Special to the Star-Bulletin
Soprano Carolann Page comes
from a musical family.
Symphonic emotion
Calrolann Page opens
By Tim Ryan
Honolulu Symphony season
Star-BulletinHer assignment was to transform the persona of former first lady Pat Nixon into a compelling opera figure --in a bold American experiment into a traditional European art. Soprano Carolann Page, who opens the Honolulu Symphony's 1997-98 Masterworks Series season Sunday at Blaisdell Concert Hall, very much wanted to be in John Adams' "Nixon in China" opera when she was called to audition, but never suspected it was for the Pat Nixon role.
"I thought they wanted me ... for the Tricia role because that was much closer to my age," Page said in a telephone interview from her New Jersey home. "When they said Pat Nixon I momentarily panicked, until I realized I had lots of (relatives) who could give me ideas on how women of the Nixon era acted."
"Nixon in China" caused a huge sensation when it opened in 1987, making successful entertainment from familiar and notorious figures in recent world history. The very notion of a Nixon opera was a sufficiently amusing paradox in itself, and the music and libretto took second billing to the opera's glamorous outrageousness, including the picture-perfect restagings of familiar scenes from Nixon's Chinese tour of 1972.
The opera did not speak through vivid actions on stage, but instead through meticulous tableaux that climax in soliloquies, Page said.
"We didn't have a clue we were creating a landmark sort of thing ... in taking history and bringing it to life," Page said. "As opposed to standard opera, this time out I could get facts about someone who was still alive."
Though the opera toured three years in the United States and Europe, the Nixons never saw a live performance.
"There wasn't anything in it the Nixons would have found objectionable," Page said.
The Pat Nixon role vocally was written for Page and she was allowed to shape the role to her interpretation.
"Doing the character changed me. I could never just walk through a performance. I always got caught up in her intensity and rigidity...."
"She was quite strong and stoic in her beliefs that her husband was the right man for the (presidency) and I think she was more devastated than he was when he was forced to resign.
"She never sought the limelight. She never sought the camera."
In her own life, Page has made some career sacrifices for her family, turning down performing long distances from home when her now-18-year-old son was growing up. These days, with him in college, she can travel the 5,000 miles to Hawaii without guilt, fully enjoying her first trip to paradise and performing under the direction of her renowned conductor-father, Robert Page.
"I'm not sure everyone can work with family members, but our temperament is so much the same about music that it's always a real treat when we get the chance," she said. "There is really no one better."
Page will conduct a program that highlights the work of French masters with vocal styling from the 200-voice Toho College of Music Chorus from Japan, and the Oahu Choral Society. The Toho chorus was first heard with the symphony in 1996.
Page may have had little choice but the performing arts; her mother is a singer.
"I probably sang when I was conceived," said Page, who made her professional debut at 10. "I don't remember a time when I wasn't singing.
"Once I got on the stage that was it."
New season begins
What: Honolulu Symphony 1997 Masterworks Series opener, with guest conductor Robert Page; soprano Carolann Page; Chorus of the Toho College of Music, Japan, directed by Saburo Watanabe
More Masterworks
4 p.m. Nov. 2, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 4
Enrique Diemecke, guest conductor; Eugene Fodor, violin
Chavez's "Chaconne," Sibelius' Violin Concerto in D minor, Op.47, Tchaikovsky's Symphony in B minor, Op.74, "Pathetique"
4 p.m. Nov. 23, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 25.
Samuel Wong, conducting; Ruxandra Donose, mezzo soprano
Bright Sheng's: "China Dreams," Ravel's "Sheherazade," Rimsky-Korsakov's "Scheherazade," Op.35
4 p.m. Nov. 30, 7:30 p.m Dec. 2.
Samuel Wong, conducting; Tamaki Kawakubo, violin; Hawaii Youth Opera Chorus, Nola Nahulu, director
Chen Yi's "Ge Xu" (Antiphony), Bartok's "The Miraculous Mandarin," Borodin's "In the Steppes of Central Asia" Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.35
4 p.m. Jan. 4, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 6
Samuel Wong, conducting; Gustavo Romero, piano
Womack's "On Fields of Frozen Fire" (World Premiere), Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op.30, Strauss' "Also Sprach Zarathustra," Op.30
4 p.m. Jan. 11, 7:30 p.m. Jan. 13.
Samuel Wong, conducting; Lorin Hollander, piano; Albert McNeil Jubilee Singers, Albert McNeil, director
Gershwin's "Cuban Overture," Piano Concerto in F Major, excerpts from "Porgy and Bess"
4 p.m. March 8, 7:30 p.m. March 10
Stuart Chafetz, conducting; Yoon Kwon, violin
Haydn's Symphony No.103 in E-Flat Major, "Drum Roll," Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons," Op.8
4 p.m. April 5, 7:30 p.m. April 7
Samuel Wong, conducting; Matt Haimovitz, cello
Debussy's "Prelude l'Aprs-Midi d'un Faune" Saint-Saens' Violoncello Concerto, No.1 in A minor, Op.33, Ravel's "Ma Mre l'Oye (Mother Goose)," Ravel's "Daphnis et Chloe" Suite No.2
4 p.m. April 26, 7:30 p.m. April 28
Joseph Silverstein, guest conductor/violin
Featuring Beethoven's Symphony No.6 in F Major, Op.68, "Pastorale"; Violin Concerto in D Major, Op.61
4 p.m. May 3; 7:30 p.m. May 5
Samuel Wong, conducting; Ignace Jang, concertmaster
Beethoven's "Romance", Symphony No. 3 in E-Flat Major, Op.55, "Eroica," Srauss' "Metamorphose."
4 p.m. May 10, 7:30 p.m. May 12
Samuel Wong, conducting; John O'Conor, piano
Beethoven's "Egmont" overture; Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major, Op.73, "Emperor"; Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op.67
4 p.m. May 31, 7:30 p.m. June 2
Samuel Wong, conductor;Scott Anderson, clarinet; Oahu Choral Society, Timothy Carney, director; soloists to be announced
Mozart's Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K.622, Orff's "Carmina Burana"
