Rimrock Opera | The Magic Flute

It’s a Mozart season for Rimrock Opera Company of Billings. The second regular season for the opera company opens at 8 p.m. Friday, March 28, with first of two performances of “The Magic Flute.” The second performance is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, March 30.

The season picks up again Friday, Oct. 24, with the first of two performances of Don Giovanni conducted by Barbara Day Turner and directed by Daniel Helfgot. The second performance is set for 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 26.

Season tickets are on sale now at the Alberta Bair Theater Box Office or by calling 406-256-6052. A season ticket reserves the same seat for both shows. Also, former season ticket holders can reserve the seats held during the company’s first season last year. The price on the season ticket with a reserved seat is $50, $35, $20 and $10 per show.

Individual tickets are also on sale and priced at $55, $40, $25 and $15 per show.

Mozart’s unique comedy, fantasy and imagination star in “The Magic Flute.” Billings’ own Cassandra Norville stars as Pamina, her husband, Kiel Klaphake, plays Tamino, and Lisa Lombardy, also of Billings, sings the role of the evil Queen of the Night.

The conductor for the two performances is Robert Wood of San Francisco. Rimrock Opera artistic director Douglas Nagel directs the show.
Both productions feature Montana and Billings talent. Don Giovanni features Margarett Hanegraaf, David Cody, Anne Basinski, Lesley Jorden, Wyoming’s Jan Michael Kliewer and Ethan Herschenfeld.

Opera features ‘Mozart in Montana’
Posted: Thursday, February 20, 2003 11:00 pm

It’s a “Mozart Season” for the Rimrock Opera Company of Billings. The second regular season for the opera company opens Friday, March 28, at 8 p.m. with the first of two performances of “The Magic Flute.”

The second performance is set for Sunday, March 30, at 2 p.m.

The season picks up again Friday, Oct. 24, with the first of two performances of “Don Giovanni,” conducted by Barbara Day Turner and directed by Daniel Helfgot. The second performance is set for Sunday, Oct. 26, at 2 p.m.

Season tickets are on sale now at the Alberta Bair Theater box office or by calling (406) 256-6052. A season ticket reserves the same seat for both performances. Season ticket holders can reserve the seats held during the company’s 2002 season. The price on a season ticket with a reserved seat is $50, $35, $20 and $10 per show. Individual tickets are priced at $55, $40, $25 and $15.

Mozart’s unique comedy, fantasy and imagination are the stars of “Flute.” Billings’ Cassandra Norville stars as Pamina, her husband Kiel Klaphake plays Tamino and Lisa Lombardy, also of Billings, sings the role of Queen of the Night. The conductor for the two performances is Robert Wood of San Francisco, with direction by Rimrock Opera artistic director Douglas Nagel.
“Don Giovanni,” Mozart’s tale of a most licentious young libertine of 17th century fiction, features Metropolitan Opera bass Craig Hart as the Don and Nagel as his sidekick Leporello.

Both productions feature Montana and Billings talent. Among those joining the company of “Flute” are Paul Houghtaling, Shawn Rasch, Nancy Downing, Angela Nelson, Ed Harris, Cody Maki, Leslie Mauldin, Melissa Hamilton, Bret Weston, David Hill and Kevin Schweigert.

“Don Giovanni” features Wyoming’s Jan Michael Kliewer and Karen Cliff, Margarett Hanegraaf Lesley Jorden, Christopher Bengochea and Ethan Herschenfeld.

Baritone and impresario Douglas Nagel is a networker.

He remembers people, voices heard, connections, relationships.
He does favors and calls in musical markers.

And he loves circles showing the continuity of life, music and his favorite art form, opera.

Nagel, artistic director of Rimrock Opera Co., is part of a circle himself. In 1978, he played the role of Papageno in the Billings Symphony Orchestra’s production of Mozart’s opera, “The Magic Flute.”

Next weekend, Nagel directs the opera at the Alberta Bair Theater.
“Look at all that hair,” he giggles, chuckling at the publicity photo in a vintage Enjoy magazine. Longtime BSO conductor George Perkins collaborated with Hall Diteman in the long-ago production. It launched a lifetime love of opera for Nagel. After a stint at Rocky Mountain College and degrees from University of Wyoming and San Francisco Conservatory of Music, he taught at California State University and Southern Oregon University, returning to his first love, the stage, completing training with Opera San Jose.

“I sang 20 leading baritone roles,” he says, “and I directed ‘Die Fledermaus,’ ‘The Tales of Hoffmann,’ ‘Gigi,’ ‘Pajama Game,’ and ‘The Pirates of Penzance’.”
He also pursued a mission: taking opera to children, adapting full-length operas to mini-versions, “pint sized but with big sound for touring.”
ROC’s recent “The Cell Phone” reached 14,000 area children in 40 performances and schools, and Nagel proudly took a shortened version of “The Magic Flute” on tour, reaching more than 10,000 children.

Nagel has always loved the tuneful Mozart opera. “It makes you feel good,” he says of the music. “We’re doing well with the German and have I got the voices.”

While touring Europe and singing around the country, Nagel met and befriended many top voices and talents — conductors, designers and technicians, all opera lovers. Some of those colleagues are in Billings, rehearsing for the upcoming ROC production.

