At Boulder Opera, we are excited to announce that Brandon Tyler Padgett will be joining our team once again to direct our production of Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck. Padgett will also be singing the role of Father in the December performances. In anticipation of this upcoming family-favorite fairy-tale, we spoke with Padgett about his vision for the performances, and why you shouldn’t miss it!
Brandon Tyler Padgett: Stage Director in Hansel and Gretel, also featured as Father in Hansel and Gretel, and Lescaut in Manon
Brandon (Tyler) Padgett - Baritone is an artist completely enraptured by the art of storytelling. Tyler is a recent graduate of CU having attained a Master of Music in Vocal Performance and having completed the same institution's Artist Diploma Program. Padgett's most recent roles include Germont in La Traviata, Man with Shoe Sample Kit in Postcard from Morocco, Claudio in Agrippina, and Vater in CU's 2020 online production of Hänsel und Gretel. Padgett is excited and thankful to work with the wonderful minds and artists that are the Boulder Opera.
Boulder Opera: My name is Lauren McCabe, and I'm the marketing manager for Boulder Opera. I am here with BrandonTyler Padgett, who will be the stage director and one of the performers in Hansel and Gretel this December. So, Brandon Tyler Padgett, what do you prefer to be called, and is there a story behind the name?
Brandon Tyler Padgett: I'm usually called Tyler, and as far as the story is concerned, it's very typical in the south for a lot of people to go by their middle names. Everyone in my family goes by their middle name, or diminutive of their first name. So my mother goes by her middle name, my brother goes by his middle name, my father is the one outlier out of all of us. But yeah, that's mostly what happens. I'll respond to Brandon, I'll respond to Tyler, I'll respond to Tidan, Bryler. I don’t really know what the fascination is. It might be because for the first name, we tend to enjoy giving a family name as the first name.
BOC: I know you just finished your artist diploma at University of Colorado Boulder. What made you decide to do that? And what do you gain from having that artistic diploma?
Padgett: As far as my graduate education is concerned, I got my Master's and my artist diploma from CU Boulder.It's a wonderful institution, and I had so many fantastic teachers and such a wonderful experience, and my artistry grew so much from being able to work with these wonderful people. Dr. Holman, Dr. Reger, Dr. Mutsumi Moteki, who is the most wonderful human being. Professor Garland, everyone. Oh, Maestro Carthy, who's just amazing. But as far as my artist diploma is concerned, I am very grateful for doing my artist diploma. However, I started doing my artist diploma in 2020. Don't get me wrong, I am so thrilled that I got to do my artist diploma at CU. It was really out of necessity as I wasn't able to really move from Boulder. I wasn't able to leave my apartment for the most part, it felt like. So I reached out and they still had positions in their artist diploma program and they were like, we've enjoyed working with you, we've loved the experience of having you. So I auditioned and I got in.
BOC: So that's what you did throughout the pandemic, getting your artist diploma. I know that was a hard time for many performers.
Padgett: I graduated right when the Pandemic was just hitting, and we were doing Le nozze di Figaro and I was singing Count. I had been waiting for years to sing Count because I love Mozart, and I was anticipating singing Count because that is the role that baritones who enjoy Mozart Are just like, hey, I got to get it. But we were in our final dress, and we were told that there was the possibility that it was going to be canceled. So the other cast, because it was double cast, went up and had their final dress on a Thursday. We were opening Friday, and we found out halfway that they had canceled the performances. We all knew that it was coming, but it was so heavy on our hearts, and there were no performance opportunities for about a year after that. So being able to do my artist diploma and continue doing virtual performance opportunities at CU, it was so much fun to still have a viable way to continue performing.
A shot from Boulder Opera’s Master Class: Brandon Tyler Padgett working with Anthony Michaels Moore
BOC: So many people ended up just kind of stagnant, especially in the performance industry where you couldn't have in person events. So you're going to be the stage director for Hansel and Gretel, what got you into the idea of wanting to stage direct? Or is it something you've always been interested in?
Padgett: As far as storytelling—if you listen to my mother—primarily since I was like three or four, I would trap my entire family inside of our living room, and I would get up on the hearth and I would perform little stories for them, mostly whatever I'd seen on TV. I was just reenacting it, but they enjoyed it and they recorded it. Oh, God... the recordings. I do have a bachelor's degree in theater, as well as my bachelor's degree in vocal performance. Also, I do have my masters in vocal performance and my artist diploma. So I've got some background in directing. I've taken classes in directing, and I have worked with some fantastic directors in my time, operatic directors. In my undergraduate at the University of Tennessee, James Marvel, he is an outstanding director. He has a nuanced understanding of how he wants to tell stories, so he has an idea for the characters going in. But he gives you just the bare roots, the framework, the inputs to what your actions are going to be, then it's supposed to be organic for every person that is within this character. He is so good at creating organic living stories in opera. He is far and away one of the best directors I've ever worked with. Brian Deedrick at Knoxville Opera, that man is one of the most hilarious people that I have ever met in my life. He's just a ball of energy and always has something to say, and it's always tongue in cheek. His energy and his ingenuity is what was so inspiring to me. So as a director, that's what I really hope to bring to the table—organic, competent storytelling, and these people are just fantastic at it.
