The puppetry provided by Basil Twist and his troupe for “Master Peter’s Puppet Show” was a combination of “stick puppets” (for the puppet show within a puppet show) and life-sized (or even larger) puppets, with the large ones operated by one or more puppeteers dressed in black and wearing hoods, influenced by the Bunraku-style puppetry of Japan. In this production, the symphony and singers were on the stage, just in front of the elevated puppet theater, with the singers placed on the side of the stage nearest the puppets whose voices they were supplying. In my case, my “alter ego,” Don Quixote, came off the puppet stage and stood by me for a moment on his way down to the front of the stage for the final moments of the production, making an obvious connection for the audience between the puppet and his voice (me).

I had a bunch of “fans” out in Symphony Hall on Saturday–specifically, my entire family–including my brother and parents (who flew in from California), my grown children (Ryan and Erika), and my wife Jody, who had just driven back from seminary classes in California an hour before the performance. They’re all musicians, from amateur to professional, and so I was very happy to have all of them there for the performance. To add to the evening’s fun, we all rode the Valley METRO light rail to and from Symphony Hall, sharing the ride home with a bunch of supercross race fans from an event at Chase Field.

This project included both hard work (rapid, exclamatory, and dramatic vocal lines in Spanish) and a LOT of fun, especially spending time with Erik G and Yulia van Doren, my fellow singers, and conductor Michael Christie, whose wonderful manner in both rehearsals and performances is genuine, respectful, artistic and yet practical, and who is also very nice to have lunch or drinks with. Erik and I have sung together often, with his Evangelist portrayals complementing my singing of the words of Jesus in Bach’s passions, as soloists in Handel’s Messiah, and at High Holy Days at a Jewish temple.

The concerts were part of the second annual Target World Music Festival, and the first half included an interesting combination of works with a Latin-American theme, including some extended alternation of orchestral textures with Andean folk music played by Tahuantinsuyo, a group that utilizes authentic Andean instruments of various sizes. They had the audience clapping enthusiastically in time with their final piece of the first half as they danced through the audience.

In closing, I’d like to thank the dedicated staff (both administrative and musical) of The Phoenix Symphony–truly a class act–for making this an excellent experience, but also thank the representatives of the Phoenix Chorale who attended rehearsals and performances, and who were very supportive of “their singers.”

With lots of love,
David Topping, Bass-Baritone (aka “Don Quixote” or “DQ” for short)

click here for more pictures from Saturday Night’s performance

The puppet opera is pulled straight from the classic story of Don Quixote by Cervantes, specifically from Chapter 26 of the second volume which features a puppet show.  So what you end up with is a puppet show (of small puppets) within a puppet show (of life-sized puppets).

The role of Don Quixote is sung by Phoenix Chorale singer David Topping.  The role of Master Peter is sung by Phoenix Chorale singer Erik Gustafson.  Each of these roles are acted out by life-sized puppets under the direction of master puppeteer Basil Twist.

The basic story is this: Don Quixote is watching the puppet show and gets completely sucked into the story, sometimes confusing the puppet show with reality and sometimes even insisting Master Peter isn’t telling the story correctly.  Quixote eventually loses it and ends up destroying Master Peter’s puppet show.

I asked David what in particular he has liked about the experience so far and he said, “It’s pretty cool to see the puppeteers acting out the role I’m singing.”  Basil Twist introduced David to his alter ego, Mark, who is the primary puppeteer for Don Quixote and shook his hand (at which point, David clarified to me that he shook Mark’s hand – not the life-sized version of themselves; if you count, technically, there are at least 2 people and 1 puppet depicting the role of Don Quixote).

I was kind of confused about the story at first (thanks David for explaining everything to me) but now I have a better grasp on what’s happening.  It was really cool getting to see behind the scenes today and the puppets and the effects are excellent.

Be sure to listen for the harpsichord throughout – according to Wikipedia, de Falla’s inclusion of the harpsichord in the score was the first time it was written for use in the ‘modern orchestra.’

David appeared with the Symphony previously for one of their annual New Year’s Eve concerts and a few times for St. Matthew’s Passion and Erik appeared with the Symphony on Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy.  While neither David nor Erik are strangers to performing and are used to being featured in solos, this I believe, is the first time they’ve appeared as featured guest artists in this capacity and I’m very excited for them!  And (no bias here), they really sound fantastic.

If you can make it, get your tickets here.

Check out more photos from today’s rehearsal here.