Best known for a long run with The Phantom of the Opera, Lisa Vroman will take on a different role with the Florida Orchestra.
By JOHN FLEMING, Times Performing Arts Critic
Published October 18, 2005
PREVIEW
Lisa Vroman, the vocal quartet Hudson Shad and the Florida Orchestra perform The Seven Deadly Sins by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht Saturday at Pasadena Community Church, St. Petersburg; Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall, Clearwater; and Monday at Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, Tampa. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. Also on the program: Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. $15-$50.50. 813 286-2403; www.floridaorchestra.org A symposium on Weill and Salvador Dali is at 6:30 p.m. today at the Salvador Dali Museum, St. Petersburg. Free but reservations required: (727) 823-3767, ext. 0.
In many ways, soprano Lisa Vroman owes her success to The Phantom of the Opera. "I've always been in a category where people didn't know what to do with me," she said last week. "Then Phantom came along. You have to have a classical technique to get through it. It's still mostly sung in a natural register but with a classical style. It was a great place theatrically for me, the kind of show that was singer-heavy."
Today, after more than a decade playing Christine in Phantom companies on Broadway, in San Francisco and on tour, Vroman is refashioning herself as a crossover singer in repertoire that marries classical and theatrical styles. To that end, she's the soloist in the Florida Orchestra's performances of The Seven Deadly Sins, Kurt Weill's ballet chante (sung ballet) with text by Bertolt Brecht. Stefan Sanderling conducts.
Vroman performs the part of Anna, who is split into two "sisters," a singer and a dancer. The singer provides commentary on the downfall of the dancer, who leaves Louisiana to earn money to build a new house for her family. The piece includes songs on idleness, pride, anger and the other deadly sins.
Joining Vroman and the orchestra is Hudson Shad, a male vocal quartet singing the part of Anna's family, which they also did on a pungent recording of the work by Marianne Faithfull.
Anna was originally sung by Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife, and her 1957 recording set the standard by which all performances are measured. "No one sounds anything like her," Vroman said. "She had such a unique, emotional sound, completely untrained. To try to imitate that would be ridiculous."
There have been other memorable recordings, including those of Teresa Stratas and Julia Migenes. "Ute Lemper is another one that's kind of fun. I'm not crazy about her vocally, but she's just so trippy. She's such a wild girl," Vroman said.
The Seven Deadly Sins requires an intensely dramatic approach. "You have to give yourself over to how passionate it is," Vroman said. "Let it be lyric driven. Some singers get so concerned about the line and the voice, but with this one, you have to feel what the words are and where they're driving you."
Some performers, such as Lenya, have sung the work transposed down to a lower register. "I sing it up in the soprano version," Vroman said. "I would even prefer it a tiny bit higher because my voice is on the high side. But the main thing is that it's language driven and you want the words to really play."
Vroman first sang it in German with the Utah Opera. For the performance here, she's learning the English translation of Brecht's lyrics by W.H. Auden and Chester Kallman.
"Singing it in German is completely different than singing it in English," she said. "I'm going to miss some of the delicious words that color the music so beautifully in German. It's hard to recreate that with a translation. That's my challenge to try to give it flavor in another language."
The Seven Deadly Sins is biting social criticism that seems as relevant now as when it was premiered in 1933. In conjunction with the orchestra's performance, the Salvador Dali Museum is hosting "The Seven Degrees of Separation: Artistic Inspirations of Salvador Dali and Kurt Weill" tonight. Four of the eight etchings Dali titled The Eight Deadly Sins will be on display, and there will be music and discussion on the Weill-Dali theme.
The soloist has a Tampa Bay area tie. Vroman's sister, Susan Cavanagh, is a music teacher at Palm Harbor Middle School.
Vroman lives in Pasadena, Calif., where she bought a house with money she was able to save from being in The Phantom of the Opera. "It's the house Phantom bought," she said. "Theater money is not movie money or TV money. You have to grind it out for a few years to save up enough to buy a house."
In life beyond Phantom, Vroman has been in productions such as a concert version of Sweeney Todd with the San Francisco Symphony and H.M.S. Pinafore with Utah Opera. She was in another Weill-Brecht classic, The Threepenny Opera, at American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.
Still, she acknowledges that the financial security of being in an Andrew Lloyd Webber show can be tempting. She was also in his Aspects of Love on Broadway. Producers have talked to her about being in Lloyd Webber's latest musical, The Woman in White, as well as the upcoming Las Vegas version of Phantom.
"There's a certain appeal in having a job that's secure in the theater business," Vroman said. "But it would mean giving up working with orchestras, chamber groups and opera companies. If I'm going to continue on, I just have to say no. But they dangle that money, you know, and you just think, wow, that would pay for the renovation in my house."
Vroman takes heart from a lyric in The Seven Deadly Sins in her pursuit of a post-Christine career.
"Being an ingenue doesn't last forever," she said. "As Anna says, "Beauty will fade away, and youth will pass.' This kind of literature is something I can grow with for years."
