Soprano Wanda C. Scott did not grow up listening to opera. When she heard an opera singer on television, she might listen a little bit but soon switch channels.
When someone at Gary's West Side High School would say to her, "You have such a beautiful operatic voice," she did not take it as a compliment.
"I wanted to sing R&B, gospel or jazz," she says.
Her attitude changed when her voice teacher at DePaul University took her to a performance of Puccini's "Tosca" at Lyric Opera of Chicago. The impact of the fully staged live performance won her over. "The technique and discipline of the singers amazed me," she says.
She sang impressively several years ago as one of "The Three Sopranos" in a performance at Chicago's DuSable Museum of African American History. The trio continues to perform today.
This summer Scott performed the role of Serena in a semi-staged concert version of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" at Evanston's Fleetwood-Jourdain Theatre. Serena functions as a healer in the Catfish Row community of Charleston, S.C., Scott says. Serena sings her most memorable number, "My Man's Gone Now," after the violent Crown kills her husband. "It's a strong piece," Scott says. "You can feel her grief from her soul."
Scott sings and acts in Lyric's upcoming production of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess," 13 performances in all (Nov. 18-Dec. 19).
Though some of the best-known songs are solos -- "Summertime," "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" and "It Ain't Necessarily so" -- the opera boasts several wonderful choruses, including the rousing finale "Oh Lord, I'm On My Way."
Scott describes the close-knit Catfish Row community who live in an abandoned warehouse as humble and hardworking.
"They don't think of themselves as poor, and they pull together against the drug dealer Sportin' Life."
The story centers on the lame beggar Porgy, who loves good-time girl Bess and is willing to do anything to hold on to her, even kill her abusive lover.
In the end, when she can't resist the "happy dust" offered by Sportin' Life and goes off with him to New York, Porgy will do whatever it takes to get her back.
Alban Berg's "Lulu," running for seven performances (through Nov. 30) portrays the story of "a young woman with spectacular survival instincts, who lets men make of her whatever suits them but never loses her sense of self," according to conductor Sir Andrew Davis (in an audio clip on lyricopera.org).
A 12-year-old living on the streets of Vienna, Lulu is taken in and given a decent life by the respected newspaper editor Dr. Schön. In time, he seduces her, and eventually she kills him. She flees to Paris with Schön's son, the composer Alwa, and after gambling away his money ends up a streetwalker in London, where she is killed by one of her clients, Jack the Ripper.
Davis calls Lulu "the most riveting of all 20th-century opera heroines," who exerts a "fatal attraction" on every man who enters her life. (Check out Louise Brooks' mesmerizing portrayal of her in the 1929 silent film "Pandora's Box," based on the original play by Frank Wedekind.)
Tenor William Burden (Alwa) characterizes Berg's music as ranging from "exquisitely beautiful" to "extraordinarily intense."
In another podcast, mezzo-soprano Jill Grove (Countess Geschwitz, who loves Lulu and tries to save her) describes the opera as "a very sexual piece" with adult themes and a lot going on. "Lulu" is not recommended for children.
