The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Daniel Belcher & Kathleen Belcher Joined Alex Urpí & Michael Urpí On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Singer Daniel Belcher & Kathleen Belcher, Director at The Charlottesville Opera, joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Craddock Insurance Services Inc and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Today y Mañana. I'm Alex. This is Michael. We're very excited to have you joining us on a beautiful morning here in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is nice and warm. Summer is fast approaching. Summer is here. Without being too humid today. No, it wasn't too humid. We had a couple of cool nights, but I was looking at the forecast, and it was like 90, 91, 92. I said, okay, it's here. It's here. It's here.

Well, I mean, next week it will officially be summer, but in charge will restart early. So no more hot cafe con leche. It's only cold for the next three months. Only iced cafe con leche. Only iced. Xavier would probably still say, he's a purist, he would probably still say do the normal hot cafe con leche.

Well, that's if you have one of those people who would like to put their AC at like 67 degrees so they wake up cold. I mean, then you could still have your café con leche, but the minute you step outside you're going to be sweating in about five minutes. And then you're going to be like, I need the ice. I want the iced café con leche. So this is a great opportunity to get your

iced café con leche, settle into a nice spot, and watch some Today y Mañana because we have some awesome guests that are going to be joining us shortly. We're going to be super excited to welcome Kathleen Belcher and Daniel Belcher from the Charlottesville, doing the music man here at the Charlottesville Opera on the show. So we're super excited for that. Already got some people tuning in. It's not surprising that Liz Herpe,

huge opera fan, is tuning in. Dr. Elizabeth Herpe watching the show this morning. I did see a couple other lights here that I think were already liked in the show this morning, so we will be sure. Wow, we're popular already. We just opened up. Oh yeah, we know. We just started and we've already got some people tuning in.

Triple Oats Farm, we had had them on a couple weeks ago. They were watching the show this morning, so we appreciate that. Yep, absolutely. So we appreciate them tuning in this morning and watching some Today y Ma absolutely. So we appreciate them tuning in this morning and watching some Today y Mañana. So we, as always, send us any questions, comments.

Monica Miller from Montana joining us this morning. Thank you for tuning in. So as always, we love all our fantastic guests from around the country and sometimes if we get lucky from around the world.

So we are looking forward to that. Of course, a couple of shout outs. Thanks for being here on the I Love Seville Network. Thank you to Emergent Financial Services for presenting our show. And, of course, our great partners at Charlottesville Opera, Credit Series Insurance, Matthias Young Realty, and Forward Adelante. So we are looking forward to it.

Glad to be on here with you. I'm happy to be here, Alex. We were talking on the preview, I guess, before that. It had been a while since we were the dynamic duo on the show. Absolutely, absolutely. So were talking on the preview, I guess, before that it had been a while since we were the dynamic duo on the show. Absolutely. It's always good. Yes. I'm very comfortable in this chair. I don't have to do all the

hard work. Alex has to do all the hard work. I just get to ask a question every once in a while. Exactly. You get to open, close, control the... You get to pull the Xavier and just come in with your questions. Exactly. I'm forced as the host to ask you. You're in with your recommendations. Exactly, exactly. You know, exactly. You know, I'm forced as the host to ask you.

But you're so good at it, though, Alex. That's the problem. If you weren't so good, maybe other people would take a shot at it. But at that point, you're so good, no one else wants to challenge you. It's like the Lion King. You're the Mufasa. I wouldn't go that far. You're the Mufasa of the toasting.

I wouldn't go that far. You got to be carefulasa of the toasting. I wouldn't go that far. You got to be careful. Nick's going to scar you or something. Exactly. But I love doing it in part because we get to talk to so many amazing people. And two of those amazing and talented people are going to be joining us right now. So I don't know about you, but I'm ready to jump right in. I'm ready.

So as people know, some of our favorite things is music. And that includes both opera and musicals and everything that Charlottesville Opera does. So we are super excited to welcome to the show this morning, Kathleen Belcher and Danny. I know you know me, Danny Belcher for the Charlottesville Opera. Kathleen, Danny, thanks so much for coming on this morning. Great to be here. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So for those who haven't met you yet, obviously, Kathleen, you're going to be directing such an important role. We've talked, we interviewed some directors for the director for the musical last year. It's just so much that goes into it. Huge role for the

Music Man. And Danny, you're going to be performing as the main lead in the Music Man, one of the two main leads in the Music Man. But for those who haven't met you yet, maybe start by telling us a little bit about yourselves and how you first became interested in performing and also in directing. Great, sure, I'll go first. It's great to be with you guys this morning. Thank you for hosting us, and we're thrilled to be here

with Charlottesville Opera these three weeks. I actually grew up in St. Joseph, Missouri, and Music Man is really interesting for me because it's the first piece of theater I ever did as a kid. My grade school music teacher was the music director for the local community summer theater, and they were doing Music Man, and she's like, you want to do a musical? And I said, what's a musical? And so I was in the chorus, and I understudied Winthrop as a young kid, and now 43 years later, I'm revisiting it.

