanism in their breath. They have to figure all of that stuff out. So because they're so concentrated on making instrument work, they actually don't have as much time as instrumentalists to work on style. So it happens as a slow progress, a gradual thing that they learn over time, and that's what they use their coach for. This is not the same thing as acting, nor is it the same thing as singing, as you said. It's something else. It's something else. Like the opera coaches and voice coaches in general, I mean, I guess we don't call them opera coaches. We call them voice coaches. Voice coaches deal with interpretation, style, diction, language. All of the stuff that the opera teacher, the voice teacher doesn't work on. The voice teacher works on the mechanism, for the most part. How can I tell if a given star, right up there, in Carmen, coming soon? How can I tell? Are you working in Carmen? I'm just starting to work with some of the singers. I want to hear about some of that. How can I tell that a player in Carmen has got this interpretational mode, has made the necessary and excellent interpretation of the music and the song? How can I tell? Honestly, you may never be able to tell. I mean, the people that are in the business know the differences between that kind of stuff. But as long as that person communicates and makes you feel something, that's important. And that's what we try to bring them out. Some of them do it out of style. Some of them do it within style. I mean, it really depends on the house and how far they want to really be specific about how things go. But in my opinion, as long as they're bringing something to the table and the audience feels that, that's just really the important thing. So if I cry, it's likely that the interpretation has been pretty good. Yes. So when somebody comes to work with you, and let's say you bring in Carmen and she's a very professional, what's her name again? Kate Eldridge. Kate Eldridge. And what can you do with someone? I mean, she's done Carmen several times before. What might you do with her? She might think, well, why can you do to teach me? So how would you work with her? So you have to kind of test the waters with every singer that you work with and you have to see what they want from you. My first teacher, my first vocal coach teacher, always said in your session, do what they ask you to do. Don't do more than what they ask you to do. So if they're not asking you for a new interpretive idea for a phrase, don't give it. You know, you're there to bring to the table what they want you to help them with. Suppose I'm a star, but I submit to you. I say, Mike, tell me everything. Help me from ground zero. I want to know everything you can give me about this piece. What would you do then? Well, generally I come to the table with having researched the piece, having knowing the background of the piece, knowing the librettist who wrote it, why they wrote it, how they wrote it, if that's possible, it's not always possible. But understanding all of that, because it really matters. You know, there are these people who write these pieces and they just, authors are inspired by something too. It's something in their life or something that they've experienced or something that they've seen. And knowing those things are super important, because if you understand, well, I wrote this because my mother, you know, had a situation with a man at a certain age or whatever. It helps you bring something different to the table, realizing that it's connected to something. It's not just some fiction that came out of the sky. So we start with those kinds of things and we work on the style of Carmen. Carmen's a little different because there's a specific French style, but Carmen kind of breaks some of those rules because of the character herself. So we don't have to follow those styles as nearly strictly as we do, let's say Daughter of the Regiment, which we're doing later on this year. Those styles will be a little bit more adhered to, it's kind of a free-for-all in a certain way. So does that mean that Carmen is more difficult to coach than Daughter of the Regiment? No, actually in some ways it's easier to coach, because there are less rules that we have to adhere to and the rules are being broken all the time. We don't have to worry so much about what is right and what's not. For instance, you know, we use a lyric diction in French that has flipped and rolled R's, but in France and sometimes in Montreal, we're using the colloquial spoken French for Carmen because her and her troop are of the lower class, right? So they bring a little bit more of that lower classness to it. Oh, that's wonderful. You know what they say about opera too? It's attention to detail. Yes. This is the kind of detail that really is. It's great. Yeah, and it's all the stuff you don't notice, except that it's there. So you've got to be in a fiscionato to appreciate the detail. Some of it, yeah. I guess it's like a movie, you know, they always have those articles like, did you see this in this movie? I'm like, no, I didn't see any of that. So yeah, if you know it, you know it. So we're going to take a break now then. But during the break, I think we're going to decide whether we're going to do the rest of the show in Italian, French, German, or Spanish. I think we prefer French. Absolutely. I'm a Franco file, so. Okay. It's settled. We'll be right back after this break. