Below is a transcript of our conversation with Molly Ann Hotek, CMU senior and vocal music performance major
David Nicholas:
I'm David Nicholas and this is Central Focus, a weekly look at research activity and innovative work from Central Michigan University students and faculty. On the first day in elementary school, we were always asked what we did on our summer vacation. If we did that today, CMU senior and vocal music performance major Molly Ann Hotek would probably win a prize. She was chosen for Chicago Summer Opera, a program that brings students and professionals together for six opera productions. She landed a role in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, and then she came to our studios to tell me about her summer vacation…
Was your group in total all focused in on one production or... many productions over the summer?
Molly Ann Hotek:
So, they run 6 productions over the summer in two sessions. So, they run three shows per session. When you audition and get cast for this, you're cast in one particular role. So, you're working on one show the entire time that you're there. is the opportunity that they could assign you a cover in a different show, but mostly in this program, they tend to keep you pretty contained to one production. So, I was in Benjamin Britten's The Turn of the Screw, singing the role of Miles. So that's what I spent my time doing, being a possessed 10-year-old little British boy.
DN:
That puts a color on the whole thing for the summer! Was it an opera that you were familiar with in the past and one that you at least had some familiarity with?
MAH:
In name only. I had heard of it. is the second most performed opera in English behind, I believe, Dido and Aeneus. So, I had heard of it by name, but as soon as I got the role offer, I was like, okay, let me go look at this because I don't know too much about it. And the more I started to read it, because it's based on a novella of the same name from the 1800s. And it just became this really, really intriguing story because it's extremely different than most operas that you're going to see in terms of like, you usually have a lot of classical stories going on in opera, or you have these like very, very ultra modern operas that are composed in more recent years. But with Turn of the Screw, it was released in 1950s. And so, it kind of bridges this strange gap of it's like playing with modern vocal techniques and modern vocal sounds and modern orchestral sounds. But it is still very much that very quintessential British Victorian, very eerie sounding, very, very unusual. This is not the show to go to if you're looking for a happy ending. I will say that for sure!
DN:
So, day one, they throw the score and the libretto at you and say, we'll start off or how long does it take before that's all molded out, the audition process and then actually getting underway with starting to prepare the production.
MAH:
Yes, so I actually had to turn in pre-screen audition videos back in December. And then they released the casting information and offers and so forth in February. And they gave us, I believe it was a little over 24 hours to make a decision on whether or not we wanted to attend this program. And so, then once you officially accepted, they of course outlined your role and whatever they wanted to offer you in that acceptance package. And then you (you) should have anyway, immediately gone and gotten the score and started to study. Because the expectation with these programs is that you come in day one and you have the entire score learned. Because with it being such a small time frame, like this program is only three weeks, they don't really have the time to sit there and go from square one. And also it's preparing you for the professional industry where again, that is the expectation that you're going to come in and it is 100% learned and ready to go. So, in theory, the first day you can get up and start staging something because on the level of knowing what's supposed to be happening.
DN:
Soprano, Molly Ann Hotek. Keep that name in mind for those of you listening today, and you may well find that name as a part of a cast of, name the opera, name the stages of the world where things may take her. But a tremendous opportunity for you over the summer, Molly, and congratulations! Best of luck with this senior year and moving ahead. And we will be watching for you in a cast somewhere down the road.
MAH:
Perfect! Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for bringing me in to talk about this experience. It's been such a great time to be here and I hope so too. I hope that someday you can open up a playbill and you'll see my name right at the top!
