San Diego Reader

“It’s always good to try things out of your comfort zone so you can know: A. Who you are. B. Where you can grow. C. What you like and don’t like. If there’s a ‘box’ I’m not going to be in it. I don’t like to be pigeon-holed.” –Talise Trevigne

Have we heard statements like that before? Yes.

Do we often meet someone who walks that talk? No. However, when we do meet such a person, we usually refer to them as an artist.

Talise and I sat down to talk about all and sundry. The first topic that came up was Moby Dick composer Jake Heggie.

“I've had the opportunity to work with Jake intimately on more than one project. He’s all about the human condition. You almost forget about the song and you feel as if someone is just talking to you. From the very beginning of Moby Dick, people are on the edge of their seats. It grabs you and it is soul stirring. It’s moving forward and challenging the way we see American opera and yet still has a beautiful melody. I think that’s why it [Moby Dick] has such good legs. It’s already becoming a part of mainstream opera. It’s moving along. We’re booked out."

"He knows how to write for the voice and his soul is in the same place from which we sing. He is very modest about the way he sings and the way he plays [the piano]. I call him golden fingers because he plays beautifully."

"Whatever comes out of his mouth is honest. It can be simple but at the same time poignant and deep. What might come across as a pretty melody, which people are not used to in contemporary opera, underneath that pretty melody is so much angst and the human condition and all the different layers that make us the people that we are. So it’s not simple in any way, shape, or form."

"It’s hard to be that transparent. You have to challenge yourself to dig deeper and not hide behind the facade of opera. You’ve got to be present and allow people to see all that — the dirty and the ugly — and the things that make us relate to one another in real life.”

Jake Heggie and Talise Trevigne will be presenting a concert of his songs on Sunday February 12th at 2:00 pm. The venue is the La Jolla Contemporary Art Museum.

Jake Heggie himself will be accompanying on the piano.

The program will include Heggie’s compositions At the Statue of Venus a musical scene for soprano and piano with libretto by Terrence McNally and Natural Selection with poems by Gini Savage.

Talise Trevigne