“A little still she strove, and much repented,
\nAnd whispering \u201cI will ne’er consent\u201d\u2014consented.”
\n\u2014 Lord Byron George Gordon<\/a> (Don Juan: Cantos 1 through 3<\/a>)<\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\nYes, dear friends, opera’s bad boy is back in Baltimore. Don Giovanni, t<\/em>he seductive rake, will be wooing from the stage in Chesapeake Chamber Opera’s performances this weekend in Bolton Hill<\/a>. Mozart’s masterful setting of the Don Juan tale is both dark and melodic given to lavish musical gestures and yet playful at times. Jessica Lennick<\/a>, soprano, plays the lively and flirtatious Zerlina.\u00a0 A peasant bride, Zerlina is one of the many love interests of Don Giovanni throughout the show.<\/p>\nI have asked Jessica to be a guest here at the Sybaritic Singer this week. Today she shares with us the process of creating her interpretation is this famous soubrette<\/a> role. Later this week she will give an update on the process of putting the show together. Finally, early next week, Jessica will give us a wrap-up post about the whole experience.<\/p>\n\n
Preparing for Zerlina – Jessica Lennick<\/strong><\/p>\nI always tend to have this moment when I\u2019m preparing a new role: I ask a colleague an idle question about either the character I\u2019m preparing or the work it\u2019s from.\u00a0 I ask something quite innocently, expecting a thoughtful response, and in return I get a scathing, \u201cOh god, I hate<\/em> that character.\u201d<\/p>\nIt\u2019s always an awkward moment\u2014my response to this tends to be to seethe inwardly while gritting my teeth in a smile and saying, \u201cReally?\u00a0 Why?\u201d<\/p>\n
I identify with the characters I play, and somehow I can\u2019t find my way out of feeling personally insulted by this response.\u00a0 Hate them?\u00a0 How?\u00a0 These women are with me all the time.\u00a0 I sang Adina 4 times last year alone\u2014she was the company I kept for fully half the year.\u00a0 It would be like hating a roommate, a recipe for total disaster.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m preparing my first Zerlina for the Chesapeake Chamber Opera production of Don Giovanni<\/a> next weekend and I\u2019ve had a barrage of these negative responses to various characters in DG.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t get less bewildering.<\/p>\nDon Ottavio is nothing but a doormat?\u00a0 Donna Anna does nothing but whine?\u00a0 Zerlina is a brainless sexpot?<\/p>\n
Really?<\/p>\n
I will never understand how a singer can sing a role without, if not loving the character, then finding something in them that they identify with.\u00a0 Frankly, it\u2019s our job.<\/p>\n
I come at creating a character in various ways, but my main goal always is to ferret out what the major beats are.\u00a0 In some ways, this completely circumvents whether I \u201clike\u201d my character or not.\u00a0 I don\u2019t create a character, I create a journey.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job as an actress to discover all the different things that might necessitate that journey.\u00a0 Out of that, I get a timeline for the character that will always serve me, no matter how far in one direction or another the characterization gets skewed or how far removed that character seems at first from my own personality.<\/p>\n
With Zerlina, I don\u2019t know yet quite which way we\u2019re going in this production (though I know I\u2019ll be a modern girl, which shakes things up as I\u2019ll explain in a later post) but I do know that, no matter what, I have four beats I have to hit.<\/p>\n
\n- I have to be willing to go with Don Giovanni<\/li>\n
- At some point I have to be aware that the Don is playing me<\/li>\n
- At some point I have to resolve or address what my feelings are for Masetto<\/li>\n
- I have to address at some point what I feel about my fate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If this seems vague, good.\u00a0 It should be.\u00a0 In fact, it should always be.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, looking at that (extremely arbitrary) list, it occurs to me that even this is mutable.\u00a0 But it is my first time creating this character, and those moments are a good place to start.<\/p>\n
There are four places Zerlina needs to get to, and so many ways of showing it.<\/p>\n
Take what is, for me, the most problematic moment.\u00a0 Zerlina has to go with the Don\u2014likely to marry him.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way around L\u00e0 ci darem<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 As a modern woman, this can be a little problematic.\u00a0 I want Zerlina to be tough and no nonsense and uncomplicated.\u00a0 I want her to be moral!\u00a0 Falling for the bad guy is an evil thing to do to Masetto, plus<\/em> it\u2019s unutterably stupid from my omniscient standpoint as an actor reading this libretto.<\/p>\nClearly,<\/em> the Don is bad news.\u00a0 What is she thinking?![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/don-giovanni-with-zerlina-la-ci-darem-la-mano.jpg\" "\\"don-giovanni-with-zerlina-la-ci-darem-la-mano\\"")
<\/p>\nThere are so many answers to this.\u00a0 The easiest is the historical point of view-a landless, asset-less peasant female<\/em> is essentially worthless in the time period where Zerlina was created.\u00a0 Whether or not she has a genuine affection for Masetto is irrelevant.\u00a0 He just happens to be the best she can do.\u00a0 The Don shows up and, hey, who cares if the street-smart Zerlina knows he\u2019s a skeeze.\u00a0 The slightest of chances that he might be telling her the truth about marrying her is enough.\u00a0 A life of back-breaking labor and poverty and an early death with a man you love, or luxury, money, ease, and longevity with a guy you may or may not be able to stand? \u00a0I find choosing the second option completely understandable.<\/p>\nThere is another school of thought that the Don is just so physically overwhelming women can\u2019t refuse him.\u00a0 I find that to be simplistic and completely ignorant of the other class and sex based dynamics going on in the libretto, but it sure makes my job easy.\u00a0 Just be overwhelmed.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n
