Berkshire Opera
Life has a soundtrack.

Eighteen Years after meeting as Figaro and Susanna, Maureen O’Flynn and Claude Corbeil share the stage again in Mozart’s comic masterpiece!
photo credit: Nick Atlas www.nickatlas.com

Berkshire Opera is used to the ups and downs of life in the theatre. However, drama onstage sometimes cannot match the endearing stories of the artists whose professional assignments include portraying opera’s most beloved characters. Over the course of the last few weeks, another compelling chapter is being written in the life story of local superstars Maureen O’Flynn and Claude Corbeil. Theirs is a deeply personal tale of love and adversity, career and family, passion and fate.

“Claude and I met in 1990 when we were both cast in Hamilton Opera’s production of Le nozze di Figaro (the company is now known as Opera Ontario). He was Figaro, I was Susanna, and that meeting defined our lives from that moment on,” says O’Flynn, speaking from her home in Stockbridge, Massachusetts where she relaxes between rehearsals. At that time, Corbeil was extremely well known in Canada as Monsieur Jambon, where he was featured in his own Television and Radio programs in Quebec, and had already enjoyed an international opera career that spanned more than thirty years. Corbeil was beginning to have occasional trouble with his vocal health and would undergo several surgeries to remove pre-cancerous plaque from his chords.

Over the next few years, the couple saw each other while the established Corbeil continued to sing throughout Canada, the United States, and Amsterdam. Simultaneously, the career of O’Flynn began to bloom internationally, with important debuts on both sides of the Atlantic. The couple came together again in Ireland for a production of Faust where Corbeil portrayed Satan and O’Flynn essayed Marguerite. Following their work in Ireland, the pair returned to Ontario for another production of Le nozze di Figaro as Susanna and Figaro - a couple both onstage and off!

In 1995, under the weight of four more operations on his vocal chords, Corbeil decided to retire from the opera stage. The toll of the surgeries on his craft and confidence had become too great. Soon after, the couple married. Three years later, Corbeil’s doctor found that the trauma to his vocal chords was not yet over. Another surgery revealed cancer, and 65% of the bass-baritone’s left chord was removed. His doctor fashioned a fake chord from a skin graft on the inside of his cheek, and in the course of one day, the singer’s speech, livelihood and identity were swept away. In his recovery room, with paper and pen, he tearfully wrote one word to O’Flynn: “sorry.”

Corbeil had been a singer his entire life, and was the son of a very famous Quebec bass, Paul Emile Corbeil. In the quiet and numbness of the aftershock of this surgery, Corbeil was dealt another serious blow to his physical well being in the form of colon cancer. Surgery, Chemo, and a prolonged battle with the disease both here and in Germany raged for the next four years before he was in the clear, but it was the loss of his singing voice that was the source of the most personal devastation.

Earlier this year, Corbeil took on several small speaking engagements with the aid of amplification, and rediscovered his passion for performance. O’Flynn had recently accepted the role of Cherubino in the Berkshire Opera production of the Mozart classic when general director Ryan Taylor offered Antonio to Corbeil. Corbeil visited with his ENT, Dr. Peak Woo, the top doctor in his field. He gave the green light to Claude, suggesting a procedure that he has performed for “old Italian singers in their 80’s who want to give a week’s master class.” The vocal chords are injected with collagen to plump them up so that they meet and then the singer has a little more voice for about six months. As a result of the procedure, Corbeil has been healthily rehearsing since late July with O’Flynn on the Berkshire production of Figaro.

“This production is our own little miracle,” says O’Flynn. “We are back on stage in our beloved Figaro, and even though we are happily singing Antonio and Cherubino and not the roles that brought us together, we thought we would never experience this process again. We are surrounded by incredibly gifted supportive colleagues and are enveloped by Mozart’s music and the story of smart, scrappy, clever, adorable, funny people who adore each other and manage to make marriage work in the face of obstacles at every turn: truly a dream come true!”

This week, the most exciting sign of spring from Berkshire Opera arrives at thousands of mailboxes around the country - our 2008 Season Brochure! We are so excited to present this year’s offerings to our many loyal friends and supporters, and we hope you will find much to enjoy with us in the beautiful Berkshire Hills. If you can’t wait until Friday to share in the excitement, download a copy of the 2008 Season Brochure by clicking here.

Bass Jason Hardy returns to Berkshire Opera this summer after his elegant, moving portrayal of Colline last season at The Colonial Theatre. He offers a few thoughts about what lies ahead this summer in Berkshire County as this week’s guest blogger:

I am thrilled to be headed back to the Berkshires! Last summer was my first journey to this cultural Mecca, and it is one I hope to make often… whether I am performing or not!

I heard some wonderful things about the Berkshires before La bohème rehearsals began last July, but nothing truly prepared me for the Berkshire experience. The wealth of museums, art galleries/shows, historic sights, nature preserves, theater, and dance blew me away.

And then there was the music!