So it's... But with this career, it's a career that's taken me all over the world, and I get to primarily sing opera, but all of a sudden, I'm dabbling back into the land of musical theater as opera companies are producing more musicals. And just thrilled to be here doing this piece with my wife, Kathleen.

Yeah, I know. We should mention it's a dynamic duo that we have on this morning. How about yourself, Kathleen? I, when I was in, well, when I was a kid, I loved musicals. And then I wanted to be a Broadway stage manager. So but somehow my career path took me to opera, so this has been a really great triumphant return to musicals, and it's a different kind of challenge,

but one I really enjoyed taking on, and it's been great being able to work with Danny. And our daughter is actually in the show, too, so we're like the Barrymores of Charlottesville these days. So yes, here we are. But it's great. It's a new challenge, and we're having a lovely time here. What are some of the differences of directing an opera versus a musical?

Well, even though they're both centered, the music is the center of the piece, I think the most challenging thing, and Danny had alluded to this, is the center of the piece. I think the most challenging thing, and Danny had alluded to this, is the choreographic part, which I don't have to do in musical. We have a great choreographer, Casey Turner, who is doing the choreography.

But I think that's sort of the really, the challenging thing for me is trying to integrate those pieces that I don't normally have to do in an opera very often. Yeah. Casey is watching the show this morning. Thanks for tuning in, Casey, as well as Bea Anderson. Thanks for tuning into the show this morning. Kathleen, you've directed for operas. I read the

bio like La Scala and Teatro Real in Madrid. Now you're at the Metropolitan Opera you've done. What drew you to the music man? What was it about it that drew you to it? It's a new challenge for me. And the opportunity to work with my family is really compelling. And as Danny said, more opera companies are starting to do more musicals. So I thought it would be a really good way to sort of test that water and see how I did with the musical

so it's been really fun and it's it's a great piece but the music's fantastic and um it it it's a great story about transformation and how the power of music transforms a city into a loving environment and that's uh something i think we can all use today. Absolutely. You kind of answered because I was going to ask what makes the music man so popular because I didn't realize I'd heard of the music man like Alex I'd never seen it but so many people know the music man it's been playing since

I mean it first came out like in the 50s and 60s and I was curious as like kind of what draws people so much to the music man you know because it's kind of a story of like a comment so I was kind of like oh kind it's kind of like curious what exactly kind of like makes this so popular yeah I think the story is a lot of fun

and the idea of transformation I don't even think it's just the city I think it's actually the character of Harold Hill who is essentially a con man at heart all of a sudden he discovers that humans can be real and not just pawns in a game. And I think his love then for Marian and her brother Winthrop and the whole community becomes very genuine. There are inherent challenges with musicals, particularly for opera singers

that may not, we train slightly differently for me being able to I grew up as a tapper and I grew up doing musicals and then kind of abandoned ship on that and then did opera essentially for 30 years and then all of a sudden this last year of my life I've had multiple musicals Into the Woods, Sound of Music

I'm doing Little Women musical next month in Hawaii so being able to really revisit this art form is really exciting for me. So when you approach this role, do you kind of look back on past performances? Like, how do you kind of try to say, like, I want to get into this character?

Sure, and since it's my first time doing the role, even though, like I said, I was in the piece at the age of 10, but then completely forgot it. And when I started learning it, and there's particularly a number called Trouble, which is Harold's really famous number in the first act. It's essentially a 13

page rap. And you don't think of rap in the 1950s, 1960s. But it's really what it is. And so I think Meredith Wilson's writing in some of the ways, the scene on the train where a lot of it is this spoke sung nature is was really kind of ahead of its time it's interesting we were talking the other day in rehearsal when uh uh the year that it premiered it was up against

another small show called west side story for best Musical in the Tonys. Never heard of that one before. And actually, it beat West Side Story. So at the time, I think it was, maybe West Side Story was a little too adventurous for where we were, but I think Music Man was already starting to lead into that direction. How interesting. Yeah, what do you think about, because I would imagine that spoke something that method is a challenge in ways that may be different from a recitative in an opera. Yeah, absolutely.

This may be a very bizarre parallel that I'm drawing here. I do a lot of contemporary music, so I get to work with a lot of living composers. And the compositional style now is sometimes you're singing fully and sometimes you're whispering, sometimes you're screaming, sometimes it's more declamatory, sometimes it's spoken. And so in many ways, it's exactly what

Meredith Wilson asks of Harold in this. So I'm able to kind of cross-pollinate, shall we say. To take the newer music that you're working with and apply it to something that was written back then, but it works. Yeah, it completely works.

That's fantastic. So I know one of the exciting things is you mentioned Harold, which is going to be your role, the con man who changes over the course of the story, but obviously his love interest is going to be Mary in Peru in the story, and she's going to be performed by Lindsay Osei, whom you've both worked with before.

