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Ellen Douglas Schlaefer, the new director of Opera at USC and a Columbia native, can’t stop singing the praises of her students.
Two comic one-act operettas—Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial By Jury and Offenbach’s Monsieur Choufleuri—will showcase their talents Nov. 5 and 7. Schlaefer is the director, and Donald Portnoy will conduct.
“We have wonderful students here, wonderfully talented young people. They’re working as hard as a professional company would. They’re totally committed,” said Schlaefer, who replaces Donald Gray, who had been interim director of USC’s opera program since July 2002, when opera director Talmage Fauntleroy died.
Trial By Jury, Gilbert and Sullivan’s first operetta and their first big hit, spoofs the English judicial system. The story revolves around a breach of promise: a jilted bride-to-be sues her fiancé for breaking their engagement. “It’s a lot of silliness that’s fun and clever,” Schlaefer said.
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Jaeyoon Kim is Babylas in Monsieur Choufleuri.
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Monsieur Choufleuri is a send-up of a social climber in 19th-century Paris. When Monsieur Choufleuri (Mr. Cauliflower in French), throws a party featuring three renowned opera singers to enhance his social standing, things go terribly wrong, which his marriage-minded daughter uses to her advantage.
“It’s all a farce, a spoof of opera,” Schlaefer said. “They’re both fun. The rest of the world is in such a mess. Why not take a couple of hours out and laugh for a while?”
Together, the two operettas run about two hours. Trial By Jury is in English. The dialogue in Monsieur Choufleuri will be in English and the songs in French.
Born and reared in Columbia, Schlaefer remembers her mother and grandmother listening to radio broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera on rainy Saturday afternoons. Her first experience with opera was a production of La Bohème at the Township Auditorium.
With theatre as her first love, Schlaefer worked at Town Theatre and Workshop Theatre. After graduating from Dreher High School, she earned a bachelor's degree in English from Davidson College's honors college and an MFA in theatre directing from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. She began her career in opera by accident, working with the Washington Opera at the Kennedy Center.
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| Christin Owens, left, is the plaintiff and Daniel Gainey the defendent in Trial By Jury. |
“I thought I would be there just a year or two, but the more I heard opera and participated in the process, the more I got hooked,” Schlaefer said. “Now, over 25 years later, I’ve been fortunate to work in venues all over the world.”
As a national free-lance stage director, Schlaefer has directed or co-directed productions in nearly every region of the country and has just returned from a highly successful production of Aida for the Connecticut opera. For the past 10 years, she’s been based in Columbia and, in the mid-1990s, launched FBN Productions Inc., a nonprofit opera company that takes opera into schools.
“Directing Opera at USC gives me a chance to work and do things that I love in my own home town,” Schlaefer said. “The dean [Jamal Rossi] is committed to the opera program at the School of Music. The performing arts at the University are thriving. It’s the best of all possible worlds.”
Schlaefer eschews the notion that opera is elitist and invites anyone who hasn’t given it a try lately to try it again.
“People get scared off still when you say the word opera,” she said. “I overheard someone at a convenience store recently. They said, ‘I hate opera.’ I, of course, couldn’t keep my month shut, and said, ‘Give it a try.’ I had to do some proselytizing.
“Opera was written for the stage. These are not concert pieces; they are theatre pieces. The operatic repertoire is vast, spanning more than 500 years. There’s a little something for everyone. When I first got into it, people would ask me what I did. I got tired of trying to explain it, and I’d say, ‘I deal in soul food,’ because opera speaks to the soul.”
10/04
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Above, from left, Sunn-Joo Oh is Ernestine, Gerald Floyd is Petermann, Raphael Rada is Monsieur Choufleuri, and Jaeyoon Kim is Babylas in Monsieur Choufleuri. Below, Raphael Rada, is the judge, Christin Owens is the plaintiff, and Daniel Gainey is the defendent in Trial By Jury.