An idea I have been toying with lately is that Zerlina does it to protect Masetto.\u00a0 I like this reading in a completely superficial light because it makes Zerlina \u201cgood\u201d.\u00a0 But I also like it because it makes her conflict more pronounced, longer lived, and easier to play.\u00a0 The support for it is somewhat flimsy\u2014the Don definitely threatens Masetto in front of Zerlina, but after that there\u2019s nothing explicit until the Don actually beats the crap out of Masetto in Act II.\u00a0 But, take the implication of violence from a man with all that wealth and power, and you are a woman of the peasant class with nothing to offer but your body\u2026<\/p>\n
Well, it certainly makes for a lot of drama and a lot of decisions.<\/p>\n
Bless you, all of this will all depend on my colleagues and how they conceive their characters, and the work we do with our director, Jake Feldman<\/a>, over the course of the week.\u00a0 But these options give me an arsenal of decisions to make and places to go on my journey as Zerlina.\u00a0 I can go anywhere with my colleagues in the next week, because I have already thought of multiple ways to get there.<\/p>\nLook for another post later in the week which will include: fun with drugs, collaboration anecdotes, and general rumination on Don Giovanni<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/04\/jessicalennick.jpg?w=200\" "\\"jessicalennick\\"")
<\/a>Jessica Lennick, Soprano<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSoprano Jessica Lennick prides herself on being able to stay busy.\u00a0 She is looking forward to her role debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni<\/em> with Chesapeake Chamber Opera in April 2011 and just finished premiering the role of Angeline in Mike Dutka\u2019s Crowded House<\/em> at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in September 2010. Information about other events and her varied career can be found at <\/span>www.jessicalennick.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yes, dear friends, opera’s bad boy is back in Baltimore. Don Giovanni, the seductive rake, will be wooing from the stage in Chesapeake Chamber Opera’s performances this weekend in Bolton Hill. Mozart’s masterful setting of the Don Juan tale is both dark and melodic given to lavish musical gestures and yet playful at times. Jessica Lennick, soprano, plays the lively and flirtatious Zerlina. A peasant bride, Zerlina is one of the many love interests of Don Giovanni throughout the show. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,1],"tags":[240,420,421,422,423,424,425,426,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-1017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-guest","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-chesapeake-chamber-opera","10":"tag-don-giovanni","11":"tag-don-juan","12":"tag-donna-anna","13":"tag-jessica-lennick","14":"tag-mozart","15":"tag-wolfgang-amadeus-mozart","16":"tag-zerlina","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I have asked Jessica to be a guest here at the Sybaritic Singer this week. Today she shares with us the process of creating her interpretation is this famous soubrette<\/a> role. Later this week she will give an update on the process of putting the show together. Finally, early next week, Jessica will give us a wrap-up post about the whole experience.<\/p>\n \n Preparing for Zerlina – Jessica Lennick<\/strong><\/p>\n I always tend to have this moment when I\u2019m preparing a new role: I ask a colleague an idle question about either the character I\u2019m preparing or the work it\u2019s from.\u00a0 I ask something quite innocently, expecting a thoughtful response, and in return I get a scathing, \u201cOh god, I hate<\/em> that character.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s always an awkward moment\u2014my response to this tends to be to seethe inwardly while gritting my teeth in a smile and saying, \u201cReally?\u00a0 Why?\u201d<\/p>\n I identify with the characters I play, and somehow I can\u2019t find my way out of feeling personally insulted by this response.\u00a0 Hate them?\u00a0 How?\u00a0 These women are with me all the time.\u00a0 I sang Adina 4 times last year alone\u2014she was the company I kept for fully half the year.\u00a0 It would be like hating a roommate, a recipe for total disaster.<\/p>\n I\u2019m preparing my first Zerlina for the Chesapeake Chamber Opera production of Don Giovanni<\/a> next weekend and I\u2019ve had a barrage of these negative responses to various characters in DG.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t get less bewildering.<\/p>\n Don Ottavio is nothing but a doormat?\u00a0 Donna Anna does nothing but whine?\u00a0 Zerlina is a brainless sexpot?<\/p>\n Really?<\/p>\n I will never understand how a singer can sing a role without, if not loving the character, then finding something in them that they identify with.\u00a0 Frankly, it\u2019s our job.<\/p>\n I come at creating a character in various ways, but my main goal always is to ferret out what the major beats are.\u00a0 In some ways, this completely circumvents whether I \u201clike\u201d my character or not.\u00a0 I don\u2019t create a character, I create a journey.