Photo by: Will Gentry
Oklahoma Christian University students reached into the midst of class and culture to create the Opera Scenes, an experience for anyone who wished to listen as students sung together in harmony and rivalry.
“What we do is take several songs from different operas,” senior Megan Reed said. “There are a couple operas we do two or three songs from, so that the story holds together somewhat, but mostly it’s just different [scenes] from various operas.”
Students performed the Opera Scenes on the evenings of April 4 and 5.
“Last year they did a Tuesday night,” Reed said before the opening night. “It was one night, and the room was packed. There were like 50 people sitting on the floor last year, so this year they’ve given us two nights on the weekend.”
Last year marked the show’s debut, beginning with the retirement of the previous head of the opera program.
“Dr. Adams always ran the opera program,” Reed said. “After he retired, we brought in Rebekah and Carly and they started the Opera Scenes program, which is easier than doing a full opera, and you get to involve a lot more people than in an opera. If you just have one, usually there are a few main people and maybe a chorus, but this way everyone gets a featured song.”
Although the Opera Scenes presents a chance for each performer to spend some time in the center of the stage, junior Jolie Gasper said she wished there could have been one exception.
“The whole entire group that’s in the opera is never in one song at once, so we never get to do everything together,” Gasper said. “We all do things separately in little groups, but I would like to see the whole entire group together in one song.”
Still, Gasper said she had great respect toward the director of the Opera Scenes, Rebekah Bruce Parker.
“She’s really passionate about opera and she spreads that to us,” Gasper said. “She’s a really talented vocal coach, and I think that overall, not only are we putting on a show underneath her and she’s helping us do really well; she’s coaching us along the way, and it helps so much. She also has an assistant director, Carly Conklin, who’s doing the blocking and telling us how to act it out and stuff like that, and she’s just hilarious. She’s constantly teaching us a lesson and it’s always fun.”
In regard to time, the performers explained how much they have put into the performance and how the show progressed so quickly. Students were chosen in auditions in November and began rehearsals two months back.
“We started working on this the beginning of February, getting our pieces and then spending a lot of time,” Reed said. “The memorization process goes very quickly; we had the songs completely memorized during the first week of rehearsal, and then started staging.”
Gasper said the amount of time and energy she put in to the Opera Scenes was not extensive, though she admitted that could be due to both her number of scenes and her having recently been in the musical.
“I, thankfully, have not had to put a ton of work into it because I’m only in one scene,” Gasper said. “It was actually kind of a break for me because I came off the musical where you had to be here every single night and do everything. … Rebekah, the director, she schedules scene by scene so you only have to come on certain nights for a certain hour for your scene.”
Though she did not have to spend a lot of her time in preparation at the start, that changed as the performance drew closer.
“The last two or three weeks we’ve been spending every night up here trying to run through the whole show and make sure props and everything are good,” Gasper said. “For the most part, since we started in February, it’s been pretty simple; it hasn’t been really stressful until the last two weeks.”
Responding to the hard work put in by the group, the audience seemed to find the results satisfactory.
“I can’t name one piece that I enjoyed more than any other,” senior Katherine Vasper said. “They were all really well performed, and the performers all seemed to enjoy themselves.”
The majority of the opera pieces were from shows written in Italian, German, or other languages – though Gasper’s piece was an exception.
“There aren’t a ton of operas out there in English,” Gasper said. “I’m excited that I got to learn [it in] English [and] not some other language.”
The language barrier between the pieces performed and the majority of the audience did not pose a threat to the show, according to Vasper.
“I don’t think the language the songs were in really affected the performance,” Vasper said. “The body language and voices of the performers carried the show along.”
Vasper said she found the show enjoyable.
“I really enjoyed the opera scenes,” Vasper said. “I am glad that OC gives us the opportunity to attend these events.”
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