So what's it like working with Lindsay? Oh, Lindsay's fantastic. She's a great artist and a really good human, which is always a good combination. And she brings this joy to the character and to the rehearsal room that's really welcome. I did a traditional opera with her a few years ago in Orlando. And I think she meets these challenges equally to the challenges that she faced with that particular piece.

And she's very game with the whole dancing thing. She and Danny dance together, and I think they have a really good time. It's a lot to ask opera singers to do some of that stuff that they're not used to doing, but they're both really good at it. She's great at delivering dialogue, and she's really good with kids. She has to deal with our young

actors who are playing Winthrop, and she's particularly good at it, especially she's a new mother, so she's got a three-month-old baby at home, and she's particularly good at it, especially she's a new mother, so she's got a three-month-old baby at home, and she's, you know, coming to rehearsal six hours a day, so go Lindsay. But yeah, no, she's great. And she's a wonderful Marion.

Yeah, it's funny you mentioned the kids, because that was kind of like my next question. You have a lot of children in the musical, too. How is it kind of like we're working with all the local kids and everything? It's great. They've been really good they're um really well prepared they're very excited um very excited to be there and they bring a lot of energy to the room which is good and uh i think they're having a good time and maybe learning something too yeah because we have uh there's two young guys playing winthrop there's actually four young

ladies playing amaryllis uh and then other kids in the chorus. So there's a lot of community investment within there with the kids and their families. So when you say there's multiple women, you're saying that like different nights. Correct. So not within the musical will you switch just on the nights? No, no, no.

They each get a performance. Or at least the four young ladies playing Amaryllis and then the two guys will each get two performances. Okay. Yeah, the kids are really fun. I made some reference to maybe being a Taylor Swift fan one day, and they made me these great friendship bracelets. So it's been fun having them around.

I was just asking because we had gone to the Nutcracker this year, and it was kind of funny seeing the kids when they kind of performed because they're kind of like following the directions every once in a while. They were very small. They had some really small ones. Yeah, like six or seven, but then suddenly they were kind of like a little lost. You could see the people on the side, like you've got to come this way. So it was kind of like cute

because it was kind of like a moment where it was kind of outside, obviously, the performance, but you're like, oh, look at the little kids getting lost. I think most people kind of crack up at that so just you have a balance here because obviously the part of the premise is that harold is there to supposedly set up a boy band and so you've got obviously a couple main characters who are kids but then you have like a little choir band and i'm just interested as a director is the is there like a balance between like the spontaneity the children bring but also like keeping them yeah if you have to sort of you

know it's like it's a lot like herding kittens you have to sort of you know manage them into the box but and get them to do what you want them to do without being you know um dictatorial right so and and to not squash the creativity so it's trying to like channel the creativity and harness it in a way that is is beneficial to the show but they really have brought a really high level of a professionalism to to the process and uh and they come in prepared and eager and curious every day so it's uh us adults can learn a lot from them actually absolutely absolutely so what are some of the things that maybe that for

audience members who maybe haven't seen The Music Man or haven't seen it in a long time, maybe they, you know, watched the movie growing up but really haven't returned to it, what are some of the things that you are most, each of you is most excited about or things people will really enjoy from this upcoming

performance? I mean, I think the quality of singing and acting is particularly good. Our barbershop quartet, I think, is super high level. I think, nothing against you, Danny, you're doing a great job. I've always loved the barbershop

music in this show. Even when I was a kid and watched the movie, I was always really drawn to those numbers. And I think they're really fun. And I think the guys do a really great job with it. So I think that's one of the things that I was surprised about. So by barbershop quartet, you mean like four different guys playing four different instruments kind of thing? No, it's a vocal quartet. So they're the school board members who hate each other at the beginning of the show,

and then Harold Hill sort of convinces them to try singing and then once they start singing together they're they you can't separate them they're always walking around singing and smiling and some of that music is just inspired I think it's really great great music yeah how about yourself Danny uh so I I think the music first and foremost is what makes it so special. But there's also this wonderful innocence to the piece, but yet there's also this really strong dramatic underpinning with Winthrop trying to deal with his disability and how the community engages him.

In particular, Harold gives him a tool to open him up, the young man, and to be able to find his voice. And so I think there's a lot of earnest heart to the piece, which I don't find saccharine, I find very honest. And so there's wonderful depth to the story, but there's also this incredible lightness uh and i just i i dare anyone not to sit there with a smile on their face absolutely

yes it's sort of like it is easily i mean we've we've seen enough where you you can easily devolve a you know come in finds his way piece into something just too comical or not realistic but i think the beauty of this one is that there are these side stories with with windrop with the relationship obviously with him and his his older sister right and so forth that kind of add a level of like you said real depth that there are actual real changes happening to everyone that's making not just maybe Harold potentially, I don't want to spoil it, a better person, but the town a better place despite the fact that you would think, wait, if you introduced a con man to a town, things get worse. But how that things

evolve, that's not necessarily the case because even someone like Harold can have good qualities that he brings out in others. Absolutely. It's a beautiful... Out of curiosity, is there a challenge? How do you kind of approach the fact that you have to play someone who is endearing while also

simultaneously you have to portray to people that he is a con man? We've actually had this conversation quite a bit because it is a challenge. I'm like, what do I find likable in him? And he always gets by with the cleverness of his words and the way he uses them

in order to manipulate people. But I don't think he's really felt true emotion. And I think the vulnerability of this job, of going to this town and trying to start a band, even though he has no idea what he's doing musically, it changes him too. And I don't think he goes into this thinking ever that he could change.

