‘Love the one you’re with’ – and 4 other lessons from ‘Grand Duchess’

The Wichita Grand Opera will take a humorous turn with the final performance of the company’s 2015 season – a new production of Offenbach’s comic operetta “The Grand Duchess.”

The Parisian Offenbach, who came up with the music most associated with the can-can, also came up with parodies, including this opera written in 1867 to poke fun at Catherine the Great of Russia’s penchant for handsome young men.

But the Wichita Grand Opera is updating the work in a unique way, setting it in the Roaring ’20s and performing it in English. The artists, brought in from all over the country, are not only singers and dancers but comedians, said Parvan Bakardiev, president of Wichita Grand Opera. The director is Shawna Lucey, a frequent presence at the San Francisco Opera who worked as assistant director for Santa Fe Opera’s production of “The Grand Duchess” a couple of years ago.

“I have completely done a different staging of the show” for Wichita, Lucey said. “I’m trying to embrace the high antics and the inherent comedy of the piece and channeling a great comedic genius, Charlie Chaplin, as inspiration for the show. I rewrote and adapted the dialogue so that there’s a little more of a modern flow of speech, and we’ve cut the piece a little bit.” It comes in at around two hours.

Wichita Grand Opera will perform the opera three times next weekend – on Friday night and Sunday afternoon Oct. 18 at Century II, and Saturday night at the McPherson Opera House.

The leveling magic of humor amid the conniving of the nobility that reached out of the opera and into its original audience, which included French emperor Napoleon III among other heads of state, caused us to come up with a few happy lessons that audiences can take from “The Grand Duchess.”

Love the one you’re with

The storyline involves a duchess who doesn’t like the betrothed who has been chosen for her (Prince Paul), and her advisers drum up a war to distract her. In reviewing her troops, her head is turned by a soldier named Fritz whom she promotes up the military ranks, even while he is in love with someone else. When it comes time to go into battle, Fritz, now commander, shows that a drink is mightier than the sword in conquering the enemy. When the duchess finds out that Fritz is marrying his love Wanda, she shows she can easily fall for the next hunky man who comes along – except this time, he’s already married and has four children. In the end, the duchess decides to marry Prince Paul after all.

“I think what’s great about the piece is she makes a total fool out of herself for love not once but twice in the evening,” Lucey said of the duchess. “And everybody does that at some point in their life. And she goes all out and does it in front of her entire court. That is the lesson we all learn: Look, I might not be Beyonce; I better learn how to make it work for myself.”

The duchess learns a lesson everyone learns, Bakardiev said: You can’t have it all.

“It’s mostly learning to love what you’ve got and also taking care of the people you really do care about,” Lucey said.

Portraying the duchess is Kaitlyn Costello. “She’s extremely funny,” Bakardiev said. “She’s truly a comedian, then a dancer, then a singer, and she’s truly hysterical.”

Want to change the world? Tend your garden

“The Grand Duchess” is full of plotting – much of it the work of Baron Puck, played by Wichita native and Southeast High and Wichita State grad Brian Frutiger.

“My character is kind of a conniving court official,” said Frutiger, who now lives in Minneapolis, Minn., with his wife and three children and often sings with the Metropolitan Opera.

“It’s a lot of fun because things are spiraling out of his control, which he doesn’t like.”

While Baron Puck and his sidekick General Boom joke that the duchess doesn’t care about them or the country, they actually only care about themselves and holding onto their power, Frutiger says. Meanwhile, Fritz, once he’s married his true love, ends up renouncing all of the promotions that the duchess had given him.

“Wanda and Fritz, at the end they realize they don’t want to be involved in all of these machinations, and they go out to serve their country by tending their own garden,” Lucey said. “Look, at the end of the day you’ve gotta go home with your family, with the people you love – that’s all that really matters, and taking care of each other.”

Don’t worry — laugh (or dance or sing)

Lucey came up with the idea of moving the operetta to the Roaring ‘20s for very good reasons.

“I thought it would be more fun, and we could do more dancing,” Lucey said. “And I’m trying to really channel vaudeville elements of the comedy.”

A musical interlude in Act III called “The Gallop” will feature music straight out of Looney Tunes cartoons in which Puck and Boom play some tricks on Fritz. “It’s great fun to stage, and it’s great fun to do; it involves Nerf guns. ...

“When people come and see the show they will recognize Charlie Chaplin and (yesteryear movie director and choreographer) Busby Berkeley and even a little bit of Fred Astaire in the Act II finale where we’ve got some dancing with hats and canes while we plot the murder of Fritz. ...

“We really lucked out with the cast. They are fantastic comedians on stage,” Lucey said.

Lucey herself laughs often. “I’m a very upbeat person, even in the face of adversity,” she said. “We have to keep laughing if we’re gonna make it through.”

Find comfort in our common lot

“The Grand Duchess” goes to comedic extremes that allow the audience to laugh at things that are common to human nature, Lucey said.

“Every person has something they’re totally crazy about. And every person in this show is very crazy about what they’re crazy about, and for the general and (the duchess’) adviser it’s power, and the tenor Fritz and Wanda are kind of caught up in the craziness of (the officials’) agendas, and that happens too for all us – we’re always caught up in other people’s crazy agendas. It’s a comedy, so everyone ends happily.”

Rethink opera

Bakardiev likes ending the Wichita Grand Opera’s 15th season in the comic genre that will broaden its appeal. Lucey said the production will be different from what people think of as opera.

“I think that if people have some sort of assumption or preconceived notion about opera, this show is certainly the opposite. We’re singing, we’re dancing, we’re gonna make you laugh, and the ending is happy. It’s the opposite of what you expect opera to be,” she said – laughing, of course.

“Parvan’s brought in some really good singers from all over the country, and some I’ve worked with before and some I haven’t,” Frutiger said. “We all get along really well. It’s going to be a great show.”

This story was originally published October 10, 2015 at 3:06 PM with the headline "‘Love the one you’re with’ – and 4 other lessons from ‘Grand Duchess’."