U.S. countertenor David Daniels is back in town to star in the Lyric Opera of Chicago premiere of Benjamin Britten's operatic take on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. An openly gay man, Daniels sees the obvious humor in playing Oberon, king of the fairies.
"What could be better?" said Daniels, winning a hearty laugh from the audience as a panelist at the Lyric's recent Discovery Series symposium titled Shakespeare Goes to the Opera.
Indeed, Daniels has been open about his sexual orientation throughout his career as one of the world's top operatic countertenors ( male altos ) . And it is Daniels' amazing voice that has been invaluable to many opera companies producing florid Baroque works by composers like Handel and Vivaldi ( since the superstar castratos who were originally cast in those 18th-century operas are mercifully no longer with us ) .
But Oberon is a slightly different beast, coming from the pen of gay composer Benjamin Britten in 1960. Britten wanted an otherworldly sound for Oberon, so he wrote the role with countertenor Alfred Deller in mind—despite the paucity of major countertenor singers at the time.
"I think [ Britten ] does a remarkable job of capturing the color and the essence of the characters and the emotions—especially the fairies, with all of their ominous music," Daniels said.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is also remarkable since Britten and tenor Peter Pears ( his longtime partner ) adapted the libretto almost entirely with text from Shakespeare's original play.
Daniels is grateful that Britten spurred other 20th-century composers to consider the countertenor voice for new operas ( like Jonathan Dove's Flight and Peter Eotvos's Three Sisters ) . But Daniels says Oberon isn't the showiest or the easiest role to sing.
"It's not a role that sits particularly comfortable for the countertenor voice—for me, for anybody," Daniels said during the symposium. "It's a very low tessitura role and it's very simple. But why I continue to sing it is because the entire opera itself, and the way the character of Oberon fits into it, it is so magical."
Daniels has previously triumphed as Oberon multiple times, most notably at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and La Scala in Italy. But this is the first time that Daniels is appearing in Australian director Neil Armfield's new co-production, which has been previously staged in Houston and Toronto.
Daniels is apprehensive, particularly since Armfield has staged Oberon to fly 17 feet above the stage in a partially caged platform throughout most of the opera.
"I'm a little nervous, I'm not going to lie," Daniels said. "I don't love heights, but I'm going for it 100 percent and see how it goes."
Previously seen at the Lyric in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and Handel's Partenope and Julius Caesar, Daniels is happy to be back in Chicago not only for one opera, but two. ( Daniels appears later this season in Handel's Hercules in the servant role of Lichas under the baton of conductor Harry Bicket and director Peter Sellars. )
"It's perfect for me because I love Chicago and I love the Lyric," Daniels said. "To be here for two shows is a treat. They're very different roles obviously, with Britten and Handel."
During his last Lyric visit in 2007, Daniels appreciated being part of an operatic lecture at the Center on Halsted, and he says he'd be happy to do more outreach if asked. But Daniels is also aware of his place in the showbiz ladder when it comes to outreach from major LGBT organizations.
"Classical music artists are not the first people who are sought out," Daniels said. "It's Lance Bass and people like that who are on their radar. I tried to offer to sing for GLAAD events and things, but there's little to no interest."
The Lyric Opera of Chicago premiere of A Midsummer Night's Dream plays for seven performances ( 7:30 p.m. Nov. 5, 8, 10, 20 and 23, and 2 p.m. Nov. 13 and 17 ) at the Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker. British conductor Rory Macdonald will conduct in his Lyric debut, and the opera will be performed in English with projected English titles. Tickets are $33-$207. Call 312-332-2244 ext. 5600 or visit www.lyricopera.org for more information.
Trans-ition
When Evanston native Rebecca Kling previously developed her one-woman show, Trans Form, at Links Hall, it was relatively a low-tech affair that grew out of the Charged Bodies workshops led by famed gay performance artist Tim Miller.
But now that Trans Form is receiving a full-fledged staging with New Suit Theatre in Studio 2 of the Athenaeum Theatre, Kling is happy to have a whole creative team ( even including a projection designer ) to support her solo show examining her life as a trans-gendered woman.
Kling's collaborators "give more outside creative input and allow all of their contributions to push me to a higher level of performance as well as to polish up the language and to tweak what's going on stage," she said during a telephone interview.
In Trans Form, the 26-year-old Kling says the show is a relatively linear presentation filled with personal stories that go "through my experiences as a child knowing that something wasn't right with my gender, going through adolescence and puberty and all of the fun and terror of that. And then more recently realizing what steps I can take in beginning to transition and how that's worked."
Trans Form is just one of many ways Kling does her part to inform more people about the transgender community. Kling has also done presentations for medical students and other outreach activities. But her heart is in the performing arts.
"The idea of writing out and processing out some of my life in that way and then creating a stage piece was very attractive to me," Kling said. "It seemed very empowering and a way to understand some of my own issues by communicating them to others."
New Suit Theatre presents Trans Form at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays between Nov. 4 and Dec. 5 at the Athenaeum Theatre Studio 2, 2936 N. Sheffield. Tickets are $15. Call 800-982-2787 or visit www.newsuittheatre.com .
