(Operatic Singing) Tonight a New Hampshire Crossroads Special: the creation of the first marionette theater in America dedicated exclusively to grand opera.

(Operatic Singing) Hi, I'm Fritz Wetherbee, and this is New Hampshire Crossroads.

Theme Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from First NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

The Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

Delivering a world of color to you every morning.

Upton, Sanders and Smith of Concord, New Hampshire, providing a full range of legal services throughout the state of New Hampshire since 1908.

And Lockheed Sanders, who proudly supports this local production on behalf of its employees and the community.

The town of Peterborough, New Hampshire, has a long and illustrious history when it comes to theater, dating back to before the Civil War, when there was a company called the Truly Rural Players, spelled T-r-o-o-l-y R-o-o-r-a-l.

In the 1920s, the Mariarden Theater was founded in Peterborough, where the likes of Bette Davis and Doris Humphrey and Martha Graham got their start, and in 1933 the Peterborough Players professional summer stock company opened.

And they've been going for upwards of 60 years now.

Well, the tradition continues.

Last winter, an old building in downtown Peterborough was renovated and a brand new opera house was built.

And New Hampshire Crossroads was there, from the first nail being driven all the way to the curtain coming down on opening night.

It is truly a privilege for me to introduce to you the New England Marionette Opera Company.

Music The old Baptist Church in Peterborough, New Hampshire, hasn't had a meeting in it for over 100 years now.

But that's about to change because, well, because Ted Leach is taking a chance, a big chance.

This is Ted, by the way.

And you see, a few years ago, Ted Leach was over in Salzburg, in Austria.

And while he was there, he attended a production of Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute, put on by the Salzburg Marionettes.

And Ted Leach was so delighted and so moved by what he saw, that he went back again the next year all the way to Austria, just to see the Salzburg Marionettes again.

It became an obsession, and this from a man that I have known for a number of years now.

And I'm here to say that Ted Leach is not an obsessive type.

In fact, he has a reputation for being a hard nosed businessman.

But early in the winter of 1992, something snapped in Ted Leach’s mind, and he decided that there, in the Baptist church, he was going to create America's first marionette theater dedicated entirely to the production of grand opera.

(Operatic Singing) I knew a little bit about opera when I first saw the Salzburg Marionettes.

I knew nothing about marionettes.

I sat in there that night and watched that performance, and as the two of those things came together, it suddenly created a third thing, which I don't know, for lack of a better word, it's marionette opera or something.

But it was it wasn't marionettes, and it wasn't necessarily opera.

It was., it was a third thing.

And you just haven't lived til you’re part of an audience that's standing up and applauding two foot high marionettes and marionettes are taking curtain calls and everything else, and it's, it's a, it's an exciting moment.

I think it's a, it's a wonderful way to, to present opera, to, to reach out to, to broaden the franchise, if you will.

And, but it is a chance, admittedly.

Music Ted's first job was to find an expert in marionette theater, and that turned out to be Roger Dupin, a graduate student in puppetry from the University of Connecticut.

Roger made some models, and the renovation was started.

(Operatic Singing) It's now one month later.

The stage is nearly completed, work has begun on the puppets, and the first production is to be Puccini's La Bohème.

(Operatic Singing) I don't wanna know.

It's, it's naturally over budget.

We thought we allowed for some of that, but we haven't succeeded and in that wise.

But, the other big unknown, the last time you were here, we really hadn't started opening up this 150 year old building.

So we didn't know what the secrets were inside.

And, that we've been pleasantly surprised.

We haven't had to do major structural surgery to the building in order to get in the fire stairs and some of the safety things which we wanted to get into the building.

So we're relieved on that.

The exterior of the building is, is now pretty much go.

We're ready to go with that.

And it's moving right on schedule.

All the parts are originally sculpted in plasticine and cast in plaster and the positive molds are made out of neoprene and that’s the finished, finished pieces.

This is the horrible part because you have to disfigure her slightly to do it.

(no dialogue) We're going to have to go again, go over the, the seam here and smooth it out again to hide the string.

So you can hopefully get a perfect mold.

(Operatic Singing) Putting the mold into form and pulling those strings, you only have about 30 seconds.

If you missed that 30 second guide then you've lost it.

You can't pull the string out, which means you have to go in with chisels and try to break it apart and hope it doesn't break into many pieces.

Music Tip it up.

Well, that didn't quite work.

Oh.

We tried.

(hammer tapping) Ok, one seam at a time.

This is, I think, string A.

(hammer tapping) Okay.

Something just gave.

Yeah.

See what we got?

We've got a break.

Yep.

Very thin.

That ended up very thin.

So we're going to have to patch that back together again.

(no dialogue) That's good.

We’ve got a face there.

Last but not least.

(no dialogue) Fortunately, the heat from the plaster tends to keep the plasticine fairly soft, so it's fairly easy to pull out.

Looks like a real good seam on her face.

Yeah, it should be nice and clean.

Is this for kids?

I, most marionette shows are for kids.

I think, quite frankly, the kids will find it fascinating for the first 15 or 20 minutes and then want out.

These marionettes will perform only opera.

And I was in New York a few weeks ago watching the Salzburg Marionettes at Lincoln Center.

And the families that brought in the kids, the kids were exiting at intermission.

(Operatic Singing) (tool buzzing) The company’s doing wonderful.

They’re doing all right?

It's, it’s incredible.

We started with people who had no knowledge of puppetry whatsoever.

And within a few weeks, they were, they were the puppets.

I can talk to, say, Rudolfo.

And he responds.

I don't have to talk to the puppeteer.

Energy goes right down those lines?

The energy is going straight down.

