The Infinite Energy of Ada Lovelace played in Warner Concert Hall Jan. 24 and 26. Running just an hour, the opera follows Ada Lovelace, a notable 19th-century mathematician who worked as an associate on the development of the first computer.
Visiting Assistant Professor of Opera Theater Cara Consilvio, who directed the production, described the relevance of the subject matter.
“I think the subject matter is really interesting,” Consilvio said. “Ada Lovelace [was] a woman who was doing things in her time period that people thought were scandalous because she was involved in these great scientific and mathematic movements with Charles Babbage, so she was sort of punished for it because everyone just thought she should be a wife and a mother and not do much beyond that. It’s an interesting time to look at that story, because I think we’re still not at equality, really.”
Last year, no Winter Term opera was offered for students, so in celebration of its return, Director of Opera Theater Stephanie Havey described the intention behind bringing back the opportunity and choosing repertoire for Winter Term.
“It’s become a venue for us to focus on new works,” Havey said. “Sometimes in the past, it has been a newly commissioned piece. This year we wanted to select something that was by a living composer, something modern that the school had not done before. … We were really excited to present the piece by composer Kamala Sankaram. She is a very exciting, established composer. She has a lot of new works that are premiering now. She’s had premieres with Washington National Opera recently. She’s a composer that I thought would be good for students to know about.”
Consilvio has been following the work of Sankaram for a while.
“I’ve seen Kamala over the years,” Consilvio said. “And it’s been really interesting to watch her work develop and see the different operas. So it was great to get to direct an opera from someone who I sort of have a colleague relationship with and who’s out there working in the world, creating operas all the time.”
Conservatory third-year Kailey Pritchard brought an intensity and maturity to the role of Ada Lovelace, supported by Conservatory fourth-year Christopher Leimgruber’s angelic interpretation of the role of her husband. Conservatory fourth-year Matthew Garvey played Charles Babbage, Ada’s intellectual colleague with a passionate baritone. Conservatory third-year Saige Hoffman played both Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Lovelaces’ Nanny with total distinction but equal mastery and beauty. College third-year Max Novik rounded out the cast as the family’s Butler with precision and gravitas.
Students’ talents were not only featured onstage, but also in the pit, led by third-year Composition major Matthew Brown, who served as student conductor on this project. He is also currently in the early stages of writing his own opera.
“I loved film music as a kid,” Brown said. “I loved the musical storytelling experiments. I found that in opera. It’s everything I loved about film music, but heightened. The music is the story, and the two become far more intertwined than even my favorite film scores.”
However, this Winter Term featured not one but two operas. Students were also involved in an educational outreach tour — the first of its kind at Oberlin — with the short opera Jack and the Beanstalk, a show using the music of Gilbert and Sullivan with revised libretto by John Davies to recount the classic fairy tale. The exceptional cast of four Vocal Performance majors and a robust back stage crew toured the show at six local elementary schools in late January. They distributed educational resources about opera theater and received warm receptions from both students and staff.
Despite the show’s 30 minute runtime, Havey approached the rehearsals with the same vigor of a mainstage production. Conservatory third-year and cast member Jamie Felix-Toll described his experience in rehearsals.
“The rehearsal experience wasn’t all that different, surprisingly so,” Felix-Toll said. “Havey put the same amount, if not more effort, into the dramaturgy of it. It’s a really funny and frankly not serious show, but she demanded that we all take it very seriously in terms of the way we’re thinking about character.”
The efforts of this all-star cast made audiences of all ages laugh. Conservatory fourth-year Travis Guillory led the cast in the role of Jack with exuberance and pizazz. He felt encouraged by the audience’s reception, especially during the Q&As which followed each performance.
“They were kind of taking apart the magic of theater,” Guillory said. “They wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes, what all went into making it. I like to see kids thinking. It gave me hope for the future a little bit.”
Conservatory second-year Ella Vaughn, who played both Jack’s Mother and Roberta, the Giant’s wife, with melodramatic hilarity, commented on the importance of these kinds of programs in Oberlin and its surrounding communities.
“I think it really emphasized the importance of outreach and going out into communities, especially around here,” Vaughn said. “Lorain County is very poor, and it’s not accessible for them to come to operas, pay for the tickets, or even know that it’s happening. I think that’s really important to provide to the community to see things that they wouldn’t normally see.”
Conservatory second-year Will Sulkow and Felix-Toll completed the cast. Sulkow brought a suave and precise quality to the role of the Narrator, while Felix-Toll commanded the stage as the mischievous, bombastic Giant. Havey noticed growth in her performers while working on this atypical process.
“I think there was a lot to learn from repeating the show that many times in different environments with different audiences,” Havey said. “They had to learn how to be really flexible performers because we were in different venues and the way that the students respond is so honest. Sometimes in the middle of the show they would just shout out ‘The giant’s right behind you, hide!’ It was so sweet, but the singers had to really think on their feet. … Toward the end of our run, I noticed our cast starting to respond to the audience whenever they would yell things out or point, and I think that’s great. I think that’s an important skill as a performer to learn how to improvise and stay in character.”