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. Ted Rawson here, folks. You're a host on Where the Drone Leads, our weekly show at noon on Thursdays here on Think Tech. And we talk about drones. Anything to do about drones, drones, remotely piloted aircraft, unmanned aircraft systems, whatever you want to call them, emerging into Hawaii's economy, educational framework, and our public life. We talk about things associated with the use, the misuse, technology, engineering, legislation with the local experts as well as people from across the country. Please join us noon on Thursdays and catch the latest on what's taking place in the world of drones that might affect you. Welcome to Sister Power. I'm your host, Sharon Thomas Yarbrough, where we motivate, educate, and power and inspire all women. We are live here every other Thursday at 4 p.m. And we welcome you to join us here at Sister Power. Aloha and thank you. Okay, we're back. We're live. Can you say something in French just to start this segment out? Mon nomi mai kai. Excellent. Sabu? So, Lynn, you were talking about, during the break, talking about stereotypes and talking about colloquial dialogue and all this. Can you pursue that? Yeah, just, you know, he works with Sopranos and he works with Metzos and he works with Tenors and he works with Bases. And just, you know, are there any differences among them in terms of how you coach them or are there some traditional sort of stereotypes that no longer exist or... Yeah, there are traditional stereotypes, certainly. I mean, the generation, you know, maybe a generation or two ago, Sopranos used to be known as very diva-like. And I'm sure you'll still get that in the industry nowadays, but it's less and less because there are so many singers that the more you are diva, the less you are hired. And there's always somebody else to go to. But in the past, that wasn't necessarily the case. You know, these great singers, there weren't scads of singers around to replace them. So they got quite a reputation for being difficult and diva-ish. So there are changes. And what about the Metzos? Well, the poor Metzos, the poor Metzos always generally, with the exception of Carmen, she's coming in and she's playing the seductress, Metzos generally play the old woman, the hag, the witch. So that's kind of their track in life when they take that role on. There are exceptions to that, like Carmen, but they generally have to play these not-wonderful characters. Or they're kind of the handmaid or something. Yeah, exactly. The secondary character. The secondary character, yeah. But not always. There are some wonderful, like Il Trovatore, which we had a couple of years ago, where the secondary characters are fantastic characters and are evil, but they're generally evil. Well, I think my cousin who played Steve Jobs' wife is a Metzos. And I think they wanted that slightly lower tone because maybe it's a little bit more mature and centered and she was sort of the savior of Steve Jobs. So they chose a Metzos and she did it beautifully and she was a strong woman, but very beautiful and tender and all those things. Modern operas are using Metzos in a different way than they used to be, which is nice. So you have to fill in the outline of the character with the moves. Are you also going to talk about stage moves and facial expressions? Are you also going to talk about body language? Yeah, we can. I mean, there are certain... No, no, do you when you coach. Do I when I coach? Sometimes, it just depends. I try to leave that more to the acting professionals, but there are, of course, times where we have to talk about, hmm, that's a little too much. There was a singer I was working with recently that does a lot of kind of interpretive dance as she's on stage and I question, like, ooh, let's maybe cut that back a little bit, you know, because we're here to communicate with the audience, not to give them a dance show. So it just depends on what it is, you know, and how much they're working with an acting teacher, how much they're working with a movement teacher, because, you know, for singers, I feel sorry, it gets pricey. They have a voice coach, they have a voice teacher, and then you're asking them to possibly have specialized diction training, you're asking them to see an acting teacher, and that's for professionals just all on its own, whereas an instrumentalist has to see one person. But there was a time in my life when I was trying to learn the ski. You had that experience? And people tell you everybody's got a different piece of advice for how you conduct yourself on the skis. And after all this advice comes in, you can't remember any of it, and you don't take anybody's advice, and you wind up, you know, without the benefit of advice. And I'm just wondering, when you finish, and you're watching the final performance or the final result of your efforts, are they taking your advice? I would say most of the time they do. If they're coming to you, it's because they want your advice. If they don't want your advice, they don't come to you. They don't come to you and ask for your advice. It's their choice. Yeah. And there's certain kinds of questions that you tend to get more than other questions. I mean, when they say, like you said earlier, I do what they ask me to do. What typically do singers ask you to do? They want to know that it sounds good first. Oh. And then from that, they want to know if it communicates well to the audience. If they're angrier about what they're saying is reaching the audience, if their sadness is reaching to the audience, and if it's not what I can do to help them figure that out, then sadly, the third thing they want to know is about style. Style's not necessarily the first thing they want to know about. But then is it within the style of what the composer was composing at the time? So it just depends. You get a wide range of singers. Some singers come to the table, not really meeting. There are a couple that I worked with that don't really need a coach. They've got a lot of that kind of stuff figured out. They are rare, but I mean there are the ones that come really knowing how to make that all work on their own. And then there are ones that need kind of, you know, hand feeding all the way and from learning the music to understanding the music to researching the music. And I think the most important thing is that the singer knows who they are and what they need, you know? And if you're the one that needs that hand feeding, accept it and move forward with it. Do you have any time that anybody resists what you have to say? Absolutely. Absolutely. So there are times where, yeah, they don't agree with what I have to say. And for me, it depends on what it is. If it's an interpretive choice, they said, that's fine if you don't agree, but then sell me on what you actually want it to be. And if you can't sell me on what you want it to be, then you've got to make that change. And if you can't make that change, then... What happens? Do you report them till then? No, they go up there and they do what