At Mannes, a New Opera Company Illuminates

The performance was one of nine that took place in Bryant Park last December, all featuring vocalists from the New Light Opera, a fledgling student-run opera company at Mannes. Made up of 18 performers and four pianists, New Light Opera offers undergraduate students something that they believe Mannes has traditionally lacked: a chance to perform outside of the school in public venues for new audiences. In recent years, Mannes students have often lamented that their college doesn’t provide them with sufficient performance experience. The administration, too, has conceded the need for more performances, and says it is trying to remedy the problem. But in November of 2010, a group of seven vocalists decided they could not wait any longer. They launched their own solution, approaching the University Student Senate and officially founding New Light Opera.

“We were trying to find a way to get younger students on stage and in front of an audience,” said James Knight, now a junior at Mannes. “That’s an experience that everyone needs.”

Although all voice students are required to sing in the Mannes Chorus for two years, the group only stages two annual recitals. Auditions for the Mannes Opera, meanwhile, a well-known and impressive company, are highly competitive and and undergraduates are rarely accepted, say vocalist students. Because of the stiff competition, older and more experienced students often win the majority of the performance opportunities, said Alex Bauer, a senior in piano performance at Mannes who handles New Light Opera’s scheduling and other administrative work.

“This leaves everyone else in somewhat of a vicious circle in which they don’t perform because they have less experience and can’t gain experience because they aren’t invited to perform,” Bauer said. “New Light Opera was founded to help fill this hole.”

Three students now head New Light Opera. Hajir Sailors, a USS senator and vocalist at Mannes, is the executive director; after helping the vocalists get USS funding for New Light Opera, Sailors realized that they would need someone to direct the company, and was eager to get involved. Bauer joined later that year, and in the fall of 2011, Sophia Munoz came on as artistic director. A senior pianist, Munoz helped Sailors and Bauer set up a series of master classes, another valuable learning experience, the group says, that they felt Mannes was lacking. Sailors, Bauer, and Munoz brought in professionals from the Metropolitan Opera, NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and other well-known music organizations to teach; the master classes quickly proved to be a boon for the students.

“I have had more opportunities to participate in New Light Opera’s master classes than ones provided by Mannes,” said Chandler.

Like roles in the Mannes Opera, master classes at Mannes are often reserved for older, more experienced students — a pattern that has existed for years at the school. But Richard Kessler, the new dean of Mannes, is making an effort to change that. Since joining The New School last year, he has been looking at ways to modernize Mannes and better prepare students for their professional lives. He would like to bring community engagement into the curriculum, he said, and have all students study communications skills.

“Today artists are creating their own businesses, artists are creating their own operas — that’s the story of New Light Opera. And we need to help them prepare for that world,” Kessler said. “You can’t be preparing students to enter a world that doesn’t exist anymore. It doesn’t make any sense.”

Still, Chandler and the other members of the New Light Opera say that the greatest benefit of the New Light Opera is one that Mannes doesn’t yet offer: the performances that they have done for public audiences around New York City. In December, in addition to singing at Bryant Park, they performed at the Church of St. Paul and St. Andrews. And on January 25 they appeared at Duplex, a cabaret bar in the West Village.

“While it is important to be solid in the technical side of singing, it doesn’t help us grow as musicians like getting on stage does,” said Chandler. “I might not be singing the most difficult repertoire in my collection with New Light Opera, but I am gaining comfort working in a group, with a director, and moving onstage.”

Although New Light Opera sometimes performs opera arias, it has given itself a mandate to explore a range of music, a freedom that students often do not enjoy in their classes at Mannes. At the Duplex performance, the group sang musical theatre songs by Stephen Sondheim, as well as a few from Irving Berlin’s famous musical, “Annie Get Your Gun.” At their many December performances, they performed the crowd-pleasing Christmas carols.

“That’s the point of the name, ‘New Light Opera,’” said Knight. “We’re not doing Wagner or Puccini. And that’s a good thing, because not everyone our age is ready to get up and sing the more well-known, difficult opera arias.”

Still, New Light Opera has garnered attention from a number of professionals in the opera world. Through an internship at the Met, Sailors was able to bring in the opera’s company manager, Stephen Brown, to teach a master class. Brown has also served as a mentor to Sailors as he runs New Light Opera. Carol Patella, a veteran of the New York arts scene who works at the Met during its summer ballet season, has also been involved with New Light Opera and attends their shows as often as possible.

“It has been really gratifying to see their performances grow,” she said. “I think New Light Opera gives them valuable experience. Performing in a class, performing in a school recital — these are all very structured situations. When you do a performance that is open to other people, it’s different.”

Kessler knows well that his students desire more practical performance opportunities, and is looking at ways to get students out of the classrooms and in front of new and different audiences; to achieve that end, the school might merge the vocal and opera departments. Still, Kessler said that Mannes provides more out-of-classroom experience than people realize: student ensembles frequently perform at local schools, hospitals and senior facilities, he said, experiences which, like New Light Opera, he believes are important in a musician’s education.

“I believe that something like that is of equal value to the recital you do on the stage, to the lessons you take with a teacher,” he said. “It improves their ability to play, their ability to understand and connect and engage with audiences.”

Sailor, Bauer, and Munoz believe that New Light Opera awoke Mannes to some of its shortcomings and brought attention to the need for more practical performance opportunities for students. But with all three set to graduate in May, the fate of their company is uncertain. Although they have tried to encourage younger students to take the reins, they are considering filing for 501(c)(3) status to turn New Light Opera into a non-profit organization. If they did this, they would likely take the company with them when they graduate.

They are confident, though, that New Light Opera has made its mark at Mannes.

“Conservatories still train their students in much the same way they did a hundred years ago,” said Bauer. “But the world has shifted under their feet. I hope we have encouraged the school to take a careful look at the way it prepares its students for life after school — not only the art of performing on stage, but the practical aspects of how to get there.”