The Atlanta Opera celebrates the Halloween season in a big way on Saturday, with a special one-night-only showing of the 1931 film classic Frankenstein at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. The film will be accompanied by an acclaimed new musical score by Michael Shapiro, performed live by The Atlanta Opera Orchestra and the young singers of the company’s Glynn Studio Artist program — all conducted by the composer.
This performance will mark the East Coast premiere of Shapiro’s operatic score.
Frankenstein has an interesting back story. Universal Studios was in a slump in 1931, having found the transition from silent film to “talkies” a surprisingly rough ride. In looking for a vehicle to re-energize audiences, the studio gazed backward on the success of its silent entries into the “horror” genre, The Phantom of the Opera and The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
In a prescient bit of synchronicity, Broadway had just enjoyed a smash success with a stage adaptation of Bram Stoker’s creepy Victorian novel Dracula, crafted by playwrights John Balderston and Hamilton Deane. The production made stars of the Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi (who learned his early English language roles phonetically) in the title role and the great character actor Edward Van Sloan as Dracula’s nemesis, Dr. Van Helsing. Universal decided to pitch a filmed adaptation of the play, with Lugosi and Van Sloan in tow.
Dracula’s success was so formidable that Universal decided to build upon it with a second film — Frankenstein, based on Mary Shelley’s gothic novel. Though Dracula came first, it was Frankenstein that ultimately became the horror genre’s emblematic entry. Boris Karloff’s frightening yet pathetically affecting rendering of Frankenstein’s monster is revered today as one of the greatest performances of early Hollywood and has thrilled viewers for generations.
Frankenstein has now provided an intriguing opportunity for The Atlanta Opera’s young artist program.
Young artist programs (or “YAPS,” as insiders say) are an important element of most major opera companies. Vocalists chosen from the cream of the crop of various conservatories and universities serve apprenticeships with their parent company, where they continue to study voice and languages, perform small roles and cover (the operatic term for understudying) major ones. That experience has been a crucial steppingstone in the careers of many of today’s most celebrated artists.
“There is a deep need in the industry to provide people who emerge from the educational system with opportunities to learn roles, work alongside artists of great renown and develop performance skills,” says Tomer Zvulun, the opera’s general and artistic director. “Until 2016, there was no young artist program here. We decided to launch our program and hire four singers and a stage director. It has been an incredible ride.”
Atlanta’s Glynn Studio program currently features four singers: soprano Amanda Sheriff, mezzo-soprano Aubrey Odle, tenor Kameron Lopreore and bass-baritone Jason Zacher. Bass-baritone Andrew Gilstrap, a popular presence on Atlanta’s stages, will join the four for Frankenstein.
The operation of the program is primarily handled by Meredith Wallace, the opera’s director of artistic administration. Wallace boasts some impressive cred, having come to Atlanta after several years with the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.
So what is an average day like for these talented young people? What happens after they wake up in the morning?
“Hopefully, when they wake up, they warm up,” Wallace says with a laugh. “Then they will most likely have one to two coachings, either a vocal session or possibly diction coaching. If they are in a production, they may then be in rehearsal for the rest of the day, or they may have a session with our principal vocal teacher Laura Brooks Rice, who comes in twice a month.”
There also are master classes for the young singers. The program’s principal dramatic coach is Kevin Burdette, who will sing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream this season. Kelly Kaduce, who starred in The Shining, held a master class.
The classes focus on the practical in addition to the creative.
“They study German, French, Russian, Italian,” Zvulun says. “We put them onstage and provide them with opportunities to cover major roles. We are providing them with classes for vocal health and financial planning. Academia only gets you so far. There is no replacement for apprenticeship, for actual boots-on-the-ground opportunity to actually do whatever you have set out to be doing.”
If this sounds exhausting, it is. These young people work very hard. But the proof of this artistic pudding is abundantly clear, as several graduates of the program have already begun to establish themselves in the industry.
Atlanta favorite Santiago Ballerini is creating quite a buzz among opera mavens on internet newsgroups for his performances in the bel canto repertory, which have taken him all over the world. Soprano Susanne Burgess made her Met debut last season and returns to The Atlanta Opera next spring as Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, while mezzo-soprano Gretchen Krupp will be heard here this season as Fricka in Die Walküre.
And what does this have to do with Frankenstein? To answer that question, one only needs to rewatch the film and focus on the music — or rather, the almost complete lack of it. The technology in the early days of sound film was unable to encompass the multiple tracks necessary for extensive musical scoring.
Universal righted that situation in 1935 with Franz Waxman’s delicious score for The Bride of Frankenstein. In 1931, however, all we had were snatches of music heard during the opening and final credits.
Enter American composer Michael Shapiro. He thought the film’s lack of aural underscoring left matters a bit dull for younger audiences who are accustomed to a more sophisticated sound palette in their entertainment experiences.
In 2001, Shapiro was commissioned by the Boris Koutzen Foundation to provide a full, 70-minute score for the film. Shapiro’s music created a sensation in its debut at the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 2002 and has continued to be wildly popular, raking in over 60 outings to date.
The score exists in several editions: a full orchestral version (the overture has been recorded by the City of Birmingham Orchestra and can be heard on YouTube), a chamber reduction and even a reworking for wind ensemble.
In 2022, Shapiro created his “operatic version” of the score, which was performed by the orchestra of the Los Angeles Opera with singers from its own young artist program.
For Zvulun, this edition seemed a golden opportunity. “We have a horror/thriller theme going on this fall, with our sold-out production of The Shining and with Rigoletto, which to me is the great Hitchcock movie that Hitchcock never directed,” he says. “Frankenstein fit right in. So I sent Meredith to check out the performance in Los Angeles.”
Wallace didn’t quite know what to expect but was blown away by the work. “It was seamless,” she says. “Michael did a wonderful job providing dramatic musical moments. He is very attuned to the action of the film; the score is beautiful but also illuminates the film perfectly.”
The voices are heard sporadically early on, mostly singing the Latin mass. But they come in at full force when the monster dies. “Their music made me realize how sad this movie is,” says Wallace. “It tears your heart out when the singers come in doing that mass. It put me over the edge. It was so beautiful and moving.”
The score also provides a banner opportunity for young performers on several levels. “It’s a different kind of project for them,” Wallace says. “They are going to fly from the nest and are not necessarily always going to be singing opera. This is a unique experience for them. It is also a newer work, so they get to work directly with the composer because he is still living. And Michael did a good job for the singers. The vocal line is complex for each of them.”
It’s part of the opera’s commitment to nurture and develop the next generation of talent. Wallace says the best part of her job is hiring a former young artists in a main-stage role.
“Seeing these singers grow is my favorite thing,” she says. “These are our babies, and we want to nurture them the best we can before they fly away. And to watch them makes me very proud.”
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Mark Thomas Ketterson is a Chicago-based arts critic and writer. He was the longtime Chicago correspondent for Opera News and has also written for Playbill, the Chicago Tribune and other publications.
