Like 'being shot out of a cannon' — OKC opera sending in killer clown with 'Pagliacci'

Although she's starring in one of opera's most memorable tragedies, Bonnie Frauenthal is happily returning to her college town — even if she has to fly halfway around the world to get back to Oklahoma.

"You always leave a bit of yourself in a city where you live, and that was my home for four years during college. My teacher's still there. My roommate from college still lives there — she's a teacher — and it does feel like a bit of home to me. So, I'm excited to come back," said Frauenthal, a 2012 Oklahoma City University graduate.

Now based in Germany, the soprano is returning to OKC for the first time in a decade to take on a familiar role: the unfaithful wife who comes to a tragic end at the hands of her killer-clown husband in Painted Sky Opera's production of the explosive Italian masterwork "Pagliacci."

"I was lucky enough to have a couple of solo roles while I was at OCU, one of which was Nedda in 'Pagliacci' my junior year of college," she said via Zoom from Germany, where she is a chorus member at Theater Freiberg.

"I fight pretty hard for Team Nedda."

Killer-clown opera is like 'being shot out of a cannon'

Although it's impossible to trace the true origins of the killer-clown trope that has become such a staple of horror movies, books and television, "Pagliacci" is one title that definitely popularized it.

A dramatic story of lust, jealousy and betrayal that premiered in Milan in 1892, the opera follows a traveling troupe of actors, including a cheating wife and her murderous husband, the literal clown who leads the group.

"We wanted to start our season off with a bang ... and it's like a little pack of dynamite. It's explosive from beginning to end," said Painted Sky Artistic Director Rob Glaubitz. "Sometimes there's a complaint that opera is slow or boring — this is not a boring opera at all. This is being shot out of a cannon."

Even if people don't recognized the title, most will be at least somewhat familiar with "Pagliacci," which translates to "Clowns."

"The general public probably knows at least one number from 'Pagliacci,' and that's the aria 'Vesti la giubba.' Anytime you see a sad clown singing an operatic aria on stage, that's it," Glaubitz said.

Painted Sky will perform "Pagliacci," the opening production of its sixth season, at 7:30 p.m. June 11 at Hudiburg Chevrolet Center in Midwest City. Directed by Glaubitz, it will be a fully staged and costumed show performed with orchestra in Italian with English supertitles.

Art reflects life and vice versa in the show: Ruggero Leoncavallo wrote the words and music based on a real-life incident, and the opera's bloody conclusion plays out on stage in the final moments of the play-within-a-play.

"Leoncavallo, his father was a lawyer in some small town in Italy, and he remembered his father working on a case that was this story. So, he writes in the prologue at the beginning of the opera, 'The composer remembered this story from his childhood, and we're trying to share something to tell you that the actors on stage aren't telling stories, they're not showing you fake tears, this is real feelings that we have. We're real humans breathing air, just like you,'" Frauenthal said.

"That line in the opera always gives me goosebumps. I just think, how powerful is that, that this composer 150 years ago said this, and it never gets old."

OKC opera company switches to summer season

Painted Sky Opera originally planned to perform "Pagliacci" during its 2020-2021 season, which was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the wake of the pandemic, the OKC opera company opted to switch from a spring-to-fall model to primarily a summer season starting this year.

After "Pagliacci," Painted Sky's summer season will continue with another beloved classic: Georges Bizet's "Carmen," which will be semi-staged in concert in all its dramatic glory July 30 at the Hudiburg Center. The company will close its summer performance season with Derrick Wang's timely title "Scalia/Ginsburg," inspired by the opinions of Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sept. 9-11 at Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center.

In July, Painted Sky will do 12 free performances of the family-friendly choose-your-own-adventure opera "The Enchanted Forest" as part of the Metropolitan Library System's annual Neighborhood Arts program. 

"The pandemic has taught us all new lessons. ... Most of us work at universities, and the summer is an easier time to do this than when we're working around all our commitments during the September-to-May school year," Glaubitz said. "Moving to a summer season really allows us during the year to concentrate on our educational mission, which I think is really key to our long-term sustainability ... in Oklahoma City."

Soprano revisits role and former home a decade later

The season-opening production of "Pagliacci" will mark Frauenthal's debut with Painted Sky Opera, a company that didn't even exist when she was studying opera in OKC.

Growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas, she fell in love with singing at church.

"I grew up in the Church of Christ, and they don't have instrumental music. It's just acapella voices, so I've had a love for singing since I was a child," she recalled. "My mom signed me up my freshman year of high school for solo competition, and I was a little shy, introverted kid, not quite sure that I wanted to put myself out there. But she knew that I loved singing. So, I took a couple of private voice lessons ... and it sort of snowballed from there."

After getting her bachelor's degree at OCUniversity, she earned her master's at Northwestern University and moved to New York, where she did freelance singing while working a day job.

"I had a moderate success with that, but I thought, 'I do know a few people who have gone to Europe, and Germany is the place to go.' This country has the most opera houses per capita; every little town has a little opera house. So, if you are trying to make a career as an opera singer, this is the place to be," she said.

"I came over here with my partner, now wife, who is also an opera singer — she's a mezzo-soprano — and we both got jobs here in Germany. And we are set for life ... and we're really loving it here."

Her Painted Sky debut will be Frauenthal's first U.S. performance since she and her wife, Melissa Serluco, moved to Germany three years ago. Even better, Frauenthal will be coming back to her homeland and old stomping grounds to play a role she is eagerly revisiting.

"If the Painted Sky production hadn't been delayed for a year, it would have been exactly 10 years after I performed this role for the first time. But now it's 11 years," she said.

"This is a special revisitation for me, because I was kind of young, naive and bright eyed the last time I played Nedda. I fell in love with her when I was 21. I've wanted to see how she's developed in the past 11 years ... and maybe try to remember some of that youthfulness I had from last time, but with the power and the voice that I can give her now."

PAINTED SKY OPERA SUMMER SEASON 

•"Pagliacci": 7:30 p.m. June 11, Hudiburg Chevrolet Center at Rose State College in Midwest City. 

•"Carmen" in Concert: 7:30 p.m. July 30, Hudiburg Chevrolet Center. 

•"Scalia/Ginsburg": Sept. 9-11, Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center. 

Tickets and information: https://www.paintedskyopera.org. 

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Painted Sky Opera's 'Pagliaci' to feature Oklahoma City University grad