It’s the most iconic line in all of opera music, used to signify the art form in everything from famous films to Bugs Bunny cartoons.
It’s actually an excerpt from Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, explained Marylove Thralls, the marketing director for Opera Santa Barbara.
“Everybody knows, ‘Figaro! Figaro! Figaro!’” Thralls said. “So people think they don’t know opera, but they’ve heard it.”
Opera Santa Barbara is currently preparing for its production of The Barber of Seville, on March 2 and 4, but in the meantime, Thralls explained, the organization is offering a sneak peek in a few places, including Santa Maria.
A Noontime Opera performance is scheduled for Feb. 5 in the Santa Maria Public Library’s Shepard Hall, and will feature singers from Opera Santa Barbara’s Chrisman Studio Artist Program. The Studio Artist Program pays and houses opera singers as artists in residence for outreach concerts and as backups for the leading roles in upcoming mainstage Opera Santa Barbara productions, Thralls explained, thanks to a five-year philanthropic commitment from Roger and Sarah Chrisman.
The Noontime Opera programs usually tease upcoming productions, and the performance at the library in Santa Maria will feature arias from The Barber of Seville exclusively, Thralls said.
“I think people who come to the noontime concerts are surprised by the music itself and the singers and generally leave very happy that they’ve spent an hour listening to live music,” she said. “There’s something about live performance that’s always very special.”
The current Chrisman Studio Artists include two men and two women, Thralls explained. They are baritone Byron Mayes, tenor Jonathan Walker-Van Keuren, mezzo-soprano Chelsea Melamed, and soprano Elle Valera.
Some of the artists are fresh out of universities, Thralls said, while some have experience with other opera companies. They all had to audition to become a studio artist with Opera Santa Barbara, she explained, and thus gain all the perks of spending a year with the organization.
“These are up-and-coming singers,” she said. “It’s giving them mainstage experience in full opera productions with established performers. The people that are coming into Santa Barbara for The Barber of Seville, they are well established in their careers.”
The program’s baritone, Mayes, is currently a graduate student studying vocal music at UC Santa Barbara. He is slated to sing the character of Figaro in the university’s performance of The Marriage of Figaro on Feb. 8, Thralls said, as part of his doctoral studies.
The program’s soprano, Valera, has plenty of experience singing opera already. She was an LA District Winner and Western Region Finalist for The Metropolitan Council Auditions last year. A graduate of UCLA, she has performed with the UCLA Philharmonia, Central City Opera, and was in Opera Santa Barbara’s Studio Artist program before, when it was sponsored by the Mosher family.
Valera is also a “plus-size model, blogger, and social media influencer,” Thralls said.
“She’s a very lovely and interesting person,” she added.
Opera Santa Barbara’s studio artists do more than just the noontime concerts, Thralls said. They also perform outreach programs at local schools, from Ventura County to the Santa Maria Valley.
The school programs are called “Opera Lab,” Thralls explained, and include “improvisational opera” for third through fifth graders. The students choose a variety of subjects and ideas, she said, and then the singers insert them into famous opera arias for a fun and unexpected twist on the classics.
“They create their own little operas,” she said. “Teachers love it, the kids love it, and we’re in the process of booking all the schools for the performances that happen in between February and April.”
The Studio Artists Program is a part of Opera Santa Barbara’s commitment to spreading the centuries-old art form across the Central Coast, not just on State Street, Thralls said. Reaching out to communities like Santa Maria is important, she explained, so that music lovers young and old can have experiences with opera that span beyond movie scores and Looney Tunes.
“That’s the mission, is really to outreach to communities that might not have opportunities to come to Santa Barbara on a particular weekend,” she said. “It exposes more people to the art of opera. Some people who have never heard an opera singer before are blown away by the fact that they don’t need a microphone, there’s no mixing involved, there’s no adjusting; they’re there and powerful. It’s a different kind of singing than people are familiar with.”
Managing Editor Joe Payne is a baritone too. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 1-8, 2018.
