For many opera fans, it ain't over until the education guy speaks

By Melinda Bargreen
Seattle Times music critic

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Perry Lorenzo, Seattle Opera education director, holds the score for Wagner's "Lohengrin" at the podium where he lectures at McCaw Hall.

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Like the Beatles song, Perry Lorenzo is here, there and everywhere.

The popular Seattle Opera education director has zoomed around the world as a speaker on general musical issues, and a zealot for opera in particular. Articulate, witty, great with kids and unpretentious, Lorenzo switches into high gear whenever a new Seattle Opera production is looming on the horizon.

Right now, Wagner's "Lohengrin" is set to open Saturday, and Lorenzo is dashing about the city to do lectures on the myth-based saga of a mysterious knight who must not reveal his name. Last Saturday he gave a three-hour multimedia seminar at McCaw Hall on "Romantic Music Drama in Wagner's 'Lohengrin'"; this Friday at 7:30 p.m., he and Seattle Opera general director Speight Jenkins discuss "Aspects of the Opera" at the Elliott Bay Book Co. And 90 minutes before curtain time at each "Lohengrin" performance, Lorenzo gives an "Overtures to the Opera" pre-performance lecture.

Lorenzo has even lectured about Wagner in the holy of Wagnerian holies, Germany's Bayreuth Festival — possibly the world's most serious shrine to any composer. So why is he in such demand?

It's his intense enthusiasm, coupled with an encyclopedic knowledge of all the stuff behind the music. The quietly charismatic speaker doesn't just discuss the content of the operas; he also illuminates the political undercurrents, the backgrounds and ideals, and all the historical context. Lorenzo knows what Wagner ate for breakfast, with which ladies he dallied, what the local critics said, and what was happening in the royal Bavarian treasury at the time. And, after his lectures, so do his fascinated listeners.

	KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES Growing up, said Perry Lorenzo, "... the library had recordings. I immersed myself in the [Sir Georg] Solti recording of the 'Ring.' It was one of the most important turning points of my childhood."

It isn't hard to discern in Lorenzo the child who listened so eagerly to Leonard Bernstein's famous TV "Young People's Concerts." He shares Bernstein's love of music — and his determination never to talk down to audiences.

"He never watered down his topic," Lorenzo explains, "but he never turned you off. He was a great teacher."

Lorenzo's passion for opera dates way back to his childhood, when he discovered J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings."

"Someone suggested I might like Wagner's 'Ring' as well," says Lorenzo, referring to the four-opera Wagnerian classic "Der Ring des Nibelungen" (which is based on the same mythology that later inspired Tolkien).

"I lived in Bellingham, and the library had recordings. I immersed myself in the [Sir Georg] Solti recording of the 'Ring.' It was one of the most important turning points of my childhood."

It wasn't until later that Lorenzo found out the British Tolkien hated the German Wagner and all that he stood for. Tolkien declared, "Both rings were round, and there the connection ends," though this isn't exactly accurate.

In any case, Lorenzo was hooked on opera. He was a high-schooler when he got to his first "Ring" opera, a 1975 performance of Seattle Opera's "Götterdämmerung" (the last and longest of the four operas). Not long thereafter, Seattle Opera presented the entire "Ring," and Lorenzo "immersed myself" in the experience.

Perry Lorenzo's five tips for new operagoers 1. Opera is one swell night in the theater — enjoy it! Feel free to make a special evening of it, in whatever way you want! 2. Opera is passionate and romantic — get swept away! And it's fun to enjoy a CD recording of the whole opera before you go, to familiarize yourself with the piece. 3. Opera — usually in German, Italian, or French — has English caption translations — understand every word! And it's also a good idea to read a summary of the story ahead of time. 4. Opera — it's an audience-involvement art form — evokes strong feelings! Shout "Bravo!" and applaud enthusiastically if you really enjoyed the performance! 5. And Wagner's operas — like this summer's Lohengrin — are the most exciting, entertaining, magical and profoundly meaningful of all! Give Wagner a chance — you'll never regret it!

Later, he studied Greek, Latin and philosophy at Gonzaga University, for awhile considering the priesthood. He worked with religious youth groups and wrote four musicals for young people. Finally, Lorenzo decided to become a schoolteacher and launched what was to become a 10-year teaching career. He taught at Kennedy High School and also at Seattle University as an adjunct professor (he still retains the latter role).

Most fun was his senior honors humanities course, which went from ancient Greece to the present. Part of the coursework was to arrange the class in three-person teams, with each team designing an opera production. Speight Jenkins agreed to grade the projects, coming to the class for a day and giving what Lorenzo remembers as "very serious, very specific responses."

"A lot of those kids come to the opera now, 15 years later," says Lorenzo with considerable satisfaction. "And one of them will grow up to be the new Bill Gates."

Impressed by Lorenzo's teaching abilities and by his devotion to opera, Jenkins hired him as education director in 1992. Since his arrival there, Lorenzo has given lectures on Wagner and other topics at almost every important Wagner center in the world, from Bayreuth to the Berlin Staatsoper, the Metropolitan Opera, and such companies as San Francisco and Los Angeles. Two years ago, he lectured at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference at Oxford University — presented by one of his former high-school students, Jason Duke.

On stage Wagner's "Lohengrin," with Asher Fisch conducting and staging by Stephen Wadsworth, opens Saturday at 7 p.m. in Marion Oliver McCaw Hall. Subsequent performances: 7 p.m. Aug. 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 21, and 2 p.m. Aug. 15. For tickets, call 206-389-7676, or order at www.seattleopera.org (also an excellent source of information about the production).

"Most of my lectures relate to opera," he explains, "but I am thrilled to research something else, too. Occasionally a group will ask me for lectures on Handel's 'Messiah' or on Shakespeare, or on musical topics, like the Seattle Chamber Music Society. I went all over the state under a Washington Commission for the Humanities grant, and now I know people in Walla Walla, Twisp, Vancouver — all over."

Additionally, private groups, such as the Women's University Club and Rotary, ask him to speak, as do Wagner societies all over the country (Hawaii, Dallas, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles). He does a lot of volunteer teaching at his church, St. James Cathedral.

Lorenzo is proof that you don't have to grow up in an arts-loving family in order to get bitten by the opera bug. His parents weren't musicians, but he found what he needed in the library — first in Hawaii where he lived as a youngster (his mother operated a resort on Kauai for a time). He has never forgotten what it was like to be a curious, eager youngster, and that might be one reason Lorenzo relates so well to curious, eager kids. And to adults: the Seattle Chamber Music Society's Connie Cooper, who has hired Lorenzo for lectures, raves about his "amazing depth" and his "ability to put together so many various threads about the politics, culture and social life behind the music."

Melinda Bargreen: mbargreen@seattletimes.com

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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