The Making of an Opera

Behind the scenes at Interlochen as they prepare to debut 'Edmonia'

By Al Parker | April 20, 2024

The campus buzz is palpable as Interlochen Arts Academy gets ready to host the largest, most complicated performance in the school’s history.

It’s not a Shakespearean drama, nor a ballet or a Broadway classic.

It’s an opera.

And it’s the world premier of Edmonia, which tells the story of Edmonia Lewis, the 19th-century Black and Ojibwe sculptor who carved out an artistic identity against all odds. Performances are May 3-5, 2024.

The two-act opera was originally commissioned in 2000 by prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison and composed by acclaimed musician and education Dr. Bill Banfield. The tale follows Lewis’ life, travel, and career at Oberlin College, Boston, Florence, Italy, Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia at a time when travel, a career, and life itself was difficult for many women.

The Composer

The driving force behind the Edmonia opera is Dr. Bill Banfield, a native Detroiter, whose wide-ranging resume includes musician, composer, guitarist, professor, educator, author, and record company owner. It’s no surprise he gets enthusiastic when talking about the creative process.

“Creativity is a dialogue about how life is,” he explains. “What shall we do, how do we do it? It all starts with a conversation about life and that’s represented in a poem or a story… The opera is a collaboration, a story, a song, that is acted, danced, and staged. It’s a celebration.”

Banfield has twice served as a Pulitzer Prize judge in American Music (2010 and 2016). He’s an award-winning composer whose symphonies, operas, and chamber works have been performed and recorded by major symphonies across the nation. Dr. Cornel West has called him “one of the last grand Renaissance men in our time, a towering artist, exemplary educator, rigorous scholar, courageous freedom fighter.”

With all those impressive credentials, what was it like working with the young people at the academy? “Young people jump into the music and they make the music jump,” he says with a smile. “They bring the soul, the imagination, and energy.”

And with the global premier of his Edmonia nearing, Banfield says he may not be done with the talented sculptor whose work remains largely unknown by the general public. “This is only half of the opera I want to do,” he hints.

The Cast

Patrice Rushen, Broadway actor Sydney James Harcourt of Hamilton fame, and emerging opera performer Amber Merritt star alongside Arts Academy students in the production.

Auditions began in December under co-directors Laura Osgood Brown and Justin Lee Miller. In a nutshell, Brown deems the cast “an explosion of talent.”

“There are 65 in the cast, the largest cast ever on campus,” says Brown. “The first few days were overwhelming. And we were practicing from 4:00 to 6:30 [pm], four or five days a week, in three different locations.”

She adds with a smile, “All of us, directors included, are stretched outside our boundaries. We think of opera as old, but opera can be modern too. It’s musical theater that’s global.”

The Crew

Brent Wrobel is the executive director of Interlochen Presents and serves as producer for the opera. He oversees all performances on campus, but with Edmonia, he’s been involved on a more detailed level due to its size and importance.

“This has been a rewarding experience,” says Wrobel, who’s been with the academy for 10 years. He tells us the school has been working on developing the premiere for three of those 10 years.

“The academy staff has been working closely with the composer, Bill Banfield, and with the talented guest artists, Sydney James Harcourt, Amber Merrit, and Patrice Rushen,” Wrobel continues. “They’ve guided us along the way to take this new work from the page to the stage. This is also a multi-disciplinary production, so we have all seven of our arts divisions participating in some way. It’s a big show.”

The “big show” has about a dozen full-time staffers working on the production daily.

“They are designing and building the scenery and costumes, creating projections to be projected on the scenery, and developing plans for the lighting and sound designs,” explains Wrobel. “The team meets weekly with the directors and designers to discuss the production and make sure everyone is on the same page. The design process started this past November, and the build process began in the new year.”

The Stage

One of the highlights of Edmonia is a high-tech rotating stage that carries a $70,000 price tag.

“We received a generous donation which allowed us to purchase a motor-controlled scenery system,” explains Wrobel. “This system moves scenery ‘magically’ on the stage. For the production of Edmonia, we are using the system in two ways. We will have a 20-foot diameter turntable that is in the middle of the stage. This allows us to move other pieces of scenery or performers magically during the show.”

Jeff Block, assistant director of presentation, design, and production, has spent weeks overseeing the setup. “We put the scenery on a turntable that uses a computer to locate it precisely,” he says. “It can turn the stage within one-sixteenth of an inch.”

The scenery crew has created five tall columns that slide left to right on the stage to help create new locations throughout the opera. Air casters move the huge pillars. These columns will be projected on and as they move to a new location, the projections will follow. It took the scene shop about a week to build the scenery and two full days to install and make sure it runs properly.

“This technology is a game-changer for us,” says Wrobel. “It takes our designs to the next level.”

The Costumes

With a cast of about 70 performers, there’s a huge need for costumes, all period pieces that need to be designed, created—or located—and then fitted.

Costume designer Caitlin Eldred has been hip-deep in the costuming process for months.

“We had a few pieces from our costume stock from other productions that we were able to use and some religious [costumes] were purchased,” she explains. “But we probably created about 15 original pieces, including three different costumes for young Edmonia, grown Edmonia, and dance Edmonia. I saved the blushy reds for Edmonia, floral patterns for her as an adult, while dance Edmonia is a deep red.”

For many of the students, getting into costume is a unique experience.

“They come alive when they put on that stuff,” Eldred says. “A lot of them have never worn historical garb, like a petticoat or a frock hat. Some have never done a show with us. They just light up.”

Eldred, who joined the academy last year and started on designs for the show last October, estimates that each original piece requires 35 to 40 hours of work by the costume team of six staffers, four adult volunteers, and six student volunteers. The costumes took about 10 weeks to create in the fully-equipped costume shop.

One issue the costume team had to work around was the students’ class schedules. “Sometimes they’d have a half-hour free time, but the fittings usually take 45 minutes to an hour,” explains Eldred. “But we got it worked out.”

The Performance

All of the academy’s productions are student-focused, but this staging of a world premier opera is special.

“It isn’t every day that we have all seven arts divisions working on the same show together,” says Wrobel. “It’s been an all-hands-on-deck experience and the students are doing a fantastic job.”

And now the opening night of May 3 is only days away. Months of working closely together are finally coming together in a poignant, powerful creation.

“It’s been a long gestation,” says Brown, noting that when they began, she set up a separate email account with just messages between her and Banfield. On the day she talked with Northern Express, it was jammed with 838 messages.

So why should a northern Michigan audience come to see Edmonia? Wrobel is quick to offer three reasons.

“First, the story is important,” he says. “Edmonia Lewis was an African American and Native American marble sculptor in the late 1800s. The story spans Lewis’ courageous life from her birth in upstate New York through her turbulent days at Oberlin College and formative studio days in Boston, to her astonishing move to Rome, Italy. In 1876, at the age of 32, Lewis captivated the world with her larger-than-life marble statue The Death of Cleopatra that now stands in the Smithsonian.

“Second, there isn’t a lot of opportunity to see full-length operas in northern Michigan. Third, this isn’t your typical opera! If classical opera is not your cup of tea, you will be pleasantly surprised by the contemporary flavor of Edmonia.”

For tickets ($34 for adults, $19 for children, teens, and college young adults), visit interlochen.org/concerts-and-events/all-events?search=edmonia.