Erin Thompson was about to turn 11 when her family moved from Aurora to the little rural town of Waterman, Illinois, in 1994. The transition got easier when they found the Northern Illinois Children’s Choir—a “wonderful program” that “became my home,” she says. By the time Thompson, a mezzo-soprano, was 16, choir director Carol Stubbs had taken her on as a private student and encouraged her to develop an opera repertoire and enter competitions. Thompson won a couple of those (placing first in the state and second in the nation in the Music Teachers’ Association high school competition) and then enrolled at Northern Illinois University as a vocal performance major. Holding down three part-time jobs to pay for college, she got through two years of it and then, broke and exhausted, dropped out. She followed a boyfriend to Chicago and got a job. Now the boyfriend’s history and she’s a full-time accounts-payable clerk. But she’s never given up on her dream of becoming a professional singer.
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Thompson was thinking Chicago could use a networking and support system for singers, and more opportunities for the kind of performances that might reach new audiences, when she heard about a New York-based bootstrap effort called Opera on Tap. In May Thompson became the founder and “managing diva” of Opera on Tap Chicago, and tonight at Angelo’s Taverna on North Sedgwick, for the price of a couple beers, you can catch their second show: 15 divas and divos paying tribute to their favorite operatic villains by belting out their arias. Thompson will be channeling Delilah.
But now Chicago has a new crop of stereotype-busting little opera groups playing at bargain prices in intimate venues—including the neighborhood pub. Faced with the traditional opera world’s shrinking ticket sales, dying audiences, and dearth of opportunity—a situation that’s driven countless singers to chuck the dream and settle for the day job—these artist-entrepreneurs are looking to crack that world open and cozy up to the masses.
If they do, they’re in for a treat. The show is a scrupulously produced, three-and-a-quarter-hour hoot. Written by Lehár nearly 20 years after his success with The Merry Widow and infused with a twinkling, surprisingly diverse score, it’s a Sex and the City for Paris in the 20s—and Cloclo (Roosevelt University undergrad Amanda Horvath) is the Carrie Bradshaw of the Folies Bergere, complete with the mouthy attitude and drop-dead wardrobe. The libretto and lyrics—salted with references to Bernie Madoff and AIG—have the merciless cynicism of true farce, as does August Tye’s witty choreography. E. Loren Meeker directs an excellent cast that includes Frantzen as Cloclo’s true love and Kelly as her very funny maid.
Opera Favorites Sun 8/9, 4:30 PM, Church of St. Hilary, 5600 N. California, 847-662-2694, dacorneto.org, $10-$15.
Their most ambitious production so far, the Chicago premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s punk take on Oedipus, Greek, drew raves in June at St. Paul’s Cultural Center in Wicker Park, with a top ticket price of $40 and student rates as low as $5. They’re planning three shows for the upcoming season, starting with No Exit by Boston Conservatory composition chair Andy Vores, which opens October 16 at the Center on Halsted and moves to Northwestern for Halloween weekend. A deconstruction of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise is also on the schedule. “We’re thinking big,” Reda says. But for now the annual budget is about $50,000, and he’s hanging on to his gigs as an independent marketing consultant and Web designer.
The mission, she says, is “to say to people opera is completely accessible, and to raise money for scholarships for our singers.” (They pass a horned helmet for contributions.) Nobody gets paid, and the only thing they rehearse as a group is the closing sing-along with the audience. “We want people to understand that opera often follows the same kind of plot lines as soap opera: there’s drama, there’s magic, and there’s all these things that still resonate in everyday life.”
