{"id":21951,"date":"2016-11-18T00:36:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-18T08:36:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=21951"},"modified":"2016-11-18T10:59:44","modified_gmt":"2016-11-18T18:59:44","slug":"fairy-tale-reimagined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/11\/18\/fairy-tale-reimagined\/","title":{"rendered":"Fairy tale reimagined"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taylor Pardell as Gretel and Pascale Spinney as Hansel in Vancouver Opera\u2019s adaptation of the classic fairy tale. (photo by Emily Cooper)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

While Vancouver Opera is presenting the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel<\/em> Nov. 24-Dec. 11, cast member Leah Giselle Field is living one of her dreams.<\/p>\n

Field first moved to Vancouver from Calgary \u2013 where her parents had moved from Montreal the year before she was born \u2013 for an undergraduate degree in opera at the University of British Columbia. \u201cI left for a two-year master\u2019s program in Ontario and then came back for my doctorate,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI came back to Vancouver several times during those years away, so I feel like I\u2019ve been a Vancouver resident for the last 14 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, her connection to Vancouver goes back even further.<\/p>\n

\u201cVancouver has always felt a little bit like home,\u201d she said. \u201cAfter the war, surviving members of my maternal grandfather\u2019s family moved to Canada. My grandparents settled in Montreal, and my grandfather\u2019s sisters settled in Toronto and Vancouver\u2026. Growing up in Calgary, my family would take road trips to Vancouver over spring break and in the summers, and the time we spent with my great-aunt and my mother\u2019s cousins\u2019 families was formative. Friends of theirs have been part of family events and celebrations for decades, and it\u2019s always fun to catch up during holidays. I\u2019ve been part of the Congregation Beth Israel High Holiday Choir for the past few years and enjoy catching up with my BI family each fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her professional experience includes appearing \u201cin the title roles of Carmen and Julius Caesar, and as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro<\/em>, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly<\/em>, the Principessa in Suor Angelica<\/em>, and Jennie in Maurice Sendak and Oliver Knussen\u2019s Higglety Pigglety Pop<\/em>!\u201d notes her bio. \u201cShe is a past winner in the Western Canada District of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a 2015 semi-finalist in the Marcello Giordani Foundation International Vocal Competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo
Jewish community member Leah Giselle Field plays Gertrude, the siblings\u2019 mother. (photo from Leah Giselle Field)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Hansel and Gretel<\/em>, Field, who is a mezzo-soprano, plays Gertrude, the mother. All of the principal singers in the show, including Field, are 2016-2017 participants in Vancouver Opera\u2019s Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy experience with Vancouver Opera so far has really been a dream come true,\u201d Field said. \u201cI still have moments of disbelief that I get to do this every day, that I have the opportunity to work and learn with such wonderful colleagues within an organization that treats its singers with so much respect. The eight of us in the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program [YAP] have become really dear friends \u2013 we had \u2018YAPsgiving\u2019 together last month (because Thanksgiving fell between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, I brought matzah ball soup, round challah with raisins, apples and honey, and honey cake) \u2013 and our bass-baritone always says, \u2018Goodnight, family,\u2019 on his way out the door.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing part of this production of Hansel and Gretel<\/em> has been amazing\u2026. We have exciting, fresh perspectives from the director, conductor and designers to work with, the stage management team has been incredible, and the performers are so caring and supportive. It has been exciting every day \u2013 seeing the show come together is such a thrilling experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vancouver Opera is billing their Hansel and Gretel<\/em> as a \u201cfamily-friendly production\u201d for ages 6-plus.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all sorts of factors that make this production more family-friendly than our standard conception of \u2018opera,\u2019\u201d explained Field. \u201cFirst, the subject matter is familiar: anyone who has heard the Grimm story \u2013 about the brother and sister lost in the forest who find a house made of sweets and outsmart the witch who lives there \u2013 already knows the foundation of our story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also performing an updated translation of the original libretto, so audiences will be hearing our story in English. [And] Hansel and Gretel<\/em> is \u2026 an opera that involves child performers \u2013 we have a chorus of 14 children,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond the traditionally family-friendly elements of the opera, we have the most incredible design concept enhancing our production. This is a larger-than-life, technicolor world that brings to mind the dream world Maurice Sendak\u2019s protagonist Max imagines in Where the Wild Things Are<\/em>. This show is a co-production with the Old Trout Puppet Workshop, so costume pieces, the set, hand-held puppets and multi-operator puppet costumes help create this realm of \u2018everyday spectacular.\u2019 It\u2019s such a visually rich presentation that audiences of any age will be engaged by the complete realm of story they see and hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, the new production has been shortened \u2013 it will run approximately two hours and 20 minutes, with one intermission \u2013 and the \u201cyouthful cast of emerging opera stars\u201d will be conducted by 24-year-old Scottish-born conductor Alexander Prior. The original score by German composer Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) has been adapted to suit the relatively small size of the venue \u2013 Vancouver Playhouse \u2013 and will be performed by \u201ca 14-member ensemble of the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, which includes strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion, a saxophone and an electric guitar.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Field\u2019s focus is classical music, she said she also has some musical theatre, folk, jazz and pop music in her repertoire.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the music I\u2019ve performed most includes Yiddish songs I learned in elementary school,\u201d she said. \u201cWhenever I can fit it into a program, I try to include \u2018Oyfn Pripetchik.\u2019 That\u2019s always been a special song to me. When we learned new songs in Yiddish class, I would sing them over the phone to my grandfather in Montreal. He\u2019d always say, \u2018That\u2019s very nice, Ketzeleh,\u2019 but when I sang \u2018Oyfn Pripetchik\u2019 to him, he sang along. We had a party for his 90th birthday in 2010, and he got up to sing \u2018Oyfn Pripetchik\u2019 again with me then. I\u2019m sorry to say he\u2019s declined significantly in the past few years, but we still manage a sing-along every now and then.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOyfn Pripetchik\u201d is a song about a rabbi teaching his students the alef-bet, and it was written by Mark Warshawsky (1848-1907). In addition to folk songs, Field said that, since elementary school, she has \u201cbeen interested in music and art suppressed under Nazism.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy maternal grandparents are Holocaust survivors and interwar European culture provides a fascinating snapshot of life and art amidst tragedy,\u201d she explained. \u201cMary Castello, our pianist in the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program, and I are beginning to plan a recital of suppressed music for the new year and hope to present it across the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cJewish-Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick was commissioned by the CBC to write a song cycle for the great Canadian singer, Maureen Forrester,\u201d she continued. \u201cHe used the translated text of children\u2019s poems salvaged from Terezin for his cycle \u2018I Never Saw Another Butterfly,\u2019 and I had the honor of performing \u2018Narrative\u2019 from this cycle with pianist Richard Epp for UBC\u2019s honorary degree conferral ceremony for Elie Wiesel.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to the recital planned for next year, Field said, \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to Vancouver Opera\u2019s festival in the spring, and getting to play the bad guy in a production of Puccini\u2019s Suor Angelica<\/em> in Ottawa in February.\u201d<\/p>\n

For tickets to Hansel and Gretel<\/em>, call 604-683-0222 or visit vancouveropera.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taylor Pardell as Gretel and Pascale Spinney as Hansel in Vancouver Opera\u2019s adaptation of the classic fairy tale. (photo by Emily Cooper) While Vancouver Opera is presenting the fairy tale Hansel and Gretel Nov. 24-Dec. 11, cast member Leah Giselle Field is living one of her dreams. Field first moved to Vancouver from Calgary \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[4938,53,6540,6541],"class_list":["post-21951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-fairy-tales","tag-holocaust","tag-opera","tag-yiddish-music"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}