THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 28, 1996 TAG: 9603260145
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 18 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JOAN C. STANUS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
Home is a car or a futon in an apartment leased month to month.
Family is the cast or the production people they work with, at company after company, production after production, in city after city.
But for these two twenty-something ``opera gypsies'' who spend eight months of each year working their illusionary magic backstage at the Harrison Opera House, transforming people-off-the-street to stars-of-the-stage, it's a glamorous life.
``How many 23-year-olds get paid to travel the world?'' asked Jason Allen, one of the Virginia Opera's two assistant wig-makers and makeup designers.
His colleague, Jimmy Cortez, added: ``This is so much fun; it doesn't seem like work at all.''
Each year, from September through April, the two 23-year-olds work under the direction of Steven Bryant, the VOA's resident wig and makeup designer. But when the Norfolk-based opera closes its season, off the men go - to Santa Fe, Charlotte, Grand Rapids, Mich.; Jackson, Miss. - to work for other opera companies still in production.
As two of only a handful of professional makeup and wig designers who specialize in opera, these two men, even at such a young age, are already in demand.
``We go all over the place ... wherever we get a job,'' explained Cortez, who is originally from Miami. ``We're really just gypsies. We don't live anywhere. But Norfolk is where we're based. We always come back here.''
A nationally known designer, Bryant has credits from Broadway to television.
Both of his assistants found their way into the profession serendipitously.
A New York City native, Allen was attending the University of Vermont with his sights on a career as a modern dancer when he was offered a summer apprenticeship at the Santa Fe Opera Company. There he worked under the direction of Bryant, who was the guest designer.
``I completely fell into this by accident,'' Allen said. ``I was looking for dance work during the summer, but I couldn't find anything. I got offered the apprenticeship, so I said, `Why not?' I did it and had a great time. I left dance behind.''
After that apprenticeship last summer, Bryant offered Allen a contract with the VOA. This season was his first.
Now in his second season, Cortez also found his way to the VOA by working as an apprentice with Bryant at the Santa Fe opera's summer program.
Originally a costume design major at the North Carolina School for the Arts in Winston-Salem, Cortez realized after his first summer apprenticeship in New York three years ago that creating intricately designed gowns and period clothing was not for him.
``You have to be an excellent seamstress to design costumes, but I couldn't see myself, hunching over a little candlelight all day, sewing fabric,'' he said.
Still, the arts beckoned.
``I knew I wanted to do something artistic,'' Cortez said.
When he returned to school the next fall, Cortez switched his major to makeup design. The next summer, he snared an apprenticeship with the Santa Fe opera.
Bryant was so impressed with the college student's proficiency that he offered him a job with the VOA at summer's end.
``It was a complete fluke,'' Cortez says now.
Although he, too, has left his first artistic ``love'' behind, Cortez still creates costumes for such groups as the Virginia Ballet Theater.
But most of that extra work is done during the offseason. While the VOA is in production, the two assistant designers and their mentor have their hands full, creating wigs for dozens of featured performers, chorus members and walk-ons, and designing the stage makeup for each of the performers.
``When you're making up a face, it's like you're painting a canvas,'' Cortez explained. ``All the makeup is a transformation ... and there's a real process to wig-making. Even though opera is changing, there's nothing really natural-looking. It's all very exaggerated.''
Much of the work is done before the performers ever take their first curtain call. After precise measurements of the performers' heads, the wig-makers weave together by hand strands of variously colored human hair, then attach them onto a series of delicate caps - which they also make themselves - with a technique similar to crocheting. The wig is styled to fit the opera's period silhouette, then ``ventilated'' in a 40-hour ``painstaking process.''
Getting all the performers coiffed and painted by curtain call is a finely tuned operation.
``They come in two hours before the curtain goes up, and we split the calls up,'' Allen said. ``It takes about 15 minutes for the men and 30 minutes for the women. We try to keep it down to less than 30 minutes or we wouldn't be able to fit everyone in. Plus an artist wants to be in and out. They don't want you poking in their faces for an hour or more.''
Fitting the wigs can be an elaborate, time-consuming process. In the VOA's current production of Rossini's ``Barber of Seville,'' for example, some performers have more than one wig - one that was supposed to look like their natural hair and another, plopped on top of that hair, to intentionally look like a poorly fitted wig.
After three hours on stage, under hot lights and atop sweating heads, the wigs need revitalizing. The wig-makers style them anew after each presentation.
Then at the close of each show, most of the wigs are packed up and saved so they can be refitted for the next. Only two or three new wigs are created for each VOA production, the designers explain. Most are simply redesigned.
``There are really only three or four head sizes,'' Cortez explained. ``So they're refitted and restyled, again and again.''
Of course, then there are those ``problem heads.''
``You know, they're ones that are really large or have big bumps,'' Allen explained with a laugh.
Despite the bumps, the hectic hours and the changing addresses, life on the opera road for these two up-and-comers is an artistic dream come true.
``This is such a laid-back lifestyle most of the time ... and we get to live in different cities in different parts of the country,'' Cortez said. ``It's just a great way to make a living.'' MEMO: ``The Barber of Seville'' has gone on the road for performances at
Carpenter Center in Richmond and the Center for the Arts at George Mason
University in Fairfax. Performances continue through March. For more
information, call 623-1223.``The Barber of Seville'' has gone on the
road for performances at Carpenter Center in Richmond and the Center for
the Arts at George Mason University in Fairfax. Performances continue
through March. For more information, call 623-1223. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by BETH BERGMAN
Jason Allen, left, and Jimmy Cortez have a great time working
backstage for the Virginia Opera.
by CNB