Indianapolis Opera Ensemble tenor, Jon Jurgens started cycling in 2001, before he was a singer of any sort (Jon is a latecomer to the world of opera and didn’t start singing at all, not even in choir, until he was almost 20 years old). Today singing and physical fitness are tied together in his life. The discipline that it requires to train for a long-distance bike ride carries into his practicing. Singing is a workout and being in good shape, physically, benefits Jon’s opera career as well as his physical health.

The last role that Jon sang was Ruggero from La Rondine. “That role is a marathon. Very physical. You need to be in shape for it,” Jon says. “Learning to manage a large operatic role is very similar to training for a long ride. Pacing yourself, for example. You don’t sing the entire role. You sing it in small sections. If I’m training for a 100-mile ride, I don’t just get on the bike and ride 100 miles. You break it down into small increments first. For example, if you give it all in the first 60 miles of a ride, you have nothing left for the last 40 miles. Similarly, the final aria in La Rondine is exhausting. If you give it all in Act II, you don’t have anything left for the final aria. ”

Jon’s interest in cycling started when he found an old road bike in a friend’s basement. His friend hadn’t cycled in years and Jon’s enthusiasm got them both biking again. The first ride they took together was 25 miles. Today Jon is training to do a double-century ride, with a goal of doing a 200 miles in just one day. His singing career is rather active right now as well – for the first five months of 2012, he will be Indianapolis Opera’s resident tenor. Immediately after that, he’ll travel to Des Moines, Iowa to be a part of the Des Moines Metro Opera young artist program. Being busy as a singer is both a blessing and a curse – it’s great to have consistent work, but that means that he’s too busy to do traditional cycling training programs or sign up for group races. Jon imagines that his double century ride will probably be solo, something he organizes when he has time between gigs; he’s looking forward to it.

So how will Jon train while he’s here in Indiana, busy taking the IO touring children’s opera all over the state? Jon laughs at this. First of all, it’s winter here. Secondly, Indiana is flat. He’ll cross-train indoors, he says. Runners make good cyclists, so he’ll hit the treadmill and then immediately get onto an exercise bike. He also owns a stationary training bike that he’s got set up in his house and he’s considering starting p90x, a regimented workout program, to strengthen his core. Even though cycling seems like a leg- centric exercise, core strength is essential and improves your riding ability. He’s going to get the rest of the Ensemble into it, too. So watch out! It’s not over till our fit ladies (and men) sing!

The more I learn about opera, and become immersed in this world, the more I realize opera is everywhere. You may think you don’t know anything about this art form, that you don’t like opera, that it’s stuffy and boring and for gray haired old ladies – but several Hollywood directors would disagree with you. If Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese and Elvis think opera is cool, I can get on board too.

1. The Habanera from Bizet’s Carmen

Carmen is one of the most performed operas in North America and the Habanera has been performed and recreated in everything from Disney cartoons to Walmart commercials.

The original: Maria Calla sings the Habanera

Movies you’ve heard it in: Trainspotting, Pixar’s UP, Hudsucker Proxy

2. Ride of the Valkyries from Wagner’s Ring Cycle

Ride of the Valkyries is perhaps Richard Wagner’s most famous piece (that’s VAG-ner, not WAG-ner). It was composed as part of four epic operas called Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung, or more often Wagner’s Ring Cycle) which took twenty-six years to write. And by epic, I mean EPIC: the four operas, generally performed over four nights, have a total playing time of about 15 hours.

Opera misconception: Many people believe the Ring Cycle inspired J.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. While the two were inspired by the same Old Norse mythologies, Tolkien has once said, “Both rings are round, and there the resemblance ceases.”

The original: Ride of the Valkyries

Movies you’ve heard it in: Apocalypse Now, The Blues Brothers, Full Metal Jacket, What’s Opera, Doc?

3. Barcarolle from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann

The Tales of Hoffmann, written by Jacques Offenbach, is based on the short storied of writer E.T.A. Hoffmann and the Barcarolle is the most famous aria in the opera.

Fun Fact: Barcarolle provided the tune for Elvis’s Tonight Is So Right For Love in G.I. Blues.

The Original: Barcarolle

Movies you’ve heard it in: Life is Beautiful, Titanic

4. Flower Duet in Delibes’ Lakme

Lakme duet is always used to evoke beauty and tranquility, although sometimes overlayed as a foil for violence like in Tomb Raider. Listen closely while you are watching TV and youll hear it helping sell you some of your favorite products. Its ubiquitous presence in films and popular music since the mid-1980s was inaugurated by its usage in the 1983 horror film The Hunger.