There is character and it's the puppeteers that are doing it, although I think some of it is also the puppets themselves.

They come to life.

Have you found that you’ve fallen in love with your puppet?

I mean, do you?

No, no no no, but that's a that's that's not a that's not a ha ha question.

You know, you find, I find that if I were into some kind of a implement that I'm using, a camera, for instance, that you find that you develop a great affection for it.

It’s like an offspring.

Yes.

It's a separate entity.

No serioudly, you feel that way?

Yeah.

It's a separate entity that we brought to life.

It's like Frankenstein's monster.

Whatever.

You know, it's it's your child.

It’s a little person you’ve brought to life.

You really do.

Especially since we started out, we acted out the whole thing on ourselves.

And some of you are running puppets that are, female and you’re male and or male and you're female.

Most us, most of All the females are run by men?

There’s only two, two women in the show, and they're both run by, run by men.

Do they have the that female sensibility?

Yes.

Do you get tired when you're when you're up on the, on the - Hanging over the bridge.

Yeah.

Leaning over.

It's not so much the fingers as your back.

Yeah, yeah.

So you'll see.

You do any back exercises?

Stretching.

Yeah.

They're supposed to.

How long?

How long are you supposed to do this for?

This, this exercise?

Until all your fingers are done.

You go through it twice.

Once forward, once back.

Well, how long is that?

Ten minutes, maybe?

Okay.

We finished the wall.

We've built a cast of marionettes.

We've blown the budget sky high.

Talk to me about the budget.

Yeah.

What’d you think it was going to cost?

What's it costing?

I thought it was going to cost less than its cost.

And the total cost is too much.

Most of you just came off the street, right?

I mean - Pretty much, yes.

I mean, you came off the street, you didn't, you've never done this before?

Right?

That's right.

Okay.

Now, did you find it was tougher or easier?

Than we thought it would be?

Yeah.

Give us a few weeks.

Yeah, it's it's easier now.

It gets easier each time.

Like, we're doing the second act now.

And the first half was hard.

I had a hard time getting that.

But, the further we go along, the easier it is to control what we're doing and to keep out of each other's way.

At first that was a big problem cause we’re always on top of each other on the bridge.

Also, just making the things walk would seem to me is - Yeah, holding them level, keeping them from not kneeling, floating above the stage.

That’s tough.

Music The sound is, will be done using digital audio tape, will be the final medium we'll be using.

Right now, we’ve been working with CD's, but we need to shorten the opera a little bit and so we can do a better mix with the digital digital audio.

So that's where we're going.

We're going to have to translation on the - Right.

We're going to do English surtitles, which will shoot above the proscenium opening there.

(Operatic Singing) Mimi!

More!

(Operatic Singing) Mimi, are you singing?

(Operatic Singing) Yeah, that actually doesn't look that bad, them stepping off that coach.

Yeah.

Is that control level?

No, it’s tilted back.

Now it’s level.

Okay.

Oh,no.

I’m sorry.

It's.

Is that level now?

Now it’s level.

Now it's level.

Can you look her up?

Tilt it back.

Oh, God.

Oh, God.

Her leg strings are too short.

Good.

Can you do that every time?

I can try.

(laughter) What are you doing?

Sit down.

Oh.

(laughter) Do you have investors?

No.

I'm doing this all myself.

- tomorrow morning - What's happening?

Woah.

that gives you the freedom to do what you want to do.

Can I ask you what your wife thinks of this?

She, she, she is very supportive.

Oh, that’s nice.

Yeah.

She's seen me do things like this before, so.

(applause) He's wonderful.

Who's he supposed to be?

(laughter) Little too much hair, I think.

Oh.

That's great.

Isn’t that great?

Yes, that’s great.

(laughter) Watch out Edgar Bergen, there’s competition in the house.

(Operatic Singing) We’re sold out tonight.

We’re sold out tomorrow night.

We’ll probably be sold out next, next weekend also.

(Operatic Singing) You lost some weight?

This was a 14 pound project.

Is it the project that made you lose the weight?

Is it?

Oh, I think so, yes.

I mean, the irregular hours and everything else, but that's that's good.

That's for the good.

(hacky sack sounds) (audience talking) (Orchestral Tuning) (applause) Music (Operatic Singing) Music (Operatic Singing) Music (applause) (Operatic Singing) It was really exceptional.

It's something that grows on you as it goes on.

I've found you've just sort of become involved in it.

And you, and you, and you relax, and you feel as if you're at a stage play with live actors, and the music is exceptional.

(Operatic Singing) Music The New England Marionette Opera Theater has performances on Friday and Saturday nights, and in the summertime they have matinees on Sundays.

Thus far, the audiences have been large and some not so large, but all have been enthusiastic.

After La Bohème, they will produce Madame Butterfly and at Christmas time, Amal and the Night Visitors, and sooner or later, Ted hopes to have a repertory of some dozen operas that they can play.

If you were to ask me whether it's worthwhile traveling all the way to Peterborough just to see this, I would say, without reservation, yes, although you probably will need a reservation.

Anyhow, thank you very, very much for joining us.

Until next time, for New Hampshire Crossroads, I'm Fritz Wetherbee.

Music Operatic Music Presentation of New Hampshire Crossroads is made possible by grants from first NH Banks, serving the financial needs of individuals, corporations, and local governments throughout New Hampshire.

The Union Leader Corporation, publisher of New Hampshire's statewide newspapers.

Delivering a world of color to you every morning.

Upton, Sanders and Smith of Concord, New Hampshire, providing a full range of legal services throughout the state of New Hampshire since 1908.

And Lockheed Sanders, who proudly supports this local production on behalf of its employees and the community.

Theme Music