Tag Archives: Singing

#HOTSpeaks: Singer Gets Kids Excited About Opera

Leslie Goldman wanted to sing in any way possible when she auditioned to be a singer for the Hawaii Opera Theatre Orvis Studio in 2015. So she included in her application that she was open to being considered for all performance opportunities the studio offered.

She didn’t expect that she would become one of the stars of Opera Express, but she’s fallen in love with the role.

Opera Express is a HOT Education program that brings kid-friendly versions of popular operas to Elementary and Middle Schools throughout the state. 

“I almost like it better than singing for adults,” Leslie said. “You have the opportunity to be as crazy as you want, because you’re doing anything to keep the kids engaged. You really have to utilize every little tool in your performer’s toolbox.”

This year Leslie has played both the witch and Gretel in the production of Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel. The production also features three other adult performers and student volunteers. Opera Express will be seen by students across Oahu, Kauai, Maui, and the Big Island, once it has finished touring.

Last year Opera express reached 15,400 students at 62 schools throughout the state.

Leslie shared that a lot of the students like opera because they are able to tell a story and be loud.

 “It’s exciting to share opera with kids,” Leslie said. “At first they’re kind of shocked, and they laugh and imitate you, but then you can tell they’re engaged with the music.”

She noticed that performing in the opera could even change students’ behaviors.

One student who was playing a gingerbread boy was throwing things backstage and not paying attention to directions, Leslie said. She worried that he might disrupt the performance.

But as soon as he got on stage, Leslie saw a change. The boy became remarkably more focused.

“I’ve noticed that with a couple kids. Once they get up in front of an audience, they utilize extra energy for better,” Leslie said. “It’s the ‘magic of the theatre,’ so to speak.”

HOT Education Director Erik Haines said he has not only seen opera improve student performance onstage, but also in the classroom.

And Leslie found that even she was learning something new throughout the performances.

She discovered that she had cared too much about her own ego when she had sung in front of adults. Singing in front of children improved how she performed.

“Where I’ve faltered in the past as a performer is that I would stand up there singing just hoping my audience would like me and think I’m fabulous,” Leslie said. “Whereas when I’m in front of kids, I’m just doing my job as a musician. I want them to learn about music, I want them to stay interested, and I want them to have fun. It’s not about me.”

What started as one of many boxes checked at an audition has made Leslie a better performer and has given students across the state the opportunity to experience the classic art of opera.

 “I hope my performances bring the kids a lot of joy, I hope they have a really fun time watching it, and I hope that a kid who might be interested in performing will be inspired to get up and have fun,” she said.

 

To support HOT Education initiatives like Opera Express, click the button below.

To bring Opera Express to your school, email e_haines@hawaiiopera.org for availability.

 

By Allison Kronberg

#HOTSpeaks: Baritone Sings to Honor His Father

“If I sing, you are the music.
If I fly, you’re why I’m good.
If my hands can find some magic,
you’re the one who said they could.”

Leslie “Buz” Tennent sat in the Hawaii Opera Theatre rehearsal hall and read aloud the lyrics to “If I sing” from the musical Closer than Ever. The song inspired the name of the November, 2016 concert event with Hawaiʻi Public Radio.

The sold-out tribute concert commemorated the centennial of Buz’s late father and mentor, Arthur Tennent (1916 – 2004). Due to the concert’s popularity, Buz performed a reprise last week at the Mystic Rose Oratory as a benefit for the Hawai’i Vocal Arts Ensemble.

Arthur was an accomplished lieder and artsong singer, and a renowned choral conductor, voice teacher, actor, and author. “He generously shared with me his abundant gifts,” Buz said of his father. “I just thought it would be worthy to give back what he gave to me.”

At both concerts, Buz sang songs his father used to sing and that his father taught him, accompanied on the piano by HOT Education Assistant Eric Schank. Buz was also featured as a soloist at the HOT Opera Ball last year.

As a professor of voice at Chaminade and a private voice teacher, Buz’s life currently revolves around performing and teaching, but that might not have been the case if his father had never pegged him as a baritone and encouraged him to sing an aria in front of a crowd with his high school orchestra.

“He wanted me to sing,” Buz said. “And he was a tremendous teacher.”

Arthur humorously helped his son navigate the complexities of music theory, like the difference between “bel canto” and “can belt-oh,” while gracefully addressing more serious life issues, like coping with rejection.

“He taught me the idea of never giving up, to persevere and persist, and that it’s how we react to circumstances that matters – not that we get discouraged or knocked down, but that we stand up and just keep at it,” Buz said.

As a supportive father, Arthur went to all of Buz’s opera performances, he said, though he wasn’t particularly an opera lover, himself.

But while Buz was pursuing a Master’s in Voice at Manhattan School of Music in New York, Arthur joined Buz for a father-son debut concert at Carnegie Hall, where the two performed “The Pearl Fishers” duet from Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles.

dsc00803-2“We had a great time singing together,” Buz said. “We blended well together, and our voices were somewhat similar, albeit mine a little deeper.”

After leaving New York, Buz spent 12 years singing opera in Germany. But he returned to Hawaii in 2003 when he learned that his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer to care for his parents and place his father in hospice care.

That year, Buz decided to follow further in his father’s footsteps and start teaching. Until then, he had felt reluctant about pursuing voice teaching, even though his father called it a “noble art.”

“I think he was gratified that I did take up teaching, because I resisted it for a while,” Buz said.
In the last several months of Arthur’s life, he was able to see Buz take up his love of teaching.

“I think that meant a lot to him,” Buz said. “All of these things that I put into practice now as a teacher, I learned initially from him.”

The last time Arthur saw Buz sing live was at a Diamond Head Theatre production of the musical Ragtime in late 2003. He passed away in May of 2004, and Buz’s Mother died of cancer four years later.

“I don’t believe in closure. I just believe in acceptance,” Buz said. “There’s always that hole there, but you just learn to live with it. And you honor their memory.”

When he sings, Buz finds that acceptance. He continued to read the lyrics of “If I sing”:

“I never told you.
It took time ‘till I could see
that if I sing you are the music,
and you’ll always sing in me.”

Buz paused. Though his eyes began to well up, he smiled as he read the last lyric:

“Yes you’ll always live in me.”

 

Use the audio player  below to listen to a recording of the Buz and Arthur Tennent singing “O Mimi,  tu piu non torni,” Marcello and Rodolfo’s Act 4 duet from Puccini’s La Bohème.