Opera San Jose will begin a run of Cinderella next week, featuring the opera's composer-turned-conductor, 17-year-old musical prodigy Alma Deutscher.
Deutscher will debut a new version of the opera which she first began writing at the age of eight, now taking the reins as its conductor. The production runs Nov. 12 through Nov. 27. Opera San Jose last staged Deutscher's Cinderella five years back when Deutscher was just twelve, and played violin in the production.
"Finally coming here and conducting it myself," Deutscher said between rehearsals in San Jose, "so I’m in charge, I’m the boss of what’s going on and I’m working with the musicians myself and trying to get the effects that I imagine."
Even as a mere teenager, Deutscher is a seasoned veteran of the stage, having composed her first piano sonata at the age of six and having performed her compositions on piano and violin with orchestras around the world. The British composer began playing piano at the age of two, and violin at three -- and began to find her writing voice at an age when other kids are still playing with toys.
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"When I was four I would just sit at the piano and just improvise," Deutscher said. "I had no idea it was called composing. I just played the ideas I had in my head."
It was inevitable Deutscher would find her way to the conductor's chair, giving her complete control over the execution of her musical visions.
This week in San Jose, she shepherded the opera's orchestra, filled with veteran players, through the pages of her Cinderella.
When a sudden rain storm sent drips of water leaking onto the violin section, Deutscher calmly had the group relocate out of the water's path to resume rehearsing. A short time later a power outage plunged the room into near darkness with only the musician's music stand lights providing illumination -- enough light that Deutscher again pushed on with the rehearsal.
"The orchestra is so committed, it’s incredible," she laughed. "It even played when all the lights went off, cause we had a power cut, that didn’t stop us -- we still continued."
At times during the rehearsal, Deutscher stood in for her absent singers, singing along as she directed the musicians through the charts -- pausing to point out a missed note or to tighten up a rhythm -- exhibiting a deep command and awareness for her music, and the musicians playing it.
"It just really struck me how she’s timeless and ageless," said the orchestra's concertmaster Cynthia Baehr-Williams who played Deutscher's Cinderella five years ago with the company. "I mean, she was twelve before -- but she wasn’t -- and now she’s seventeen and she’s not."
Even working with older professionals, Deutscher showed no signs of intimidation, enthusiastically laying out her vision of Cinderella -- which incidentally features Cinderella as a composer and the prince as a poet -- playing out in the opera house of her wicked stepmother. For Deutscher, tuning-in other musicians to her musical synapses is just something she's done since she was knee high.
"When I was a little girl," she said, "I remember that musicians found it a bit strange in the beginning that this little girl is going to come and tell them how the music should sound like."
But years, experience and the force of her vision have erased any questions about her ability to lead into new musical terrains.
"So in that sense I’ve had a lot of experience of telling grown up musicians, professional musicians how to play my music," she said.
As the rehearsal continued, Deutscher's father wandered over to gently remind her it was time for the musicians' break time, leading one to wonder whether she would pause at all if it were up to her. Eventually the rehearsal ended and Deutscher skipped off with her parents and sister to take in the local sights until the music beckoned again.
"I always wanted to be grown up, I never wanted to be a little girl," Deutscher said before parting. "I always wanted my music to be taken seriously because of the music."
For more information, visit operasj.org.
