By George F. Lee, Star-Bulletin
Kevin Anderson and Jami Rogers play the young lovers.
Hawaii Opera Theatre
By Ruth Bingham
launches a new season with
a classic romance
Special to the Star-BulletinWherefore art thou Romeo? This year, he's on stage at Blaisdell Concert Hall, opening the 1998 opera season. Hawaii Opera Theatre is presenting a trio of literary legends: Gounod's "Romeo et Juliette," Mozart's "Don Giovanni" and Verdi's "Macbeth."
Henry Akina, HOT's general and artistic director, says opera remains a vibrant and relevant art form, 400 years into its history: "The idea is to tell good and valid stories. ... Making the stories live is one of the big caveats of the season."
Looking toward the 21st century, Akina sees a surge of interest in opera. "The generation that has grown up with the computer is fascinated with opera. I think we will see more of that. Research indicates that as the new media become more important in our daily lives, people are actually going back to more classical forms of culture ... for human values, for experiencing things that have to do with people."
Although opera cannot match the spectacle many films, opera's music can provide greater emotional depth and deeper insight into what characters are feeling, he said. "Because (singer-actors) are live, and they're also doing something in front of you that is difficult to do, there's this kind of gladiatorial thing about it, too."
Some people, however, are intimidated by opera -- its conventions, its complexity and especially its foreign languages. Who wants to sit through a performance if you can't understand what's being sung?
But Akina reassures, "Oh, you'll understand it, just watch." The stories, summarized in programs, are often familiar and are conveyed primarily through music and acting. For those who want to follow the text, HOT displays translations in supertitles above the stage.
In addition to a loyal subscription base, HOT attracts a diverse audience: "If you go to a performance, you'll see a wide variety of the community, a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds."
Nonetheless, Akina says, "I would like to broaden that palette a little further. Being the only opera company here, and being the keepers of this tradition, I think we've got a responsibility to always try to cater to more groups of people."
HOT is having great success with one group -- the younger generation -- the result of an active and varied education program that includes backstage tours, on-campus performances, assistance producing operas in school, dress rehearsals for school-age audiences, even an opera studio for younger artists.
Once students catch the opera bug, they talk their parents into taking them to performances.
Unfortunately, Akina notes, "One of the things that every arts organization here in Hawaii suffers from is the tendency of people, particularly young people, to go elsewhere, and so we tend to lose a large portion of (potential) audience. I watch the middle generation with a lot of concern ... and I would like more of them to come."
Few people realize that opera has been a part of Hawaiian culture since the 19th century.
Dale Hall, professor of music at the University of Hawaii, said opera was first produced in Hawaii in the 1850s, and the first local production was sponsored in 1861 by Alexander Liholiho and his wife, Queen Emma.
Traveling troupes and local amateurs have been producing opera intermittently ever since. Regular opera seasons began in 1961, when HOT produced Puccini's "Madama Butterfly." HOT now ranks 25th nationally among 120 opera companies in terms of size, budget and success, an impressive standing for a community of this size.
This season's casts include a number of local artists -- John Mount, Erik Haines and Mark Yasuhara, among others -- as well as lead singers hired from across many waters. Akina is proud of the quality of singers presented in Hawaii and says mixing local and outside talent promotes a synergy productive for both.
"The underlying concern is to show that opera can speak to people through theater and that opera is the most vibrant, one of the most complex, forms of theater that man has been able to evolve and achieve, and I would like the community to be proud of this."
Romeo et Juliette
Place: Neal Blaisdell Concert Hall
![Romeo [loves] Juliette](arthed.gif)