they want and it's up to the audience to decide whether they believe it. Yeah, and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. So what does that mean that you, when you coach, you have to know if somebody is speaking French properly too, right? Yes. Or speaking German or speaking Italian. What is the most difficult language to have singers sing properly? Does it depend on the singer? It somewhat depends on the singer, but you're going to laugh at this, but English. Oh, really? Because English speakers, I mean, I think it's the same in every language. French is one of the harder languages to speak in. Because it's such a natural language for you. You don't think about the sounds. I remember taking English diction for the first time and going through pronunciations of words and thinking, that's how you pronounce that word. Like I had no clue that's how you pronounce that word. And I've been saying it wrong. I mean, just slight changes. You know, I've been saying it wrong for years. And you don't think about that. You just come to... You think you know. You think you know your language. You think you know your language. So you don't study it as well. You live in your own bubble. Yeah, you live in your own bubble. So that's one of the hardest ones. And we were talking before the show started about how in English there are three accents that we generally... Why don't you explain that for a year? There's the... We have the American accent. We have the British accent. And we have this funny mid-Atlantic accent. And that's difficult for singers to glum onto, you know. When you're singing in French, you don't have to sing in three accents. When you're singing in Italian, the same thing. You don't have to sing in three accents. Sometimes they sing in Venetian, but that's almost a different language. Spanish, however, you do have to sing in two accents. But we have those three, so that makes it a little difficult for them. So you had to develop your ear for all three. Yes. And you have to have them develop their ear for all three, too. And you have to catch them when they're off. As much as possible. So that we have an American opera coming up as one. Yes. Which accent is that? Pure American. Pure American. Yes. Pure international American. Yeah. I mean, if it was, you know, like we did Streetcar Name Desire last year, if it was in the South, we would have a more southern accent going on. But I mean, this one is just a general American accent. New accent. New accent. Yeah. So I'd like to get a word picture of how it is when you're coaching. Sure. So you're not on the stage. The player is not on the stage. Most of the time. You're in a room. Yeah. A rehearsal room. Yeah. Okay. And you're, the person is standing, I guess. All right. At the piano. Oh, at the piano, of course. You're playing the music so you can hear what the singer does. Yes. And then you'll stop and say, wait a minute, wait a minute. That's not quite right. Yes. Let me show you a better way. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I'm one of the coaches that likes to hear them sing the entire thing first before we start talking about it. Because I think it's important to see what their journey is and what they're trying to do as a whole. The journey. The journey. It's not a song. It's a journey. It kind of is. It's a journey. It's a journey because whenever you have an aria, things happen during that aria, right? Yeah. You're usually not at the end where you were in the beginning. It's dynamic. Yeah. I'm wonderful. An aria is a level of interpretation. Yeah. An aria usually is a problem that the character wants to solve. So they start with, here's my problem. And by the end of the aria, this is how what I'm going to do about it. This is how I'm going to achieve what I need to achieve. So yeah, it is a journey of thought. It's kind of, you know, I tell this to the singers all the time. It's kind of every day. This is how we work every day. You know, you wake up in the morning and you think, oh, well, I have that meeting at two and then I have that appointment at three. How am I going to get home? And you know, you go through this process and it's going through that process on stage and having them realize that it's real life that they're singing about. We're almost out of time, Mike. But can you take a look at Vivian over there? That's the Camera 2. We call Camera 2 Vivian. Is he the character in the opera? Ask him. So can you talk to Vivian and tell our listeners, our viewers what they should be looking for in terms of seeing the result of your effort? What they should be looking for is just a really fully fleshed out character on stage. Somebody who really understands what the character wants to say and how they interact with everybody else. Somebody that's real, really. And then as my co-host on this, can you summarize what we've learned today, what you've learned today? Because I know I could tell you were really interested. Well, I learned a lot. And I learned what it means to have a real opera coach and a repetitive and somebody who's going to make the opera really come alive in a way that makes us not only hear beautiful music but be moved by what they're singing. Can you tell us just one more time about Carmen coming soon? We have Carmen coming soon. And I guess it's, I think, Friday the 13th of October. You know, she dies at the end. It's not a good night for her. But April, I mean, October 13th, 15th and 17th, we have Carmen. So come and bring your friends. I mean, it's going to be fabulous. And it's a timeless story. And I was thinking, one more thing about her being a mezzo. A mezzo is exotic, right? And so you have Samson and Delilah. Delilah's a mezzo, too. And somehow that slightly lower voice is irresistible. Yeah, wonderful. Lynn Johnson, member of the Board of Directors of the Royal Opera Theater and the faculty, former faculty at the music school and teaches on the lanai, the word lanai before every performance. And Maikai Nash, who just joined the opera recently and who is going to be the coach. And I wish you could coach me, but who knows? We can. Anything's possible. Thank you both for coming down to Think Tech. Thank you. Thank you. And say it in French. What say what? Aloha. Merci.