Maid in Madison

While the action of Mozart’s comedic Cosi fan Tutte centers on two couples determined to prove their love and faithfulness, the real force of the opera is found in Despina, the scheming maid.

Taking on this complex role in Madison Opera’s production of Cosi fan Tutte—running March 13 and 15 at Overture Center—is Mary Elizabeth Mackenzie. The Madison native who’s now living and working in New York City, recently took some time out to discuss her upcoming role and trip home.

I understand you’re living in New York. What have you been up to there?

I’ve lived in New York for four years now. I came to the city to do my master of music degree at the Manhattan School of Music. Now I’m a freelance musician and I perform quite frequently in New York, but also in Philadelphia, Boston and Chicago. I’m very active in contemporary music, and typically have several concerts on my plate at any given time. Composers seem to know how to keep me busy!

How did growing up in Madison prepare you for a career in music?

Growing up in Madison was such a blessing! My mother, Nancy Mackenzie, plays clarinet in both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, plus her chamber group, the Oakwood Chamber Players. So I grew up going to all of the concerts, operas, ballets …

I was actually a violinist long before I was a singer, and I have many fond memories of Saturday mornings with WYSO [Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra]. I also used to do children’s operas with Madison Opera, so they were my introduction to the whole opera process. I’m very proud of Madison’s musical community; the city is so lucky to have so many high quality musical groups, not to mention a gorgeous performing arts center!

How did you come to be a part of Madison Opera’s production of Cosi fan Tutte?

Like most things in the musical world, I was in the right place at the right time. Allan Naplan, the general director of Madison Opera, contacted me in December to find out what I was up to, and explained that they were looking for a Despina for their production of Cosi. I was going to be back in Madison for the holidays, so we set up an audition so that he and John DeMain could hear me. I came and did the audition … and the rest is history.

What attracted you to the role of Despina? What are the opportunities and challenges inherent in the role?

Despina is a character that I have really come to love in the past couple of years. I studied her a little bit in college, but at the time, I didn’t have a lot of “life experience” that I could draw from to really understand her. Despina has definitely been with her share of men but doesn’t take relationships too seriously because she knows from experience that both men and women can be fickle. Being a single lady in New York City, I have experienced this firsthand! Playing Despina gives me the opportunity to focus on certain aspects of my own personality and morph them into something else entirely. My biggest challenge with Despina will probably be her extreme comedic moments, which I won’t reveal for your readers. You’ll just have to come see the show!

In the battle of the sexes in Cosi fan Tutte, Despina seems to be the only one who transcends sides. How are you approaching this character?

I think Despina is the only character in the opera who doesn’t have anything to prove. The two couples are trying to prove their love, or rather their faithfulness, to each other. Don Alfonso is trying to prove that women are unfaithful and Despina is along for the ride. She knows that both Fiordiligi and Dorabella and Ferrando and Guglielmo could easily fall for another person if given the right opportunity. She believes they are all too young to be thinking about settling down, and knows that if they were to open their eyes to other people, they might find that the grass is greener on the other side.

What are your goals for this production?

As with all my performances, my goal is to have fun and take the audience on a journey. It’s also another opportunity for me to grow as a performer and work with new people and meet new friends and colleagues.

Besides performing with Madison Opera, what else are you looking forward to doing while you’re in Madison?

My parents, sister and grandparents still live in Madison, so it’s going to be a real treat to get to be with them for three weeks! I’m sure I’ll be pretty booked with rehearsals, but I hope to be able to visit some of my favorite restaurants or go see a movie with my sister.

What’s next for you?

Back to New York! I’m doing a concert with the Juilliard Percussion Ensemble at the end of March, singing a very interesting piece by Jean Barraqué (a serialist composer, contemporary of Boulez and Stockhausen) for soprano, piano and six percussionists. I’m also working on a late song cycle by Fauré, Chanson d'Ève, with a wonderful pianist from Juilliard. And in April I’ll be appearing in a concert of selections from American opera with Harbor Opera, a small company in New York.


Madison Opera’s production of Cosi fan Tutte runs March 13 and 15 at Overture Center. For tickets or more information, visit madisonopera.org.

Mood Music

There’s nothing like music to get you into the spirit of the holidays. Two seasonal concerts held this week—and right after Thanksgiving to start the next round of celebrations—are sure to do just that. Consider this your invitation to each.

