Season Finale Opens Saturday Under ‘Veil of Mystery‘
And it doesn’t matter which of the three endings we see and hear – we’ll never tell. But we can always count on Chris Cox, Director of Marketing and Communications for Pittsburgh Opera, to share thoughts with a cast member of each new production. This time round it’s Audrey Welsh, the bright mezzo-soprano and first year Resident Artist who will finish the 2024-25 season with more high hopes for what she’s proved from the instant she set foot on the local opera stage. And the rest went something like this…
Chris Cox: Audrey Welsh, welcome! Can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Where you’re from, how did you first discover you were interested in opera, and what led you to Pittsburgh Opera’s Resident Artist Program?
Audrey Welsh: I’m a mezzo-soprano from Houston, Texas. I started singing because of my mom. I was dead set on making my high school volleyball team my freshman year, and that wasn’t in the cards for me. My mom said, “Hey, the choir tryouts are the same day. Here’s $5. You should go audition for the choir.” She loves to say it’s the best $5 she’s ever spent, because I ended up getting into the choir, and then I begrudgingly stayed with it all four years. By my senior year, I was choir president and captain of the varsity choir. The bug bit me again, after I took a brief hiatus from performing in middle school because I thought I was too cool. It turns out I’m not.
My senior year of high school, I auditioned for the Houston Grand Opera’s Bauer Family High School Voice Studio. That was integral in my development, and led me to pursue my Bachelor of Music in Voice. That program definitely sling-shotted me into pursuing this professionally. I just totally fell in love with seeing all of the shows at Houston Grand Opera and haven’t looked back.
Audrey Welsh
CC: Well, I’ll look back for a second on your first season as a Pittsburgh Opera Resident Artist. You had two very memorable roles at the Benedum Center, Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana, and then Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. Can you tell us a little bit about each of those experiences, and whether you preferred one role over the other?
AW: Lola, being my professional AGMA debut, surrounded by such seasoned cast members, was just an absolute dream. I don’t think I could have written a better debut. It was the most fun role. I mean, who doesn’t love to play the other woman, who’s gorgeous in this corset and runs the stage when she walks on? She gets to come on for the big group number, and also has this sultry offstage singing. Plus my costume was fabulous.
Everyone in Cavalleria was so, so sweet and welcoming, especially Eve [Gigliotti], who was Santuzza. And singing in the Benedum Center for the first time, my God. It’s a 2,800-seat house. I had never sung anywhere that big before. So when it came to Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, I thought, “Oh yeah, I got this. I’ve been here before.” I’d come into this room as a woman about town as Lola; for Kate, I got to be a little more stoic.
In Butterfly, I also got to do a silent scene, which is rarely done in opera. Getting to flex your acting muscle and holding the audience in the palm of your hand for that minute and a half at the opening of Act Two was just the coolest thing.
CC: Now you’re about to be in a world premiere, Woman With Eyes Closed. Can you tell us a little bit about your character and what her role is in the show?
AW: I have the privilege to play the Curator. I am the curator of a museum that has just been robbed. Our stage director Kristine McIntyre and I see her as young, probably my exact age, like in the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner museum heist. She’s young, has just graduated with her master’s degree, and is trying to prove herself, so she’s a lot like me. And now this huge problem has fallen in her lap. It is her responsibility, and her problem, that two Picasso, two Monet, a Matisse, Gauguin, and a Lucian Freud have all been stolen from her museum.
In the score, she is only labeled as the Curator, as is the Inspector. Later in the show we do learn their actual names. They’re not unnamed, amorphous people, but I think it’s very purposeful by the librettist and composer that they are unnamed in the score because the Curator and the Inspector act as the Greek chorus, or public opinion, for the show.
You see her grow throughout the show. Initially, you can hear in her musical lines that she’s really nervous, because more than $50 million worth of art’s been stolen from her museum. [Composer] Jennifer Higdon’s done an absolutely amazing job of writing the dramatic intent into each of the vocal lines, and you can feel the Curator’s nervousness and antsiness to get the art back. But then slowly, throughout the show, her words and musicality change.
In scene seven, I have what I like to believe is the thesis statement of the show. It’s a sweeping vocal line, that I think really encapsulates the point of the show. She’s speaking to the Inspector about why the theft matters so much, even when there are many other crimes going on in the world; she validates that those are important too when the Inspector is talking about them, but she says, “These paintings don’t belong to me. They belong to everyone, and they’re proof of our humanity. And so if we lose this, then what do we have?” I feel honored to get to deliver that line to the audience.
