From 1998 to 2006, every second Friday & Saturday of May, I performed along with the resident ensemble of OPERA SAN JOSÉ in a two night fundraising concert for OSJ’s educational outreach. It served as a kind of informal end to the performing season, which started in late July with outreach and rehearsals for the September opera and continued over the course of OSJ‘s four-Opera season that culminated with the April show that would close on the first weekend of May. The resident ensemble would still have some outreach and coachings for the upcoming season in late May-June, but the pace of work was a trickle compared to our workload in August through April.
We would always open the show with an original opening number that caused us all not a small amount of stress because it was something that we had to learn, memorize, and perfect in two weeks. Some of the opening numbers
(written and assembled by the legendary TOM WEBB and then the inimitable CRAIG BOHMLER) were extremely goofy, by design, and even though we griped about learning them, we enjoyed performing them. Many of the resident artists were people that I had gotten to know and perform with over the course of (in many cases) 10 years, so Operafest performances often took on the aura of a Martin & Lewis nightclub act, such was the comfort and ease with which we had become accustomed in our performance. It was also a time to give back some love to the army of volunteers and donors that made our artistic residencies possible. Amongst the stress of a long, jam-packed season, Operafest served as a kind of cast party for the whole year, and it was an opportunity for us to perform one final time with the resident artists who were moving on after the season.
The final few Operafests in which I performed were themed, “Hoedown,” “Luau,” “Fiesta,” etc. and those were a blast.
May 2006’s OPERAFIESTA! was my final Operafest as a Resident Artist and I was also the emcee, which was a blast.
The opening number began with JESSE MERLIN, JOSEPH WRIGHT, and myself wearing cartoonishly broad “Mexican” clothing and singing the theme song from the 1986 comedy The Three Amigos and then we are chastised by Resident Artist SANDRA RUBALCAVA for our offensive butchering of Mexican culture and the curtain opens to reveal a full Mariachi band and the entire company launches into El Rey by VICENTE FERNANDEZ.
After my residency, MS. DALIS asked me to develop and stage the 2007 Operafest opening number for “Operfest At the Movies” in collaboration with CRAIG BOHMLER. It was a lot of fun!
Even though I haven’t been in school for almost 20 years, I still love “summer vacation” even though I work in the summer just as I do in the winter and I still have finals anxiety dreams in May even though I haven’t taken a final since 1999. In the same way, I still get that feeling the First of May that I should be memorizing the Operafest opening number. For those of you with whom I had the great honor of performing during my time at OPERA SAN JOSÉ, know that I still think of you every second weekend in May and I cherish our time in the artistic foxhole as we all careened through the formative moments of our artistic lives.