I was proud to be a part of La bohème last summer. It was a tremendous success for the Berkshire Opera Company, despite many challenges the company had faced in the previous year. BOC assembled a great cast for the production, and the beautifully restored Colonial Theater provided a perfect venue for the company.

This season marks the beginning of a era for Berkshire Opera, with new general director Ryan Taylor working closely in tandem with artistic director Kathleen Kelly. I hold the duo in high esteem, and we have collaborated on many projects in the past. This pair brings a vision to this company that is unique and I am excited to see how the Berkshire community responds to their innovative approach to “storytelling”. Expect to be enlightened, inspired, and entertained. Above all, it is going to be fun!

Since last summer, I’ve been very fortunate to have added some new roles to my repertoire, including Leporello (from Don Giovanni) and Don Basilio (from Rossini’s Barber of Seville). This summer I get to add another to my list; Don Bartolo. Coincidentally, The Marriage of Figaro was composed by Mozart (same composer as Don Giovanni) and is the second story in the Figaro Trilogy by Beaumarchais (Rossini’s “Barber” is a setting of the first one). As you see, each of these operas is connected to the other in some way, which provides an interesting perspective during musical preparation and character development.

In fact, just ten days after this show closes, I head to Cleveland and debut my first Mozart Figaro! So, within one year’s time, I will have performed the operatic treatments of three different Beaumarchais characters!

Needless to say, I will be studying the Figaro score a lot this summer. And what better place to study than the beautiful Berkshires?

BOC has assembled a great cast and design team for this summer’s Nozze. What’s more, each of the other BOC offerings will be unlike any other vocal music program you have ever seen or heard.

You don’t want to miss this!

-Jason Hardy, bass
Dottore Bartolo, Le nozze di Figaro 2008

Talk about Uncharted Territory… when was the last time you ever saw the Production Stage Manager in the spot light? Have you ever even seen a Stage Manager? Do you really even know what a Stage Manager does?

I usually try to keep a low profile. I’m one of those behind the scenes people that Ryan and Kathy keep talking about in their blog entries. The title, stage manager, seems pretty self explanatory - the person that manages the stage. Most of the time, I’m just that - the gal behind the curtain. I’m the one coordinating the lights and the set changes and the cast, making sure that all of the pieces of the puzzle that have been put together by the Conductor, Director and Designers, continue to stay together once the show is open. But what have I been doing this week working in the office in Pittsfield? That’s what Ryan has charged me with writing a blog entry about.

While the director and designers have been brain storming the direction of this summer’s production of Le Nozze di Figaro, and Ryan and Kathy have been building the programs for our concerts and recitals, and Marianne has been putting together contracts for the artists and orchestra musicians and technicians - there’s a whole lot of information that’s floating around out there that needs to be organized and shared. Yup, organize and share, that’s me!

That’s pretty much what Stage Managers do. We are the disseminators of information. During rehearsals for a production, we’re the ones that make sure the cast knows when they have to be where each day. I coordinate musical coachings, staging rehearsals, costume fittings into a daily schedule and make sure that artists can be all the places they need to be in a day and still have time for a lunch break. While I’m watching a staging rehearsal, if there is a new prop added to a scene or Susanna needs a pocket in her apron to put that prop, I make sure that information is shared with the Prop Master and the Costume Designer in my daily rehearsal report. When the Tech Director and the Set Designer need to move the wall of the Countess’s bedroom upstage 3 feet because the Lighting Designer needs to hang a light in a new location, I’m the one who makes sure everyone that will be affected by that change knows.

This week I’ve put together the first draft of the season’s master calendar. I made arrangements for the Lee Middle-High School to be used as our rehearsal space for all of this summer’s productions. Marianne and I started putting together contact sheets that will keep the artists and staff involved in this season’s 2 concerts, 4 recitals, and 1 fully staged opera communicating with one another when they join us here in the Berkshires this summer. Best of all, I sat in on the first face-to-face meeting of the design team for Le Nozze di Figaro. Being able to sit down with artistic minds while they are in their creative process is one of my favorite parts of my job. A lot of information can come out of a meeting like that. Now I get to share it with everyone.

Did I mention I’ve also been given the new title of Education Programs Coordinator? This summer will see the return of programs like “Behind the Velvet Curtain” - a week long opera camp for children co-produced by Berkshire Opera and Berkshire Music School. We are also creating new programs like Family Opera Festival - a hands-on Sunday workshop designed for families attending the matinee performance of Figaro on Monday 8/18. Perhaps the education side of me is another blog entry entirely…

I really love my place behind the curtain. I connect with opera in a way that not many people get a chance to do. When the backstage elements come together smoothly, then all the artists you see on stage perform at their best. If you enjoyed a beautiful performance and had no idea that the technical side was a challenge, then I’ve done my job well. One of my greatest skills is the art of not being noticed from the audience. It’s a skill that I take great pride in.

And no Ryan, you cannot put a picture of me up with this blog entry… a gal has to keep some air of mystery about her!

- Laura R. Krause, production stage manager
education programs coordinator