April 23, 1975
Listen to Interview

[Tape #50]

Q: Dr. Hawn, as kind of a background question, I would like some information on your own personal background, your education and your early professional associations perhaps career aspirations before you joined the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary.

Hawn: I was originally from Huntington, Pennsylvania. As far as my professional musical career is concerned, I really decided to go into music as a profession while I was in the service. While I was in the service, a man met me from Texas who became very interested in my singing voice and offered to give me free lessons. He was a member of the Royal Opera Company in London, England. He gave me free voice lessons in exchange for singing in his choir. He had quite an influence on my future because he thought very highly of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and encouraged me upon my completion of service, to attend the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York.

So that's what I did. I really in my young life had no intention of going to college because I came from a very poor home. There was no money to do such things but the GI Bill and the help of my good wife who worked throughout my total educational experience made it possible for me to go on and really get into music as a profession. So, I went to Rochester, New York to the Eastman School of Music in 1946.

I graduated from there with a degree in voice performance in 1949. I stayed a year longer doing opera and music literature and more voice work and received my Master of Music degree from the same institution in 1950. Then I went to work.

I had an opportunity to go into professional work but I wanted to teach. So, I took a year's leave of absence position at Ferdonia State Teachers College in Ferdonia, New York. There I directed some choruses, worked on some television, opera work, and taught voice, and that was how I spent that year filling in for someone on their leave of absence.

Then a unique opportunity came up. The U.S. Government wanted me to try an experiment at the Griffith Air Force in Rome, New York. That is a research and development center for the Air Force. They wanted to find out if a civilian director of music might be able to be successful at a military installation in teaching the music to both military and civilian personnel. So, I accepted that position.

It was a civil service position. I went there in 1951 and stayed until 1953 when I came here to the Division of the College of William and Mary.

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Q: Why did you accept a position in the Norfolk Division's Music Department in 1953?

Hawn: In 1953, the reason I looked around a bit I enjoyed the work I had there at Griffith. I had like a small conservatory where I was able to teach voice and I had several choruses. I even had a little opera program. I had some military men assigned to me who had the instrumental part of the conservatory program and it was highly successful. I had a Glee Club that performed all over the United States and I did a great deal of festival work (choral festival work) throughout the State of New York, and in Pennsylvania, Michigan and a few other northeastern states.

At that time the civil service became rather uncertain. They were cutting back on a number of positions and as you know when you have economy, they tend to do away with so-called fringe benefits and unnecessary positions that civil service might have. I just felt that this wasn't at that time too secure a place to be for somebody who had a family and so forth. I also, of course, had this training in opera that I was only able to use on a very limited basis there. The position here in Norfolk was primarily to develop an opera workshop program and to teach voice and since these were the fields that I had been trained in at Eastman. Of course, I felt that the security would be greater and the area appealed to me, although I never lived in Virginia.

Q: In what kinds of music had you developed the most interest in by 1953?

Hawn: Well, I am a musician that has many varied interests in music. My training has been rather broad and I have always been interested in teaching and singing very much so in opera. I've always been interested in opera because of the various arts that you have to put together in order to present an opera. It's a very challenging and most difficult of all musical media to work in and this challenge appealed to me. So I will say that my principle areas of concentration would be in opera and in voice. I had gotten a taste of television at Ferdonia which I also like very much. That was in the early days of television.

I had also always done choral work. I'd always enjoyed conducting choruses of all kinds both secular and sacred. In fact while I was at Griffith Air Force Base, I started the civic chorus there that was a combination of the city singers from the various church choirs and the singers of the Air Force base. And to my knowledge that civic chorus is still functioning after all these years. So, I would say that sacred music in the area of church work, chorus, opera and voice were my main interests.

Q: Could you describe the conditions which you found in the Music Department upon your arrival in 1953 such as faculty morale, the physical surroundings and the instruments?

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Hawn: Of course, that's been 22 years ago and it has been a long time. I do remember that when I came here to the Division the Division really consisted of what is now the Old Academic Building and the old Larchmont School. We had quite a number of temporary government buildings on the campus at that time. There was a two story wooden structure that many of the classes were taught in which was a government building. Then there were barracks in which we had our Music Department.

Our Music Department was in the parking lot next to what is now the Old Academic Building. We had pot-belly stoves in that barrack in which we had to come and fire those stoves in order to keep the place in the winter time warm enough to teach in. Of course this had a detrimental effect upon the instruments because there was no way to keep any kind of constant heat in those buildings. We were janitors and firemen and just about everything. I would say that the morale of the faculty was unusually high.

There was a cooperative spirit between the people who taught here. There was a concern for each other that you find frequently in small schools. Of Course this has been very much changed by now, but at that time we had an air of positive expectancy. We had a desire to build and expand and grow. I would say that the feeling that we had was one of eagerness to do everything we could to work together to build a very fine institution. One that would have high academic standards and one that the people in the community would be very happy to attend. I would say it has not increased too much in the way of physical equipment and so forth today in many regards, but these barracks were no doubt about it, very cold in one end and very hot in the other.

The instruments were, I would say, most of them borrowed or second hand. We had a kind of band at that time that Mr. Sebren conducted from the English Department. We had very few instruments and the ones we did have were as I say, secondhand or borrowed or something of the sort.

Q: Did you find many students in your classes seriously interested in music?