What: Middleton Holiday Pops Concert
Who: Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Middleton High School Concert Choir
When: Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 1 p.m.
Where: Madison Marriott West
How much: Saturday: $25 adults, $22 seniors, $15 students, $8 children; Sunday: $19 adults, $16 seniors, $10 students, $5 children
Why: When the WCO joins forces with eighty student singers from Middleton High School, the result is rich, festive music. Highlights this year include Bridge’s A Christmas Dance ‘Sir Roger de Coverly’, Richman’s Hanukkah Festival Overture and Blake’s The Snowman.

What: Christmas Lights
Who: Oakwood Chamber Players 
When: Friday at 2 p.m., 5:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Where: Oakwood Village West Auditorium
How much: $20, $15 seniors, $8 students
Why: If you liked the Oakwood Chamber Players’ 2002 Christmas Lights CD, you’ll probably love hearing them in the intimate performances they’re best known for. Traditional and non-traditional music will feature excerpts from Bohmler’s Visions of the Child, Stevens’ Christmas Medley No. 1 and Jolivet’s Trio for Flute, Bassoon and Harp.

Photo courtesy of the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

Summer Traditions—with a Few New Twists

When you think of summer around Madison, a few favorite events likely come to mind. Concerts on the Square. Art Fair on the Square. American Players Theatre.

All three get their start this month and the next, with a combination of what’s made the events perpetually popular and some new twists on the traditions.

American Players Theatre

American Players Theatre offers five shows this summer, one of which started last week.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is APT’s signature production, says communications director Sara Young. The company used to do it annually, starting in its debut year of 1980, but hasn’t taken it on since 2000.

“It’s the quintessential APT experience,” Young says. “Part of it takes place in the woods and we’re in the woods. The magic people expect out of APT is heightened in it.”

And while many theater-goers know the Shakespearean comedy well, Young assures that this production is worth a watch. “You haven’t seen this Midsummer,” she says. “It’s gorgeous and fun.”

Ah, Wilderness! kicks off this week and Young promises the play by Eugene O'Neill will push the envelope further than an

y other play APT has performed has yet. Next week sees the start of Shakespeare’s Henry IV: The Making of a King, which Young describes as a coming-of-age story. In fact, she says, the entire season could be similarly characterized.

APT’s fourth and fifth shows—Widowers’ Houses by George Bernard Shaw and The Belle’s Strategem by Hannah Cowley—start in August and represent a mix of old and new. “We do a lot of Shaw out here,” Young says. And she adds that The Belle’s Strategem is the first play written by a woman that the company will perform.

Concerts on the Square

Concerts on the Square celebrates its twenty-fifth season this year, with the first of six Wednesday-evening performances taking place June 25.

Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra music director and maestro Andrew Sewell says he planned the season to be memorable and special, and one that longtime Concerts lovers would enjoy. “We really wanted something that would bring everyone together,” he says.

In the Concerts on the Square tradition, a Fourth of July concert (held July 2) will be a patriotic salute to America and feature Hong-En Chen, the pianist who won the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s 2008 Young Artist Concerto Competition.

Guest artists are highlights of the season, and several are newcomers to Concerts on the Square, says Sewell. Trumpeter Ryan Anthony will be featured in July 9’s Sound the Trumpet concert, while Philadelphia violin and bass trio Time for Three performs at the String Fusion concert on July 23.

Sewell says the final concert of the season, July 30’s Our Town, will serve as the ultimate anniversary celebration. The concert will feature mezzo soprano Kitt Foss, soprano Alli Foss, Tracy Silverman on electric violin and the Isthmus Vocal Ensemble.

Art Fair on the Square

Art Fair on the Square also celebrates an anniversary this summer: Fifty years of being the ultimate downtown outdoor arts festival, attracting roughly 500 artists and countless art lovers to the Capitol Square.

Art Fair coordinator Katie Hunter says her goal in putting on the event is to make it seem fresh each year. There are surely some changes in store this season.

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art made the Art Fair application process almost entirely digital this year. That attracted not only more applicants—more than 1,500 as compared to 1,300 in 2007—but also new ones. Hunter estimates that one-third of artists who will participate in Art Fair on the Square July 12 and 13 are newcomers.