\u00a0 It\u2019s my job as an actress to discover all the different things that might necessitate that journey.\u00a0 Out of that, I get a timeline for the character that will always serve me, no matter how far in one direction or another the characterization gets skewed or how far removed that character seems at first from my own personality.<\/p>\n With Zerlina, I don\u2019t know yet quite which way we\u2019re going in this production (though I know I\u2019ll be a modern girl, which shakes things up as I\u2019ll explain in a later post) but I do know that, no matter what, I have four beats I have to hit.<\/p>\n If this seems vague, good.\u00a0 It should be.\u00a0 In fact, it should always be.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, looking at that (extremely arbitrary) list, it occurs to me that even this is mutable.\u00a0 But it is my first time creating this character, and those moments are a good place to start.<\/p>\n There are four places Zerlina needs to get to, and so many ways of showing it.<\/p>\n Take what is, for me, the most problematic moment.\u00a0 Zerlina has to go with the Don\u2014likely to marry him.\u00a0 There\u2019s no way around L\u00e0 ci darem<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 As a modern woman, this can be a little problematic.\u00a0 I want Zerlina to be tough and no nonsense and uncomplicated.\u00a0 I want her to be moral!\u00a0 Falling for the bad guy is an evil thing to do to Masetto, plus<\/em> it\u2019s unutterably stupid from my omniscient standpoint as an actor reading this libretto.<\/p>\n Clearly,<\/em> the Don is bad news.\u00a0 What is she thinking? There are so many answers to this.\u00a0 The easiest is the historical point of view-a landless, asset-less peasant female<\/em> is essentially worthless in the time period where Zerlina was created.\u00a0 Whether or not she has a genuine affection for Masetto is irrelevant.\u00a0 He just happens to be the best she can do.\u00a0 The Don shows up and, hey, who cares if the street-smart Zerlina knows he\u2019s a skeeze.\u00a0 The slightest of chances that he might be telling her the truth about marrying her is enough.\u00a0 A life of back-breaking labor and poverty and an early death with a man you love, or luxury, money, ease, and longevity with a guy you may or may not be able to stand? \u00a0I find choosing the second option completely understandable.<\/p>\n There is another school of thought that the Don is just so physically overwhelming women can\u2019t refuse him.\u00a0 I find that to be simplistic and completely ignorant of the other class and sex based dynamics going on in the libretto, but it sure makes my job easy.\u00a0 Just be overwhelmed.\u00a0 Done.<\/p>\n An idea I have been toying with lately is that Zerlina does it to protect Masetto.\u00a0 I like this reading in a completely superficial light because it makes Zerlina \u201cgood\u201d.\u00a0 But I also like it because it makes her conflict more pronounced, longer lived, and easier to play.\u00a0 The support for it is somewhat flimsy\u2014the Don definitely threatens Masetto in front of Zerlina, but after that there\u2019s nothing explicit until the Don actually beats the crap out of Masetto in Act II.\u00a0 But, take the implication of violence from a man with all that wealth and power, and you are a woman of the peasant class with nothing to offer but your body\u2026<\/p>\n Well, it certainly makes for a lot of drama and a lot of decisions.<\/p>\n Bless you, all of this will all depend on my colleagues and how they conceive their characters, and the work we do with our director, Jake Feldman<\/a>, over the course of the week.\u00a0 But these options give me an arsenal of decisions to make and places to go on my journey as Zerlina.\u00a0 I can go anywhere with my colleagues in the next week, because I have already thought of multiple ways to get there.<\/p>\n Look for another post later in the week which will include: fun with drugs, collaboration anecdotes, and general rumination on Don Giovanni<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n \n \n Soprano Jessica Lennick prides herself on being able to stay busy.\u00a0 She is looking forward to her role debut as Zerlina in Don Giovanni<\/em> with Chesapeake Chamber Opera in April 2011 and just finished premiering the role of Angeline in Mike Dutka\u2019s Crowded House<\/em> at the Philadelphia Fringe Festival in September 2010. Information about other events and her varied career can be found at <\/span>www.jessicalennick.com<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yes, dear friends, opera’s bad boy is back in Baltimore. Don Giovanni, the seductive rake, will be wooing from the stage in Chesapeake Chamber Opera’s performances this weekend in Bolton Hill. Mozart’s masterful setting of the Don Juan tale is both dark and melodic given to lavish musical gestures and yet playful at times. Jessica Lennick, soprano, plays the lively and flirtatious Zerlina. A peasant bride, Zerlina is one of the many love interests of Don Giovanni throughout the show. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[138,1],"tags":[240,420,421,422,423,424,425,426,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-1017","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-guest","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-baltimore","9":"tag-chesapeake-chamber-opera","10":"tag-don-giovanni","11":"tag-don-juan","12":"tag-donna-anna","13":"tag-jessica-lennick","14":"tag-mozart","15":"tag-wolfgang-amadeus-mozart","16":"tag-zerlina","17":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1017\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sybariticsinger.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
<\/p>\n<\/a>