Crowds gathered in the Francis Frazier Comstock theatre on Feb. 13-16 to watch a spin on a classic tale in “The Three Bears” by Jonathan Stinson presented by the Concordia College Opera, Music, and Theatre Departments. For the first time, an opera was performed on the Main Stage instead of the Centrum.
To make this collaboration possible, over 90 people were involved. Robin Griffeath, the director of the show, says, “I worked really hard last year and this year to get kind of get an agreement from everybody to have this collaboration between the music department and the theatre department so we could pool our resources um and bring everyone’s expertise in and really start doing real opera.”
There were two casts, Periwinkle and Magenta, and two orchestras that rotated each night. Each cast brought their own flair to these storybook characters. “Every time I do a double cast or I see a double cast perform, they find their own identity. They both have found their own kind of truth in the opera, you know,” said Griffeath.
Auditions took place at the same time as “Oklahoma!” auditions, however, the rehearsal process did not start until after winter break. Jonathan Stinson, the writer of the opera, made a trip to the college for tech week and an 8-day residency to bring the casts and orchestras over the finish line. Tech week is when additional elements of a show, such as lights, are added to the rehearsal process.
Stinson’s presence in the process was made possible by the Hvidsten Artist Series, a pool of money used to bring artists to Concordia College to “embellish the Concordia Artistic Calendar,” as said by Griffeath.
Stinson is a baritone performer and composer who has appeared in performances throughout the United Sates and Europe. He was originally commissioned by Opera Memphis to write an opera in 2006 for a show that centered around a fairytale. While he thought the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” was interesting enough to write a sequel for, there was another, more personal, reason as well.
“Before I was born, my father was able to compose, although he was a historian by trade. He wrote for fun, just as a joke, a small movement of an oratorio based on Goldilocks, and I thought it would be funny to finish the piece more seriously,” said Stinson. In fact, the first piece of music in the opera was written by his father.
While this is the twelfth performance of the opera, Concordia presented the world premiere of a fully orchestrated version. Originally, Stinson’s opera was only accompanied by piano, but he was commissioned Nov. 2023 to write a full orchestrated version for Concordia College. He kept in touch with both Griffeath and Kevin Sütterlin, the conductor of the Concordia Orchestra, to bring the vision to life.
“I can now accompany that emotion with a certain texture or timbre of the orchestra that wasn’t possible, you know? So, this is a really exciting and amazing thing for Concordia to actually take an opera that was written 19 years ago and give the world premiere of a complete accompaniment,” said Stinson.
For the first time, the kids were brought to “The Three Bears” instead of the other way around. The opera was originally an outreach where the performers would go to the schools and perform in the theatre; however, the size of the show would not allow it and Concordia had to bring the children to the opera. Griffeath was awarded a grant from the Lake Region’s Art Council, a group that gives money to Minn. art groups, to bus 250 elementary school children to see “The Three Bears” on Feb. 12.
“The Three Bears” was written for children because of its audience interaction and cartoonish acting, yet it was presented at a college. “There is a whole ‘nother layer of humor on top of it that probably goes over those kid’s head that is geared towards adults in college age students,” said Griffeath, who chose the opera to introduce Concordia to opera.
“I think a lot of people in the United States when they see that “opera” word, it kind of is scary. And I think they might not come. So I, for this year’s opera, I wanted something that was approachable, and I wanted something that was a good fit for like families in the Fargo-Moorhead area,” said Griffeath .