But there's a genuine joy about which he goes about his work, but I think discovering real human beings changes him. How do you approach trying to demonstrate that kind of change in a character

on the stage? Because I'm thinking about the most famous character change you can always think of to me is Scrooge, right? But that's like an easier one to kind of demonstrate, because he's mean and nasty in the first half, and then after three goes, he's like happy-go-lucky. So already people can see,

oh, okay, Scrooge has changed. But how do you kind of show that change on stage? At the end of the day, all I have are really the words that they've given me. I always say, as a performer, I can research all I want, but all at the end of the day I have are those words. And I think Meredith Wilson's book, he did the book, the lyrics, the music, he wrote the whole thing, I think enables him to,

all the information's there on the page. So I think he's the last one to be transformed. He's watching everybody else change. And even at the end, when all of a sudden he realized they're trying to convince him, leave, leave, you can get out of town. He said, no, it's time for me to pay the piper.

Because I think he's fallen in love and I don't think it was something he ever set out to find so I think it's all inherently there and there's the double reprise with 76 trombones yeah good night my son where the two of them sing together and you all of a sudden realize it's the same song they've been singing the same tune but not together and then at that point so I think the music helps sell that transformation. Yeah, because the theme of 76 trombones is exactly the same, but it's written differently as the love melody. So it's the same language, but it's always been approached differently, and then all of a sudden they merge. And whether that's subtle or whether it's overt,

that'll be up to the ear of the listener. But I don't think that's accidental. And then there was a very deliberate choice on Meredith Wilson that they speak the same language, they just speak it differently in how they can change each other, the two of them. Oh, that's amazing. I hadn't realized that.

But almost like the music itself is telling you something in the story the tune even beyond the words i mean you the words are there but you take away the words and the the very notes are kind of telling you something about the story and where it's going which is that's that's fantastic i had not known that yeah you'll have to listen for that you're like like, oh my gosh, it really is the exact, it's the same song. It's, yeah, one is a ballad and one is upbeat, but it's the same tune. It's the same tune. That's amazing. I had not known that.

I had not known that. I kind of wanted to touch with you both because you had alluded to it a little bit at the beginning and then a little bit in the pre-show when we were chatting that musicals are now something that is coming back into opera houses where maybe it hadn't been in the pre-show when we were chatting that musicals are now something that is coming back into opera houses where maybe it hadn't been in the past.

What do you think that is saying about where the industry is going and what do you think may be some of the positives about that? Well, at the end of the day, whether you're talking about opera or what we call musical theater, it's all music theater

or theater with music. Just in opera, it's all music theater. Or theater with music. Just in opera, we tend to sing everything. But you can say that same thing for Les Miserables. It's a completely sung show. And Hamilton. And Hamilton is completely scored. So it's not that bizarre of an idea to connect the two worlds and particularly that we have this incredible wealth particularly in of american musical theater uh opera companies are

are starting to explore what is it if it if we have completely operatically trained voices how will this sound what if we take i just did a Sound of Music at Houston Grand Opera and we had an orchestra of 50 playing it, which you don't get if you go to New York. You're never going to get an orchestra that size. We have a 30-piece orchestra here, so a full orchestra for this score.

And hearing it with maybe somewhat trained, differently singers, I think it's a really natural evolutionary step and i don't know why it wasn't done earlier in all honesty yeah and musicals are the are our folk music right so it's just like the uh the the older baroque operas would have been popular music for that time it's it's so it's a not it's like you said it's a natural transition. Now, do I want to hear opera singers singing Hamilton? Maybe not.

So I'm not saying that every opera is going to necessarily transfer to the opera house well, but there are those that really can. Well, we think all the way back to Mozart's Magic Flute. It's essentially a musical. It's number dialogue, number dialogue. They call them zingspiels, which is

sung plays. Sung plays. Operettas, the same way. Charlottesville did Mary Widow a few years ago. It's a musical. It's a song and dialogue. So it's actually not that far of a reach.

