Opera Americana: Southeast takes on a little-known art form with 'The Tender Land'

~ Southeast takes on a little-known art form with "The Tender Land."

On Valentine's Day night Rachel Null wasn't out having a romantic dinner. Instead she was working, practicing her lead role in a love story told through operatic song.

Her character, Laurie Moss, gets to pursue young love every night of rehearsal, but not Null. Like the rest of the cast she spends Sunday through Thursday night from 7 to 10 p.m. at Rose Theatre.

But the sacrifice is well worth it for the Southeast Missouri State University music education and vocal performance major. Null shares the lead role in the university's upcoming theater production "The Tender Land" with another junior, Amanda Eades. For one person, all the singing night after night would be too much for one young voice to carry, possibly causing injury.

Dr. Chris Goeke worked with the cast of "The Tender Land" at Rose Theatre.

But where Eades was the female lead in last year's hit musical romp "Guys and Dolls," Null is breaking in to acting for the first time.

"This is my first experience with theater, but I think it's turning out pretty well," Null says as she waits backstage, ready to take her place on the rustic wooden set and belt out her lines. Then comes her cue, and she has to go on stage for the opera's first meeting between Laurie and her new love Martin, played by music major Justin Moore.

For Null the experience has been stressful, but the stress doesn't really tell on stage, where her voice rings loud and clear.

"The Tender Land," which starts next week, is one work in a small genre -- the American opera. Written by Aaron Copland, the opera tells the story of a Depression-era farm family, a girl (Laurie) coming of age and her love of a drifting farm worker.

When describing "The Tender Land" the use of the word opera is accurate. Unlike musicals that tell story through dialogue and song, this production is almost all singing. No matter what the characters say, it's always through song.

Some lines seem odd in a singing voice, like Bryan Parker's Grandpa Moss singing "If you boys work as good as you talk, we'll make good time in the fields." Not the typical opera line, but this isn't the typical opera -- it's American.

Music faculty member Dr. Chris Goeke, director, said "The Tender Land" is far different from the common perception of opera. The American opera genre wasn't formed until around the 1950s, said Goeke, delayed because of the young nation's lack of classical music heritage.

But the art form took elements of a uniquely American theater form -- the musical -- and incorporated those narrative elements with opera.

And as American operas go, "The Tender Land" is probably the most well-known and the best, Goeke said.

"Honestly the biggest hurdle is getting past the opera word," said Goeke. "When people hear that word they think "I don't know anything about opera and opera is such a foreign thing.'"

"It seems like such a limited art form to those that haven't gone to one or have a background in opera, but this one has a real storyline, it's easily understood and people can really identify with the characters."

Opera was pretty foreign to junior Alex Miller, a theater major.

Miller, a theater major, plays Mrs. Splinters, one half of an elderly couple who appreciate life's little pleasures -- like parties. Singing everything was quite an adjustment, she said. In the beginning she had to fight the urge to speak her lines.

Her learning process was the opposite of Null's, who had to learn acting, not singing.

"Before rehearsal you just have to say to yourself 'There's no talking, there's no talking,'" said Miller. "You've got to learn how to act through song."

Rehearsals started in the fall semester training actors like Miller in the style of opera, said Goeke.

"That really paid off, because they're up there now and they're not fighting the music and they're in character more," he said.

Goeke has served as the acting coach and a key vocal coach, but he got help from fellow music faculty Leslie Jones and Judith Farris.

The cast of "The Tender Land" is as much an amalgam as the combination of American musical theater and opera. To make up the 24 parts (eight named characters and a 16-member chorus), the university's department of music and theater and dance held open auditions to include community members.

The result is a cast made up of community-theater thespians, former students and current students majoring in both music and theater.

They come from different backgrounds and interests, but after hundreds of hours together, they've become community. Tuesday night someone brought in a tray of Valentine cookies to cheer everyone up after they missed out on this year's day of love.

"Everyone came together beautifully, absolutely beautifully," said Eades, who sat in the audience most of the night Tuesday night. "If it hadn't been for everyone coming together it wouldn't have happened."

"The Tender Land" represents a tag-team approach to making a production that has received increase emphasis in recent years. With the coming of a new musical theatre major next fall the music and theater departments have combined their talents.

Goeke said the music department puts on an opera once every two years at Academic Hall, but those didn't have the production values and resources of sets and costume "The Tender Land" has. The last time an opera was performed by the theater department -- over 30 years ago.

Goeke and the university are hoping "The Tender Land" can pull in the audiences like "Guys and Dolls" did last year despite the differences between the two pieces. So far this year's theater season hasn't seen much popular success with the Greek tragedy "The Trojan Women" and the intellectual comedy "Art."

If the public can get past that "opera" word like Goeke hopes, then he's sure the production will be a success. "The Tender Land" looks good, sounds good and has good writing and acting, Goeke said.

What else is there?

"I think that they'll be pleasantly surprised, that it's so accessible and easily understood," Goeke said of the audience. "I think they'll really enjoy this new kind of thing."

msanders@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182