Guest blog post: Kim Witman, from Wolf Trap Opera
One of my favorite summer activities is catching Wolf Trap Opera at the Barns. So I thought I'd let Kim Witman, the director of this remarkable company, tell you about that very appealing place in Vienna, Virginia:
Tim has been gracious enough to allow this guest post today, part of Wolf Trap Opera’s mini-internet splash on the occasion of our 2010 season announcement. You can find all of the details back on my blog -– but my intention here is to give you a glimpse inside our home: The Barns at Wolf Trap.
375
That’s the magic number. Of seats. I don’t know too many opera companies who regularly perform in a space where the distance from the edge of the stage to the back of the house is the same as the distance to the back of the orchestra pit at the Met. If you’re in the front row, you can almost reach out and touch the singers. If you’re in the back, you can still see the whites of their eyes.
No
As in: no fly space, no crossover space, no wing space.
When future directors and designers come to see the space, I preface the visit with drastic descriptions. No fly space (can’t pull anything out of sight above the stage); no upstage space (can’t walk from stage right to stage left without going down to the dressing rooms, walking under the stage, and back up a flight of stairs); and no wing space (as in, any set pieces that start onstage stay onstage.) Let’s just say, this is
The wonderful thing is that when artistic team members visit The Barns, they make friends quickly. There’s something warm and charming about that old barn that makes people forget to worry about all the things it can’t do. Quickly the brave stock phrases about “limitations inspiring creativity” turn to actual embrace of the space. And the work begins.
Watch Out for that Bow
We can fit 28 orchestra musicians in our pit. And that’s pushing it. It’s kind of a perfect size for a Mozart opera, but even problematic for Rossini and Donizetti, who tended to write for a few more brass players than Mozart did. We owe our players a debt of gratitude for their ongoing flexibility (figuratively and literally) in making music inside our tiny pit.
This summer, due to the percussion complement for "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," some of the players are getting edged out of the pit. The audience will be joined in the house by harps, harpsichord and celesta, making Britten’s sonic world even more atmospheric!
The Magic in the Wood
There will be theatrical magic in the Athenian woods of "Midsummer," but there’s acoustical magic in the actual wood of this old barn. Our theatre was an actual working barn, taken from its home in upstate New York and reassembled (using 18th-century style tools) here in 1982 as a theatre. (As in “Hey! My dad has a barn! Let’s put on a show!) Wolf Trap founder Kay Shouse thought that the natural warm, clear acoustics of the building would be perfect for a performance space, and she was right.
Beer with That?
Some patrons aren’t sure about the fact that you can bring food and drink into the theatre with you. But I believe that enjoying a glass of wine with that second act of "Turk in Italy" could be a fine thing. There are occasional worries about noisy wrappers and clinking ice cubes destroying the mood, but most people have a surprising amount of common sense about this. In decades of attending and producing opera at The Barns, there have been very very few problems – probably no more than there are with candy and cough drop wrappers in a hall with traditional restrictions.
Never Been There?
You owe it to yourself to check us out someday. It’s a special place.
Comments
Sounds very similar to the space that Opera Vivente performs in, only a bit larger. We should see how we can collaborate a bit more, Kim.
Posted by: John Bowen | February 9, 2010 7:15 AM
I second John Bowen's observation about space. Watching Opera Vivente's creative productions, I hardly think about limitations of the stage support areas. I'm still amazed at how a fully-laden banquet table materialized in the middle of the action of "Cinderella" last fall. Also: So thrilled about finally having a chance to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" on stage in the area (at Wolf Trap).
Posted by: Clayton | February 9, 2010 11:45 AM