Nagal is thrilled to have Robert Wood of Santa Fe Opera as his conductor. He made his San Francisco Opera debut as pianist for “Lucia de Lammermoor” and has credits ranging from “Othello” to “Hansel and Gretel” to “The Merry Widow” and “Faust.”

The vocalists have mighty backgrounds, too, and are an agreeable mix of top Billings talent and gifted imports.

As the eye-catching Queen of the Night, who has one of the opera’s most memorable and challenging tunes, Lisa Lombardy makes her ROC singing debut.

“Technically, it isn’t her first ROC performance, though,” says Nagel, who tagged Lombardy to play violin in earlier ROC productions. She is remembered as Mabel in “Pirates of Penzance,” and has sung major roles in “Carousel,” “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” “The Mikado” and “HMS Pinafore.”

Another Billings native, soprano Cassandra Norville, will play Pamina, making her debut with ROC after many major roles. She lives in Phoenix, where she lives with her husband, tenor Kiel Klaphake, who sings the role of Tamino and is a Missoula native. The two have performed in Europe and New York and love light opera and musical theater. Klaphake has sung many of the plum male leads: Danny in “Grease,” Tony in “West Side Story,” Conrad in “Bye, Bye Birdie” and Bill in “Kiss Me Kate.”

Bass David Hill tackles the role of Sarastro, bringing the experience of stints in Los Angeles Opera, Roger Wagner Chorale and Costa Mesa Opera. A union studio singer of film and TV soundtracks, he also sings pop and jazz in Los Angeles and has worked with Michael Tilson Thomas, Robert Shaw and Andre Previn.

Bass-baritone Paul Houghtaling as Papageno has toured Europe and played Carnegie Hall in Mozart’s “Requiem.” A favorite with Billings’ audiences, soprano Leslie Mauldin stepped in at the last minute last season to sing Micaela in “Carmen.” She won raves and will appear as First Lady next weekend.

Soprano Angela Nelson will be on hand as Papagena. Another Billings native, she has sung in Italy and in Intermountain Opera productions.

Second Lady Melissa Hamilton has also done major romantic leads in “Carousel,” “The King and I” and “Camelot” and played Musetta and Cio-Cio San in “Madama Butterfly.” She lives in Boise now, where Nagel also works and cultivates his ROC stable.

Mezzo-soprano Nancy Downing’s Third Lady role marks her return to ROC. She sang as a geisha in “Madama Butterfly” and teaches at Rocky Mountain College.

Another Montana connection is chorus master Ed Harris, who has worked in every corner of musical production, from performing to arranging, scoring and conducting.

“He’s just fabulous,” says Nagel. “He has a wonderful rapport. He works hard and everyone else does.”

Other ROC regulars are assistant director Dorinda Doolittle of Medford, Ore., stage manager Bernie Rose and many other stalwarts.

Opera is all in the family for a married couple with Montana roots.
They’re finding themselves paired on and off the stage, thanks to scoring leading roles in Rimrock Opera Company’s upcoming production of “The Magic Flute.”

The two, tenor Kiel Klaphake and soprano Cassandra Norville, are native Montanans now living in the Phoenix, Ariz., area. They rarely have the opportunity to sing together.

“So we jumped at this,” Klaphake says. “Career-wise, it’s a wonderful opportunity. And, for Cassandra, it’s a chance to show her stuff for her hometown, so we’ve been very excited about that.”

In the two performances Friday and Sunday at the Alberta Bair Theater, the two will sing the roles of love interests, Tamino and Pamina.

Show-biz kids from way back and married for eight years, the two met at University of Montana, where both were students. Norville enrolled at UM after being among the first to graduate from Skyview High School 1988. She remembers her “High Voltage” dancing days and has fond memories of cheerleading and singing at Skyview.

She’s 32, and Klaphake, a native of Missoula, is 31.

The two have decided to settle down for a while. Their ambitious plans include a major dinner theater project in Peoria, Ariz., where they have secured four acres near two major arteries to build. Klaphake will act as general manager and producer for Arizona Broadway Theater, and Norville will be artistic producer, managing auditions, casting and the selection of directors.

“She will still be career-minded,” says Klaphake, who has sung many of the great roles of musical theater, from “West Side Story” to “I Do! I Do!” and “Grease.”

Both are also well-grounded in the operatic world, from “Don Paquale” and “La Boheme” to “Carmen” and “Die Fledermaus.” Between stints with Central City Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Ohio Light Opera and Operafest of New Hampshire, the couple has also played European concert halls, “but usually not together,” Klaphake says.

“We kind of take turns when opportunities arise, or we sit down, evaluate and see who can go where and if we might be able to travel together,” he says.

For both, Norville says, “It’s wonderful being married to someone who completely understands the performing experience, the hotel rooms, the pressures.”

Klaphake says, “She knows about the challenges, the living out of a suitcase, the demanding rehearsals, the agents, casting directors, auditions. It’s a unique world, so it’s fabulous to be collaborating on a production.”
The pair is also helping fill the house for “The Magic Flute” with relatives from both ends of Montana.

“There are people here from all over the country, but many have local connections,” Norville says.

“They’ve made the newcomers feel welcome, connected. We have a true sense of community in the wonderful mix of performers.”