But for some reason, for I think a period of time, opera houses are like, you know, we have so much operatic repertoire we want to produce, why don't we leave the musicals to the other? Well, then I think people finally start asking, why not? It's just music theater. Why aren't we doing both? And so I think it's really savvy that the company here,

really, I think it seems like part of their mission, at least it has the last several years, that there's always a musical balance with an opera. With an opera, yeah. It's like you said, I think sometimes we have a tendency to try to put things in boxes as opposed to seeing them as a continuum. And it's like, well, the continuum,

I mean, like you said, you've got your musicals and your operas, every Wagner, I mean, they never stop singing. But then I remember the first time I saw Don Giovanni, and I was very young to opera, I had heard some others, and I heard most of Don Giovanni. I'm like, wait, in the middle they start, you know, sing-songing, and then the harpist goes every five seconds. And I said, that's kind of like a more musical because they stopped singing.

He started, like, sing-songy talking, and then you hear some operettas, and he's flat out just talking. He's not even sing-songy talking. He's just talking. And so you realize, well, there is this beautiful continuum there. And anything that can, I think, that can bring people who maybe still young people may think of opera as being this box and to say well no there's there's a journey that may lead you to a place where you can really appreciate maybe a completely sung a completely stored opera but you got there slowly you started with with musicals that maybe were a little more folksy you got got in touch with and then maybe you went to go hear something that has a has recitatives and arias and then then finally, if you didn't dedicate the six hours,

you get to honor. But it's a continuum that you can appreciate. Yeah, and it's interesting, because if you actually talk to most young singers, like, where did you start? How did you get into this art form? And a vast majority say, oh, I did musical theater as a kid.

I did musical theater growing up in school. I did choir in school. But musical theater was always a part of it. So I think it's a very natural step in that and the direction towards opera. Absolutely. That's fantastic. So did want to give you both a chance. I mean, both of

you are doing so many amazing things, both here and elsewhere. Anything else upcoming for the two of you? Where you'll be next? Where people can look out? Oh, sure. We stay busy. Last fall we just joined the faculty together at the University of Houston Moore School of Music. So Kathleen runs the opera program and I teach voice there. So that was one big change in our lives. But as soon as we're done here, I

go to the Hawaii Performing Arts Festival to teach and actually perform in a musical, Little Women, the musical, and Kathleen goes to Munich, and you can tell about that. Right. Yeah, I'll be working at the, or observing, actually, at the

Bayreuth Stotzoper on the Pellias in Melisandre, which I will later direct for the Dallas Opera in November. So, yes, I'm going to go. That's exciting. Lots of little French opera. We know our viewer, Monique de Miller, that she's originally from the area of Bavaria,

so she'll be very excited. She probably knows where that is. She'll know what that location is. And then Kathleen's back at the Met next year to direct the Barber of Seville. I'm back at Houston Grand Opera for West Side Story. So there's... We stay plenty busy.

And then we cheer on our daughter from afar. Absolutely. Where is she performing at right now? She's at school at Oklahoma City University. So a big musical theater school. She's here with us. Then she goes to Hawaii to do Little Women.

Then she'll be back in school. You'll be with her in Little Women as well. That's awesome. That is awesome. Michael and I, we're brothers. So we know the family business part well. It's always a joy. Yeah, but we don't go to Hawaii for our business. No a show in Hawaii so we got do it there you go on location

location couple shout-outs Ricardo Cruz Durand thanks for watching the the show this morning so this is fantastic where can people I have the dates for where people can get tickets, which I'll say in a moment. But where can people, if people want to just kind of follow you both, learn more about you, what's the best way for people to do that? I actually have a website, danielbelcherbaritone.com. And you can follow me on my manager's website, which is stratagemartist.com.

And Danny is also. We're both on that roster. And Lindsay's on that roster, too. Yeah, we all are. Perfect. Stratagemartist.com. Perfect, perfect. And then as for this coming weekend, so it's going to be next weekend.

So June 21st at 7 p.m., June 22nd at both 1.30 p.m. and 7 p.m., and June 23rd at 1.30 p.m. Yeah, you don't take four times, okay? Twice a day, that's a big one. That's true. So you have four amazing opportunities to see this. You've got your day matinee shows, you've got your evening shows, charlottesvilleopera.org.

You can find tickets, you can also find them at the Paramount Theatre's website, but also if you go to charlottesvilleopera.org you can find tickets you should also find them at the paramount theaters uh website but also if you go to charlottesville opera.org there are links to paramount where you can get your tickets and find out about everything going on at charlottesville opera so be sure to check that out again uh the basis of friday saturday sunday it's 7 p.m on friday 1 30 and 7 on Saturday and 1.30 p.m. on Sunday. Not this coming weekend, but the following, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd of June. So it's going to be fantastic.

We're looking forward to it tremendously. And really, this has been just such an absolute pleasure. Thank you both for having us today. Thank you so much, and good luck for the next weekend. Thank you. Best of luck, and thanks again for coming on. Appreciate it. So as we go ahead and rotate out here, I think Nick was trying to give me a reference.

