BWW Interviews: Melody Moore Talks THE PASSENGER and Career

Houston Grand Opera is proudly presenting the US Premiere of Mieczyslaw Weinberg and Alexander Medvedv's 1968 opera THE PASSENGER. After the Second World War, a German couple, Lisa and Walter, are sailing to Brazil. Lisa, unbeknownst to her husband, was a camp guard at Auschwitz and feels she recognizes a former Polish inmate, Marta. In anticipation of opening night, Melody Moore, who plays Marta, spoke with me about Houston Grand Opera's production of THE PASSENGER and her career.

BWW: How did you first get involved with opera?

Melody Moore: Initially, I was sort of a reluctant opera student. I went to LSU (Louisiana State University) for college, and I got into that because I got a scholarship out of high school. I still didn't quite know what opera was. I was raised in Memphis and then also here in Houston; the only exposure I had to anything classical was through Kingwood High School and their choral program.

At LSU, I still didn't know if I wanted to be a singer, and I tried to be about 20 other things. Then, I ended up, finally, at Loyola University in New Orleans with Phil and Ellen Frohnmayer, a married couple who taught there. Phil has since passed. I applied as a music therapy student, and they basically said, "Uh, no. You're going to sing. You're going to be in the opera program, right now." So, I ended up going into that.

I did take some time off; we had a tragedy in our family, and I took four years off of school altogether. When I returned, I had followed a partner to Kent, Ohio. I went to Kent State, finished my Bachelor's there, transferred with scholarship to Cincinnati Conservatory, where I finished my Master's, and that's when I found the Merola Opera Program of San Francisco Opera. I did my training there for the summer and returned as an Adler Fellow in the Adler Fellowship for two years, training under the stars on the stage of the time. That's pretty much the whole story really condensed.

BWW: When did you know you wanted to sing professionally?

Melody Moore: I always enjoyed singing. I loved what I felt like was a gift, you know. I like to give feelings out and hope that other people who are listening to whatever I am singing, whether that be a church song, or an art song, or opera. So, I think that I finally really, really decided to do it while I was at CCM, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. I had a few coaching classes, and we did a piece called "Embroidery Aria" from Benjamin Britten's opera PETER GRIMES. I was encouraged by a coach there at the college to just step into the environment of the song, to literally, in my mind, create the atmosphere of where I think we would be. Before I ever started singing and before one note was played on the piano, (I was coached) to step into that environment and actually feel what it would be like to be in that environment. Something happened that day. I stepped into PETER GRIMES, and [Laughs] I don't think I ever stepped out. I just fell in love with the even deeper connection toward sharing a message and sharing a deeper resonance in the music. I was hooked at that point. I would say that was probably 2002 or 3.

BWW: Houston Grand Opera's production of THE PASSENGER is the U.S. Premiere of this piece. What is it like being involved with such a prestigious event?

Melody Moore: I really am honored to be here, and I'm glad that they gave me the opportunity to be the title character. I think they probably could have chosen a lot of people. I think what's so exciting about it is that it is incredibly emotionally driven. This is a piece about our history. We may not have been involved individually as we sit in the audience or as we sing it, but this is history that none of us can really afford to forget, lest it repeat itself.

There are a lot of operas out there that say really wonderful and beautiful things. I think there are messages throughout, and that they're all important in that way-that we share a whole life with the audience. But, this to me, this US Premiere particularly, is so very important because it reminds us, lest we forget, what we have been through, what we maybe did not know was occurring, and what we should never allow to be held in secret again.

The original story (a 1959 radio play entitled Passenger from Cabin 45) was written by Zofia Posmysz, who is a survivor of The Holocaust and Auschwitz. The composer, Mieczyslaw Weinberg, is also a survivor. I think we have a piece here that is pivotal because it is from the perspective of people who lived it. It's not from an objective perspective. No one is looking on into another situation and observing it. They were there. It is incredibly important that we tell this story.

BWW: What has been your favorite part or parts of preparing this opera for US audiences?

Melody Moore: I think my favorite part was realizing that I could not utilize any other learning techniques that I have learned before. [Laughs] There was a major challenge learning this piece. It is often in mixed meter. It is often changing tempos. We will go from a 4/4 bar, to a 5/4 bar, to a 2 bar, to a 3 several times within a page. One page!

BWW: Oh my God!

Melody Moore: Yeah! It's very percussive. A lot of times it is very atmospheric or ambient. It has a sort of very glassy quality to it at times, and it gets very quiet. It's hard to garner your pitch from any one instrument because it is a collaborative, environmental piece. He's setting a mood. He's setting a tone; therefore, there's not really a lot to grab on to. So, I think my favorite part of this has been just saying I did it. I finally just sat down at the piano and just said, "I'm just going to have to play this piece." I don't play the whole thing of course, but I play my entrances, and I've played against my own voice in order to really get my hands into the music.

Right now I'm learning Verdi's FALSTAFF, which is easy on the ear. It's easy to find the melody and the tonality. So, what you need to really immerse yourself in when you're usually learning something like that is "OK, what am I saying? What is the text setting? Where are we? Who am I talking to? What is my character about?" The music comes a little bit easier. This (THE PASSENGER) has been incredibly difficult to learn, and I'm still making mistakes. You know, we open the 18th [Laughs], and all of us are sort of biting our nails about how many mistakes we're still making. It's incredibly difficult! So, in that way, it has been very rewarding. If I can walk away on opening night and say, "I actually did that," I guess they can just about throw me anything, and, at this point, I feel like I have the confidence to say I could learn it. The writing has been the biggest challenge and the biggest reward, I think.

