S03E03: Chatting with Co-Artistic Directors

Ensemble pianist Tae Kim sits down with Julia Noulin-Mérat and Aliana de la Guardia, Guerilla Opera’s Co-Artistic Directors about what’s new with Guerilla Opera since COVID-19, how the pandemic has affected their programming, and what plans are for the future of the company.

Tae Kim: So, let’s talk about our first watch party experience.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: I think we were really thrilled with it. Aliana and I, when we touched base afterwards, we were like, “that was a clear win.” We were very excited by not only having people joining us, but also the amount of interaction. So, the conversations people were happening while the show was streaming, but also people sharing their memories about Guerilla. It really felt like it was a different way to have a communal aspect of viewing a show, cause normally you have the audience quiet around you, but it felt like you were still watching a show with a group of people, but in a different way. So that was very exciting to us.

Aliana de la Guardia: I have to say too, that at first I was really, kind of down on the idea of having a watch party, and this was one of the examples of me just making a concession and me being like, “You know what, maybe I’m wrong about this.” And, you know, I was wrong about that. *Laughs

Tae Kim: I was on vimeo, watching the opera while reading and participating in the lively chat. How was the youtube platform?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: So, we didn’t have youtube streaming, but we did have Facebook, and also Instagram live. So, we did it on those three platforms.

Aliana de la Guardia: Yeah, we were originally going to do a Youtube stream, but something was not quite right with the technology, so it ended up only being on Vimeo and Facebook. Still it was successful, so you know, I don’t think we missed it.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: No. I think that originally came from a conversation with Aliana because originally, my instinct was like, let’s just do Facebook, but she brought up the good point that actually, not everybody’s on Facebook. So, it really opened our pool of who could watch the party. The next day, I pulled all the data from it, and it was actually incredible to see people from all over the world tuned in to join us, so that was really exciting. We were particularly popular in Brazil for some reason. So, that was wonderful to see.

Tae Kim: So, what did you enjoy about it, and what can we improve upon this experience? Are we going to have more watch parties?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: We’re going to have more frequent watch parties than we originally planned. That was something that really resonated with us after this experience. Originally we were thinking one every four months-ish, and we had done an outline, but now that we see that there’s such a demand and hunger to share, we’re looking at doing it every month.

Aliana de la Guardia: And I have to say it was because of me. It was because I was sceptical of the watch party idea, and as I said before, I was wrong and my foot is in my mouth, and we are doing now, more watch parties.

Tae Kim: Awesome. So what’s the next one? I’m guessing some time in July?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: We are looking at doing one in July, and the format will be different for the one in August, but we’re not quite ready to announce the July yet.

Aliana de la Guardia: Yeah, it’s actually our goal today to look at the watch party schedule, and decide which one is coming next. And in August, we think we’re going to do some kind of interactive soirée, or something like that.

Tae Kim: It definitely sounds like a considerable amount of planning is needed to make these events happen, but even with all the planning amidst this pandemic, so much of the political climate has effectively thwarted many of our scheduled lives. Can you share the process of how Guerilla Opera is adapting, and coming up with many difficult decisions such as postponing the upcoming scheduled events?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Absolutely, so since we’ve all been in quarantine, with the ensemble we’ve been meeting every two weeks, as you know, and it’s been really wonderful to kind of bounce ideas, but also get feedback, and impressions. And, what we do.. I’m going to call us the senior staff.

Aliana de la Guardia: Also [the “senior staff” meets] bi-weekly.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Also bi-weekly, we meet the first hour before those ensemble meetings, and Aliana started the meeting by saying, “How does everyone feel?” Which was very warranted, considering the political and national climate. So, that’s when we started bringing up whether or not it would be appropriate to have a watch party given the events, and given also that George Floyd’s memorial would have been three hours before the watch party.

Aliana de la Guardia: So I was one of these people that was sort of like on the fence as to...and more on the side to just do it, and as we were discussing, I just kept getting pulled one way to the other because on one hand, you know, I feel like we’re Guerilla Opera and there’s just an expectation to just like go on no matter what. We’re really spunky and resilient. On the other hand, you know, I did want to make space for this really important, national conversation, and so I was sort of caught in between like, do we make space for this national conversation, or do we serve our constituents that were still signing up to go to this party. In the long run, I’m really glad that we did. I feel that we did make the right decision.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: And I think part of what resonated to us is..sometimes being brave and being bold is actually taking a step back, and letting other conversations happen, and so, that was definitely the right move, and Aliana and I, and Brenda actually ended up watching another stream that had nothing to do with opera.