And I don't know if he's giving me a name or if he's giving me some kind of waltz from something. But I figure he'll explain it in a second there. So he knows more about opera than I do. Fantastic. Looking forward to it. Absolutely. It's probably going to be a bomb that weekend. Oh, it's going to be a huge success.

Oh, yeah. See, Linda Valsa is one of the viewers watching our show this morning. Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. It's such a beautiful sounding name. I thought it was the name of a song. So, see, Linda, thanks for tuning in this morning. We appreciate it.

Yeah, and always a joy to just talk to the amazing artists that work with Charles for Acre and Kathleen and Danny, definitely some of them. So we appreciate that. Yeah, what a weekend for them. I mean, wow, there's two shows in one day. Two shows in a day for a weekend. Yeah, I can't even fathom that. The work that goes in.

They work hard. I mean, Nick has been to some of the dress rehearsals, right? Yeah, I can't even fathom that. The work that goes in. They work hard. I mean, Nick has been to some of the dress rehearsals, right? And he says sometimes, you know, you go to these performances and you just see the talent on display, right? And you forget the work that goes in. And not just from the performer's side, from Danny practicing, right? But also the director behind the scenes. Well, think about it.

They have to do like costume changes probably at some point too whatever setting changes and it was telling me last year uh for when he went to the dress rehearsal for guys and tell us just even the dress rehearsals the one before the final performance the director cut in and yeah move that let's move this that street man needs to be in a different place got to do this part a little faster. You have to move here. There's just scenes, so many things that need to come together. And I would imagine the challenge, a little bit extra challenge for Kathleen this time

when you have a little group of children, you have this boy band that's super professional. You know they're going to be great. But you want to capture, like you said with your reference to the ballet you want to capture a little bit of that spontaneity you do but you also need to control it though i mean at the same time you know you're in a you're in a professional play you don't necessarily want the kids kind of wandering off and just walking around you know because like it happened a little bit in the nutcracker ballet but because it was sort of like a lighthearted family thing, everyone laughed, you didn't mind.

But in a play, you have to kind of reel it in, and we know how little kids can be. It's like, it can be tough. Yeah, ruin it without, like Tatlin said, without stifling their creativity. Yeah, so it's not like this. Yeah, you don't want to be stiff little mini people. You know, you want them to be kids, but in a different way.

But it's going to be really awesome and Lightly Rev is just a beautiful story too because one of the kids he's dealing with a speech impediment so it's about him learning to overcome that there's some great partnerships that can be

had there and I know it's a beautiful thing to maybe encourage other kids to say hey look look at there and I know it's a beautiful thing to maybe encourage other kids to say, hey look, look at this because I know the opera has a partnership with the LSU School of Speech Pathology to kind of highlight

the challenges of having a speech disorder and overcoming that so it'll be and people will kind of see it in the production there so it's going to be fantastic I think everyone should be looking forward to it Oh, okay. So it'll be, you know, and people will kind of see it in the production there. So it's, yeah, it's going to be fantastic. I think everyone should be looking forward to it.

And you still have time to get your tickets. Time is running out, but you still have time. The clock is ticking. The clock is ticking, but you've got some time. So again, charlottesvilleopera.org, also Paramount Theater of Charlottesville. You can get your tickets. Yeah, all performances are going to be at the Paramount Theater, correct? All performances at the Paramount Theater of Charlottesville. You can get your tickets. Yeah, all performances are going to be at the Paramount Theater, correct? All performances at the Paramount Theater.

So you're talking June 21st, June 22nd, two performances, and June 23rd. So be sure to check that out. And this weekend, we've got some exciting College World Series. UVA baseball. I saw a hashtag that said the Omaha's. Omaha's. Because we're going to Omaha's. Omaha's. So that's always exciting.

So we beat Kansas State two out of three last weekend. Won the first two games. Didn't even need the third. So what have you been seeing? When you see this UVA team, what... Well, you and I have been discussing, I mean, the offense has been clicking all year. And that wasn't really the worry coming into the playoffs.

Our worry was sort of can we pitch well enough that we can score to win? Because at the same time, you're going to face better pitching because you're going to be facing better teams. You might not be scoring nine, ten runs a game. We happened to do that against Kansas. Was it Kansas State? Kansas State. Yes, we happened to do that against Kansas State, but going forward, you

can't rely on, oh, we'll just score 8-10 runs, doesn't matter what our pitching does. You may be held to 4-5-6 runs, which means you need your pitching to pitch well, which happened. And we were really pleased. I mean, we won a game either in the regionals or against Kansas, like 4-2 or something like that, if I remember. And I was like, you were shot there.

