Michael Ching scores a cappella 'Midsummer' adaptation

Christopher Blank/Special to The Commercial Appeal

The pit "voicestra" in Michael Ching's opera adaptation of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" includes specialized a cappella singers from the vocal group DeltaCappella. "They have to think like instrumentalists," Ching said. "It wouldn't work with a regular chorus."

In the orchestra pit at Playhouse on the Square, 19 musicians sit in front of their music stands, all tuned up, ready to perform an opera that has no need for instruments.

The conductor signals the group to begin. A percussionist beatboxes a rhythm into a microphone. As the players harmonize the score using only their voices, the actors on the stage above them sing English lyrics written in iambic pentameter.

Shakespeare has never sounded like this.

Photo by Christopher Blank, Special to The Commercial Appeal

Playhouse on the Square actor Kyle Huey (as Puck), DeltaCappella singer Charles Ponder (as Bottom) and Opera Memphis soprano Jennifer Goode Cooper (as Titania) are among the performers in a collaborative new production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

For the past couple of years, Opera Memphis' former artistic director Michael Ching has been refining his new adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." He believes that the full-length a cappella opera, which receives its world premiere tonight, is the first of its kind.

"This is new ground for everyone," Ching said. "There have been other short a cappella chamber operas, but nothing on this scale that I know of."

The musical experiment is possible in part because a local jewelry store owner wanted to revisit the music he made while in college.

When Jay Mednikow founded the professional male singing ensemble DeltaCappella in 2008, he brought on Ching as its vocal coach. They arranged and performed popular songs such as "Walking in Memphis" and The Commodores' "Easy."

Contemporary a cappella is a musical genre that has grown in popularity in the past 20 years, thanks to collegiate singing competitions, artists such as Bobby McFerrin and Rockapella, and the television show "Glee."

A far cry from the barbershop quartets of yesteryear, these singers create a range of sound effects with their voices.

The opera's success hinges upon finding specialized a cappella singers to make up the vocal orchestra, or what Ching calls a "voicestra."

"They have to think like instrumentalists," Ching said. "It wouldn't work with a regular chorus. If you tell an opera singer to do a small, straight tone, they look at you like you have a rash."

The men of DeltaCappella, along with the women of a new female a cappella group called RIVA, joined forces to become Opera Memphis' voicestra for the show.

Ching conceived "A Midsummer Night's Dream" as a chamber-size opera, though he has written grand opera in the past. His epic "Corps of Discovery," performed in 2003 at the Cannon Center, re-created the Lewis and Clark expedition. Another short opera, "Buoso's Ghost," is a sequel to Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi."

Because "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is entirely a vocal piece, Ching thought a smaller venue would better suit the intimacy of the music.

"This piece wouldn't work in a large house," Ching said. "You have to be able to understand what they are singing. I don't want to ruin Shakespeare's text."

The production's unique requirements are the main reason Opera Memphis is collaborating with both DeltaCappella and Playhouse on the Square, which is providing its 347-seat theater, several musical theater actors and the show's director.

The three groups are also sharing about $180,000 in production costs.

Director Gary John LaRosa, whose previous work for Playhouse includes "Fiddler on the Roof" and "The Light in the Piazza," said he was apprehensive at first with how the three groups would work together.

"We didn't know what to label this," LaRosa said. "We have opera singers, we have musical theater singers, we have an a cappella singing group, and then, to top it off, we have a Shakespeare play. We all feel a little terrified, but it's an exciting mountaintop to be on."

Ching said that his eclectic composition style is influenced by his appreciation for what Gershwin was trying to accomplish in "Porgy and Bess."

"He was writing something that surfs between pop and opera," Ching said. "Many people love 'Porgy', but nobody ever tries to write an opera like it. I wanted to write accessible and tuneful music, yet very modern."

Singer Jeremiah Johnson, an opera baritone who plays Theseus and Oberon, was relieved, he said, to hear how well the different vocal styles blend together.

"As a performer, I've been in a lot of world premieres, and frankly there's a lot of new music that you don't want to get stuck in your head," he said. "This is the first time I've been in a world premiere and thought 'Wow, this is really fun! I like singing this music.'"

A major technical challenge is getting the voicestra to hit all the right notes over the course of two hours. The singers in the pit wear headphones, and are given their initial tones by a keyboard player.

Conductor Curtis Tucker said that the blending of contemporary a cappella, musical theater and opera is an idea that could have legs in the future.

"'A Midsummer Night's Dream' was really the perfect Shakespeare title to become this kind of opera," Tucker said. "It's about different worlds coming together, and this opera has a little bit of everything."

Michael Ching's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

The production, produced by Opera Memphis, Playhouse on the Square and featuring DeltaCappella and RIVA, shows at 8 p.m. Thursdays- Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays through Feb. 13 at Playhouse, 66 S. Cooper. Tickets: $20 students, $38 adults. Call 726-4656.

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