What I’ve learned at the opera

RECENTLY I was eating at an Outback Steakhouse near Lexington, Ky., where my wife, Barbara, has family. I was just about to take my first nibble of my Bloomin’ Onion appetizer when a waitress, who was not our waitress, crouched beside my chair and tugged at my sleeve.

“Hey,” she said. “I can win $20 if you’re Garry Marshall.”

“How?” I asked.

“I’ve got a bet with two waitresses and a busboy over there. They say you aren’t Garry Marshall, because why would you be here in Lexington?”

She pointed to her fellow workers smiling near the kitchen door.

“You win.”

“I knew it!” she said, giving a thumbs up to the group. “Why are you here? To direct a movie?”

“No,” I said. “I’m visiting family.”

“What’s your next movie?” she asked. “ ‘Pretty Woman 2’? ‘Princess Diaries 3’? ‘Beaches’ with more crying?”

“Actually,” I said, “I’m taking a break from movies to direct an opera. It’s called ‘The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein.’ It was written by Jacques Offenbach.”

At that, she gave me a perplexed look and said, “My order just came up! I’ve gotta run.”

I’ve seen that look a lot lately when I’ve told people I’m directing an opera -- or technically, an operetta -- by Offenbach. It’s a look that translates as, “If Offenbach wasn’t in People magazine this week, then I don’t have a clue who he is.”

Still, after three decades as a TV and movie director, I am more than directing a work by Offenbach -- I am making my opera-directing debut with one. I am part of a plan conceived by Placido Domingo, the general director of Los Angeles Opera, to hire movie directors to broaden the genre’s appeal. I just hope it doesn’t prompt opera-star bobble heads.

To be honest, when I quickly said yes to the project, I was a little surprised myself. But I love a challenge. Despite my lack of experience, Placido thought that since “The Grand Duchess” was written to get laughs, I would be a good fit. “It’s a comedy,” he said, “an operetta about this duchess who falls for this military guy and promotes him -- for all the wrong reasons -- to commander in chief of her army and then ...”

Offenbach was a fan of marrying physical comedy to satire, and so am I. And this particular piece, written in 1867, has rarely been done since. Throw in the fact that I would be working for L.A. Opera and with great artists like mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade and conductor Emmanuel Villaume, and it was a project I couldn’t say no to. Placido said the book would be in English, and the score sung in French with English supertitles. And nobody in the story dies.

Singing a different tune

MY wife has been a subscriber to L.A. Opera for more than 18 years and has dragged me along to see the classics, many of which I have enjoyed -- the music far more than the length. After all, I grew up in the Bronx, where the only time I heard my friends use the word “opera” was when we went to see the Marx Brothers in “A Night at the Opera.” Otherwise, my early days were filled with playing stickball and drinking Pepsi with milk.

I had rubbed elbows with opera, when J.F. Lawton wrote so passionately about it as the screenwriter of my movie “Pretty Woman.” Plus my friends Terrence McNally (“Frankie & Johnny”) and Jan Breslauer, dramaturge at my Falcon Theatre in Burbank, urged me to try it.

So with curiosity and enthusiasm -- as well as nerves and more than a little fear -- I went to work on “The Grand Duchess of Gerolstein” at the beginning of this summer.

The first thing we did was shorten the title to “The Grand Duchess.” And the first big lesson I learned was that, compared with the movies, the budget was practically nonexistent -- a couple of million dollars. The budget for my movie “Runaway Bride,” with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts, was $72 million. However, in both worlds the attitude toward the budget turns out to be the same: They want you to cut it.

When I’m faced with a project where I don’t have as much money to work with as I would like, I do the next best thing: I surround myself with women. I was raised in a household with my grandmother, mother and two sisters, so I feel most comfortable in a room where the women outnumber the men. There’s nothing more exciting to me than to work with talented women. The title role in “The Grand Duchess” is being sung by Frederica von Stade, who is world-famous. Yet while many people know of her, probably few outside the opera world know that her nickname is Flicka. When I was a kid, my nickname was Flip. So it’s interesting to note that Flicka and Flip are now doing an opera together.

