DIY History | Transcribe | Campus Culture | Cecile Cooper newspaper clippings, 1966-1987 | April, 1985 Spectator: ""Presenting Opera in 'All Its Excellence'"" Page 1

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Cecile Cooper newspaper clippings, 1966-1987

April, 1985 Spectator: ""Presenting Opera in 'All Its Excellence'"" Page 1

PAGE 4
SPECTATOR
APRIL 1985

Presenting Opera in "All Its Excellence"
There's a missionary, of sorts, in The University of Iowa Opera Theater: its director, Beaumont Glass. Along with coaching and directing students in opera theater, his mission, as he sees it, is to rally enthusiasm for the world's "most complete form of theater."
An opera-missionary's work isn't easy. It is especially difficult when one is up against stereotypes molded at least 300 years ago, in Handel's day, by satirical cartoonists and the media. They stereotyped opera as an "incomprehensible, ridiculous performance by fat people," as Glass explains it.
Neither has opera enjoyed the established historical tradition in America as it has in Europe. After World War II, the first buildings reconstructed in Germany, for example, were the opera houses, Glass contends, because they were the symbols of national cultural heritage.
In Zurich, Switzerland, where Glass coached and directed opera singers for 19 years prior to coming to Iowa in 1980, the city's theater presented a variety of productions with seven performances per week for ten months each year. While there has been steady growth in the number of American regional opera theaters, Glass says, their seasons are generally shorter and they offer fewer productions in comparison with their European counterparts.
Glass makes a conscious effort--in the two major operas and several one-act operas he produces each year at the University--to present opera in "all its excellence." He approaches each production with the point of view that it is a theater experience, so the audience can follow it as they would a play or a film.
Glass tries to bring out the psychological interest of the drama as well as to present "a complete form of theater" through exciting visual and acoustic entertainment. For the two large productions each season in Hancher Auditorium, the Opera Production Unit has consistently created dazzling costumes and opulent sets that draw the audiences' applause before the first note is sung.
Under Glass, the Opera Theater has produced "warhorses" of opera such as "The Magic Flute" and "The Barber of Seville," but has also staged several operas for young audiences and has indulged in some innovative programming. 
Iowa City has its goodly share of opera enthusiasts, but the missionary carries on in the belief that opera can be "an awakening experience" for the University's 30,000-plus students, the audience that's "closest to his heart."
"Students in college are gaining an awareness of their cultural heritage. Opera is part of that cultural heritage, along with literature, art, history, and the other subjects they are experiencing," Glass says.
"The recent movie 'Excalibur' was very popular with students. They loved the music, which was Wagnerian opera, but nobody seemed to know that it was opera," Glass says. "The same thing was true of '2001,' which had music by Strauss."
Handel's "Agrippina," a production scheduled for this coming summer, is a comedy of "political skullduggery in Ancient Rome," Glass says. Agrippina, the main character, was Nero's famous mother.
And The University of Iowa Opera Theater may be enjoyed by its largest audiences ever when opera star Simon Estes, currently starring in the Metropolitan Opera's first-ever production of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," returns to his alma mater in the spring of 1986 to sing the title role in "Boris Godunov." Glass and Estes often worked together in Europe, and Glass came to Iowa on Estes' recommendation.
So the missionary's work goes on.
-Kathryn Koch

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PAGE 4 SPECTATOR APRIL 1985 Presenting Opera in "All Its Excellence" There's a missionary, of sorts, in The University of Iowa Opera Theater: its director, Beaumont Glass. Along with coaching and directing students in opera theater, his mission, as he sees it, is to rally enthusiasm for the world's "most complete form of theater." An opera-missionary's work isn't easy. It is especially difficult when one is up against stereotypes molded at least 300 years ago, in Handel's day, by satirical cartoonists and the media. They stereotyped opera as an "incomprehensible, ridiculous performance by fat people," as Glass explains it. Neither has opera enjoyed the established historical tradition in America as it has in Europe. After World War II, the first buildings reconstructed in Germany, for example, were the opera houses, Glass contends, because they were the symbols of national cultural heritage. In Zurich, Switzerland, where Glass coached and directed opera singers for 19 years prior to coming to Iowa in 1980, the city's theater presented a variety of productions with seven performances per week for ten months each year. While there has been steady growth in the number of American regional opera theaters, Glass says, their seasons are generally shorter and they offer fewer productions in comparison with their European counterparts. Glass makes a conscious effort--in the two major operas and several one-act operas he produces each year at the University--to present opera in "all its excellence." He approaches each production with the point of view that it is a theater experience, so the audience can follow it as they would a play or a film. Glass tries to bring out the psychological interest of the drama as well as to present "a complete form of theater" through exciting visual and acoustic entertainment. For the two large productions each season in Hancher Auditorium, the Opera Production Unit has consistently created dazzling costumes and opulent sets that draw the audiences' applause before the first note is sung. Under Glass, the Opera Theater has produced "warhorses" of opera such as "The Magic Flute" and "The Barber of Seville," but has also staged several operas for young audiences and has indulged in some innovative programming. Iowa City has its goodly share of opera enthusiasts, but the missionary carries on in the belief that opera can be "an awakening experience" for the University's 30,000-plus students, the audience that's "closest to his heart." "Students in college are gaining an awareness of their cultural heritage. Opera is part of that cultural heritage, along with literature, art, history, and the other subjects they are experiencing," Glass says. "The recent movie 'Excalibur' was very popular with students. They loved the music, which was Wagnerian opera, but nobody seemed to know that it was opera," Glass says. "The same thing was true of '2001,' which had music by Strauss." Handel's "Agrippina," a production scheduled for this coming summer, is a comedy of "political skullduggery in Ancient Rome," Glass says. Agrippina, the main character, was Nero's famous mother. And The University of Iowa Opera Theater may be enjoyed by its largest audiences ever when opera star Simon Estes, currently starring in the Metropolitan Opera's first-ever production of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," returns to his alma mater in the spring of 1986 to sing the title role in "Boris Godunov." Glass and Estes often worked together in Europe, and Glass came to Iowa on Estes' recommendation. So the missionary's work goes on. -Kathryn Koch