The digital process also contributed to the Art Fair’s effort to go green. Hunter says the event is ramping up its recycling and focusing on biodegradable products. She also posed a Go Green Challenge to participating artists, asking them to create at least one work of art using recycled of biodegradable materials. A jury will view all the eco artwork and choose a winner, who will earn free entry into next year’s fair.

“We’re trying to connect the environment and the arts,” Hunte says. “Art can be used to facilitate a lot of environmental practices.”

Art Fair also has partnered with EnAct, asking artists to decorate rain barrels that will be showcased around the Square and later auctioned off. And they’re working with the Chicago-based Working Bikes Cooperative, which takes donated bicycles and refurbishes them to be used as a power source in developing countries. The group will have a sixteen-foot bicycle-powered fountain on display.

While Art Fair could have used its anniversary season to reflect on past festivals, Hunter says the desire was to look toward the future. She hopes to make the event as environmentally friendly as possible in the years to come.

“We’re not a green event but we’re a greener event,” she says. “It will take a few years.”

Hunter encourages festival-goers to bike, bus or walk to Art Fair. Those who come in on two wheels may park their bicycles at a new bike corral on King Street.

Other changes to this year’s fair include a revamped kids area, which will include art projects led by MFA students. And a strong lineup of food vendors and live entertainment should assure Hunter’s other goal for Art Fair: that anyone, art lover or not, can attend the event and have a great time.

Photos top to bottom are courtesy of American Players Theatre, Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra and the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

COMING UP: A few events and performances to check out this week.

Tomorrow, Stage Q begins its annual two-week playfest, Queer Shorts 3, which celebrates LGBT theater and its actors, directors and playwrights at the Bartell Theatre. The Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society starts its summer program, Same Carriage, Fresh Horses, on Friday. Performances change weekly and take place at venues throughout the Madison area.

Saturday marks the annual Juneteenth Day Celebration honoring the African American emancipation. The event is held in Penn Park.

And on Monday is Concert on the Green, the Madison Symphony Orchestra outdoor summer concert and picnic at Bishops Bay Country Club in Middleton.

A Winning Night

The past year’s been a rough one for Madison musician Robert J. He’d been writing, recording and producing songs for two CDs—A Beautiful Blur and The Revenge of the Rowdy Prairie Dogs—and had release plans in the works when he suffered a heart attack in November.

Fortunately, he’s feeling better now with renewed energy for life and music.

And he’s feeling really good following Saturday night’s Madison Area Music Awards, from which he took home six awards for himself and his rock-country-Americana group The Rowdy Prairie Dogs.

Robert J won Pop Song of the Year, Rock Album of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year while The Rowdy Prairie Dogs garnered the Country/Bluegrass Song of the Year, Country/Bluegrass Album of the Year and Folk/Americana Song of the Year awards/

The local rocker took some time out earlier this week to talk about his winning night.

You've had a lot of things happen to you over the past year. How were you feeling going into the MAMAs?

Health-wise I've been feeling pretty good. Musically, I was excited to have these new CDs and songs heard by my peers here in Madison.

How well did you think your two albums would do at the awards?

Honestly, I looked at each category that I was nominated in and thought, I could easily not win any of these awards. I thought there were a lot of artists and songs that were deserving of the MAMA.

What was your reaction when you found out you had won an award? What about when you kept winning?

After winning the award at the beginning of the show for the Male Vocalist of the year, I thought, alright, I got one. That’s good enough for me. Then it was really great to win the country awards and when they kept on coming I got more and more overwhelmed. After winning the sixth award of the night, I walked offstage, went downstairs to a dressing room and wept.

What award are you most proud to have won?

I would have to say the songwriting awards. Being a songwriter is what I'm most passionate about.

Given all that you’ve been through lately, how does it feel to receive this recognition?

It feels wonderful! To be given a second chance at life and then to have such a show of support from the Madison Music Community, I feel truly blessed and honored and loved. It is definitely a night I’ll remember for the rest of my life.

What's next for you?

We’ll be releasing The Revenge of the Rowdy Prairie Dogs to Americana Radio (300 stations) in North America and Europe in June. Developing my new band, The RPDs. We’re playing some cool shows including Summerfest, The Steel Bridge Festival, a show with The New Riders of the Purple Sage. And I’ve got the next CD written and ready to go, so hopefully we’ll be back in the studio in the fall. I’m also working on a children’s book/song with Glenn Fuller who did such a fine job illustrating the RPD CD.