Aliana de la Guardia: When we cancelled Heart of a Dog, we put out a big statement and said specifically, “Will you donate to the NAACP?” And then that same time that we were supposed to be airing Heart of a Dog, the NAACP was having a large conversation, Facebooked live. So, that really made me feel very settled that we made the right decision, because that was a more important conversation to be highlighting, and actually we did it twice

We’ve been doing these workshops in collaboration with the Haverhill Public Library. And, on one of the Saturdays that we were supposed to have a workshop with the Haverhill Public Library was also a Black Lives Matter demonstration, and so we postponed. We just moved it back a week, so that we wouldn’t be, you know, taking attention away from the demonstration, and actually Mike and I attended that demonstration, so we were happy to be able to participate.

I think it’s important to really also highlight the conversations that are happening really, really locally, and indirect communities because I think it’s really easy for us to think like, “What’s going on in the nation?” and then forget that actually we have elections that are in our backyard that affect us directly like your city elections, and who are you voting for your superintendent of schools? And who are you voting for for sheriff? And that’s important to consider as well, not just the president. It’s like, who’s in charge of your backyard? You know?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Those are changes you can do now.

Aliana de la Guardia: Vote.

Tae Kim: Well with all these events that are being thrown at you..with all these plans, what were the projects that were to happen if COVID19 was not around?

Aliana de la Guardia: So, we talked about this all the time, and I really was like, “This was the year!” You know?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Yeah, I was just going to say, even though we’ve been co-artistic directors for two years, this was the season we had finally planned, right? Cause there’s always like a one year lag, so we were so excited to put on all these incredible productions, and unfortunately we couldn’t because we got cut short.

Aliana de la Guardia: Well, I mean, we got to livestream our composer fellowship, and the composer fellowship essentially is a program that takes composers through our specific process of putting on a show, which is fast paced, and also, just really kind of like, “Hands on here we go.” And that one, we were able to livestream. Directly after that, we were going to do a showing of Marti Epstein’s Rumplestiltskin, and that is with shadow puppetry animation by Deniz Khateri, and that was cancelled because Berklee had issued travel restrictions for all Berklee related performances travelling, and that particular show was being sponsored by the Boston Conservatory, so they, rightfully, had to cancel that. And then, we were about to go into rehearsals for Let’s Make A Sandwich which would have been two more composers. Victoria Cheah and Anthony Green. And you know, because...we just had to cancel that show because we’re committed to other evening length works, and we just have to move on with our other seasons as planned.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: And our All Star, that was a real bummer as well. Our All Star concert as well.

Aliana de la Guardia: Oh yes, that’s right. And our All Star concert at the MFA, which was going to be on their sound byte series, which was going to present more music by Victoria Cheah and Anthony Green, and one of the pieces on that program would have been a world premiere, and the other piece would have been a local premiere. So, boo! (Laughter)

Julia Noulin-Mérat: A lot of heartaches. When we cancelled “Let’s Make A Sandwich”, Aliana and I talked about actually fees for artists, because that was also something important because all these artists put a hold in their calendars, and we are a small company, and we rely heavily on donations, and also ticket sales, and obviously, we couldn’t perform, but Aliana did some wizard accounting, and we were able to give part of the fee to the performers which I think was incredible, and important to also say “Thank you, and we see you as artists, and we value you as part of our family.” And we also covered all the fees to the composers, which I think is important.

Aliana de la Guardia: Yeah, we paid the [Let’s Make a Sandwich] composers the full commission, because they did complete the scores, and also with Rumplestiltskin, when we cancelled that, we also paid a small reparation to the performers that had already been rehearsing the show.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: But I think it’s important to plan out because..you know, we are small, but we are mighty!

Aliana de la Guardia: Well, you know the second we cancelled those shows, I was like, “We have to pay our performers!” They blocked off all that time and they were waiting and they were expecting, so...you know.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: But, it’s definitely a conversation that a lot of companies...and hard conversations that have had to have, because not everybody could do that, or chooses to do that, but something worth bringing up.

Tae Kim: Well it’s not like the government’s going to save us in that regard anyway. I’m cutting that out. *Laughter*

Aliana de la Guardia: Well, you know..but wait though. We are a small company, right? And the works we produce are like, kind of on a budget, and you know, that puts us on a lower scale for a lot of the grants like NEA grants which are generally won by larger companies that have bigger community program staffs, as well as, you know, really important placemaking organizations. So, you know for us it’s like, what are you going to do for us when we’re so small, we don’t have a payroll like some of these other companies do. We just kind of have to like, sit back and tighten our belts, and wait.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Right.

