by Penelope Teague | Summer 2023 |
One of my summer exploits this year was a three-week trip to Italy to perform ACU Opera’s production of Roger’s and Hammerstein’s Carousel. There were a couple of hiccoughs in our plan right off the rip. For one, a cast member’s passport was delayed, and she couldn’t make it until a few days before the show. Two, our venue, though beautiful, was not conducive to a production. Three – and this was the issue that most unsettled me going into it – we were short-handed, which meant that we would need to adopt members of the music festival at which we were performing into our cast. The festival was international, which meant that we might not even share the same language as our adopted cast members, nor was there any bar set for the musical experience. I’m not really a snob when it comes to this sort of thing, possessing little opera experience myself outside of college, but the idea of working with several people to produce a very emotional and challenging story about whom I knew virtually nothing would be daunting to anybody, I think.
The first day of rehearsal rolls around, and our ensemble lottery arrives on time. Our volunteers included girls from America, Japan, and South Africa. Three of the four girls spoke English. Irina, who was from Japan, did not. Despite any individual’s setbacks, each girl was diligent about showing up to rehearsals, learning her music, and engaging with her new cast, which I’m sure, for those girls, was a much more daunting prospect than it ever was for any member of our original cast. I did my best to be welcoming and encouraging and found myself making great friends with all of them, whose bravery and devotion to music were charming.
What a production our second round of Carousel turned out to be, and all thrown together in a week and a half! ACU Opera benefited greatly from taking a gamble and welcoming new cast members, and so did I. I believe I made life-long friends from the people about whom I’d experienced some apprehension. I was able to reflect on what a difference it makes to fear the worst but expect the best and recognize the good when it shows from my fellow musicians. I was inspired by Irina especially, who learned an English Opera with nothing but our meager help and an English score. The cast knew that the language barrier would prove to be a difficulty, but with teamwork and Irina’s great effort, her dedication to excellence in performance won out. What a joy it was to witness and how lucky I felt to be on the sidelines of every endeavor, cheering the girls on.
The ACU cast members’ trip went on after the festival. We saw amazing places, like Florence and Milan, and I checked about twenty things off of my bucket list. But our little festival in Acqui Terme stuck with me closely, sitting in my heart, because of the people. I have found throughout my life that the experiences that linger are those that center around others, and I hope this one will linger for a good while to come as a reminder to be slow to fear, loathe to judge, and quick to trust and love.