My set designer, costume designer and lighting designer also are women: Heidi Ettinger, Constance Hoffman and Mary Louise Geiger. Rumor has it that Offenbach also preferred working with women. For one thing, he is credited with inventing the cancan, perhaps one of the most festive dances of all time. Our choreographer, Vincent Paterson, has come up with a version that is one of the highlights of “The Grand Duchess.”

Opera singers are used to performing scripts that have remained unchanged for decades. But in this case, I came up with a new script and, as in the movies, each day the actors received colored pages denoting changes. During rehearsals, I could tell they were getting a little anxious, so I decided the best thing to do about fear was create more fear. One day, I filled their scripts with a big stack of new blue pages. When we passed out the scripts, there was grumbling among the entire cast, until they opened to the blue pages and saw they were all blank!

I discovered that a good prank works in all fields to defuse anxiety.

I have also learned that directing stars such as Frederica von Stade and Paul Grove is as easy as working with Julie Andrews and Tom Hanks. They adapt easily to anything you throw their way, and they do it with charm and grace. Versatile baritone Rod Gilfry is a specialist in new operas and was a great asset. Constance Hauman has been a kick to work with; if I still had “Laverne & Shirley” on the air, she would be a guest star in a minute.

Collaborating with Maestro Villaume, meanwhile, has sparked an international cacophony of accents. In fact, given his thick French accent and my even thicker New York version, we have come to communicate amazingly well using mime. Along with my assistant director, Michael Phillips, and choreographer Paterson, the cast and crew are as quick and bright as any that I’ve worked with on a movie. I also get the task of directing a full chorus (50 total), 16 dancers (with the help of Vincent), four nonsinging acrobatic actors and a cute little dog, which sometimes leaves me with more than 80 people onstage at one time.

A similar sensibility

MOST of all, I’ve enjoyed pairing up with Offenbach. The more I’ve learned about him, the more I’ve found we have in common. Although he was quite successful writing comic operettas, he longed to do more dramatic and classical work. But the critics discouraged him by saying, “You are the ‘Mozart of the Boulevard.’ Stick with what you know.” This definitely resonated with me. When I directed my first movie at age 42, industry insiders discouraged me by saying, “You are the ‘King of the Sitcom.’ Stick with what you know.” (They didn’t mention my show “Me and the Chimp,” a flop that suggested I knew nothing.) Offenbach ignored the critics and composed “The Tales of Hoffmann,” his most famous work. I’ve done fine in the movie business.

Offenbach wrote “The Grand Duchess” at a time in European history (1860-70) when the circus was drawing crowds as competition with the opera and operetta worlds. Thus he included physical and visual moments in his work. I’ve done a lot of this in my version, and luckily the dancers and clowns involved blend in smoothly with the opera artists, both onstage and off.

My preconceived notion of the opera world was that it was a realm of impossibly snobby, temperamental divas, of elitism and of artists of such magnitude that they would think comedy was beneath them. Instead, here I am with an adult group of brilliant performers who collaborate in all areas, finding comedy fascinating. Who have no agents or managers hovering. Who don’t hide in their dressing rooms (there are no dressing room trailers in opera as in movies or TV -- it’s an indoor game) and who mostly are extremely brave about trying new things, both music- and acting-wise. They are also fun.

One day during a break, as I do in movies and TV, I got out my glove and threw a softball with my assistant, Heather (we have a coed team, the Falcons, named after my theater). The next day, various artists and crew members showed up with their baseball gloves to join us.

There is now talk about challenging the cast and crew of “Pagliacci” (the opera we are running in tandem with) to a softball game on a mutual day off. Our tenor can both run and field. And he carries a big bat.

Garry Marshall has written, produced, directed and acted in motion pictures and television.

*

‘The Grand Duchess’

Where: Los Angeles Opera at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 6 p.m. Saturday; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 15, 22 and 28; 2 p.m. Sept. 18 and 25; 8 p.m. Oct. 1

Price: $30 to $205

Contact: (213) 972-0777 or www.laopera.com