Aliana de la Guardia: And, you know, relying on the real generosity of the people who are our fans, who want to see us succeed.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: World wide now.

Tae Kim: Brazil and Russia, that’s amazing.

Aliana de la Guardia: We have to start doing multi-lingual works!

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Well, we do have a chicken aria.

Aliana de la Guardia: We do have a chicken aria.

Tae Kim: *Laughs* Oh my goodness! Aside from doing more chicken arias, what’s the future looking like for Guerilla Opera?

Julia Noulin-Mérat: We have a lot of shows that are, what I like to call in incubation, which means they’re a various status of, either the librettos are being written, or the composers are working on it, we have once piece that the composer just finished writing, so it’s supporting that aspects of things. Once we are able to come back together, and perform, we have actual works that are ready to go, but Aliana has been the mastermind of our COVID experiments. Do you want to share a little bit? *Laughs*

Aliana de la Guardia: Yeah, so after having all these ensemble meetings - several ensemble meetings - I got the feeling that no one was really in the head-space to explore anything that was long-form. Like, the idea of developing a full opera during this time seemed really overwhelming for where we all were in our head-space.

So, my idea was that we could still engage with each other as artists, and connect with each other through our artistry by doing experiments in small-form that meet each of us where we’re at, and essentially follow our art-making during this entire COVID time. So, in fairness, it was a really selfish idea, because it’s really about us, and our art-making, but at the end of the day, I think our audience wants to see us and our art-making.

But, something I’ve been exploring recently is how now that, little by little, live performance is happening, but you can’t perform singing live, right? So how does that fit into everything as an opera company? I feel that Guerilla Opera as a term opens us up to explore what is “opera” and musical theatricality, much more broadly, than a more conventional or a more traditional opera company. So one of the pieces that we’re working on is A Waltzer in the House which is for vibraphone and voice, and it’s a chamber piece, but we collaborated with Brenda, and she’s doing a small puppetry experiment. Another piece we were interested in is Sept Papillons which is a solo cello piece. That is set with shadow theatre and shadow puppetry with really unique animation and design by Denise Khateri, who is the same designer as Rumpelstiltskin.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: So, in a way to sum this up, it’s the power of exploring music, and storytelling in innovative ways, as opposed to just presentation format, which is very exciting, because it kind of keeps everyone’s artistic muscles going in quarantine.

Aliana de la Guardia: To some degree, I wish we were an opera company that could just do aria concerts. You know? I wish we could just do aria concerts, because it would be so much easier. We could just push play on a track, and just sing into a camera and that’s so easy. You know what I mean? Or let’s say you’re quarantined with your partner that is a pianist, or your roommate that is a pianist, and you just happen to live somewhere where you’re able to perform, and that’s great, I wish we had people and we could do that, you know? But we’re a much more involved group, and also it’s literally impossible for me to not think ambitiously about anything that we do. Everything that I think of I’m like, “Oh it starts like this!” And then I’m like, “But what if it’s everything else?” You know? So starting small, with small experiments, I think allows us to think bigger about where we’re at.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: So that’s one of the components of what we’ve been cooking while in quarantine. Another thing that we touched a little bit on is with the Haverhill Public Library, we’ve been having these workshops. And a month ago, we did one on poetry and libretto, and we did writing. Not only was it very successful, but it generated really interesting conversations with folks. And with Brenda Huggens, we’ve been kind of developing a bigger, broader program. So, it actually just got launched today, and the idea is that over the course of six weeks, artists who want to explore libretto writing, so they don’t have to be librettists, and I think that’s very important to us actually. So they can be poets, screenwriters, from all strings of life...

Aliana de la Guardia: Directors, singers. If you’re interested in the writing aspect, we don’t care if you’re an “opera librettist.”

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Right. This is a great workshop to join, and partake, because I think there’s a lot of learning from each other because I think everybody’s gonna come from different areas, and it’s a way for them to develop their own librettos, and at the end of this workshop, we will have an “online presentation” of those librettos that are going to be supported by some of our ensemble members. So, they’re not gonna be fully sung out, but we will add some dramatic flares to them.

