Chemical Reactions

by Elisabeth Commanday Swim

Scott Hendricks, Lindy Hume and Patrick Summers share their formula for Rigoletto.

Director Lindy Hume has come from across globe to direct her first staging of Verdi’s Rigoletto at Houston Grand Opera this spring. “I’m really looking forward to coming back to Houston,” she said in anticipation of her journey, “Houston definitely has the sense of a company. That sense of who we are and why we do what we do is really important to me. I try to engender that in my role as artistic director of the Sydney Festival and in running opera companies.” Hume is known for her intensely engaging productions that, rather than relying on particular dramatic devices, spring from the musical and dramatic source of each work and harness the very essence of her singing actors themselves.

As for every opera, her preparation has been deeply rooted in the score. “With a piece like this it’s quite filmic because you tend to imagine scenes happening while you’re studying the piece. I go through the libretto forensically and try to pull out clues to characters. A lot of my work really begins when I get to know the singers themselves,” she continues, but she makes sure she comes to rehearsal with “at least as much knowledge of the text?—?of what they sing?—?as they have.”

Delving into the persona of each role gives Hume the freedom to build her drama around the “the chemical reaction between the characters.” In rehearsal, she responds “very, very much to the alchemy of what is going on with particular people.” At home in Australia she is artistic director of the Sydney Festival, and her Australian productions have a reputation for being a kind of “survival of the fittest.” The more prepared one of her cast members is, the more prominence Hume is likely to give them onstage. “There is a sense of opportunity to be astonishing in a role even if it’s a small role, because I encourage that. The thing about opera is that people so badly want to be great in roles. As a director, you can help to get a best personal performance out of someone and that’s a pleasure.”

“Lindy has the ability to create a unique atmosphere of positive discovery and dramatic profundity,” says conductor Patrick Summers, “both of which are vital to artists doing enormous and difficult roles for the first time.” The two last collaborated here on The Barber of Seville in 2004, which Summers calls “sweet, and wickedly funny.”

Because Rigoletto is a repertory staple, he says, “There are many ways to perform and prepare it. To truly look at it anew, with eyes and ears as fresh as Verdi’s must have been upon writing, we decided to seek the next generation of Verdians, singers of imagination and youthful vocal quality, who could make a statement about this work, informed by their own recent discoveries.”

As conductor, he shares one chief task with Ms. Hume: “To challenge the singers to re-think what’s on the page. Not just trying to re-create the traditions of what they have heard. It is important that any singer not come to a part with an expectation of how the part should sound. They should bring themselves to the role, and that’s difficult to do with an iconic piece that is performed so often.”

As HGO’s music director, Patrick Summers was instrumental in assembling this fresh Rigoletto cast, which includes HGO Studio alumna Albina Shagimuratova in her Italian-language role debut as Gilda. “Shagimuratova seemed to me to possess all of the qualities Verdi expresses in the role of Gilda,” he reflects, “a youthful, bright sound with ‘heft,’ able to negotiate both the tender moments and the passages of full throated passion.” Summers worked with Eric Cutler, who makes his role debut as the Duke of Mantua, on a DVD recording of Bellini’s I puritani at the Met. In a musical sense, he says, “It struck me how closely related its treacherous tenor role is to Verdi’s Duke. How fascinating, I thought, to have a tenor capable of I puritani (there have never been more than 2 or 3 of those at any one time), and an experienced Mozartean, essay the Duke, with vocalism more aligned to the predecessor works of Rigoletto [Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini] than of the heavier roles Verdi would eventually write.”

This production also marks a first for HGO Studio alumnus Scott Hendricks, who makes his role debut as Rigoletto. “Scott is now of an age that he is beginning to take on Verdi’s famous baritone roles around the world (one must have the right combination of security and maturity before tackling them),” reflects Summers, “and we were attracted not only by Scott’s rich vocal amplitude and ease with Verdi’s long lines, but by his natural instincts as an actor,” which, he says, “really can’t be taught.”

“It fits like a glove. I love singing it,” says Hendricks, who gets his vocal inspiration for the role from Robert Merrill and Piero Cappuccilli. “The issue is the stamina factor, and that’s the case with any big role. Whether it’s Pinkerton, Wotan or Rigoletto, it’s about pacing. And you really only learn that in the rehearsal process.”

HGO audiences experienced the San Antonio native’s dramatic prowess when he sang Silvio in Pagliacci last fall, but this is Mr. Hendricks’s first collaboration with Patrick Summers in ten years, when the baritone stepped in as Prince Dmitry in the 1999 world premiere of Tod Machover’s Resurrection: “I am relieved that he’s conducting Rigoletto, because he’s a singer’s conductor. He is open to singers’ ideas.”

The dramatic challenges are different every time he does a production, says Hendricks, because so much depends on the dynamics among himself and his fellow actors. In this case, it is easy for him to relate to Rigoletto’s protective instincts in sheltering his daughter from the outside world. “At the moment, I’m the man of the house.” Hendricks lost his father nearly a decade ago, and he now feels somewhat responsible for his mom and his sister. “There is a very paternal mind set in regards to taking care of the girls in my life,” he says, and he also relates easily to Rigoletto’s incisive sense of humor.

Like Hume, Hendricks has spent a lot of time learning the text of his role and examining it from every possible angle, in contexts ranging from period to modern-day. In one of his imaginary scenarios, for example, Rigoletto is a cheeky executive assistant in a high-powered office. This singer does not get attached to any particular interpretation, however. Unlike some legendary baritones who were known for their signature interpretations of the role, he says, “I don’t want to come in with a ‘Scott Hendricks Rigoletto.’ I just want to start with a blank canvas.”

California native Elisabeth Commanday Swim joined HGO as Editorial Director in October 2008. She has written for San Francisco magazine, and served as editorial consultant for Goorin Brothers, Inc.