第二幕
This 音乐-lover pivoted from a career in high-tech to become an opera impresaria at 76.
I追求你的激情永远不会太迟.
享年76岁, lifelong 音乐-lover Martha 伯恩鲍姆 ’62 founded her own opera company in Cambridge, 麻萨诸塞州, 制作鲜为人知的歌剧瑰宝, 通常由著名作曲家创作, 值得更多关注.
In the past year, her 剑桥室内乐团 has staged two operas: 金星 & 阿多尼斯 by the 17th-century English Baroque composer John Blow, and Savitri, which is based on a Hindu folk tale, by Gustav Holst—far better-known for his orchestral suite 行星.
伯恩鲍姆’s days are filled with the endless duties of an impresaria. A former research scientist in the high-tech speech processing field, 伯恩鲍姆, 81, 雇佣经验丰富的专业人士和新兴艺术家, 包括音乐和舞台导演, 乐团的音乐家, 服装和灯光设计师, 还有一个编舞. She searches for venues to rent for rehearsal space and productions, fundraises grants and donations for her nonprofit troupe, 并研究适合制作的戏曲. 这还不是全部. She even translates the librettos from German and Italian—her B.A. in German language and literature from 布林莫尔 and Ph.D. in linguistics from Brown come in handy—so the operas can be sung in English.
As to why she’s producing operas at a stage in life when most 人 are, 找不到更好的词了, 放松, she explains: “I have to be engaged with something intellectually stimulating, 而且肯定是在艺术领域. I thought, ‘Opera: I can do it; let’s go for it!“我是一个精力充沛的人, 而且很有创意, 所以我可以从高科技转向我的另一个爱好, 音乐, 一直在背后酝酿着什么.没有孩子(她没有孩子), 她用自己的积蓄资助了剧团的成立, 朋友, 家庭, 和赠款. Says 伯恩鲍姆: “I was in a position to do this, so I did.”
在创办她的歌剧公司之前，她干了20年, and long before Groupmuse—the online platform that connects classical 音乐ians to local audiences through house concerts—began, 伯恩鲍姆 had been holding concert salons in her Cambridge home. 伯恩鲍姆经常在她的家庭音乐会上演唱, thanks to studying voice with noted mezzosoprano Pamela Dellal, 她在波士顿音乐学院教书, and taking performance classes in Bach and Handel at New England Conservatory of Music. She also sang classical works 在剑桥 Community Chorus and founded Performance Workshops, a monthly salon-style series where singers hone their performance skills in a supportive environment with a professional pianist. 新英格兰吉尔伯特的董事会成员 & 沙利文社会, 她还担任过大众剧院的舞台导演, 波士顿地区的歌剧表演艺术公司.
音乐是伯恩鲍姆家族的传统. 她父亲有自己的爵士/摇摆乐队, 的Crimsonians, 由哈佛校友组成, 他是伊曼纽尔音乐公司的独奏家和编曲家, the ensemble-in- residence at Emmanuel Church in Boston. His great-uncle, distinguished tenor Joseph Tomars, taught at the St. 俄罗斯彼得堡音乐学院. 柴可夫斯基和普罗科菲耶夫都是学生, and Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich were professors at the famous 音乐 school.
A life-changing event came during her junior year abroad in Munich, 当她第一次看歌剧时, 莫扎特的 魔笛. “I heard glorious 音乐 and knew at some point my life would be dedicated to it,” she says.
First came a long career in speech recognition and text-to-speech software, 为像AT这样的公司工作&T Bell实验室和Comverse. 伯恩鲍姆 retired in 2001 and formed her own consulting firm, NetaRose.
在她的职业转型中, which melds her passion and knowledge of 音乐 with her leadership and linguistic skills and a heaping dose of moxie, 她喜欢表演艺术界的各种要求.
“This has all the challenges a CEO has—you have to ride herd on the whole thing, 音乐的挑战, 金融, 人. 是艺术家, 他们很情绪化——有些人在最后一刻退出了, 因为他们生病了, 或者只是跟你鬼混,伯恩鲍姆指出. “I was CEO of my own speech consulting company for years, but this is magnified by 100. 非常辛苦，但也非常值得.”
走出客厅
The setting was so intimate for the one-act operas by Mozart (的经理)及加尔达拉(一个游戏 的安静的),
仅由一架小型三角钢琴伴奏, that “you could see the performers’ vocal chords vibrating,伯恩鲍姆说. The performance was a resounding success and the enthusiasm of the small audience encouraged 伯恩鲍姆 to think bigger and apply for a grant from the Mass Cultural Council.
2022年6月，她登台演出 金星 & 阿多尼斯, 由15位演员组成的三幕歌剧, 四名舞者外加11名巴洛克室内音乐家, 包括羽管键琴演奏家, 在剑桥, 多元文化艺术中心, located in a historic 1889 Victorian-style former courthouse. It was quite a contrast to the venue for her first operas back in 2017, her living room.
深入挖掘剧目
伯恩鲍姆与斯蒂芬妮·比阿特丽斯合作, 她的音乐总监, 发展主题, 选择歌剧, 举行海选. 比阿特丽斯随后组建了一支专业管弦乐队, 为歌手和管弦乐队进行音乐排练, 并指挥演出. 在过去的一年里，他们选择了解决霍尔斯特的问题 Savitri, the story of a Hindu princess whose beloved husband is claimed by Death, and to open the opera with a prologue featuring an ornately costumed Indian dancer performing to a recorded narration and Indian classical 音乐, 提供文化背景. Beatrice had previous experience with Holst’s other Indian-themed works; the English composer was fascinated by folk epics like the 罗摩衍那 甚至能读梵文.
“Martha really respects my artistry and vision and gives me the artistic freedom to pick the 音乐 I want.” says Beatrice, who has a degree in choral conducting from the New England Conservatory. “It’s an opportunity for me to dig into the rich opera repertoire over hundreds of years to find under-appreciated gems. Generally, the same 10 to 15 operas are performed over and over.她的舞台指导, 大卫Gammons, who has also directed for the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre, is a graduate of Harvard’s ART Institute directing program.
包容性和多样性
伯恩鲍姆 strives to make her opera company inclusive and ethnically diverse for singers, 董事, 和机组人员. She also aims to make it an affordable, communal experience for attendees. 门票45美元(老年人和学生35美元). 为 金星 & 阿多尼斯, 扮演阿多尼斯的是崔俊汉, a South Korean-born baritone and prize winner in many international 音乐 competitions, from the Berliner International Music Competition to MassOpera’s Vocal Competition. (In Savitri，他还扮演了死亡这个角色.丘比特的角色, 谁伤害了他的母亲, 金星, 用一支箭, 让她爱上了年轻的阿多尼斯, 是由魏恩灿表演的吗, 新加坡出生的男高音. 女高音凯特·伍德, who has performed with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra, 扮演维纳斯的角色. 三人都是新英格兰音乐学院的毕业生. Several children also danced and sang as Little Cupids.
2023年秋天，伯恩鲍姆的下一部歌剧，亨德尔的 参孙, will feature her biggest cast to date (about 20 人) and largest orchestra (about 15 音乐ians). “This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done,” says 伯恩鲍姆 of her life’s second act. “I didn’t have a career in 音乐, but this was the next closest thing.”