Singer Kathy Blaisdell has a succinct way of summarizing what the pandemic has meant to her and her husband, Ted, a fellow vocalist — specifically, what’s it meant not to able to sing on stage for months.
“It’s just been a huge hole in our lives,” she says.
Now, though, the Blaisdells and more than 30 other performers are preparing to end the long drought: As cast and chorus members of Valley Light Opera, they’re in the home stretch of rehearsals for Gilbert & Sullivan’s popular “The Pirates of Penzance,” which VLO will present at Northampton’s Academy of Music during the first two weekends in November.
It will be the company’s first full performance since November 2019, when VLO presented “Camelot” at the Academy. But as much as group members are eager to be back on stage, they’ve been working at a time when COVID-19 still presents a health threat.
And even if rehearsals, which have taken place at the Wesley United Methodist Church in Hadley, are conducted with safety protocols, social distancing isn’t possible; performers work in proximity to each other and “there’s still a risk,” said chorus member Donna Griffin.
“When we get on stage [at the Academy], we’ll be performing without face masks,” added Griffin, a soprano. “We can’t be sure what might happen then. But we also feel like [performing] is something we have to do. We’ve gone too long without it. We all miss it.”
Ted Blaisdell, a chorus member for “Pirates,” is also the coordinating producer for the show, a catch-all position in which he oversees full aspects of production, from overseeing auditions, read-throughs and rehearsals, to recruiting staff and volunteers, to communicating with performance venues. Much of the focus this time, however, has been on establishing clear COVID practices for rehearsals, Blaisdell said.
“We’ve got 37 people” in the cast and chorus, he said, “and many others in the orchestra, in the costume shop, and in other roles, and everyone has a different level of comfort and acceptance about [the risk of COVID]. My most important job has been finding a way to balance all that so that we could work together for 2½ months.”
With a laugh, he says he’s invoked the mantra of a character from the Harry Potter books, Mad-Eye Moody, who saw threats from Dark wizards everywhere and urged “Constant Vigilance!”
Blaisdell, a VLO veteran who’s also appeared in other theatrical productions in the Valley including Amherst’s community theater program, said he reminded everyone at the beginning of rehearsals that although practice would be conducted with masks, the Academy shows would be mask-free.
“I said, ‘Are we all clear about that? Is there anyone not comfortable with the idea, because there could be some risk.’ And a few people did drop out of the production.”
But Blaisdell and others also say they trust the judgment and sincerity of their fellow VLO members to observe safe practices both during rehearsals and away from them to minimize exposure to COVID.
“Everyone has been vaccinated, and we all want to see this production succeed,” said Kathy Blaisdell, who plays the character of Ruth in the opera. “We’re balancing the risks and benefits, and the risk seems worth it.”
First performed in Great Britain in 1880, “The Pirates of Penzance” is considered one of Gilbert & Sullivan’s most popular comic operas, a send-up of sorts of British nobility and the notion of unswerving loyalty to one’s superiors. At the outset, a young man, Frederic, who was mistakenly apprenticed to pirates as a boy, turns 21 and believes he’s free to leave the buccaneers and find a wife; he then falls in love with a young woman, Mabel, who appears with her three sisters.
But the pirates, seeking wives themselves, threaten to abduct the young women. The pirates and Frederic’s nurse, Ruth, also inform him that since he was born on Feb. 29 during a Leap Year, Frederic is actually much younger than 21 and is due to serve several more decades with the bad guys, which he dutifully acknowledges. Police then appear on the scene and battle the pirates, threatening to arrest them and demanding they swear loyalty to Queen Victoria.
Kathy Blaisdell says she loves the storyline of “Pirates” and is thrilled to be performing again. Yet singing with a face mask on is not exactly ideal, she notes. Not only has the mask muffled her voice, she said, she also initially struggled with keeping it from coming into her mouth when drawing a deep breath.
Blaisdell and other singers have since worked to find different masks or combinations of them that offer protection but also lie slightly off one’s mouth.
Her husband raises another point: “We won’t really know what we sound like until we take our masks off.” VLO will have three to four days to rehearse on the Academy stage before the first showing of Pirates, on Nov. 6.
Steve Morgan, stage director for the production, says the pandemic has affected the production in other ways. Typically over 100 people will audition for roles in a VLO show, he noted, but this year the number was about 45. He suspects much of that drop-off was tied to COVID and to a later date for auditions, which took place in early August rather than late May as was typical for past shows.
“Some people might have been on vacation [in August], but my guess is others decided this was something they just weren’t ready to do yet,” he said.
Morgan, another veteran of musical theater and opera in the area, is also helping with set construction this year, given that fewer hands are available for that. He says about 100 people are involved in the production in some capacity, a good number but still down from past shows.
VLO, a nonprofit group run mostly by volunteers that started in 1975, is “getting a little long in the tooth” overall, notes Morgan, who is retired himself.
“We’ve lost a fair number of people in the last few years,” added Griffin, who’s sung with VLO for 11 years. “We need younger people to carry on the tradition.”
Ted Blaisdell notes that VLO’s costumers have also had less time this year to work on the outfits for “Pirates,” since the cast and chorus weren’t chosen until August. Still, he has confidence they’ll have everyone properly fitted by show time: “I’ve never been in a Valley Light Opera Show feeling I looked anything less than resplendent.”
He says he’s also pleased that some new, younger people have become part of this year’s show, pointing in particular to Travis Benoit, who plays Frederic, and Rory Mason, who plays Mabel, both of whom are in their early to mid-20s, he said.
“It’s wonderful to have young people like that join us,” said Blaisdell, adding that he suspects many young actors and singers are also desperate for performing opportunities these days. Blaisdell, a former middle school science teacher in South Hadley, still directs the drama club there and says membership has ballooned in the past year.
For his part, Morgan points to VLO’s music director, Aldo Fabrizi, who also directs the Worcester Area Opera, as the kind of professional who helps VLO maintain its standards, even during a pandemic. The music in “Pirates,” Morgan said, “is just gorgeous, and Aldo does a great job bringing that out.”
So for now, VLO is going forward with confidence but with care, believing they’ve done their best to minimize risk and now hoping for the best.
“It’s a crapshoot, but I like to think we can pull this off,” said Ted Blaisdell.
“The Pirates of Penzance” plays at the Academy of Music Nov. 6-7 and Nov. 12-14. For tickets and more information, visit vlo.org or aomtheatre.com.
