Q&A with Eve Summer, Director of Les Mamelles de Tirésias & The Seven Deadly Sins (Part Two)

Praised for her “adventuresome” (Boston Music Intelligencer) and “exuberant and consistently delightful” (OperaWire) productions, director, producer, and choreographer Eve Summer returns to Philadelphia this spring to lead the rising young stars of the Curtis Opera Theatre in a double bill of Francis Poulenc’s Les Mamelles de Tirésias and Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s The Seven Deadly Sins.

In part two of our Q&A with Ms. Summer, she discusses the complexity of these two operas, the historical context of their creation, and her directorial approach to bringing them to life on the stage.

What has been your approach to directing this double bill, have there been challenges you’ve faced along the way, and which aspects of the process have you found most rewarding?
I’m quite instinctual, so I tend to do a lot of research and a lot of prep, then take all the dramaturgy and let go of it, not necessarily put it all on stage. I just feel what’s in front of me, then go with my gut, trusting that all that prep informs my instincts now.

I have always been of the school of thought that subtext is sub and that it’s not incumbent on us to find a place to telegraph it. Just because I think I’ve put my finger on what the subtext is doesn’t mean that I’m meant to paste it on top now. If I find that subtext in the score, so will the audience.

I always want to ask the singers how they feel about certain interactions in certain moments, as opposed to dissecting it dramaturgically. Apollinaire said, “I have chosen to give free rein to fantasy…there are no symbols in my play, which is quite transparent, but people are free to see in it all the symbols they wish and to tease out a thousand meanings.” I love that so much, because his play was informed by his experience as a soldier going through the war, his poetry, his life in France, and a million things. But even he is saying to us, you can think whatever you want. I didn’t write a secret hidden meaning. I wrote something I wanted to write. That’s kind of how I feel about the design process.

Regarding Seven Deadly Sins. The story I want to tell is of a woman who is alone and is forced to go through an exploitative, abusive struggle. The experience of fleeing war [Weill and Brecht fleeing from Nazi Germany to Paris], and the disgust of capitalism, that context inform that pain we feel in Seven Deadly, but the story we are going to tell is Anna’s.

One of the big conceptual challenges with Seven Deadly is that we are doing it without dancers. Our whole company—our Anna’s and our family, and the entire production will be a constant storytelling force. That shaped and informed the way that I thought about these characters. It’s interesting. There are some pieces where I’m like, this is who this character is, or I always want to show this, and I feel like with this opera—my first Seven Deadly—I can’t imagine ever doing it the same twice. There are a billion possibilities for every moment.

I love things that are complex and beautiful. And so, I felt intensely about not creating a world that was dark, dusty, and hopeless, in spite of the darkness that exists within the piece. I didn’t want to create something that felt dingy, or that felt like hell. When I think about sin, sin, to me, is intrusive and blinding. I didn’t want us to paint a picture of a curse or a punishment that plays out in front of us. I wanted us to find a space where we could explore urges, responsibilities, and shame with a sense of danger and immediacy, not as a sort of dark fable that’s already happened. There is a blinding urgency to this story, not something dim. Regarding the portrayal of the family, the mother in particular, I very strongly reject the device of representing inner grotesqueness with outward ugliness. The idea that I want to show is that this person is a bad person inside, so we make them a caricature on the outside. There is plenty to explore in their music, and their action—their demands, their shame, and their sin are grotesque.

When I sit with my score and the designers, I’m talking about people. All the rest of the preparation, research, and information that lives in the back of my mind. I draw from that when we’re trying to understand something or are looking for inspiration for a moment. But that’s not what I want to put on the stage. At the heart of it all, I’m interested in the musical elements and the interpersonal dramatic story; what’s the best way to tell this story; what feels right and true and what makes me laugh or cry.

Do you have any favorite musical or theatrical moments in the operas that you’re looking forward to bringing to life on the stage? 
That’s hard. I would have to say it is in [the fifth scene of The Seven Deadly Sins], Philadelphia, which deals with Gluttony. Not that it’s my favorite moment, but it’s the hardest to try and separate, detach, and do my job around because it is the most personal part of the whole double bill for me—emotionally, musically, in every way so personal. Maybe the baby scene in Mamelles, but [that opera] is just banger on bangers. The music for these pieces is so freaking fun and crazy.

Seven Deadly will really be hard work for the artists because the hardest thing to do is be present on stage without something to sing. So, this is going to be a cool challenge for them to be this storytelling force all the time with movement and pantomime and living out experiences without words. It’s a very vulnerable thing to do. One Anna lives in her costume the whole time, and Anna II goes on a journey through travel—Pride [in Memphis], Wrath in LA, Gluttony in Philadelphia. The way Seven Deadly evolves in my mind is so personal. I think, as an artist, this piece is going to be so personal to all of them—the loneliness of the road, of travel, and the capriciousness of the industry. My first career was as a professional ballet dancer, so it’s incredibly personal. I had a contract with a weight clause in it, just like Anna does. I’m excited to work with both of our Annas and see what resonates with each of them.

I’m a bit of an opera baby. I have a lot of old iconic productions in the back of my mind, so often when I start doing something, I know almost more what I don’t want to do more than what I do want to do, either because something always rubs me the wrong way, or because I just don’t want to copy something that I loved. So many Seven Deadly productions feature professional dancers or a whole dance company. I am trying to be mindful not to let our Anna I become a narrator for somebody else’s physical storytelling. Without a company of dancers that should make that task easier for us, we must lean into all of the singers for the storytelling in a way that doesn’t always happen in this opera. It’s quite a challenge to direct this piece with so much orchestral music and no dancers, but it’s so wonderful to do all of that storytelling with our artists at Curtis, to put them at the center.

Visit Eve Summers‘s official website HERE.

CURTIS OPERA THEATRE: LES MAMMELES DE TIRESIAS & THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Transformations of Desire: A Captivating Opera Double Bill
March 15, 2024 | Friday at 7:30 p.m.
March 17, 2024 | Sunday at 2:30 p.m.
Philadelphia Film Center, 1412 Chestnut Street

Click HERE for more information.

Q&A by Ryan Scott Lathan. Read part one of this interview HERE.

Photo credits: 1.) Image of Ms. Summer by Jacob Chang-Rascle. 2.) Photo courtesy of the director. 3.) A scene from Eve Summer’s production Benjamin Britten’s Albert Herring, with Ben Schaefer and Sophia Maekawa; William M. Brown. 4. & 5.) Behind-the-scenes of Ms. Summer’s production of The Pirates of Penzance at Devos Performance Hall with Opera Grand Rapids. 5.) Candid shot of a tech rehearsal with Eve Summer. 6.) Portrait of Eve Summer by Gentle Grace Photography.