♫ ♫ ♫ [baroque opera music]
--ROBERT MEALY: This is a really groundbreaking moment
for everyone here. This is a piece that
has not been done in New York for a long, long time.
--BRIAN ZEGER: It's filling in a really vital
piece of music history. It would be a little bit like those of us that love
Schubert and Brahms never having played Bach.
--STEPHEN WADSWORTH: for Vocal Arts, we expose them to
this kind of opera. we've never done a French Baroque piece here. 'Hippolyte et Aricie'
the music is absolutely first rank, all the way through it's just fabulous.
That's a huge thing is to expose them to a style that they otherwise wouldn't
know and from which there's much to be learned.
--ZACK WINOKUR: This repertoire is not done much
here partly, because it's huge and complicated and this work is not only a
great teaching tool but it's also an important thing to do.
--STEPHEN STUBBS: The fact that Juilliard is bringing that all together
is something I think very special and
something that Juilliard has the resources to do because of the strong
vocal department, the strong early music department with the orchestra, and the
dance department--all of which comes together to make this a big spectacle.
--ALEX ROSEN: I happen to just be bananas about this era of music.
--KELSEY LAURITANO: I love singing Baroque music
primarily because there's so much room for interpretation.
--STUBBS: Rameau was the greatest composer of his generation.
' Hippolyte et Aricie' is the first opera
that he wrote. What was very special about it and very different from the
Italian music of the same time is that it included grand choruses, huge
spectacle, grand orchestra. It was really big.
--MEALY: This project brings together almost
all the divisions of the school.
--WADSWORTH: Every effort in this regard and the sort of
cross-pollination in the arts of course is thrilling.
--LUA CARDENAL: I came to this school
because I wanted to collaborate with all
kinds of artists, so having the chance
to collaborate with singers was a one-time opportunity.
--WADSWORTH: And that's sort of how Zack and I are thinking of it
to use the dancers in places that aren't
necessarily the "designated dances," to have them be present and elements in the
storytelling throughout.
--ZEGER: Our goal is that no one watching this
will really know who's dancing and who's the singer, and in fact our singers are
so well-trained in movement that they're going to find a kind of instrument in their
own body that is equal to their instrument of their voice.
--WADSWORTH: I said to everybody, I said it might be a little
nerve-wracking because it's not like what you've done.
We're finding a way to integrate this as we go. Our challenge is
to try to make it a cohesive event of storytelling.
--WINOKUR: One thing that I really
enjoy watching is the way that the Stephens talk to each other. You can't
really make a dramatic decision without it being a musical one, and you can't
make a musical decision without it being a dramatic one. That kind of
responsiveness I think is, like, such good modeling for how everyone in the
world should work.
--EUNJI LEE: When I watch Stephen Wadsworth working
with the singers, I'm amazed that he
knows the music so well and the style too. It's not like he tells them what to
do, but they find the way together.
--ROSEN: In the room, he is just a paragon of accuracy and
attention to detail. He inspires us to think about every word and every
movement and every position and what it means.
--LAURITANO: He has so many ideas and he is so
knowledgeable about every aspect of this opera.
--CARDENAL: He gave us different tools to try
out and it was amazing to see how deep we could go.
--LAURITANO: Maestro Stubbs is fantastic.
He's the perfect person to learn how to sing Baroque music from. He is just so
open-minded but super detail-oriented as well.
--STUBBS: The basic mission is looking at a
composer's writing and sort of reading the tea leaves. Why did he write it like that?
--ROSEN: It's really an invigorating experience having somebody there who is
so devoted to the music, but also is so willing to hear whatever you have to say
about how you'd like to interpret the character.
--NAYA LOVELL: I like working with Zack Winokur.
He very much incorporates his ideas as well as ours. He would have an
idea and then we would work individually or with a partner and then we would
share that with the group.
--CARDENAL: He knew were to start and that's always, uh, very
nice to encounter. From the beginning he explained
everything to us from his perspective, from the director's perspective.
--WINOKUR: It really goes from speech to heightened language
into singing, and it's the same kind of
thing that we're trying to find in dancing. That like you have blocking, you
have pedestrian, naturalist movement and then where does it move into gesture or
move into something that looks like dancing and to try and blur those lines
as much as possible. At the best moments you forget that people are singing and
you just hear what they're saying.
--LOVELL: It's interesting to watch the opera singers
and how they move, so I embody everything that they project to me.
--LEE: It's always amazing to watch how they express their emotions through their body.
--LAURITANO: It's unbelievably exciting to be a part of this, because it's something nobody in
this environment has seen before and it's an incredibly ambitious project for
Juilliard to do and as my final year here I couldn't wish for a better opportunity.
♫ ♫ ♫ [baroque music]