Tag Archives: Mary Todd Lincoln

Lucky Us

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It’s a big weekend for my hometown and my beloved University of Kentucky.

  • The football team won and still has a chance to play for something big.
  • Ditto for the basketball teams – male and female.
  • Ditto for two singers from our nationally-ranked opera theatre program.

Please notice especially that last item.

The District Auditions for the Metropolitan Opera were held in Lexington this afternoon in a lovely room; the sanctuary at First Presbyterian Church.

I attended. Let me tell you about my day.

This lovely room is located in downtown Lexington, a few doors down from Henry Clay’s law office, a few blocks away from Mary Todd Lincoln’s home, and about two blocks away from Gratz Park (the heart of old Lexington) and the home of Thomas Hunt Morgan, Nobel Prize-winning brilliant Lexingtonian. The room is wood, and stained glass, and wood, and soaring ceilings, and wood, and memories of the funerals of personally-remembered brilliant Lexingtonians, and wood.

Today, it was all that filled with beautiful young singers singing humanity’s most beautiful songs beautifully all afternoon long…for free.

I watched and heard my friend Cynthia Lawrence, Metropolitan Opera star (I don’t believe anyone has sung with Luciano Pavarotti as often as Ms. Lawrence) lead a large audience in a seismic rendition of the National Anthem. Now we can all say we’ve sung at the Metropolitan Opera Auditions.

I watched and heard Jessica Bayne mesmerize the room with her Bellini number.

I watched and heard Taylor Comstock remind everyone of his recent stratospheric performance in LA TRAVIATA.

I watched and heard my friend Thabang Masango simultaneously charm and inspire the room with his Donizetti.

I watched and heard my friend Zachary Morris stir the room with his “New York Lights” from A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE.

I watched and heard Rebecca Farley force me to resist the urge to warn her of her fate if she believed the blandishments of the Duke in RIGOLETTO.

I watched and heard Mary Catherine Wright break the hearts of the male half of the room with her Handel piece.

Some of these singers were proclaimed “winners” by day’s end and will go on to compete in the Regional Auditions in Chicago in January, but the real winners were those of us in the wooden pews of the lovely room to watch and hear.

The ultimate winner is Lexington which, for a while, gets to be home for these remarkable young people as they mature before leaving to populate the planet with singers.

Lucky us.

A Horizontal Lincoln at That

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Seeing pictures of Washington last week sparked a memory.

The scene of the crime…er…opera

I played Abraham Lincoln on the Ford Theatre stage in Washington, DC,

…at the age of 18,

…in an opera,

…with Mrs. Nixon, Mrs. Agnew, and Col. Sanders in the audience.

It gets better.

It was in the spring of 1970. I was in my freshman year at the University of Kentucky. My un-mown hair cascaded between my shoulder blades. I wore moccasins, a poncho, army surplus shirts, and a poorly-stitched leather hat.

I knew everything. “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” –Bob Dylan.

Dr. Kenneth Wright of UK had written an opera about the insanity trial of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Ponder that for a moment while I digress.

<< You know, it’s my blog, and if you’ve spent any time at all here you know I don’t feel at all tethered to facts – actual or alternative. I agree with my friend Chuck Pogue; if you have to choose between the facts and tellin’ a story, you go with the story…every time. Hell, It’s not like I’m runnin’ fer president!

That said, everything I’ve written in this piece (thus far) is actually true. Dr. Wright wrote an opera about the insanity trial of Abraham Lincoln’s wife. What kind of mind would write an opera about that kind of mind? It’s a wunnerful world. >>

There was a historic preservation group in Washington, DC working on restoring the house across the street from the Ford Theatre to which a wounded Lincoln was carried. It is the house in which President Lincoln actually died. As a part of their efforts to raise interest and funds for this restoration, the group commissioned UK to produce Dr. Wright’s opera; “Wing of Expectation” and perform it in the Ford Theatre.

The horizontal Lincoln

Ray Smith directed.

<< I could write a book about that last sentence……and may one day……, but I’ll try not to splinter in this narrative. >>

Ray decided he wanted me to be his stage manager.

God knows why.

I was a freshman. I had yet to take a single technical theatre class. I was an actor/storyteller. Still am for that matter.

The technical staff and faculty at UK objected. For several of them, it was their first year at UK. They are to be forgiven for not knowing that objecting to Ray’s whims only transformed those whims into concrete ramparts. I certainly wasn’t gonna refuse the assignment – I knew everything, remember? Sing it with me; “I was so much older then…”

In addition to being the stage manager of the show, I also had to play the role of the Drunken Farmer in a second act number. It required me to stagger around the stage (poorly, as I recall), warble a couple of slurred lines, get picked up bodily and tossed in the air (let’s sing again; “I was so much lighter then…”), and get carried off the stage.

Not to worry – hold my beer – I got this.

Those were my duties in the show…until we got to Washington.

When we got to Washington, the group that was picking up the tab for this fiasco finally had the epiphany that there was nothing in Dr. Wright’s opera that had anything to do with the house they were trying to save. They insisted on adding a silent scene, behind a scrim, depicting the carrying of Lincoln’s wounded body from the theatre on a stretcher from the theatre to the house in question.

OK, no big deal.

Wait! Not so fast.

Three professional singers had been hired for the leads in the show. The gentleman hired to play Lincoln decided that being carried on a stretcher was not in his original contract and was not a desirable way to extend his evenings in the show. After all, he had counted on bein’ shot and bein’ through for the night and settling in for some quality Green Room time (AKA: the dead people’s happy hour). Now, perhaps this was ungenerous on his part, but given the timbre of the reviews of the show, perhaps truncation of participation was a wise career choice.

Mrs. Spiro Agnew aka my audience

What to do?

Opportunity beckoned and the Stage Manager/Drunken Farmer answered. Yes, I was supine on a stretcher, but who could pass up the chance to play Abraham Lincoln on the Ford Theatre stage?

Certainly not this fool.

And before you ask, yes I did recreate Booth’s balcony-to-stage leap one afternoon after rehearsal. Those were looser times and stage managers (and drunken farmers…and former presidents, I suppose) were allowed much latitude.