Heart and passion: casting at Seattle Opera

Mari Moriya as the Queen of the Night. Alan Alabastro photos

By Philippa Kiraly

In the operas so far this season, Seattle Opera has presented singers on stage from Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Spain, Croatia, Italy, Israel, Nicaragua, Australia, Turkey, France, Argentina, Mexico and, coming up in “The Magic Flute,” Canada, Japan, Russia and England. In addition, of course, to the American singers.

Where does general director Speight Jenkins find them?

The job of casting takes Jenkins to Europe a couple of times a year, to New York, and anywhere else he happens to be where there is opera and a singer he wants to hear.

“It isn’t ever just the voice,” says Jenkins. “The voice is just the first step. We have to assume the person has a voice and technique. Beyond that, it’s the dramatic sense, the passion. Can they pronounce the words while singing? Can they inhabit the character? Have they got heart? There’ve been times when I’ve stopped a young singer and asked: ‘What are you singing about?’ and they have only the vaguest idea.”

Sound the trumpet

By Philippa Kiraly

Some years ago, the Early Music Guild advertised a part time position for Marketing and Development, and ended up hiring a young woman named Kris Kwapis. Not coincidentally, she also happens to be one of the continent’s best performers on Baroque trumpet and in demand for concerts, as well as being a teacher at Indiana University and now also in the new early music program at Cornish College of the Arts. It’s our good fortune to have her here.

Saturday night, the Early Music Guild audience had a chance to hear her perform several trumpet concerti with Seattle Baroque Orchestra at Town Hall, in a program titled Sound the Trumpet.