The original: The Flower Duet

Movies you’ve heard it in: Meet the Parents, The American President, Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life, The Hunger

5. Sull’aria from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro, an opera buffa (comic opera) – not to be confused with The Barber of Seville and the aria Largo al factotum – was originally banned in Vienna because of it’s satire of the aristocracy, but later became one of Mozart’s most successful works.

The original: Cecilia Bartoli and Renee Fleming

Movies you’ve heard it in: The Shawshank Redemption

Join us in March for Opera Goes to the Movies as movies and opera meld.

“It’s not over till the fat lady sings!” Right?

This is what most people think of when called upon to envision opera. After the fur coats and cummerbunds, visions of horned-helmeted, buxom sopranos are right up there.

But young opera singers today are challenging that perception. The new phrase: “It’s not over till the FIT lady sings!”

Opera singers are required to be some of the most physically fit people in theater. In addition to needing dance training, stage movement and combat training, singers must be ready to climb up, down and over sets that are increasingly large, complex and imaginative. Check out the set the singers had to navigate during the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Das Rheingold.

Sometimes, they must manage costumes that are extremely heavy and unwieldy or wear costumes made of heavy, hot fabrics, such as these chefs from the Met’s production of Hansel and Gretel.

Dresses can weigh up to 20 lbs. Capes can be 10 feet long! Check out massive dress Angela Brown wore Indianapolis Opera’s production of Ariadne auf Naxos – imagine having that on for three or four hours!

In some cases, singers are even rigged to wiring so they can fly across the stage. This requires an immense amount of coordination!

In addition, modern opera singers have more diverse exposure to audiences. Singers nowadays can be featured in magazine, blogs, on a company’s website, in a newspaper or on TV. The Met Live in HD series has more fans than ever coming to see the opera for an up close and personal experience. You no longer need opera glasses to see an opera singer at work – they are 20-feet tall, live on the big screen. That means every part of their physique is visible and under scrutiny by audiences that are used to seeing movie stars on screen.

All this means that singers need to be increasingly agile, strong and physically fit. A fitness routine not only helps singers be prepared for a long rehearsal period, heavy costumes or tricky set design – it provides daily discipline that helps them to succeed in the art form.

As many people are working to fulfill their New Year’s resolution to be get into shape, we will share with you what it takes to be opera-singer fit.

To start off, meet our Indianapolis Opera Ensemble artists. This group of young artists have recently graduated from their respective master’s programs and will be training with IO January through May. Join us this Saturday, January 14^th at the Basile Opera Center to see them in action in this season’s children’s opera Jack and the Beanstalk. The performance is free and open to the public and starts at 11:00 am. Full details can be found here.

Meet soprano Angela Gribble, a vegetarian who enjoys yoga and exercising on the elliptical.

Mezzo Davia Bandy, weight trains and uses Jillian Michael’s workout videos when on the road for auditions and gigs.

Tenor Jon Jurgens, extreme cyclist (he’s training to do a double century ride, which is cyclist jargon for 200 miles!).

Last, but not least, baritone Elliot Brown, who is training for a half-marathon this May.

In the next 3 weeks, you’ll learn a little bit about each of our singers, their take on physical fitness and what they do to stay in shape. Get some inspiration from our dedicated young artists and let it help you to stick to your New Year’s resolution to hit the gym!

by Lou Harry
Indianapolis Business Journal

The sole on-stage character in Dominick Argento’s one-act opera “A Water Bird Talk” isn’t given a name. He’s just “The Lecturer,” an anonymous gent whose off-stage wife has somehow made him the guest speaker at a ladies’ social club event.

The Lecturer’s subject: water birds (although he would have preferred to speak of spiders). And he’s got some notes and slides to share.

But the Lecturer shares more than his knowledge of our feathered friends. He shares his discomfort. He shares his awkwardness. And, when his wife temporarily leaves her vantage point offstage, he shares his deep sadness about the state of his home life.

Read the rest of the review at IBJ.com

by Jay Harvey, Indianapolis Star

The popular image of opera as something large-scale and grandiose doesn’t tell the whole story.

Chamber opera manages to convey many of the thrills of its magnified cousin, but with the advantage of musical and emotional intimacy.

Indianapolis Opera’s current production of Lee Hoiby’s “Bon Appetit!” and Dominick Argento’s “A Water Bird Talk” take the genre down to practically the onstage minimum.

Only one singer in each show carries the dramatic and musical burden, though both are supported by apt, colorful orchestration.