BOC: Hansel and Gretel is a great opera to be doing that in because there's so many different emotions where you can let the characters kind of be more organic with their reactions.
Padgett: Right. So the beautiful thing about Hansel and Gretel, you've got two different perspectives that you can go with the storytelling. Of course, you look at some productions, say, done by the Met, and they're much darker in nature. They are trying to emphasize some of the more adult themes, the adult evils of the world that could be placed. And there is a connotation of the perspective of the children seeing it and how it's affecting the children. But it's much more that you see the perspective through an adult lens. Like the darkness is much more mature at times. In other productions, you step away from that because you have the innocence lens. It is the perspective of right and wrong, good and evil. Very binary absolutes that a lot of children have because they're working from a system of base survival. What is going to be comforting and good is good, and what is not comforting is bad. That's where Hansel and Gretel is so interesting to work with, because for our production we are trying to emphasize something that children can relate to. We are really trying to work towards bringing the innocence and the virtue of holding true to a system of love and faith and joy and wonder. I think, for me, for Hansel and for Gretel, what is the most outstanding thing of these two characters is that they are truly wondering. They wonder about everything which gets them into trouble, it's true. But that's what happens to all of us as we grow up, as we explore, as we understand our world. Our wonder does come across some witches or some disappointments or some dangers even. It's coming to terms with it's a scary world out there, but you've got to explore it because otherwise you don't come across the Dew Fairy and the Sandman.
BOC: I know there's a lot of differences between the kind of the classic version of Hansel and Gretel that gets told right now, and Humperdinck's rendition of it which is more based on the Brothers' Grimm fairy tale. What should the audience be expecting to see that's different or that might not follow the same Hansel and Gretel story we tend to think about?
Padgett: Well, the thing that is a little bit different. So the Grimm story, what is not touched on that much is what happens with the mother and the father. That's the thing that tends to be kind of placed to the side. There are some renditions of the story where Hansel and Gretel are actually being abandoned in the woods, which is not the case in Humperdinck's. However, there are elements of potential domestic abuse which we are stepping away from, just to allow for children to experience the story. What we are trying to emphasize with the mother and father in this story is that they are flawed human beings, that they are people who are going through an incredibly stressful time. They are destitute, they are starving. They are not hungry, they are starving, and they are in a spot of desperation that is beyond what would be typical for viewers of opera. It's a situation that I would never hope for anyone, where they have children and all of their energy is going towards maintaining a family system, maintaining a sense of peace and unity for your children. Because the mother and father do very ardently love their children. When the father finds out that the mother, because of fatigue, because of tiredness, because of, oh, my God, if these children are underfoot one more time, I'm going to go insane, she sends them out into the woods. Which that's like saying, go out and play in the yard, I can't stand it right now. My mother told me that all the time. So when the father realizes that the mother has sent them to Ilsenstein, to the witch, he is terrified and he is overwrought with fear of losing his children. The core of why the mother and the father worked so hard to maintain this home, have suffered for so long. But that's, I think what we're trying to really get at the core of it is, there is the world and there are physical limitations to all human beings, but the impetus of love is always there.
BOC: Is there anything else you would like to share about the upcoming production of Hansel and Gretel?
Padgett: Well, things to share. First of all, I would like to thank CU because we are going to be borrowing their production, their sets and their costumes. Ann Piano and Ron Mueller I worked with at CU, and they should be put up for sainthood. They work tirelessly. They are fantastic colleagues. They are so concerned about making the experience of performing fantastic for the performers and for the viewers and just getting to work with these people again, it warms my heart so much. We have little production meetings here and there, and I'm just like you're back, and it's so much fun. So the production values I couldn't be more happy with, I'm over the moon. The singers that we have are absolutely outstanding. I've got friends in the cast, Sabina Balsamo will be performing the Dew Fairy and the Sandman. I am so looking forward, getting to work with all of these people on the core aspects of their characters and how they exist in time, in space, how they're affected by things. So I think for the audience, be prepared to be enchanted. That's all I can say.
Grab your tickets for Hansel and Gretel today!
You do not want to miss this family-favorite fairy-tale opera!