“Opera was around my whole life, which was quite a gift.”
Her grandmother, who continues to inspire at 95, was an opera singer. She taught Wells her first aria, from the Marriage of Figaro, at the age of eight.
“Anything I wanted to sing, she would teach me. We’d go to church and I’d hear the soloist do ‘Rejoice Greatly’ from the Messiah and I’d be like, ‘Can I learn that?’. We would go home and just learn it.”
Figaro is still a beloved favorite, a “lovely little chestnut”.
Wells received her undergraduate degrees in English and Communication Management at the University of Dayton. After spending some time as an arts administrator, she decided to pursue the creative side of her personality and received a Masters in Voice, learning the crafts of singing, acting and movement.
“I discovered that I was happiest when I was making music and so finding a way to do that as a living became important. It’s a nice reminder that you will land where you’re supposed to land, which is something I try to share with my students.”
Wells’ own art centers on her recitals — usually a solo vocal performance of classical art song or arias with piano or other instruments. She also records, releases albums, and performs with Boston-based composer Joseph Summer, who writes contemporary opera settings of Shakespeare text.
Wells, 47, lives in Oakwood with husband Philip, a government teacher at Wayne High School, and their two collie dogs, Bonnie and Fergus.
Intimacy direction
In addition to her professorship, Wells is the Intimacy Director in residence at the Dayton Opera, working on all productions. Bringing in trained professionals to guide performers through boundary-respecting touch has been in the news recently in relation to film, but it is also a burgeoning approach in the live performing arts.
“There are two paths that one takes when working in intimacy. Intimacy coordination is the work done for film, and it’s called that because it is literally coordinating minute details. Intimacy direction, or intimacy choreography, tends to go with live performance. That’s a much bigger picture, because we can’t stop, (whereas) in film you do something for 30 seconds and then pause and re-set. In live theater, we’re talking about a big dramatic thru-line without stopping.
“The job is developing, with the performers, choreography for moments of physical intimacy on stage. It can be romantic or just familial touching. It’s about how you place your hands on another person in a way that honors the boundaries of the performers.
“A lot of the time in artistic fields, we commodify the performer as a body or a voice, and we forget that they’re humans with their own experience that might make certain things difficult. The main job of the Intimacy Coordinator is to make sure you are telling the story in a way that makes them feel as safe as they can.
“There is no boundary that is insurmountable to figure out how to stay in the moment and tell the story. I love that our younger performers coming up have this as an expectation. Folks my age and up, didn’t have that,” she said.
“In order to sing beautifully and effectively, it is very vulnerable. You have to open up parts of yourself for viewership, and that is scary.”
The next phase of her research is going to be audience response.
“How does it make people feel to know that they can ethically watch something that’s yucky, if they know that the performers have been taken care of?”
Slow morning
“I’m a fan of the slow morning. I get up really early with my husband, at 4:30. He gets ready for school. I like having coffee with him before he goes. It’s a nice way to start the day. When he leaves, I usually go back to sleep.
“I’m up again around 8 and have coffee with the dogs, catch up on email.
“I’m at school by 10. I have found that voice students don’t want lessons too much earlier than that.”
Credit: Hannah Kasper
Credit: Hannah Kasper
Little divas
Wells teaches one-on-one voice lessons out of her office on the UD campus. The modest space is fitted with a grand piano facing a wall decal of a chandelier so students “can be little divas for a while”.
“These are in-person explorations of vocal technique and dramatic considerations of music, and how they align with each other. A lot of kids intellectually understand what they need to do but then figuring out how to functionally make it happen is what I spend the bulk of my time doing with them.”
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
The good word
“There might be a meeting. I’m the Chair of our Recruitment and Retention Committee here in the music department. We spend a lot of time thinking about how to attract students. There’s a special kind of student that likes to come here, so how do we find those students and spread the good word. Once they’re here, how do we make sure we’re giving them everything they need to go out and be successful in the world.”
The Flittermouse
Opera and performance classes take place in larger rooms or in the concert hall of the Roger Glass Center for the Arts, where end-of-semester recitals are held.
