Arts & Entertainment
Repeat Performance
Opera singer Peter Strummer revisits an oft-played role in MOT's production of Tosca.
Suzanne Chessler
Special to the Jewish News
p
eter Strummer compares his
upcoming role in Tosca to a
shamash, or synagogue caretaker.
As Sacristan (church caretaker) in the
Puccini masterpiece about a beautiful opera
singer caught up in a vortex of politics, sex
and war during Naopleon's invasion of Italy,
bass-baritone Peter Strummer builds on
an international career in the classics and a
family heritage with stage success affected
by the Holocaust.
The staging of Tosca, running May 15-
23 at the Detroit Opera House as the final
work in the 2010 spring season of the
Michigan Opera Theatre, follows Mozart's
Don Giovanni, April 10-18, and The Very
Last Green Thing, on April 24, an opera
for young people performed by MOT's
Children's Chorus and planned to go along
with a program at the Detroit Science
Center.
"I have done this particular role [in
Tosca] since 1974," says Strummer, whose
maternal grandfather was a director-actor
in Viennese operetta before World War
IL "Over the years, it has developed into
something quite special, and I've gotten to
do it with some of the most famous ten-
ors, sopranos and baritones in the world.
"Tosca takes place in 1800 during the
Napoleonic Wars, and the Sacristan was
totally against the Napoleonic invasion.
A lot of that attitude and
his ideas come across in
a very cantankerous and
curmudgeonly way. That's
what makes the part very
interesting."
Jewish director Bernard
Uzan directs the cast that
includes Tiziana Caruso
and Mary Williams
alternating as Tosca and
Antonello Palomi and
Noah Stewart alternating
Bass-baritone
as her lover Cavaradossi.
The opera is sung in
Italian with English supertitle translation.
"It's always delightful to get to play the
Sacristan in different venues and with
different artists:' says Strummer, who
has appeared in MOT productions of
The Daughter of the Regiment and The
Marriage of Figaro.
"They bring their own interpretations
to the piece and then help me develop my
character even more. They also allow me
to react in different ways that wouldn't
happen if I had only done it a few times"
This season, Strummer is taking the
same role with the Canadian Opera
Company. He also is appearing in L'Elisir
d'Amore with the Atlanta Opera and
Kentucky Opera, II Barbiere di Siviglia
with Manitoba Opera and Arizona Opera
and L'Italiana in Algeri with Austin Lyric
Opera.
Strummer, born in
Vienna after his family
had survived concentra-
tion camps, was raised in
Canada, first in Winnipeg
as a child and later in
Vancouver.
"My grandfather
decided that he couldn't
live without the theater
and founded a Viennese
opera theater, Yiddish the-
ater and operetta theater
Peter Strummer
in Canada;' he recalls. "I
grew up in that milieu.
"I thought that I had to get into opera
and somebody put me into a competi-
tion. I won scholarships and ended up at
the Institute of Music in Cleveland. James
Levine, music director of the Metropolitan
Opera, heard me and invited me to do a
concert version of The Marriage of Figaro."
Spotted by an agent, Strummer
launched a career of 37 years.
"Around 1975, I worked at the San
Francisco Opera and met my wife, Linda
Roark-Strummer, who also was an opera
singer," the bass-baritone says. "We worked
full time in Europe starting in 1977 but
left in 1988 because of anti-Semitism in
Austria:'
The couple, settled in Tulsa to be close
to her family, entered into teaching. While
she retired from the stage and accepted
full-time university work, his students
became a supplemental commitment
— using the Internet.
"I work with students I have worked
with in person;' says Strummer, planning
a summer program with his wife in New
Mexico, where students will bridge the gap
from classroom to stageAt the computer,
I work in real time with singers all over
the United States and in Germany and
Finland."
Strummer, performing and teaching,
benefits from fluency in English, German,
French, Hebrew, Italian and Yiddish,
gained from family background and coun-
tries of residence. He also has knowledge
of Russian, Czech and Hungarian.
"Two summers ago, I went to Israel for
the first time says Strummer, a member
of Temple Israel in Tulsa. "I did a series of
concerts and played tourist for a month.
"When I was growing up, I almost
became a cantor and then opted for being
an opera singer. While I was a student in
Cleveland, I worked as a cantor and had a
wonderful experience'
❑
Tosca will be staged May 15-23 at the
Detroit Opera House,1526 Broadway.
Opera talks are one hour before
performances. $29-$111. For a com-
plete schedule of performance dates,
times and information about the
spring opera season, call (313) 961-
3500 or go to www.motopera.org .
Jews
Nate Bloom
Special to the Jewish News
Olive Branches
The annual ABC broadcast of The Ten
Commandments, starring Charlton
Heston as Moses, will be shown 7
p.m. Saturday, April 3. Every year, it
garners more viewers
than any other film
ABC airs. Edward G.
Robinson (as the evil
Dathan) and Olive
Deering (as Moses'
sister, Miriam) were
the only Jewish
actors with impor-
Olive Deering
tant roles in the film.
Deering (1919-85), born Olive
Corn, got good notices for her stage
work in the '50s and '60s but had a
limited film and TV career. She was
married to actor/director Leo Penn,
the father of actor Sean Penn, in
the early '50s. They had no children,
and Penn went on to marry Sean's
mother, actress Eileen Ryan, after his
divorce from Deering.
Deering's brother, actor Alfred
Ryder (1916-1995), born Alfred Corn,
was an acclaimed stage actor who
also had a slew of TV guest roles
through the early 1980s; he guest-
starred on the first Star Trek episode.
Ryder was married to actress Kim
Stanley (1919-86) from 1958-1964.
Stanley was twice nominated for
an Oscar although making only a
handful of films. She converted to
Judaism just before marrying Ryder,
and their daughter, a practicing
Jew, says her mother continued to
observe some Jewish holidays until
her death.
Greek Gods
Inspired by the 1981 film of the same
name and opening Friday, April 1,
Clash of the Titans, unlike the origi-
nal, strays far from the original Greek
myth of Perseus, a son of Zeus who
was raised as a man.
The new ver-
sion, just remas-
tered for 3-D, has
Perseus, played by
Sam Worthington
(Avatar), lead-
ing a mission to
defeat Hades
Alexa Davalos
(Ralph Fiennes), the
vengeful god of the
underworld, before Hades can seize
power from Zeus (Liam Neeson) and
unleash hell on Earth.
The film reunites Schindler's List
stars Fiennes (who played the evil
concentration camp commander)
and Neeson (who played Schindler).
Playing Perseus' wife, Andromeda,
is the very pretty Alexa Davalos,
27. Like Neeson, Davalos' best-
known role was in a Holocaust film,
Defiance, in which she played the
love interest of the lead Jewish parti-
san (played by Daniel Craig).
Davalos' father, photographer Jeff
Dunas, is Jewish; her mother is not.
The actress took the last name of her
maternal grandfather, actor Richard
Davalos, as her stage name. LI
Contact Nate Bloom at
middleoftheroadl@aol.com .