Sopranos ready to hit the high notes for IU's 'The Magic Flute'
I'm telling it like it is: I'm in my 60s and can still sing the Queen of the Night aria from Mozart's "The Magic Flute." How well, you ask? Well, don't.
So when I had the recent opportunity to interview students performing in Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet's new season, I begged for high-pitched sopranos. I "get" them, and I got two, Maggie Kinabrew and Elise Hurwitz.
Those who used to read my theater reviews know I esteem the dancers. Having lived in Manhattan among them, as a singer, I witnessed their nearly unbelievable dedication. A dancer who loses a couple days' practice steps back three. But I will always be a singer — and feel singers' excitement and fear.
The leads are completely exposed onstage. A cracked high C (I speak from experience), a flat high D (I speak from lots of experience), a virus — and five dozen other things — render one damned. In front of everyone.
Kinabrew and Hurwitz were so schedule-attached they barely had time to speak with me. Both will soon be singing the ultra-daunting, speedy, fearsome Queen of the Night aria, in addition to another difficult one plus a quintet.
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These sopranos must have high and flexible voices, but they must also project the classical and neo-classical takes on womanhood. They must portray a concerned mother (albeit one who puts a murder knife into her daughter's hand), unbalanced emotions (that seems clear), despair, furor (my favorite) and envy.
Mozart places his Queen's two signature arias, “O Zittre Nicht, Mein Lieber Sohn” and “Der Hölle Rache,” so that he gets across his point: the Queen is both a mama and crazy as hell.
Kinabrew, humbly said over the phone, "There's not a lot of music to learn. Two arias, a quintet and you're done."
But what a pair of arias! That just proves 100 times what a better-than-I singer she is. These arias, particularly “Der Hölle Rache,” are considered by many to be some of opera's most memorable, and each shines with steely brilliance.
Kinabrew had suspected the role would suit her. She began learning it long before she heard Jacobs was to produce it.
She hopes to be a freelance opera singer. She grew up in Connecticut, taking 10 years of classical ballet. But it was the choral and opera singing she couldn't let go.
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"For every birthday and Christmas, I asked for opera tickets."
That says to me: This woman is where she needs to be. Especially when one considers that it's desire that propels people.
Having graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory with degrees in vocal performance and mathematics, she is in her second year of the master’s degree program at Jacobs, where she studies with Carol Vaness.
This production of "The Magic Flute" marks her role debut. Last year, she became a Fulbright finalist and won the Louis and Marguerite Bloomberg Greenwood Prize for excellence in voice.
Contemporary opera and songs appeal to her and, in addition to other opera experience, she has performed Taller Daughter in Missy Mazzoli’s "Proving Up" and Nuria in Osvaldo "Golijov’s Ainadamar."
Hurwitz, from Cincinnati, Ohio, is in her final semester of the master of music in voice performance program at Jacobs, having graduated with a bachelor of music degree from Jacobs in 2019. She studies with Alice Hopper and has performed in several Jacobs productions, including "The Turn of the Screw" (Flora), "The Elixir of Love" (Giannetta) and "Ariadne auf Naxos" (Naiad). Although she has sung other roles in "Flute," this is her first time performing The Queen of the Night.
"I chose to study opera for a few reasons. First, I took voice lessons from a classical singer from a young age, so he exposed me to opera early on," she said in an email.
At first it was musical theater that appealed to her, but as her voice matured, she realized it was too high for most musical theater roles.
She never questioned pursuing the performing arts, and opera allowed her to follow another interest, language.
"I loved being able to sing in other languages ... and in my undergrad at IU I learned to speak Italian fluently."
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Classical music also led her to fields such as music theory, history and globalism.
As with Kinabrew, Hurwitz believes in staying fit. She teaches Pilates at a Bloomington studio.
"Keeping up with fitness is extremely important for all musicians, but keeping your body healthy is imperative to maintaining a healthy voice."
And a healthy voice the Queen needs.
"Magic Flute" is just Jacobs' first offering this season. Next comes "A Leap Forward — Fall Ballet," where I will gasp and sigh, "How, how, how?" Later comes Monteverdi's "The Coronation of Poppea" (in Auer Hall), containing some of the most goose bump-inducing music I have ever sung.
"Pur ti miro, pur ti godo," a love duet, might be the universe's most romantic aria.
"H.M.S. Pinafore" ends the season (I have sung Josephine, and this operetta pokes with a golden icepick at British pomp). In between, Jacobs gives us movies set to live music, jazz, more ballet, more opera, more exquisite types of entertainment, from one of the best music schools in the world.
For right now, however, season tickets and singles are available. The package deals are intensely money saving.
If you go
WHAT: Mozart's The Magic Flute," in German with English supertitles and dialogue. New production. Jacobs School of Music Opera and Ballet Theater.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 17, 18, 24, 25.
WHERE: Musical Arts Center, Indiana University campus.
TICKETS: https://bit.ly/3ngbJgb
MORE: Find Maggie Kinabrew at https://bit.ly/3DYZLxs. Find Elise Hurwitz at https://bit.ly/3hhP9jr.