For more info on Robert J and The Rowdy Prairie Dogs, visit robertj.com, myspace.com/robertjmusic and myspace.com/therowdyprairiedogs. To find out more about the MAMAs, visit themamas.org.

The following is the full list of MAMA 2008 winners:

Genre Awards

Blues Song of the Year
The Mud Angels

Blues Album of the Year
Westside Andy/Mel Ford Band

Blues Artist of the Year
The Mud Angels

Classical Song of the Year
Ben Johnston-Urey

Classical Album of the Year
Ben Johnston-Urey

Classical Artist of the Year
Randal Harrison

Country/Bluegrass Song of the Year
The Rowdy Prairie Dogs

Country/Bluegrass Album of the Year
The Rowdy Prairie Dogs

Country/Bluegrass Artist of the Year
Spare Time Bluegrass Band

Electronic Song of the Year
The Dorothy Heralds

Electronic Album of the Year
Null Device

Electronic Artist of the Year
Sensuous Enemy

Folk/Americana Song of the Year
The Rowdy Prairie Dogs

Folk/Americana Album of the Year
Dear August

Folk/Americana Artist of the Year
Sharp & Harkins Band

Jazz Song of the Year
Clear Blue Betty

Jazz Album of the Year
Harris Lemberg

Jazz Artist of the Year
Randal Harrison

Pop Song of the Year
Robert J

Pop Album of the Year
Mark Croft

Pop Artist of the Year
Mark Croft

Rock Song of the Year
The Lucas Cates Band

Rock Album of the Year
Robert J

Rock Artist of the Year
Clear Blue Betty

Unique Song of the Year
The Gomers

Unique Album of the Year
The Gomers

Unique Artist of the Year
Know Boundaries

Urban Song of the Year
dumate

Urban Album of the Year
Know Boundaries

Urban Artist of the Year
Felicia Alima

World Song of the Year
JAH Boogie’s Natty Nation

World Album of the Year
JAH Boogie’s Natty Nation

World Artist of the Year
JAH Boogie’s Natty Nation

DJ of the Year
DJ Fusion

Non-Genre Awards

Compilation Album of the Year
The Best of Urban Theatre, Vol. 1

Ensemble Vocalists of the Year
Madison County

Entertainer of the Year
JAH Boogie’s Natty Nation

Female Vocalist of the Year
Laura England
Jessi Lynn

Instrumentalist of the Year
Tracy Jane Comer

Male Vocalist of the Year
Robert J

New Artist of the Year
Blue Beyond

Studio of the Year
DNA Studios

Wish You Were Here Award
Joe Bainbridge

People’s Choice Awards

Cover Band of the Year
The Gomers

Live Music Venue of the Year
The High Noon Saloon

Local Music Radio Station of the Year
WORT

Local Music Record Store of the Year
B-Side Records & CDs
The Exclusive Company

Local Radio Personality of the Year
Lee Rayburn

Youth Awards

Youth Vocalist of the Year
Felicia Alima

Youth Ensemble of the Year
Alton Kelly

Youth Instrumentalist of the Year
Jesse Banks

Student of the Year
Joel Weng

Teacher of the Year
Jim Kyle

Special Awards

Meritorious Achievement Award
John Urban

Michael St. John Lifetime Achievement Award
Richard Davis

Launchpad Awards
Village Idiot
Alton Kelly
Pillbox 49


COMING UP: A few events and performances to check out this week.

Tonight, Strollers Theatre kicks off The Miss Firecracker Contest, a Little Miss Sunshine-esque tale featuring a beauty pageant and zany relatives. Audience members are invited—but not required—to take part in the action. And at Barnes & Noble West, Tom Farley presents his book The Chris Farley Show.

Madison Ballet offers Pure Ballet!, an exploration of the dance form through six original works, Friday and Saturday. Also starting Friday, and continuing through Sunday, the annual Syttende Mai Norwegian festival gets underway in Stoughton.

On Saturday, the Alliant Energy Center becomes a meeting place for Madisonians interested in alternative and natural living with the Alternative Health & Natural Living Expo. And the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra offer a Side-by-Side Concert at Overture Center.

