Live Active Cultures

from Orlando Weekly - October 19, 2022

by Chava Communications

As tears go by

BY SETH KUBERSKY

In Eric Pinder’s hands the Christmas chestnut ‘Hansel & Gretel’ takes on a more vicious vibe, with zombie children instead of adorable gingerbread kids, and goth wraiths replacing protective angels

If you’re searching for Halloween

chills, but the theme park haunted houses I surveyed last week leave you cold, why not combine the creepy and classical by ending your October with an opera?

Central Florida Vocal Arts (centralfloridavocalarts.org) and Opera Del Sol recently celebrated their 10th anniversary with a gala event at the Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation, and they’re leaping into their second decade with a spooky reimagining of Englebert Humperdink’s Hansel & Gretel at the Dr, Phillips Center’s Pugh Theater on Oct. 28 & 29.

Earlier this month, I invited resident stage director (and longtime friend) Eric Pinder over for a conversation about his first live opera production since the pandemic began, which he’s proud to promise will be “more grim than Grimm.”

Pinder’s face should be familiar to fans of Disney’s Adventurers’ Club, Sleuths Mystery Dinner Shows and the Orlando Fringe, but his greatest passion — other than hockey — is opera. He’s been a part of nearly every area opera company since the old Orlando Opera went extinct, directing its short-lived successor Florida Opera Theatre as well as several shows for Opera Orlando. That was until COVID put everything on pause for over 18 months, both in the Disney theme parks where he makes his daily living, and in the opera houses he loves.

“Everything I did was toxic,” recalls Pinder. “I certainly couldn’t work with opera singers; I couldn’t direct because you couldn’t be spewing out aerosols anywhere.”

Instead, he spent his time watching modern dance and European ballet online (“My project was, how do I tell the story in movement [and] how can I use movement to help me as a director and tell better stories?”) as well as “stress eating on the couch and crying about the state of my career.”

Fortunately, Pinder has since resumed fulltime employment for the Mouse, and now he’s joining forces with executive director Theresa Smith-Levin as CFVA’s stage director, following the departure of Nicole Dupre, Opera Del Sol’s founding artistic director. He’d previously worked with Smith-Levin and CFVA (which absorbed ODS under its non-profit operations in 2018) on a rewrite of The Merry Widow set in Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom.

“It was interesting to take something like that and update it,” says Pinder. “How do you bring it to people who don’t necessarily know the traditions of operetta, and don’t want to sit through a production that is just ‘a museum piece’?”

Although this latest title had already been selected before he came onboard, Pinder says his dark vision for Hansel & Gretel was inspired by the fact that star Meghan Hone has previously sung both the neglectful mother and the cannibalistic witch in different, prior productions. Combining the two roles into one character created a world where “the mother is really the witch, but the father and the kids don’t know it, so they don’t realize they’re in a horror story, but everyone else in the opera does,” as Pinder explains.

That small but key innovation sparked an approach that owes a lot to cinematic scares, only sans the excessive gore. “We’re not doing a lot of blood splattering.,” says Pinder, “but I certainly thought of films like Midsommar and Evil Dead II, where there’s horror but it’s funny, or something is weird and unsettling, but yet you’re also laughing at it at the same time.”

As a result, in Pinder’s hands this Christmas chestnut takes on a much more vicious vibe, with zombie children instead of adorable gingerbread kids, and goth wraiths replacing protective angels. “Normally it’s this cutesy, little happy holiday opera,” Pinder admits. “But what’s interesting is that it’s the same opera — the music does not change — but you’re going to have a different view of it, because of the way it’s being presented and directed.”

While it may perturb purists, Pinder says “the mission of Opera Del Sol is to make opera exciting, thrilling, and bring it to new audiences” — even those who have heretofore avoided the artform.

“I actually have a bunch of people coming to see this who have never gone to opera before; good friends of mine that just simply refuse to go to opera,” Pinder says. “Because we’re doing this in a spooky theme, and especially because it’s only 90 minutes — which I pointed out was less time than Avengers Infinity War … I have a lot of people that are coming that have never been.”

CFVA and Opera Del Sol present a creepy and classical ‘Hansel & Gretel’ | Courtesy Photo

skubersky@orlandoweekly.com orlandoweekly.com ● OCT. 19-25, 2022 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY 23

Rethinking Graphic Design Education

“I try to be like a chameleon,” says Marianne Catangay, director of the Graphic Design & Web Development IDL program at F.I.R.S.T. Institute. “I take on the perspective of the student I’m helping and adjust my guidance accordingly.” Being able to connect with students in this way is essential since the program Marianne oversees is entirely online. IDL stands for Interactive Distance Learning, an approach to online classes that prioritizes collaboration and hands-on experience. “I treat our classes like a team,” she says, “our students aren’t here for lectures… they can get that on Youtube.” Marianne explains that a typical class starts by presenting a problem, rather than simply information. For example, she might show a class a finished graphic and say “ok, how can we achieve a similar result?” The class will then work together to find a solution. If they don’t get it on the first try, that’s fine. Failure is actually encouraged in Marianne’s classes. She believes that “failure is the only way to learn. I never want to get in the way of my students making mistakes. It provides me with an opportunity to observe how my students think, so that the next time around I can tailor the lesson to their particular way of processing things.” What Marianne has discovered is that when students are given the space to work through problems on their own, they take ownership over the solutions they find and are excited to share them with their classmates. She explains that “when you let students hit a wall, it’s that much more exciting to them when they finally break through. When they’ve struggled to find a solution to their problem, they want to share that solution with the rest of the class. And so at that point students aren’t just learning from me, but from each other.” Although Marianne has been a graphic design professional for over fourteen years, she considers herself an educator first. “I enjoy the challenge of helping people understand things,” she says, “It can be frustrating, but when you finally hit that moment of recognition it’s the best feeling in the world.” F.I.R.S.T. Institute is a premier digital media school headquartered in Orlando, Florida. F.I.R.S.T. offers hands-on experience for students in both online and on-campus options. To learn more visit first.edu.