CC: Woman With Eyes Closed is more intimate than Cavalleria or Butterfly. The venue is smaller, the orchestra’s smaller, there’s no big chorus, et cetera. As a cast member, does that change how you approach the role?
AW: Yes. You have to be really intentional about your facial expressions. That’s the case in any opera, but for a 2,800-seat house like the Benedum, it’s maybe not as important to focus so much on your microexpressions. But in a smaller space like this, with a more intimate story and the audience right in your face, you need to be really cognizant of how you’re saying your words and what words you want to emphasize.
Also, the Inspector, myself, and Thomas, who is the art thief, are going to have a live video feed in the show, which is a little jarring. Matt [Soibelman, who sings the role of the Inspector] and I are trying to act like we’re on TV giving a press conference. We’ve noticed in rehearsals that sometimes we tend to lean towards where Maestro is, so we look like we’re on a boat, tipping to the side, trying to catch Maestro’s eye. But we need to stay put and plant our feet, so I’m glad we’ve had the chance to practice it.
It’s never a good idea to sing with food stuck in your teeth, but for sure when there’s a camera and you’re going to be broadcast close up on the screen behind you for a whole room of people, you definitely want to make sure that there’s nothing in your teeth.
CC: So bring your floss to the dressing room.
AW: Exactly. But more seriously, the scale of this show provides a more real experience, especially with the smaller, more intimate orchestra. The audience will get up close and personal with the storytelling.
CC: What else does the audience have to look forward to in the show?
AW: Something very interesting indeed is that, depending on which day you come to the show, there will be a different ending. That’s very intriguing indeed, and a little tough on all our parts to get it all organized. Every time we rehearse the show, we run each ending to make sure that everything is ironed out and very pristine for each audience.
Also, something I definitely didn’t expect from a show about an art heist is to have the inclusion of the character of Mona’s Mom. Mona’s son Thomas is the one who has stolen the paintings. Thomas brings the paintings to his mother’s house. And then Mona takes a little nap, maybe, and has an out-of-body experience in a dream sequence where the memory of her own mother, who was a painter, is conjured.
I myself never expected to have such wonderful feelings about my own mother as I was watching the Momma and Mona scenes. I just moved here to Pittsburgh in September. I’d lived in Houston, Texas my whole life. And I miss my mom a lot, obviously. To watch a scene of someone getting to see their mother in a dream, whenever they’re physically apart by death or distance, is just so wonderful and is something you wouldn’t expect in a show about an art heist.
CC: Is your mom coming to one of the performances?
AW: She is coming to the Saturday matinee. My mom is going to come, and my brother and my sister-in-law, and my aunt, and a partridge in a pear tree. I think the whole state of Texas is going to get on a plane to come see this one. I’m so excited.
CC: We look forward to having them. I’m sure they’re going to love the show.
TICKETS AND DETAILS
The opera, Jennifer Higdon and Jerre Dye’s Woman With Eyes Closed, was inspired by the real-life theft of seven modernist paintings from Rotterdam’s Kunsthal in 2012. The opera is named after one of the stolen paintings, by Lucian Freud.
In the show, a woman discovers the paintings in her house and realizes her son is the thief. The police are closing in, and she must decide what to do. The opera has three different endings, each reflecting her making a different choice.
All performances will be at the Bitz Opera Factory, 2425 Liberty Ave., in Pittsburgh’s Strip District. The full performance schedule is:
- Saturday, April 26, 8:00 PM, Ending One
- Tuesday, April 29, 7:00 PM, Ending Two
- Friday, May 2, 7:30 PM, Ending Three
- Saturday, May 3, 2:00 PM, Ending TBA
- Sunday, May 4, 4:00 PM, Ending TBA
A limited number of tickets are still available. They can be purchased online at opera.culturaldistrict.org, by phone at 412-456-6666, and in-person at the Box Office at Theater Square, 655 Penn Avenue in Downtown Pittsburgh. Discounts are available for groups, kids and teens ages 6-18, students, seniors, members of the military and more. See pittsburghopera.org/discounts for details.
A synopsis of the show, along with information on the cast and artistic teams, is available on its webpage.
The WQED Preview Show will air on WQED-FM Saturday, April 19th at 12:30PM & Friday, April 25th at 7:00PM.
Ticketholders for the Tuesday, April 29th performance are invited to remain in their seats immediately following the performance for the Meet the Artists conversation with the stars of the production.
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