Jonathan Stuckey, Bass

I just had to take some time to write about my colleagues in the Apprentice Program at Lyric Opera Cleveland. They are all, in a word, brilliant.

I am, on a daily basis, amazed at the level of talent they bring. Every one of them is on the road to greatness, if they play their cards right. And the best thing is that they are all wonderful people who I would be happy to call my friends. That’s not exactly common in this business.
So to all of you — Andy, Carol, Dana, Jeremy, Jessica, Josh, Kasey, Kim, and Philippe — you are all awesome, I love working with you, and getting to know you all has been great. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season with you.

Yesterday we had the first musical rehearsal for the Lyric Opera Cleveland Apprentice program. The first show this summer is Pirates of Penzance. It looks like it will be pretty good except for one thing: we don’t have a chorus. I am the Police Sergeant, and I’m also the only police officer. I guess this town has no budget.

We had a little bit of excitement today — a fire alarm! Somebody burnt some toast or something, set of the alarm, and necessitated the evacuation of the building. What fun.

The school show is over! It was, overall, a great experience. The five of us got together Friday night for some wrap-up revelry. That’s the good news. The bad news is I woke up Saturday, not with a hangover, but with a sinus infection. Now I have the rest of this week to recover, pack up the apartment, and finish learning all of my music for the Lyric Opera Cleveland Apprentice program.

I’m tired.

Last week went relatively smoothly. This is the last week of the touring school show.

Yesterday, we had faulty directions. We practically drove into Lake Erie before we realized we were heading in the wrong direction. But we finally arrived, safe and sound.

Today, we had two morning shows at a school in North Ridgeville. The audience was great, with appropriately aged kids (2nd through 5th grade). I think we have two more shows for 7th graders, who will probably be either bored out of their minds or insulted by the show, as it is geared for younger students. But hey, I still get paid, and that’s all that matters.

Two shows for 7th graders today. The show is geared towards younger kids, preferably no older than 10, if that. So the less said about these two shows, the better.

So we’ve reached the end of our first week of the touring school show. We’ve had no problems except at that awful school in Akron. So overall the first week was pretty good. Week 2, look out, because I’m ready for ya!

The morning show in Cleveland Heights was darn near perfect — the kids were enthusiastic, the teachers kept them under control, and our performance was spot on.

The afternoon show, at St. Vincent Depaul in Akron, was just plain not fun. The kids were way too rowdy, and the teachers just sat back and didn’t bother to exert any control. It was like they were taking a break while sitting there in the room, watching us struggle to quiet the little brats down. We performed well, but I never want to have to deal with that type of situation again. I’m even linking to their school just in case anyone from the school happens to read this blog, or in case any parents are considering sending their kids there. Those “teachers” deserve to have their licenses revoked.

Yesterday, our morning show at St. Mary Immaculate Conception School in Avon was a little bit rough. Thank goodness our pianist has the script right in front of her and was able to give us some hints as to what we were supposed to be doing. The kids were very responsive and into it, so I guess it went pretty well overall. The afternoon show at St. Anthony of Padua in Lorain was much better, with no problems to speak of.

Today was more of the same. We did two morning shows St. Barnabas Elementary in Northfield. No problems, but 2 shows back to back were a bit tiring.The afternoon show at St. Nicholas Academy in Lorain went fine, but Greg (the tenor) and I missed our exit and were almost late.

Tomorrow we perform in Cleveland Heights in the morning and in Akron in the afternoon.

I am in this year’s Lyric Opera Cleveland touring school show, called Overture!

We’ve been rehearsing since Monday at a church in the Tremont area of Cleveland. This morning, we had our first live performance for the kids in the Head-Start program at the church. It actually went really well.

The show is set up as a game show. We invite kids from the audience up to try to answer questions about opera. The singers also perform excerpts from different operas to illustrate the answers. It’s pretty cool!

Starting this Monday, we’ll be going to 2 schools a day doing the 45-minute show. It looks to be a lot of fun.