COVID isn’t back. It never went away.
While it might appear to some that the pandemic’s impact on everyday life is a thing of the past, it has continued to wreak havoc on indoor local arts productions. What’s changed is that companies have gotten more nimble in finding ways to cover for COVID-affected performers – often by double- and even triple-casting roles – without having to cancel as many performances. Whenever one performer tests positive for COVID, the shell game begins and the show, in most cases, goes on.
The Arvada Center, which has been particularly hard-hit by canceled performances throughout the pandemic, opened “Our Town” on Friday night. On Saturday morning, the lead actor tested positive and was sent into quarantine. Another actor from the ensemble was moved into the role in time for the 2 p.m. matinee without even having had a full rehearsal. Later in the week, another primary actor tested positive and has also temporarily left the show.
Kara Shay Thomson stands in the orchestra pit singing the roles of Marie and Marietta in Opera Colorado's 'Die tote Stadt' while Sara Gartland silently acts the role on the Ellie Caulkins Opera House stage.
Miners Alley Playhouse had to be similarly flexible when an actor from “The Great American Trailer Park Musical” tested positive last week. The Denver Center Theatre Company lost one of its lead actors for an unspecified health reason just a day before its signature Colorado New Play Summit was to begin on Saturday in front of packed crowds made up of national industry colleagues and local theater diehards. Another actor was rallied into joining a reading of a featured play called “The Reservoir,” which went off flawlessly, in large part because the actors did not have to memorize their lines.
But it was Opera Colorado that had the most to lose as it prepared to open “Die tote Stadt” (“The Dead City”) on Saturday for the first of only four performances at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House. That’s the story of a widowed painter unraveled by grief who soon meets the mirror image of his dead wife. And it’s a project that has been four years in the making.
Cast in the dual roles of Marie and Marietta was powerhouse singer Sara Gartland, who was diagnosed with COVID last fall. It was only late into the rehearsal process that the vocal fatigue she was only recently experiencing was diagnosed as partial nerve paralysis of her laryngeal nerve caused by her previous COVID infection. Her role(s), said Opera Colorado’s Jennifer Colgan, comprise one of the most demanding in the opera repertoire, “which makes securing an understudy or cover difficult.” And finding an available last-minute replacement next to impossible.
But the Opera Colorado artistic team found Kara Shay Thomson, “one of the very small handful of sopranos in the world who knows the roles, let alone lives in North America and would not be delayed by visa processes,” Colgan said. “Not only was Ms. Thomson available, but she was on a plane to Denver within eight hours of receiving the phone call from Opera Colorado.”
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After one week of crash-coaching from Music Director Ari Pelto, Thomson stood next to the musicians in the orchestra pit and sang the parts of Marie and Marietta while Gartland silently acted the role on stage. Both received thunderous applause from the opening-night audience, Colgan said.
“This unexpected turn of events would not stop Opera Colorado from bringing (Erich and Julius) Korngold’s masterpiece to Denver,” said Artistic Director Greg Carpenter. “We are grateful that Sara Gartland is still able to lend her talents to ‘Die tote Stadt,’ and it is nothing short of a miracle that Kara Shay Thomson was immediately available to sing these extremely difficult roles.”
If you want to see COVID pivoting in action, the two remaining performances of “Die tote Stadt” are Friday and Sunday (March 3 and 5) at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.