Tae Kim: Wonderful. I mean, especially what’s going on now, we can’t really have a regular opera performance setting, and you know.. The talk I was involved in this morning, I heard the idea of having a recital per say, as a performer, that’s not going to be the case even next year in some ways. You can’t expect people to sit in the hall, and listen quietly to a performer per say, and I think that now is the time that we have to be innovative of how we present our own artistry.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Yes, I actually....To me this is very exciting, because this is a rebirth for the art form for classical music, and I think people have to look at it differently. I think a lot of people who were hiding amongst “proven true” methods, now they realize they have to throw that all out the window, and “how can we perform again?” I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but today, in Barcelona, the Gran Teatro del Liceu performed to a completely “full hall.” But they actually put a plant in each one of their seats, so they performed their orchestra to 2,500 plants, which I think is genius. (Laughter)

Tae Kim: That’s amazing!

Julia Noulin-Mérat: But again, there’s something incredibly beautiful about it too, because they were able to bring back a small orchestra to perform, and they had what felt like a full hall, and actually, plants as we know are very receptive to music, but it’s just a different audience. So, I applaud that, that’s completely different. Let’s do it! You know?

Tae Kim: In middle school, I did an experiment where I grew a potato that was listening to Mozart alone, and I put a potato that was listening to like, K-pop... I don’t remember the results. (Laughter)

Julia Noulin-Mérat: Well, you have time to try it again.

Tae Kim: No way, I got to eat those potatoes. (Laughter)

Julia Noulin-Mérat: True. Very true. But, so it’s not just...In my mind, I think it’s not just streaming productions, or doing video content, but it’s also questioning, How do we make art together? And how do we push that forward? That’s always been something. I mean.. Even when I was just starting designing with Guerilla, that always excited me with this group. I always feel like they’re always pushing the envelope, and so for me, I’m excited to see what we’ll cook up next.

Aliana de la Guardia: But, you know, like in terms of artist safety and audience safety, we’re definitely waiting and we’re watching, and we’re paying attention to what the news is saying, and following blogs and there are task forces through Opera America, there’s a local task force through Boston Opera Alliance that Julia’s heading up. Right? Are you heading that up or are you just organizing? I don’t wanna say something that’s wrong.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: No, so Boston Lyric Opera has a task force right now, and they’re encouraging other companies to do that with their organizations with themselves. Usually safety performance relies very heavily on the stage manager, and what we’re realizing in light of this pandemic, is that it is beyond just one person’s responsibility, it is too much. They have to take care of the show, and now they have to take care of the health, so this idea behind the task force is not only just to accumulate all this information, but it’s also to have people that are there, and that are able to implement it. So, from anything that’s “What’s an emergency evacuation looking like in the age of COVID?” So, an emergency evacuation six feet apart. As well as how to make the rehearsal room safe, our audience safe, so it’s across the board, but what Aliana’s bringing up is, there is a contingency in Boston, called the Boston Opera Alliance, so it’s all the groups in town, and we’ve been meeting every two weeks, so there is a need and a want to stay in touch and connect, and one of the most attended sessions I would say, are the ones about safety, because people are very curious. So, for example, Guerilla Opera doesn’t have a home. We don’t always perform in the same venue, and so a lot of the venues are the ones that are going to impose the restrictions of what you’re allowed and what you’re not allowed to. And for other companies, because they have their own home base, they have to develop those protocols. So, the conversations have been, “Do we want to establish a standard?” and a lot of people have been waiting for Opera America to distribute what this protocol would look like. It’s very different from state to state, and also liability is very different for companies. So, it’s also another form of survival.

Aliana de la Guardia: Yeah, there’s definitely protocols being written, and I see them pass through my emails, and as of recent they’re so extensive that it’s really hard for small companies to be able to follow it, because we’re only run by a few people. So we’re just going to have to do things our own way, and wait a bit until we know we can confidently produce things, and know that our artists and audience will be safe from us.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: And from start to finish.

Tae Kim: So, how can we find out about what Guerilla Opera is doing next?

Aliana de la Guardia: So, one of our experiments, “COVID experiments”, are premiering..I think this coming Friday, at something called the Puppet Pandemic. And that, you can find it on Facebook because I believe it streams only on Facebook. So, we’ll post it up to our Facebook page so you can find it, and also it’s on our website. If you go to the Guerilla Opera season page, you can scroll down and we have it up there. And then the Sept Papillon experiment, we’re still not sure as of yet when it’s going to premiere, but it’s going to premiere soon and that’s why you should sign up for our newsletter, and also follow us on social media because a lot of these COVID experiments may end up being a pop-up experience, and so it’s best to follow us on social media and to be on our newsletter so you can be the first to find out.

Julia Noulin-Mérat: I would just like to add, yes, please go and explore our website, we’ve listed all our past works, as well as our works in development, so you’ll get a good sneak peak of the composers and librettists we’re working with.