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BY ANAGHA KRISHNAN

In print | April 24, 2008

Last semester, Cara Arcuni ’09 and Henry Clapp ’09 contemplated the possibility of doing a Junior Recital together. Both alums of the Florence Voice Seminar and recipients of the Garrigues Music Scholarship, Arcuni and Clapp felt that it was time to showcase the vocal progress they had made.

“We decided last semester that we were at that point, as singers who could perform at a high level. The summer at Florence really taught us to perform, and it was great to have something to work towards,” Clapp said.

They also received encouragement from their instructors, Julian Rodescu and Debra Scurto-Davis. The rehearsal was part of Arcuni and Clapp’s work for Music 48, through which they also received vocal coaching from Scurto-Davis, who served as their accompanist. As the pair began to prepare for their recital, they underwent extensive training in vocal production, diction and interpretation from Rodescu and Scurto-Davis. The pair had private as well as dual coaching sessions and practiced independently for several hours a week. As the recital neared, they each upped their practice times dramatically.

“I went from practicing an hour a day to 2 to 3 hours a day,” Arcuni said, “Let’s just say that during the weeks leading up to our recital, the time I spent practicing did not balance with the time I spent on academics.”

Clapp also had to forgo a few rehearsals with his a capella group, Sixteen Feet, who, he states, were very understanding about his new time constraints. Apart from their own bodies of work, Arcuni and Clapp also decided to perform two duets from “Don Giovanni” and “Annie Get Your Gun.” Between academics and other activities, scheduling practice sessions for their duets was challenging.

“There was a time that we had to meet at like, 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. But of course, it was for the sake of art …” Clapp said.

Arcuni and Clapp compiled a wide-ranging repertoire between them, from Italian arias to German pieces, Emily Dickinson, Sherlock Holmes and even some musical theater.

Having worked on certain Bellini songs during her tenure at Florence, Arcuni decided to expand upon that body of work. During her research, she also came across Aaron Copland’s work with Emily Dickinson’s poetry. On deciding to perform the three Copland-Dickinson pieces, “I felt a funeral in my brain,” “Heart, we will forget him” and “Why do they shut me out of heaven,” Arcuni said, “Emily Dickinson is a love-hate poetess. I personally love her poetry. The combination of her poetry and Copland being a musical genius was why it was a good idea.”

Clapp, on the other hand, was more familiar with German, which he had taken in high school. He picked a piece by Robert Schumann, whose works he had enjoyed and performed previously. The other songs in Clapp’s repertoire were recommendations from his various instructors.

Arcuni’s personal favorite was the Emily Dickinson poem “I felt a funeral in my brain.” “It was spooky and a good representation of her poetry. Also, the instrumentation was really dissonant and great,” Arcuni said.

Clapp enjoyed all his pieces equally, but was particularly fond of the duets which he felt were a lot of fun. “Interacting with someone on stage is a great fun. Cara is a great singer and a great actress and it was good to work on the whole acting side of things,” Clapp said.

“Arias test vocal capability, but duets test full operatic ability. You have to blend with the [co-performer] and you have to act with that person. It’s a perfect blend of acting and singing, and to be able to deliver both is really important,” Arcuni said.

For Arcuni, this distinction between singing and acting was also part of the challenge. “I had been trained in the musical theater technique, which was very different from the classical one. I had to un-learn some stuff,” Arcuni said.

Arcuni added that, because she had been performing musical theater since she was eight years old, focusing exclusively on music without the acting was a unique experience. This was also why she enjoyed the duets which incorporated acting into the performance, for instance, in “Anything you can do, I can do better,” where she played a feisty woman.

Clapp felt that the sheer volume of work they had to perform was a challenge. Not only did they have to memorize the various pieces, but they had to work up the stamina to sing all the songs at once. Neither had performed in an individual recital previously, and this resulted in some nervousness.

The week before the performance was also not without its surprises. For Arcuni, this meant the cancellation of one of her songs. The piece was not coming together technically, so it was replaced with Puccini’s “O mio babbino caro,” which was perfectly within Arcuni’s range. It was a song from a daughter to her father.

“ I sang it to my dad, who was in the audience. Although I didn’t tell him it was for him, he definitely knew,” Arcuni said, laughing. “He came up to me after the performance and said ‘Thanks, Cara’ and then my mom teased me about not saying anything.”

As the recital neared, the two focused on preparing themselves mentally as well as physically.

“I actually fasted for months, so that I could look good in my suit,” Clapp joked.

All the sacrifices paid off however, as Arcuni and Clapp shone in their performances and were met with enthusiastic applause. They reflected on the whole experience with a mixture of content and relief.

“It was awesome. Performing is such a rush, and a lot of my friends were in the audience. It was a great opportunity to show them how much I had accomplished,” Clapp said.

Arcuni described the entire experience as “Exhilarating. There’s nothing quite like a performance for me. Getting feedback from an audience is like a healthy drug! Although it is kind of habit forming,” Arcuni said.

“Awesome” and “exhilarating” are the perfect words to describe the entire recital, in which Arcuni and Clapp showcased their musical talents magnificently.

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