Like, you were really winning 4-2. And that was the Mississippi State game in the regionals. And there was one of those games, like you said, where we kind of pulled away in the 9th inning, but we were only up 4-3 or something. Yeah, exactly. Basically, the first game

we wanted extra innings against Mississippi State. The second game, yeah, we pulled away in the 9th, but up until that 9th inning it was close. So, I'm looking forward to it. I'm kind of hopeful that if the pitching can just keep three, four runs, let the offense hang in there. Late in the game, you've got to trust the offense to find ways to score runs

because they can score via the home run or actually any way. Yeah, put singles and doubles together. Yes, they can put a rally together. Yeah, that's one of the nice things. So they find ways to score. I mean, obviously, with Coach O'Connor's small ball, they're always going to be good at small ball. Because he definitely, you can tell, he coaches his team well.

Bunting runners over, sack bunts. Making sure he can score runs. But what's beautiful about this team, too, is that they can just put a bunt. They don't even need to do that. Sometimes they can just put a bunch of runs on the board and it's good to have we were talking about this you know with major league baseball too it's good to have different ways to score because you never know in a given game are you going to run into a pitcher who's limiting the home run and get the score that way oh you're going to run into a pitcher who maybe

is not giving not putting a lot of guys on base. So you may need that big home run to score some runs. So it's good to be able to win, to score in different ways. Yeah, and we can definitely do that. And then the pitching, it's funny, I read an article about our pitching saying on the one hand,

the pitching has been great in the postseason. I mean, you're talking J. Wolfo and the regionals 8.1 innings like what was it one or two one ball right and then again six strong innings it's almost seven strong innings i think in the super regional right evan blanco keeping us in the game both times and then the relief pitching which had been really rough in the course of the year holding it together not giving up a lot of runs, keeping us in the game in extra innings against Mississippi State

so that we could walk it off. And so on the one hand, you're like, man, that pitch has been strong. On the other hand, you can't just completely ignore the regular season months of rough. Well, I guess the issue now is we're facing tougher teams. I mean, our first game is against UNC, is it? UNC. UNC. There's someone we faced before.

They had two games where they hit us pretty well. I think we won the series 2 out of 3. But they had two games where they hit us pretty well. The key for UVA is you don't want to really lose this first game because then you don't want to be in the loser's bracket because once you get to the back end of the pitching, you begin to worry again. So it would be you got to win this first game because then you don't want to be in the loser's bracket because once you get to the back end of the pitching, you begin to worry

again, right? So it would be you got to win this first game and then potentially, most likely, you might end up playing, was it Tennessee? Number one overall, Tennessee. Yeah, that's the challenge with our bracket, right? We've got Florida State. Granted, we've only played Florida State once this year. They

beat us in the ACC tournament, right? So you've got Florida State, you've got UNC, which is a rival, and you've got number one in the country, Tennessee. So your challenge is, as you said, you don't want to fall into loser's bracket in the first game because then you have to win four games in a row.

But then you've also got the thing where in the second game, you've got potentially Tennessee or the challenge if you fall in a loser's bracket. You do not want to hit a loser's bracket if Tennessee loses that first game because now you've got to beat the number one team in the country in the loser's bracket. Well, but that shouldn't happen. You'd hope that certainly at that point you'd beat Florida State.

But, yeah, I think ideally if you're just looking at UVA, you know, we worry about the pitching, which means that, you know, your top two starters are the ones where you really want to win the game because you're not exactly sure how the back end is going to do. Exactly. You really want to be in a scenario where going into the third game that you need to win, you only need to beat probably Tennessee one out of two times. Exactly. That's what I was thinking.

You can win those first two games, right? And one of them might be against Tennessee.. If you can win those first two games, right, and one of them might be against Tennessee, but if you can win those first two games, then you put yourself in a scenario where you just have to beat Tennessee once. You don't have to beat them two times again. Yes. You just have to win one of those last two games. And you can kind of hope that, okay,

hope the offense shows up in one of those games. Because you never know what happens. That pitcher pitches really well and you get shut down. Now you're kind of looking and saying, okay, now it's a do or die game. You really want to at least give your offense a chance to kind of show up because they've been winning for this team all year. One of the nice things is, like we said,

the offense is good enough that you feel like you do not need your pitchers to come in there and give up one or two runs. You could win. We could win games where we give up three or four runs. We can't get blown out so big early that you put ourselves in a hole.

I remember that the tricky part playing in Omaha is that the steam is a little bigger. The good thing for us is that we've hit a lot of home runs but like you said, you look at top of the line if it's like 1-3, we're batting well over 300. They can string together rallies. I think that's going to be key for them

because you might not be able to hit that go-ahead 3-1 homer, but you can string together the rallies to kind of get big innings. And that's probably what you're going to need if you want to beat some of these teams. Put a couple of big innings on the board because you might not have too many opportunities. You've got to cash in when you get that. Exactly. So that's the team.

One thing I will say that is a little bit in our favor is Disrum Park also has a very deep center field. We've hit some homers there. So, alright, Omaha has been everywhere, but we do have a deep center field that's over like

400. There's a four. Oh yeah, the deep part. But it may even be like 410, 415. So there's a deep part of the park. And I've seen some homers we've hit there. So we can hit some deep long balls if we need to be. We're not a team that will die at the warning track every time. But like you said, we can score in different ways.

