The seemingly unreal setting of Glimmerglass Opera, amidst gently rolling hills and on the shores of shimmering Lake Otsego, lies just eight miles north of the village of Cooperstown, New York, itself a dream of old-time Americana. Established in 1786, the town still retains many homes from that era; the writer James Fenimore Cooper, author of The Leatherstocking Tales and The Last of the Mohicans and son of the town’s founder, remains a grand presence. The picturesque Farmer’s Museum and Fenimore Art Museum, with their superb collections of American folk art and American Indian art, are visited by thousands. Of course, most Americans know Cooperstown as the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, which attracts 350,000 visitors a year.
But Glimmerglass Opera has added another lure to the town’s charms. July marks its thirty-fifth season; it has grown from a first-season, four-performance run of La bohème at a local high school in front of a collective audience of 1,200 to its current international status, offering around forty performances of four productions in repertoire annually in its own space (since 1987) — the nine-hundred-plus seating, acoustically ideal Alice Busch Opera Theater — with almost 39,000 in attendance.
That Glimmerglass has become a frontrunner among America’s “small” companies is not in dispute: it brings in some of opera’s finest performers, designers and directors. And with its courageous programming, Glimmerglass has avoided any sense of the provincial and never coddles its audience: Recent seasons have seen works from Monteverdi to Glass, Gluck to Gilbert and Sullivan, Handel to Adamo, Verdi to Hartke, not to mention Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot and Donizetti’s French Lucie de Lammermoor, to name a few. Seminars on opera are held; English surtitles assist with understanding.
In addition to presenting fine performances in a dreamlike setting, Glimmerglass is concerned with the future of opera. Their Young American Artists Program (YAAP) is arguably the most impressive in the country. Now in its twenty-first year, it has turned out dozens of fine artists, among them sopranos Isabel Bayrakdarian, Anna Christy, Sarah Coburn, Christine Goerke and Kelly Kaduce; mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung; male soprano Michael Maniaci; countertenor David Walker; tenors Bruce Fowler, Joseph Kaiser and Michael Slattery; baritone Christopher Schaldenbrand; and bass Oren Gradus.
Eight hundred applicants submit a CD each year. Two hundred singers — most of whom already hold bachelor’s and master’s degrees from leading conservatories — are then heard in live auditions. Finally, twenty-five to thirty singers and two coach/accompanists are chosen to join the three-month summer program. First-year members of the YAAP receive a weekly stipend of $250 (those invited back for a second season receive $300/week) and are provided housing and meals. Young Artists perform and cover appropriate roles in all four mainstage productions and work with world-class directors, designers and conductors.
The atmosphere is both nurturing and artistically challenging, with emphasis on training and performing, education through performance. “Having been a singer myself,” says Don Marrazzo, director of casting and artistic operations, “I remember studying and performing in extremely competitive environments. I often felt like nothing was ever accomplished in a collaborative manner because everyone was completely focused on themselves and on being better than everyone else. This never works. The Young Artists are delighted that we create a genuinely supportive, respectful
and collaborative atmosphere during their residence with us.”
The Young Artists also audition for visiting general and artistic directors, artistic administrators and managers. “Many of the young artists secure engagements or representation from these auditions,” says Marrazzo, “and this is an invaluable networking opportunity for them.” But singing opera on stage, as the Young Artists do during their tenure, does not a complete performer make. Song recitals are crucial to a well-rounded career, and one of the program’s unique features is the Young American Artists Program Recital Series, created many years ago. Each artist presents a thirty-five-minute solo recital of a program of their choosing.
Anthony Roth Costanzo, a twenty-seven-year-old countertenor, wowed critics and audiences alike in last summer’s Giulio Cesare (in the small role of
Nireno). “It was my first full Handel role,” he says. “And I learned so much
about recitative, ornamentation — the negotiations with the conductor, the
entire process — things that you can only learn by doing.” Costanzo went on to
be a Grand Finals Winner of the 2009 Metropolitan Opera National Council
Auditions, and is back at Glimmerglass this summer after a successful run as
Oberon in Britten’s opera in the Seattle Young Artists program. Glimmerglass is
planning to mount Handel’s Tolomeo for him in 2010. “I applied elsewhere,” says Costanzo, “but one program was not accepting countertenors, and besides that, Glimmerglass offers real mainstage experience and those weekly auditions — so valuable for a young singer. You can have two coachings a day if you’d like and the constant focus can be on the music itself.”
