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Little Women Interviews
In Their Own Words [Part I]

By Robert Wilder Blue

USOperaWeb conducted a series of conversations with the gifted and articulate artists who created Mark Adamo’s Little Women and who took part in the videotaping for PBS’s Great Performances (to be shown on August 29). Six talented young singers played the four March sisters and their suitors: Joyce di Donato, Stephanie Novacek, Stacey Tappan, Margaret Lloyd, Chad Shelton and Dan Belcher). They were joined by three well-known artists in the roles of the elder generation (the description printed in the score, not ours): Katherine Ciesinski, Gwendolyn Jones and James Maddalena). The world premiere was conducted by Christopher Larkin (the revival and video were taken over by Patrick Summers) and the production was conceived and directed by Peter Webster. Central City Music Director John Baril also added his comments. And because we like knowing a little about the origins of talent, we’ve included some of that as well.

Joyce Di Donato (Meg)

"I was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri. I came from a large family -- seven kids, including five girls. We were a very musical family, my two older sisters played the piano and we were always singing. I joke with people that I became an opera singer so that I could be heard around my house, with that many kids.

"I was extremely close with one of my sisters – we shared a room growing up and it was your typical experience with a sister. We remain best friends. Everything that happens between Jo and Meg in the opera really hit home, especially the idea of change, which was the central theme of the opera. I was the youngest of the girls and so I had to see all of them go off, get married and go through all of these experiences and I was left at home saying, ‘but what about me?’ So, even though I was singing Meg, I could identify completely with all the sisters. It was incredibly meaningful to go through something on stage that hit so close to home. Playing Meg, the older sister who leaves home first, was sort of therapeutic because I was able to live out what my sisters went through and see it from their perspective.

"Meg is a very touching character, especially the way Mark has set her. She’s very grounded -- she is the first to realize these things about life and about growing up, and that even though it’s hard, you have to move on and embrace the changes. It’s painful and you may not understand it at the time, but the world it opens up is magnificent.

"I had read Little Women when I was young and although it takes place years ago it still seems we all experience those situations growing up as an American girl. The character of Meg is so fully developed in the book. But, the things she is dealing with peripherally in the book aren’t necessarily in this libretto. Mark’s intention was to tell the story of change and acceptance and growth as seen through Jo’s eyes. When a libretto is taken from another source, that can inform the performance but you are still left with what the libretto gives you. The libretto is the story, not the novel and the librettist has chosen specific things to tell that story. You can read the novel and be informed by it, so long as you come back to the libretto as your main source for developing the character.

"Of course, everyone had an idea of how Meg should be. I remember listening to the costume designer and the wig maker and the director all saying, ‘well, Meg is like, no Meg is like this.’ If you get too caught up in that you end up approaching her from the outside-in. I had to filter through all that and go back to the source and decide how I saw her, which is really the same process I would go through with any role. It was just a little bit easier and simpler with a role like Meg.

"The music in Little Women is incredibly lyrical. But, it’s very challenging rhythmically and musically. When you first look at the piano/vocal score, there’s not a lot of help from the piano part -- you’re kind of on your own. There’s a bit of exploitation of the extremes of the registers and that makes it very difficult to sing well; it was something we all struggled with. But at the same time it’s all done in a lyrical manner. There are several stand-out arias that are memorable, and I’m happy to say that one is Meg’s aria, ‘Things Change.’ She sings it half-way through the first act and it sets the theme for the entire piece, what Jo struggles with and comes to terms with at the end of the opera. It expresses incredibly beautiful sentiments – things everybody can identify with. Mark has set it in a way that is simple but profound at the same time. It was one of the pieces that stuck with people when they left the opera.

"The pacing of the piece is so wonderful, it takes you on a great journey. One of the most touching moments is when Beth dies. There’s never a dry eye in the house. Mark has given Beth this peacefulness as she comes to terms with the fact that she is dying. And at the same time Jo is pounding her fists on the bed saying, ‘No, no! I’m not ready for you to go.’ It’s a great juxtaposition that is incredibly human and real and it is set musically in a very beautiful way.