BWW: That's awesome. I'm even more excited to see it now.

Melody Moore: Yeah, me too. It's so cool. It's so wonderful. There's at time where the score or the piece to the listener is going to feel kind of cacophonous because the whole point is that you're listening to a lot of different people have their own experiences about being in the camp. Some are more frightened than others. Some are way younger than others. Some are in the prime of their life. Some are with children or have had children who they have been separated from. So, everyone's experience, I think, sonically, is different. There are times when it just hits you like a wall of "Oh my... what's going on?" Then suddenly, he's such a genius, Weinberg, because he brings you tonally into some weeping lullaby. There's not a note that's wrong in this opera.

BWW: Without giving away too much, what can audiences expect from THE PASSENGER?

Melody Moore: I think they can expect to go on a journey, to feel transported to at least a moment. What I love about the piece is that it is not strictly about The Holocaust from one person's or one group's perspective. There are Polish Catholics represented. There are French children. There, of course, are Jewish young ladies, as well. There are the soldiers' perspectives. The opera comes from mostly the perspective of the overseer on the women's side of the camp. So, there is not a perspective that has been lost. It's not one sided. It's not heavily manipulated. You don't feel like you were told what to believe, what to think, or what to feel. You just go on a journey, and, literally, the stage takes you in movement on a journey and you can't help but get kind of reeled into this world. It's sort of cyclical, the way the opera feels. It's fantastic. I think what they can expect is at the end of the piece they might not know whether to breathe, cry, clap, or pray. That's what I think will probably strike the audience.

BWW: What do you hope that audiences take with them from the piece?

Melody Moore: I hope they will never forget what happened. [Pauses] I hope they will never forget the age range that was there. The unabashed disregard for human life and humanity, in general. I hope they'll know what hope looks like. That looks like, to me, when you are thrown a scrap of bread, and it's the only bread you're going to get all day or maybe even for a few days, that you would break that bread and give it to the person next to you. That's what I hope they get. [Pauses] Hope. [Pauses] Hope in darkness.

BWW: What are a few dream roles that you hope to sing in the future?

Melody Moore: (The) Marschallin in (DER) ROSENKAVALIER. I would love to sing anything by (Leoš) Janá?ek. I love every PETER GRIMES role ever presented to the world. What else? I've done a lot of Mozart, and I feel like I will continue to do that, but it's not that I'm necessarily looking forward to one particular Mozartian role. I want to sing Butterfly (Cio-Cio San from MADAMA BUTTERFLY), and I will. I'm quite sure of that. I would like to do Santuzza (from CABALLERIA RUSTICANA). What else? I know I'm going to missing something, and as soon as I put this phone down I'll say, "God! Why didn't I say that?" Ah, Puccini. I've done a lot of Puccini. Let me think. I think I'd love to do Salome. I think I'll leave it at that.

BWW: As an artist, what inspires you?

Melody Moore: Truth inspires me. Communication. Openness. Being a conduit for what the composer and the librettist wanted to impart. It's very spiritual for me, singing. I would say the truth above almost anything else is what excites me and gets me jazzed for the opening night and every other night. How can I feel what the audience needs and give that the best that I can? It's just such a relationship for me.

BWW: What is your favorite part of being a professional opera singer?

Melody Moore: I can tell you what it isn't, and that would be traveling constantly and never having a home. Living out of a suitcase. That does not that thrill me. But I will tell you I couldn't think of another career, save maybe being an educator for younger children-I feel like educator's have this ability, if their class sizes are not overwhelming, to give a child the gift of inquisitive questioning. They are able to excite a child's learning through reading. They can give that gift to a child. I think, other than that, I can't think of another career besides what I do or acting, that would so excite a group of people and cause them to think, cause them to talk for hours, if not days, after. It incites conversation. It causes people to feel things that maybe they wouldn't feel if they were sitting in their living room watching sitcoms. I believe it is a gift, this career. So, That's what I love about it: speaking. Speaking to lots of different people.

BWW: What advice would you offer to others hoping to make a career in performing?

Melody Moore: I would say the biggest advice I could give is to know exactly who you are. Not as an artist, but as a person. What confronts us in this career is often loneliness, (Pauses) lack of boundaries. I think there are a lot of people who have not worked out issues, and they come out on these long contracts. When you're away from home and you're tired, I think there's a lax attitude sometimes that one must be prepared for, and you must know am I the kind of person who goes out after performances, am I the kind of person who needs to take care of my voice in a different way than maybe others do, or am I the kind of person who needs to eat four hours before a show or two hours before a show. You can't really compromise on those types of self-care, or you're the one who suffers, and there's no one to really fall back on. It's our responsibility to show up prepared and to do our very best at all times. It's almost like being an athlete. The amount that is expected of a performer, the amount of preparedness and responsibility is huge. If you don't quite know how it is you operate, you can get into really murky water. I would say the biggest part of being successful in this career is to know exactly who you are, what it is you want to see happen in your career, where you sort of see yourself going, and always hold tight to that.

The US Premiere of THE PASSENGER, produced by Houston Grand Opera, runs in the Brown Theater at the Wortham Theater Center, 500 Texas Avenue, Houston, 77002 from January 18, 2014 to February 2, 2014. Performances are January 22, January 25, and January 31 at 7:30 p.m. and February 2 at 2:00 p.m. For tickets and more information, please visit https://www.houstongrandopera.org or call (713) 228-6737.

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