“Bon Appetit!” captures the ebullience of Julia Child’s cooking show in its lively early days. Emily Lodine portrays America’s own camera-ready French chef, who’s assisted by a pair of tidy but sometimes a little unrestrained sous-chefs in preparing a chocolate cake.

In the second performance Saturday night, Lodine followed Hoiby’s nimble setting of Child’s own words (adapted by Mark Shulgasser) with exquisite timing and understated drollery. She swayed between insouciance and detailed warnings as the cake took shape. When puffs of flour escaped the pans and floated to the floor, Child praised her “self-cleaning kitchen” as her dutiful assistants swiftly took care of the spillage.

With members of the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra supplying light-textured accompaniment under the baton of James Caraher, Lodine reflected the down-to-earth zest Child was noted for. If “Bon Appetit!” could be said to have had a dramatic climax, it was the jovial contest between the mixer and the wire whisk, resulting in a tasty tie.

“A Water Bird Talk” posed a greater test of the potential of one-singer opera. Argento’s orchestral palette here is considerably more variegated than Hoiby’s; it has to be, because the character of the Lecturer is going through a soul-searing conflict about the meaning of his life. The monologue is laced with wit and anguish, and requires virtuoso vocal security to deliver.

Robert Orth turned in a first-class impersonation of an amateur expert on his subject lecturing to a ladies’ club — a man tormented by unhappiness into digressions of Wagnerian scope. His miserable marriage is the source of most of these wanderings. Orth’s versatile baritone was supplemented by a turn at the piano, where the Lecturer lovingly reproduces bird calls, then is moved by the thought of his anti-musical wife to launch into the stirring old hymn “Once to Every Man and Nation.”

A screen behind Orth was filled with a selection of Audubon slides of waterfowl, including the pied-billed grebe, whose woebegone existence the Lecturer readily identifies with. It also incorporated thevideo designs of Barry Steele, most movingly when Orth-as-Lecturer appears to soar against a blue sky flecked with clouds, free at last from earthbound woes.

Le Gateau au Chocolat ‘Eminence Brune’

ROBERT ORTH is the best baritone in his price range. A man of average looks and more than adequate vocal skills, he has somehow made the difficult climb from Chicago Opera Theater (his first operatic engagement) to Opera Grand Rapids (his most recent). It has often been said of him, “He has clawed his way to the middle.” A high baritone, he has been referred to as “half man, half tenor.” But it’s Mr. Orth’s abilities as an actor, not as a singer, that have put him in demand to sing Figaro in THE BARBER OF SEVILLE in such cities as Syracuse, Toledo, Corning, and Wilmington. Critics have often commented on his “windmill arms,” his “toothy smile,” and his general tendency to “overact.” Nevertheless, audiences have tolerated him in roles from Morales in CARMEN to Mr. Gobineau in THE MEDIUM. The Metropolitan Opera may not be interested in him. (“We don’t think you’d hear him in our large theater.”) But he is a regular in Indianapolis and Memphis, where the big stars seldom shine. Last year Mr. Orth created the role of Harvey Milk in the opera HARVEY MILK, based on the life of the famous dead homosexual. Though a few critics did not like the opera, most noticed that Mr. Orth tried really hard. A devoted family man, he is away from his wife and children for 7 to 8 months each year. So it’s probably just as well that he has no work for 3 months this summer. But next January he will spend his 50th birthday freezing in Calgary, Alberta, and after that he will make a triumphant return to Grand Rapids, Michigan. His career may be nearly over, but he refuses to give in, a trooper to the end.

In a 1978 Saturday Night Live sketch (episode 74), she was parodied by Dan Aykroyd continuing with a cooking show despite ludicrously profuse bleeding from a cut to his thumb, and eventually expiring while advising “Save the liver”. Child reportedly loved this sketch so much she showed it to friends at parties.

IO ANSWER: IO explored several options for our inaugural Book Club, some of them more closely paralleled Madama Butterfly and some of them explored some of the surface themes of the opera (for instance Memoires of a Geisha). In the end, we felt that it was more interesting and thought provoking to explore the themes of discrimination, cultural insensitivity and unrequited love. What struck me, even in the first pages of the book, was Ishmaels subtle similarities to Butterfly – he’s pining for someone he can’t have and in many ways he doesn’t fit into his own community, he’s an outsider among his own people much like Butterfly was a bt of an outsider among her culture and Pinkerton’s culture.