Also, several new art exhibitions open this week: A two person show of ceramics and fiber work by Rachelle Miller and Pat Kroth takes place at Artisan Gallery in Paoli, as do a group show of works on paper and a display of ceramics by Ruth Hansen. All open on Friday. And on Saturday, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art reveals T.L. Solien: Myths and Monsters, a midcareer retrospective of the UW–Madison art professor and internationally acclaimed artist.

May Artist: Delving into the Dark

He’s a nationally recognized artist (with work at the Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, among many other museums and private collections) and a true Midwesterner (born in North Dakota, raised in Minnesota, and a professor in UW–Madison’s art department since 1997).

The prolific T.L. Solien is also the focus of a new show at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

T.L. Solien: Myths & Monsters, which runs May 17 to August 17, traces the artist from the 1980s to the present through more than sixty of his complex, sometimes familiar and always deeply personal works of art.

Viewers will see the wide-ranging phases of his art-making: His move into three-dimensional and allusionistic paintings. The period when he was starting in academics, unhappily away from his family, and filled his canvases with chaotic and self-deprecating images. His emphasis on pop culture. And his most recent exploration of literature, particularly Moby Dick and Ahab’s Wife.

I recently had a chance to talk with Solien about his work and his upcoming show.

How’d you become an artist and how would you describe your work?

I started going to art classes and being involved in art departments in Minnesota in the late sixties when there was a confluence of pop art and minimalism and conceptual art practice—very aggressive sculpture and very aggressive painting. I tried to make work at that time that was very contemporary, actively contemporary. So my work had a very experimental attitude. I made extreme paintings, extreme sculpture and dealt with avant-garde ideas. And I consider my work to still be that way. 

What guides your choice of subject matter?

My work has been autobiographical for about thirty years. I look at life experiences … and sometimes I use certain characters to represent myself or to represent others. I show moments of lacking courage or moments of challenging religious convictions or family balance topics.

The figures I use in my works are sometimes congested or fractured. Sometimes they come from pop culture sources or my own imagination. I weave them together to suggest psychological conflict.

What attracts you to surrealism or showing your own vision of the world around you?

As a kid, I was confronted with Picasso and Salvador Dali. By the time I was eight or nine years old, those were the people I looked to as artists. They brought very strong suggestive content to art making. I like works of art and my own works to reflect the subjectivity of its maker.

Your work is shown around the country. What does it mean to be a Midwestern artist?

That’s a complex idea. Initially, when I started to show work in the eighties in New York, Midwestern artists were know as parochial regionalist artists. I think I was looked at as a bit of an exotic, as eccentric. European artists whose ideas were similar to mine were also beginning to show work in New York. I was wrapped up by many writers with them.

Right now, I think being a Midwestern artist is neither an advantage or disadvantage. It’s just the nature of one’s work, whether it’s compelling to a dealer. It’s really a global art market now.

What do you hope people get from seeing your show at MMoCA?

I hope that they’re entertained and provoked. I’m just not in the entertainment business or in the business of providing joy to the viewer. I think life is a complex and difficult process and filled with dark moments and light moments. I’m a fatalist and happen to focus on the dark moments. I hope to engage them and seduce them into entering the inner dialogue I’m in.


COMING UP: A few events and performances to check out this week.

Madison theater packs a powerful punch this week, with the Madison Theatre Guild presenting The Laramie Project, about slain gay Wyoming student Matthew Shepard, through April 26 and University Theatre taking on Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.

Christopher Taylor of the UW School of Music continues his Beethoven Piano Sonata Series Wednesday through Friday at Mills Hall, while UW’s Varsity Band performs those same evenings at the Kohl Center. Pianist Ann-Marie McDermott headlines the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra’s Friday Masterworks performance, and the Canadian indi rockers The New Pornographers take over the Orpheum Theatre Monday night.

Artists Sevki Kuzay and Wilfred illustrate the breadth of abstract painting in a show of new works this month at Fanny Garver Gallery. 

Get your nature fix—check out the wildflowers and watch the moon rise—at the Arboretum Night Walk Saturday evening. And last, but certainly not least, the Dane County Farmers’ Market moves back to the Capitol Square this Saturday, a sure sign that spring is officially here.