Ken Avidor
Kate Saturday
Brittney Sabo
Ken Avidor
Melissa Kaercher
Maxeem Konrardy
My father was a baseball player and my mother was determined that her seven children would be exposed to music, dance, theatre and the visual arts. All the music lessons, youth orchestra, ballet, and museum art classes were her idea and my father faithfully drove us all to these countless lessons. I’m a professional flutist by default, however. I wanted to be the first girl to play in the Major Leagues long before I wanted to be a flutist.
I auditioned for principal flute in 1984, and I had played second flute for three years prior to that. So, 27 yrs. as principal, 30 yrs altogether.
I think that this Opera company covers a huge amount of territory with great skill. Every season offers standard, audience-loving favorites, the staple of the opera repertoire. But MN Opera has also successfully mounted many newly commissioned operas which have garnered considerable acclaim in the opera world, not to mention other contemporary operas which keep audience’s ears and tastes fresh. Also, MN Opera’s ongoing commitment to staging a Bel Canto offering every season is noteworthy in itself.
My own backyard gives me peace, solitude, flora and fauna, and a place to unwind. In more ambitious moments: Valentine Lake in Arden Hills, the Arboretum, St. Croix Trail, Midway Stadium when the St. Paul Saints are playing.
My Bible, my flute, and the Bach Partita in a minor.
Anything J.S. Bach. Simplicity is elusive, but magical if briefly achieved. Gluck wrote: “I believe that my greatest efforts have been devoted to seeking a beautiful simplicity. I have avoided making displays of difficulty at the expense of clarity. Simplicity, truth, and naturalness are the great principles of beauty in all artistic manifestations.”
I remember being 3 years old and sitting with my father, listening to the soundtrack LP of Mario Lanza as The Great Caruso. Music has always been a part of my life, so I can only try to imagine what it would be like without music: incomprehensible.
I would write poetry, presumably with greater skill as a vocation than as an avocation. Even yet, in the reading and writing, it has brought me a great deal of pleasure.
The woodwind section has never, in my memory, completed the run of an opera without some offering of intermission chocolate from one of us. This is why tempos at the beginnings of certain Acts are often ambitiously lively…
Easy: Verdi’s La Traviata, because it is the first opera I ever heard, as a toddler; Bizet’s Carmen, because I met my husband, violinist Roger Frisch, while playing Carmen at Indiana University Music School, and Barber’s Vanessa, because of the divinely exquisite quintet in the Finale.
 Amy Morris, flute Amy Morris (flute, Minnesota Opera Orchestra)What made you decide on a career in the arts?You’ll have to ask my mom – she picked out the flute for me. Once that was done, it was a foregone conclusion (thanks, Mom!). How long have you been working with opera?I’ve played since 1997, and been a core member of the orchestra since the 2000 season. What do you think makes Minnesota Opera unique from other companies?The company has a vision of opera that pays homage to the great works of the past, while sponsoring works of the future. It does it seamlessly, as opposed to poking you in the ribs with its odd ends. It’s very much like architecture that melds old bricks and mortar with new design elements but creates one, beautiful whole. What is your favorite Twin Cities destination?My home in Richfield, where my nice neighborhood, back porch, garden and cats are. If you were stuck on a deserted island and could only bring three things, what would they be?A boat, an oar and a GPS. What has been the most challenging piece you have worked on and why?For the opera, it has to be Der Rosenkavalier. It requires technical proficiency, musical passion, and exquisite ensemble playing. Pinocchio was probably the most technically challenging piece we (I) ever played, but that made it really fun. How has music changed your life?Music is my religion. It has the power to transform lives and the ability to be incredibly banal. The transforming moments make the banal ones sufferable. If you had to choose a different field of work, what would you choose?I would go out to Sonoma, CA and start pouring wine at one of the vineyards and hopefully learn the process of winemaking. What is your favorite thing about Minnesota?MSP flies non-stop to Amsterdam. Is there any “haute” backstage gossip you would like to share from this or previous performances?Sometimes we have other things besides bottled water in the orchestra pit. What are your top three favorite operas?Der Rosenkavalier. I love the rest equally. Have you ever had hot dish, and if so what is your favorite variety?Tater tot casserole (we call it casserole where I come from). How do you eat your eggs?Over easy. Besides opera, do you have any other favorite genres of music? What are some of your favorite artists from that genre?The Beatles, and I love Springsteen’s Seeger sessions with folk music. Do you have Twitter, a Facebook page or website fans can follow?all of the above. www.amy-morris.com; www.indande.com; and Facebook pages for Indande and The Prairie Song Project. What do you like to do when you aren’t busy creating great opera?Drink great wine, travel to great places, play great chamber music, hang out with great friends, play with my great cats. |
The literary background that led to the creation of Verdi’s La traviata is multi-layered. While many people think that the opera’s libretto is based upon the true story of the author Alexandre Dumas fils (meaning junior) with the Parisian courtesan Marie Duplessis (born Alphonsine Plessis), in actuality an earlier episode from her life probably gave Dumas more of the story line for his novel, The Lady of the Camelias (La Dame aux Camélias), than did his short and stormy relationship with her.
Marie was born in 1824 to a modest family in the Normandy region of France. Her father was a notorious drunkard and abusive to the whole family. The most notorious of his acts was to try to burn his wife alive in their own house. After her later death, he managed to sell Alphonsine into prostitution. She was one of the many “grisettes” of Paris… young women who worked in small shops during the day, and sold themselves to men of modest means at night. Our Mimi of La boheme fame was probably a grisette….at least in the original novel Scenes from the Life of Boheme by Henri Murger.
Since this was to be Alphonsine’s life in any case, one might say that she was lucky to be noticed one evening by Agénor de Gramont, the Duke of Guiche, one of the most well-known dandys of Paris. Alphonsine was 16 years old, he was 21. He acted as a sort of French Henry Higgens to her Eliza….bettering her position in many ways. He installed her in an apartment on the Rue de Mont Thabor in Paris, gave her a horse and carriages, servants and beautiful gowns. Not only that, he was responsible for helping her fill the gaps in her education. Under his watch, she learned to read, to write…even to play the piano! And it was at this moment that she changed her name from Alphonsine Plessis to the more chic Marie Duplessis.
Agénor de Gramont is much like Armand Duval of Dumas’ novel. The family did not at all appreciate that Gramont flaunted his mistress in public, and it is fairly certain that his father, the Duke of Guiche, made a personal appeal to Marie to give up his son for the same reason that Dumas put into the mouth of Armand Duval’s father: that the marriage of his daughter would be jeopardized by the scandalous life his son was leading. The words of the novel (in English) were “I have a daughter, young, beautiful, pure as an angel. She is marrying a man who loves her, she is entering an honorable family that wants for all to be as honorable as in mine.”
These words of the novel were taken almost unaltered from Dumas’ novel to use in that scene of Act II of Verdi’s La traviata in the section “Pura siccome un angelo.”
The scene from Act II of Verdi’s La traviata in which Germont comes to convince Violetta to give up his son is the turning point in the opera, and musically one of the most beautiful and beloved scenes in operatic repertoire.
Please join us for this, as well as the many other delights of the great music and stage craft known as La traviata!