Opera is an art form as old as the 16th century, but a group of University students and alumni spent the weekend creating a new operatic piece in 24 hours.
Vocal performance master’s student Ariana Wehr, 2011 musical arts and vocal performance doctoral graduate Kori Jennings and 2010 vocal performance graduate Frances Rabalais teamed up with other composers, singers and stage directors to compose and perform a 10-minute opera scene in 24 hours at Atlanta Opera’s second annual 24-Hour Opera Project.
Jennings and Wehr participated as singers, while Rabalais was a stage director.
Composers and lyricists were randomly teamed together and given 12 hours to write an opera scene. After the initial 12 hours, stage directors chose singers and had eight hours to rehearse before presenting their pieces in a concert 24 hours after the project began.
Jennings said each team — consisting of a composer, lyricist, stage director, music director and three or four singers  — was given two props to use in its opera, which was to include an “accidental affairs” theme. The LSU representatives placed on separate teams.
Jennings said her team, whose composition was titled “Edward’s Eatery,” received sausage links and fishing net as props, which lent themselves to plenty of humourous sexual innuendos.
Five lyricists were paired with five composers Friday night, Jennings said. The five lyricist-composer teams wrote through the night until singers, stage directors and music directors were added to the teams the next morning.
“Each composition went in complete opposite directions, which was neat,” she said.
Jennings said the teams weren’t allowed to see other teams’ performances, but the crowd favorite was a comedy about the butter-loving television chef Paula Deen.
She said the project was simultaneously fun and hectic. All of the participants knew their final product was not going to be perfect, but that may have been the intentions of the project, Jennings said.
“To learn opera, and especially to learn modern opera, takes time,” she said. “To have the music be what we wanted it to be was very difficult. It’s a lot to ask for everybody world.”
The opera program performs four shows a year — two full production operas in the Shaver Theatre and two smaller productions.
“La