Known for its famous mad scene, Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor about to go on stage in an Opera in the Heights production, should be especially powerful given the intimate confines of Lambert Hall and the fact that the roles of the star-crossed lovers are portrayed by brand new newlyweds in real life.
Rising stars Oriana Falla and Arnold Livingston Geis will be singing the roles of Lucia and Edgardo in the story of lovers from two feuding families who end up deceived and destroyed by the people who don’t want to see them together. Lucia is manipulated into marrying another man, goes crazy on their wedding day, stabs him to death and dies herself. Edgardo decides to join her in death and stabs himself. Passion and death presented with a striking Donizetti score.
It takes special talents to be able to sing the lead roles in the tragic opera, as Opera in the Heights Artistic Director Eiki Isomura says. Soprano Falla (who appeared as Adina in OITH’s The Elixir of Love to critical acclaim) “Lucia has to balance lyric heft and also great agility and what we call upper extension, Singing really stratospheric notes. It’s a rare thing to find singers who have that kind of mobility and access to high notes. Oriana is built for it.”
As for her husband, Isomura says: ” I’m surprised that that this is Arnold’s first Edgardo. Knowing how he sings I would have expected this is to be one of his signature roles.”
The opportunity to debut the roles was irresistible to the couple, despite the timing. “We literally just got married September 1,” Geis says. “Then the day after the wedding we hopped on a plane to Houston from Colombia, South America and we started rehearsals the very next day.” (They knew they were singing the roles three months in advance.)
And although the plot of Lucia is on the whole not a happy one, Falla says stage director Alyssa Weathersby has instilled a measure of hope at the end.
The opera begins in the gardens of Lammermoor Castle. An intruder is spotted and yes, it turns out to be Edgardo. Lucia’s brother Enrico (John Allen Nelson) wants to put an end to this romance. He needs his sister to marry Lord Arturo (Bernard Kelly) to restore the family fortunes.
“For me I think that it’s still the feelings of someone having to have duty to their family versus marrying who they are in love with or upholding certain societal pressures is still relevant, maybe not our society but other cultures Heartbreak something everyone can relate to. Everyone can potentially relate to,” Falla says.
As for Geis, he draws on the obvious parallels to the story of Romeo and Juliet.”Love draws them close and tragedy striks afterwards.” In the case of Lucia, the opera is loosely based on a book by Walter Scott who based his account on a true story.
Falla and Geis have different stories to tell about how they became involved in opera.
She was a pianist when she was a kid and for a brief time played violin with group that gave free music lessons to children in Los Angeles. On one occasion while playing for a donor event she saw a girl’s choir singing and decided she needed to join the group right away. She was 15 or 16 with no experience, but the group was about to go out on tour and needed another body because someone had just dropped out.
The choir director was obsessed with opera and Falla went on from there.
Geis grew up in a musical home. “My parents were both opera singers. My brother three years older. He started singing first. I wanted nothing to do with singing; I just wanted to be an actor. It wasn’t until I got into my teenage years when I joined choir and then I did this production of Les Miserable when I was cast as Marius as a freshman, I fell in love with singing and performing.
“I always say that opera chose me. I’ve always loved musical theater. Opera has always been part of my life. I do love opera but I also love musical theater .I’ve always been one to take the opportunities when they come.” Which in his case has turned out more often to be opera.
Musical theater was a foreign concept for Falla who grew up in Los Angeles.. She just didn’t get it. Her first exposure was to opera and classical music. Now, she says, she’s come to appreciate musical theater.
The pair met for the first time in 2015 at UCLA where Falla was in the chorus. The tenor had broken his arm. Arnold came in at the last minute. Almost a year after that, they performed together, singing for the Viennese ambassador at a club.”We sang some duets together. Mostly German repertoire, says Geis whose mother is German.
After the program, the ambassador complimented Geis on his German. But turned to Falla and told her, “You need some work.”
They remained in friends status until 2020 when Falla was living in New York City and Geis had a job there. During the pandemic, they both returned to California.
Performing in Lucia calls upon both to stretch themselves. “It’s a really hard sing. There’s a reason that a lot of companies don’t do Lucia because it’s just so demanding,” says Geis who has to hit high notes that are right at the top of his range.
As for Falla: “For Lucia it’s right as soon as you come in you have crazy singing. It’s very technical, hard singing and then it doesn’t stop. You get mini breaks but it just continues. Emotionally it gets heavier and heavier. Vocally it doesn’t lessen for the demands on the voice. For me I have to learn to pace myself and not get too carried away and not wanting to move too much because then I can’t sing it.”
“Opera lovers really know the mad scene so there’s a certain expectation,” Falla says.
Opera in the Heights planned an earlier Lucia but that changed with the pandemic, Isomura says.
“Lucia was one of our pieces we had to adapt to a concert production back in 2020. We punted it to 2021 and we performed highlights out of it at White Oak Music Hall. That was a wonderful experience but it was definitely something that we wanted to present in a fully staged format. I think it’s been 10 years since we presented it at Lambert Hall,” Isomura says.
“Fortunately we had the voices that were ready for it.”
Explaining why Opera in the Heights seeks out performers like Falla and Geis for challenging roles like they’ll be singing in Lucia, Isomura says: “It is precisely that it requires such technical mastery. You want both someone who’s on their absolute A game — working every day — .and in an ascendant period in their careers. They’re looking to do these roles for the very first time — these iconic roles you can only learn by really doing them.
“Opera is this business that’s very hard to break into and when you are trusting a singer to sing the title role of a project that involves 100 collaborators it’s such a form of risk taking that most opera companies manage by hiring people who have done it before. Opera in the Heights is different because our intent is always is to cast role debuts. That’s what makes our company valuable in the field and I think it’s also what makes it exciting for our audiences. To see a rising star discover they’re born for this role. And that couldn’t be more true for our cast of principals.”
Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. September 20, 27 and 28 and 2 p.m. September 22 at Lambert Hall, 1703 Heights Boulevard. Sung in Italian. For more information, call 713-861-5303 or visit operaintheheights.org. $35-$85.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
