Professor Irwin Weil informed his Russian folklore class at the beginning of Spring Quarter that in eight weeks time students would be performing an opera together — in Russian.
“They said, ‘Look, we don’t speak Russian, we don’t read music, how are we going to do this?'” Weil said.
After a quarter of late-night rehearsals, the class of mostly non-music majors performed scenes from two famous Russian operas for a 350-person audience at Alice Millar Chapel on Wednesday night.
“I was somewhat cynical that we would sound like a real Russian opera,” said Meryl Alper, a Communication junior in the course, 10 minutes before the show.
But by the end of a selection from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin,” members of the audience — including several local Russian residents — were on their feet applauding and shouting, “Bravo!”
Rosa Nguyen, whose two English major friends were in the chorus, said she was impressed with the performance.
“I thought it would be a half-hour thing where they would pretend to sing Russian music,” said Nguyen, a Weinberg sophomore. “I didn’t expect this.”
The 70-person chorus included non-student singers, many from the Russian community, as well as several Music students who took on solo parts.
The chorus slots mostly were filled with students from Weil’s course on Russian Music in the Context of Russian Culture.
Weil said no other course like it exists in the country. When students signed up for the class last year — the first time it was taught with the opera component — they had no idea that in addition to studying Russian literature they would perform in an opera.
This year many of the students who registered had heard they would be singing.
The music, Weil said, helps students understand the literature.
“You’re trying to get students to learn something that is very far from their own experience,” said Weil, adding that the subject matter lends itself to impassioned responses.
“Russian literature is so powerful that anyone with half a heart reacts to it very strongly,” he said. “Once you begin to open the door to it the students flood in like water flooding over a waterfall.”
Nick Romeo, a Weinberg sophomore, said performing the operas enhanced his understanding of the Russian works he and other classmates read in class.
“What is lost in the translation is hopefully gained or retained in the music,” he said.
Conductor Natalia Lyashenko, a former choral conductor of a famous Russian opera house, has been working with the students for weeks on diction and technique.
Weil said Lyashenko “catches every shade of meaning in music and every note.”
Romeo said Lyashenko is the reason he registered for the class again this year.
“The conductor is so amazing ’cause she runs and she shouts and she stomps,” Romeo said. “She does everything she can to convey the essence, the pathos of the music.”
