Margaret Gawrysiak makes her Seattle Opera mainstage debut as Vera Boronel in the upcoming production of Menotti’s “The Consul.” The American mezzo was a Young Artist at Seattle Opera in 2007/08 and 2008/09; she sang such roles as the Witch in “Hansel and Gretel,” Zita in “Gianni Schicchi,” Mother/Teacup in “L’enfant et les sortilèges,” and Hippolita in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” As Dinah in Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti,” Gawrysiak sang the great aria, “What a movie!”, describing a film she’d just seen:
Then she sees him, the handsome American.
(I must say he’s really a man,
Six feet tall, and each foot just incredible!)
Well, they’re madly in love,
But there’s trouble ahead;
There’s a legend:
“If a princess marry white man, and rain fall that day,
Then the white man shall be sacrifice without delay.”
Sure enough, on the night of their wedding day,
There’s a storm like nothing on earth;
Tidal waves and siroccos and hurricanes;
And to top it all off,
The volcano erupts
As the natives sing: Ah! Ah! Ah! Olé!
They go crazy with the drumming and the chanting and ritual dance,
While the lovers sing a ballad of South Seas romance.
It’s so lovely, I wish I could think of it;
Da da dee da da…
It was called “Island Magic,”
I think it was.
Oh, a beautiful song!
I remember it now:
“Island Magic, where the midnight breezes caress us,
And the stars above
seem to bless us,
That’s Island Magic, Island Magic.”
Well, in any case, the hero is tied to a tree.
(Did I tell you he’s a flyer
who got lost at sea?)...
At this touring performance at the Capitol Hill Arts Center, David McDade and Lara Bolton accompanied Margaret Gawrysiak, playing piano four-hands.