And they got confidence in the team. So I think even down late in the game, I think they feel like they can come back and win. So that's key. And again, we've talked about this. The pitching, you've got to keep it close. At least keep it within two runs. Exactly. I mean, three becomes a little difficult, but definitely within two runs,

the offense can come back, even in the eighth, ninth inning. Especially when we get into the bullpens, some of these teams. I mean, we got some runs even against some potentially MLB caliber arms. And so you keep us in deep. We will break through fine if you give us a chance. Yeah. I mean, you and I talked about this. I remember hearing John Smoltz on like a thing,

and he was saying the thing about when you're using a starter versus bullpen, if you have a starter who's going deep, if he's on that day and he continues to pitch, it becomes hard for that offense to hit him. When you suddenly have to use two or three relievers, yeah, two of them might be on that day, but now you get into that chance that one of those relievers isn't on. He walks a couple guys, he's falling behind.

That's your opportunity to kind of like grab the game by the throat because, you know, you could get a couple big hits. You get two runs on the board, now they've got to take them out and bring someone else in. And now that guy's coming in with runs on base, which is very different. Exactly. It's a stressful situation, and that's when you could really kind of pound on them.

And that's why it's key to really try to get to the bullpen if you can. Exactly. And we've shown the ability to do that. I mean, we scored a bunch of runs late against Kansas State, and we scored like, I'm pretty sure we scored five, six runs in that ninth inning against Mississippi State. Well, that's how we kind of really won those games. It really was kind of like, you know, we did a good job against the Stars, but once we got to the bullpen, that's when we mashed. And put the game out of reach.

Put the game out of reach, yeah. Which is what you want. You make Alex save a couple of hairs because he gets less stressed. Bottom of the ninth with the other team up to bat is very stressful. Well, remember, the Alex theory is in baseball, don't even bother watching when the other team's up to bat because nothing good can happen. Yeah, nothing good can happen.

Exactly, exactly. It's not like football or basketball. It's like, well, football, you can go pick six. Basketball means no back or forth. But in baseball, when the other team's up to bat, nothing good can happen. Exactly. Kevin Higgins, watching the show this morning, thanks. I think he's got

my philosophy. I'm going to buy what he is saying here, because he says UVA baseball is peaking at the right time and has O'Connor as its coach. I think Omaha is going to learn what Oahu is. I hope so, Kevin think Omaha is going to learn what Oahu is. I hope so, Kevin. From your lips to God's ears.

Yes. Amen. We are hoping for that. Absolutely. But, I mean, I think you're right. I think people may be underestimating us because we're like 12 in the country as opposed to, you know, you've got your one, two, threes that are there. But, hey, anything can happen. I mean, number three, Arkansas, we should have been playing them last weekend.

They didn't make it out of the region. Listen, in my opinion, we're probably top three offensive all-college baseball, if not number one. I mean, we were probably – Absolutely. This season we were scoring ninth every once a game. It was unbelievable. That's the interesting part for me.

I'd say I think you're right. We're top five, easily, offensively in college baseball. And, obviously, I think you're right. We're top five easily, offense in college baseball. And obviously, pitching we're near the top. But, if we can be pitching well at the right time, if this pitching can hold out, this pitching in playoffs has been

top ten in baseball. And like Kevin said, maybe if you peak at the right time, you just get a little hot at the right time, that will carry you. Exactly. Keep our fingers crossed. Keep them in the up. Keep them in the fingers crossed.

And, you know, again, we have a good coach too, which always helps. He's a coach. And when's the first game? Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Okay. Tomorrow, first game. So it's going to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

So be on the lookout for that. Be on the lookout for that this weekend and then the following weekend you can calm yourself down by going to watch some beautiful Charlotte Philopera. So it's in charlottephilopera.org. So this has been a great show. Always love talking music with you.

So many great viewers. Really appreciate today. Max Cook, thanks for watching the show this morning. Vanessa Parkhill, thanks for tuning in this morning. All our fantastic viewers. We appreciate all, thanks for tuning in this morning. All our fantastic viewers, we appreciate all of you for tuning in and sending us your comments. So really, really appreciate the great viewership that we have.

Appreciate Judah behind the camera making us all look good. Appreciate the I Love Seville Network, Emergent Financial Services, Charlottesville Opera, Credit Series Insurance, Matthias Realty. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for having me, Alex. Always a Opera, Credit Series Insurance, Matthias Realty. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for having me, Alex. Always a joy, always a joy.

I don't know if it actually would probably be Xavier. Might be Xavier, we'll see. We'll find out. And you will find out. It's one of the beauties of today in Maniata. You never know who's going to be on. Exactly. I'm just kind of hoping I'm not in that chair next week, but that's okay. We'll find out. We'll find out. We'll find out. But we look forward to seeing you all next week.

But until that time, as we like to close it out on the show, hasta mañana. Music