"For the 1998 premiere production, a lot of the music was coming in at the last minute. It was a struggle because it felt like so much of our attention was put into just getting through it. Coming back to it, with two years of vocal and musical growth and having learned the score (although not entirely correctly I found out), I was able to concentrate on making music of it and bringing the character to life and worry less about getting through it vocally. In some cases you do a premiere and that’s it. You spend all the time and energy learning it and never do it again. It was exciting to come back to it. A lot of the cast was the same and we were all really fantastic friends so it made the experience really special.

"It is such an intimate piece, it’s not grand opera where there are elephants and horses on the stage. It’s about conversations between the characters. As a performer it was really exciting to play because every moment was very real. You felt like the audience was right there with you. So many people, men and women, were touched by it -- the themes of change and letting go and acceptance are universal and it was beautiful to see that in an opera. It wasn’t about the tenor getting the soprano and the father being slain."

While in the Houston Grand Opera Studio, Joyce performed in a number of world premieres, including Michael Daugherty’s Jackie O and Tod Machover’s Resurrection. "Jackie O was my first premiere -- the first time I had ever looked at a brand-new score, no recordings to go to, no tradition, no history. It was very fresh and that was exciting. You have the chance to ask the composer what his intentions are and you feel as though you are really creating something. Before, I didn’t feel that same freedom looking at a role like Dorabella [in Mozart’s Così fan tutte] or Cenerentola [in Rossini’s La Cenerentola]. It was more like, this is what the tradition is and this is what the score says and I have to do it a certain way. But now, I approach the standard repertory very differently, as through it were a completely new piece with no history. It’s been a very liberating discovery. It has taught me to approach it as though I am the first person doing it, which has really freed me up to make choices and not do something just because somebody says I should do it. Of course there are traditions that you should be aware of. But then you make educated choices as to whether you want to follow them. As a performer, it really brought up the level of being an artist for me. I’m not saying I’m always successful at it, but it’s a thought-process and an intention when I approach a new score. I can look at every new role with the intention of making it my own."

We asked Joyce what it was like to forge a career in the new golden age of mezzo-sopranos. "I think it’s great that there are so many talented mezzos. But because it’s sort of the voice of the moment, people are doing that repertory more now -- it’s kind of like supply and demand. It began with Marilyn Horne, who opened up the baroque and bel canto repertory, and then came Flicka [Frederica von Stade], and then Cecilia Bartoli and Jennifer Larmore. I owe all of them a huge debt of gratitude because people are so much more aware of that repertory now. Because people like Jennifer are doing Julius Caesar it’s not such a risk for a company to do it. And, look at Susan Graham. She’s going to be one of the great singers of this generation because she’s such a great artist in what she brings to her roles. So, yes, there is a competition. But, that’s not a bad thing, it’s a great thing. It absolutely makes me work harder. I know I have to be as good as I can be to compete with them. It makes me a better artist."

In July, things get bumped up a notch when Joyce makes her debut at La Scala in Milan singing the title role in La Cenerentola. "It was terrifying when I got the call from my manager. He told me I might want to sit down because he was about to give me some very exciting news. I think I was in a state of shock for a while. But then the reality set in that I have been hired to do a job and I have to stay in that mentality in order to do the job. I’ll let myself come back to the ‘Oh my God I just sang at La Scala!’ when it’s over. Being younger and getting an opportunity like this is awesome in the true sense of the word. It’s thrilling and I’m very grateful. I haven’t sung much in Europe, so it feels almost like a European debut. I’m singing with Alfonso Antoniozzi whom I sang with in Così in Houston so I feel as though I will have a friend there walking in the door. But there’s no one else who knows me so there’s no agenda for or against me. I’m not a Renée Fleming walking in doing a role with a huge history. I’m an unknown, and if they like me that’s great, and if they don’t I’ll have stories to tell!"