“When I’m teaching and directing, we are talking about how to inhabit a character and how to move that character’s body around the stage. If a student is having trouble, I’ll say, what is the story? What are you actually saying? I love being able to fix a technical problem with a dramatic impulse, it’s a lot more natural.
“This semester I’m teaching Vocal Performance Ensemble, which is our version of what some places call ‘opera workshop.’ We tend to do more than opera. This semester is Johann Strauss’ ‘Die Fledermaus’ (literally, The Bat or The Flittermouse). It takes place in a Russian aristocrat’s ballroom. For me, this year, that felt a little loaded and I didn’t really want to do that, but, the music really suits our singers and their abilities.”
Playing with this structure, Wells wrote a dialogue set in current day, re-conceived as a reality singing competition.
“My primary focus is always how I can tailor the experience to the students to make them shine and grow. I love the freedom to do that here.”
There will be three celebrity judges at the final performance, including Professor Minnita Daniel-Cox, the Dayton Daily News’ own Russell Florence, and former Governor of Ohio, Bob Taft.
Credit: Contributed
Credit: Contributed
A bigger question
Three times a week, Wells teaches a 50 minute class called Music and Faith on Stage, which is a course she developed as part of her doctoral work at University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.
“We look at the way music is used in worship between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. We talk about the core beliefs and tenants, and then we flip it around and look at how those faith traditions are portrayed on stage in opera, musical theatre and pop music.
“What I love about this class is that each of the pieces I’ve chosen to introduce them to is dealing with a bigger question about the world and how faith feeds into that.”
Master class
“Then I might teach a master class, where the whole voice area, regardless of major, gets together. It teaches students to listen critically to feedback. It sometimes unlocks greater knowledge in yourself, too.
“Our voice area is very varied. The largest percentage of our students are Music Therapy. That could look like, for example, singing a song to help people figure out how to regulate their walking pace if they’ve had a stroke. It can be creating a song to help you process a difficult experience. In that field you need to be able to sing everything, so we teach pop, opera, musical theatre, classical art song, oratorio, jazz.
Take care
“I drink a ton of water. I try to take vocal naps when I can, twenty minutes where I’m not talking. You can ‘warm down’ your voice, too. It’s called semi-occluded vocal tract exercises. Sometimes you’ll see folks singing into straws, for example. It takes pressure away from your vocal folds.”
Fiber club
Wells squeezes in time between classes for “hallway chats” with colleagues, or a visit to the Roesch Library to meet up with the Flyer Fiber artists.
“It’s a little club for faculty and staff. We meet over at the library and crotchet and knit and do stitching and talk about stuff. I taught myself how to crotchet during the pandemic.”
A nice little life
“A typical day I leave around 3 or 4. Our vocal performance ensemble does have one night a week where we rehearse from 6-10, so I come back for that. We do a lot of choreography at that time.”
Wells and her husband get home around the same time.
“I cook a lot. He goes to bed early so we have dinner together, relax, read. I love mystery novels. I started reading Agatha Christie when I was a kid. He reads a lot of science fiction and history.
“In the warmer weather we sit on the front porch and in summertime we’re basically out there all day reading and working. It’s a very nice little fulfilling life.
“This sounds so dorky, but he’s my best friend and we just really enjoy time together. Our downtime, a lot of it, is just conversing.”
Know better, do better
“When you’re young, you are eager as a performer. We’re trained in the academy that to be a good colleague means to say yes to anything, whether it’s comfortable for you or not. The job of the Intimacy Coordinator is to be the voice in the room that can advocate if needed and that everybody is on the same page.
“A big part of this is undoing things that we have taken for granted as being possible. You can’t beat yourself up for not knowing things before. When you know better, do better. You’re allowed to evolve as you learn.”
MORE DETAILS
“Die Fledermaus” will be performed at 7:30 p.m., April 25-26; Concert Hall, Roger Glass Center for the Arts. Purchase $18 tickets at am.ticketmaster.com/rogerglass/buy.
Andrea Chenoweth Wells intimacy directs Verdi’s Aida at the Dayton Opera April 4, 6. More info at daytonperformingarts.org/production/aida.
More info: andreachenoweth.com
About the Author