IO ANSWER: In the beginning of the novel, which takes place during a snow storm, you can feel the cold emanating from the page and can so clearly picture the dim courtroom and the hushed chatter that seems to accompany inclement weather. Gunderson is quietly building to a dramatic revelation, and I found myself struggling not to skip ahead to discover the crime. I felt, though, when he finally got there, that the revelation was actually a bit anti-climatic. This is in sharp contrast to Puccini, who quickly foreshadows Butterfly’s fate with Pinkerton’s lackadaisical attitude about his marriage contract with Cio-Cio San and Cio-Cio San’s obvious devotion to Pinkerton. While Puccini gives us this bit of insight at the beginning of the opera, he delays the most dramatic moment until the very end. Unlike Gunderson, when Puccini’s intentions for Butterfly are revealed, even when you know it’s coming, it’s dramatic and poignant every time.

Between 1901 and 1907, almost 110,000 Japanese immigrated to the United States. They were drawn by promises of ready work–American railroads actually sent recruiters to Japanese port cities, offering laborers three to five times their customary wages–and by worsening economic conditions in their homeland, which was undergoing social upheaval in the aftermath of the Meiji Restoration. Although many originally came as dekaseginin–temporary sojourners–work was plentiful, not only on the railroads, but in the lumber camps, salmon fisheries, and fruit orchards of Oregon and Washington. Increasingly, the newcomers stayed on. Many purchased their own farms. In time, these issei–first-generation Japanese–started families.

The Japanese government actively encouraged emigration, and although the Gentleman’s Agreement of 1908 curbed the flow of Japanese men, it allowed unrestricted entry to their wives and children. Many women were “picture brides,” who came to join husbands they knew only through photographs and letters and whom they had “married” by proxy in ceremonies in their native villages.

Very quickly the newcomers encountered antagonism. Although Japanese constituted less than two percent of all immigrants to the U.S., newspapers trumpeted an “invasion.” The mayor of San Francisco proclaimed that “the Japanese are not the stuff of which American citizens can be made.” The Sacramento Bee warned that “the Japs…will increase like rats” if allowed to settle down. The Asiatic Exclusion League agitated for legislation to halt all Japanese immigration. Politicians ran for office on anti-Japanese platforms. In 1923, the state of Oregon prohibited issei from legally buying land. A year later, Congress passed the National Origins Act, which banned all immigration from Japan.

In spite of this, the newcomers thrived. They found ways of getting around some laws (under Oregon’s Alien Land Law, first-generation Japanese could legalize their land purchases by registering them in the names of their American-born-or nisei-children). They tolerated other laws. Meanwhile, the immigrants preserved the ceremonies and values of Japan even as they encouraged their children to acculturate and, particularly, to educate themselves. “You must outperform your detractors,” one issei counseled his children. Typically, the nisei grew up thinking of themselves as Americans, yet were reminded of their difference every time they encountered the taunts and ostracism of their white neighbors.

Following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, hostility turned into paranoia–and paranoia became law. Japanese who had lived in America for thirty years were accused of spying for their native land. The day after Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Treasury Department ordered all Japanese-owned businesses closed and all issei bank accounts frozen. The U.S. government had already compiled lists of Japanese whose loyalties might be suspect, and more than 1,000 businessmen, community leaders, priests, and educators were arrested up and down the West Coast.

The restrictions escalated. Japanese homes were searched for contraband. Telephone service was cut off. One newspaper columnist wrote: “I am for the immediate removal of every Japanese on the West Coast to a point deep in the interior….Herd ‘em up, pack ‘em off and give ‘em the inside room in the badlands…let ‘em be pinched, hurt, and hungry.” In February 1942, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which empowered the government to remove “any and all” persons of Japanese ancestry from sensitive military areas in four western states. Japanese residents had only days in which to evacuate. They were compelled to sell their land and businesses for a fraction of their value, or to lease them to neighbors who would later refuse to pay their rent. All told, some 110,000 Japanese Americans were deported from their homes to hastily built camps such as Tule Lake and Manzanar, where they lived behind barbed wire for the duration of the war.

Neither Germans nor Italians living in this country were subject to similar restrictions, and recently declassified documents reveal that the Japanese population was never considered a serious threat to American security. In all of World War II, no person of Japanese ancestry living in the United States, Alaska, or Hawaii was ever charged with any act of espionage or sabotage. As one nisei later wrote, the victims of Executive Order 9066 were people whose “only crime was their face.”

In 1988, the U.S. government formally apologized to Japanese citizens who had been deprived of their civil liberties during World War II.

This information was gathered from Lauren Kessler, Stubborn Twig: Three Generations in the Life of a Japanese-American Family. New York, Random House, 1993. Courtesy of Bookbrowse.com