Stephanie Novacek (Jo)

"I grew up in Iowa and planned to go into medicine before getting bitten by the opera bug. I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and I had a teacher there who saw some potential and gently pushed me in the direction of music classes, on top of my other classes. Once I did my first role, which was Susannah in The Marriage of Figaro, I changed my major.

"Little Women was written for the Studio. [Composer] Mark [Adamo] came to hear everyone to get a sense of what he had to work with, so the roles were written for specific voices. The role of Jo was actually written for another Studio member, Joyce di Donato, but we ended up switching roles because Meg suited Joyce’s voice more and Jo suited mine. I think it turned out to be best."

The role of Jo is a demanding marathon for the singer: she is on stage singing for most of the opera. The role’s dramatic range demands playful tomboyishness one moment, heated temper tantrums the next, then great emotional outpourings conveying anguish and vulnerability. On top of this, it is an ensemble piece, requiring convincing interaction with her three sisters, their suitors and the family elders. We asked Stephanie how she prepared the role and managed its challenges.

"Bits and pieces of the opera came in over the course of several months, so we didn’t have a complete score to work with right off the bat. In that respect it was a little difficult, but I can imagine how difficult it must have been from a composer’s perspective to put it all together. I remember learning it very quickly -- a lot of us were involved in other HGO productions at the same time. I think we pulled it off by the seat of our pants! It was highly successful nonetheless. The libretto is so wonderful.

"Of course, Mark was there for most of the process. I think even before we started the project he had very clear ideas of what he wanted for the characters and the characterizations. He gave his input as to what he liked and didn’t like in terms of musical and dramatic interpretation."

"I don’t have a big family so that was one way in which the opera was different for me. But, I could identify with the transformation from being an adolescent to a young woman. I enjoyed having to reach really deep to do justice to the role. It was dramatically challenging and exhausting in a lot of respects. I just did my first Carmen and I had always heard how taxing that role was, being on stage for four acts. But, I think Jo was much more taxing, vocally, physically -- because I was running around a lot, intellectually and emotionally. I was really spent after singing Jo. It took a while to recuperate after the run of the show.

"Jo went through a lot in the opera emotionally and I think Mark did a good job of portraying that in the music. The music sounds deceptively easy but it is really very difficult, especially the roles of Jo, Meg, Laurie and Brooke. A lot of the vocal writing is very speech-like. It was difficult to learn because Mark would write a chord cluster and you would have to find your pitch in it. Jo covers the whole range – down into the chest voice and up above the staff – it’s very vocally demanding. It will be interesting to see how other mezzos deal with it.

"Because of how the first production transpired it was kind of amazing we actually did it. The second time around it was a lot easier. Coming back to it in 2000, I realized how much I had grown as an artist, how much we had all grown artists and it was a much better experience. It was easier for us to do things vocally and turn it into an artistic piece rather than just getting through it."

Currently, Stephanie is occupied with preparations for the Cardiff (Wales) Singer of the World competition taking place in June, to which she is the U.S. representative. Stephanie has worked steadily in Houston, singing Hansel in Hansel and Gretel, Ottavia in The Coronation of Poppea and the title role in Carmen. She will return in the 2001-2002 season for Olga in Eugene Onegin and Maddalena in Rigoletto. "I’ve got one of those voices that, because of my age, there is still some development to do to see where I fit in. I don’t sing Cherubino (The Marriage of Figaro) and some of the other typical mezzo roles for younger singers. I’m kind of playing the waiting game and trying to be patient. I’m singing Carmen at the moment and I’d like to do Charlotte in Werther some time."

But, the next time USOperaWeb talks to Stephanie, the first thing we’re going to ask her is how she felt about playing Maria Callas in Jackie O. (How could we have forgotten that?)

[Part II]