Hawn: Of course at that time the students who we had were very few. It was a small school with only several hundreds in attendance all together but we didn't have too many people that were really seriously majoring in music at the undergraduate level. We had a lot of people coming from the community to take music courses. Many people who wanted to use music as a vocation would come in and participate in some of the organizations who weren't even at the University.

I would say that as far as the students here were concerned, we didn't have too many. I felt that the ones who were interested were really interested in a very serious way, but there weren't many of them.

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Q: I'll be asking many questions about the Opera Workshop, but first I would like for you to define what the Opera Workshop was and what role you played in its development. What kind of people enrolled in it and did you have to recruit students for it?

Hawn: Well, the Opera Workshop is as what that term means. It really is in a true sense of the word, a workshop. It was the intention to have people enroll in this program who would not only sing opera roles, but would be vitally concerned in learning all the aspects of opera from constructing sets, to making costumes, to learning how to put on makeup, learning about the staging of the operas, approaching it from an orchestral or musical standpoint. Just about every facet of the opera production was taught in this workshop from a practical viewpoint. Unfortunately, in those days and still today, we didn't have too many people at the institution who had any background in opera and had any experience in the production side of opera.

So it was up to us to incorporate all of the various facets of the media in this class. They would sing the roles one night perhaps and then maybe the next night they would pull the curtains. They had all sorts of jobs to do. The primary objective of a workshop is education. It was to study these productions from all aspects.

Of course this is one thing that fascinates me with the media because I find people that would come in very immature and go out quite mature. This also helped those who were very inhibited about standing up in front of somebody and expressing themselves. So, I have seen many of these people, and seen their lives virtually changed during the process of participating in these productions that we had. So I felt it was a very important thing to have at the University because it did deal with each person as an individual and was interested in that individual's growth.

As far as what role I played, as I've said to you before, having no help here to speak of, of trained people, the first thing I set up in trying to do was to teach some of the students how to do these various things in opera and how to build the sets, how to design the sets and how to go about rehearsing them. I would get involved in every aspect of these works. I would stage them, teach them the drama of the opera, I would design and paint many of the sets that we had and we didn't have any room to do this. We would frequently go out into the parking lot and lay our sets out and paint them. I've painted scenery in the snow right here on this campus. It took hours and hours as I say of personal dedication not only on my part, but on the part of many of the townspeople who came in and joined the workshop because in those days there were no outlets for these people.

I think this is another important aspect of an opera workshop. It certainly truly combines the talents of not only the University's student but of the people in the community. It gave them an opportunity to perform and learn about opera where they had no other way of doing this. The operas also served a void in as much that there weren't any operas being done around here. So the workshop was not only trying to serve its function as a training medium but also as a community offering for people to come and enjoy.

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So, we recruited students from the community. I made it a night class for that reason. We would meet normally on Tuesday night. So, many of the people in the community would come back semester after semester and actually pay to sing roles. The kind of people that enrolled in the workshop would have been professional musicians in the community such as ministers of music, school teachers and the like, housewives, and Navy personnel. I've had in the workshop just about every kind of person you could ever imagine. This melting pot, so to speak, I think was a very good thing for this University as it grew in this community. It made the people in the community feel very much a part of this University.

Q: I wonder if any students other than those in the opera workshop classes had anything to do with it?

Hawn: I tried to make an effort to get them involved but I will say that we did have people from the community who sometimes weren't enrolled, but most who participated were enrolled in the workshop. Now I did want to say that in those early days with this close-knit faculty we had at the University, there were many of them who would actually participate in these opera workshops.

I had the head of the Philosophy Department who was very instrumental in helping me build scenery. He would get out there and paint and construct and hammer and nail just like I did. There were a lot of faculty families and community families who would come in and assist in this production as a whole family. There were many families in this group and frequently we had children who were in these operas. I felt that having these operas with these community children in them offered an opportunity for people to see our University and ultimately develop interest in it as the place to go for an education. This has been true over a number of years.

We got a lot of our students from those workshop presentations. As far as recruiting people to do these things, I think the recruitment mainly came from people that I knew personally through my personal contacts. Not only my own contacts, but people who other faculty members knew, participated also. They would send me people to audition. Maybe someone they had heard sing in a church or someplace and thought they might be an asset to us in our production. So this really became a true community venture.

Q: Did your wife help in these operatic performances?

Hawn: Well, that is a very dear question to me because not only would I not be sitting here today as a professor at Old Dominion University without her help, but I have always felt she was my best critic.

She not only was a person of much wisdom and understanding in regards to music and to art, but she is also quite creative. She did many of my operas, designed the costumes for them as far as selecting what kind of design and material would be used. She sewed many of the costumes and organized seamstresses frequently from other faculty wives on the campus. She would take on this responsibility and see to it that we had authentic costumes for these productions. She also sang in many of the productions herself. She has quite a nice soprano voice.

She has always been my best supporter no matter whether I was on or off campus. She has sung in all of my church choirs and she was always

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willing to serve wherever she was needed. As I say, as far as having a critic who was very wise at your elbow, I think that many of our productions were successes due to her.

Q: In December of 1953 the opera workshop's production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors" received significant publicity. Do you recall anything about this production?

Hawn: Yes, this was of course one of my initial efforts here at the University. Dr. Vogan who was then Chairman of the University brought me in to develop a workshop. It wasn't an opera workshop before I came and they did some shows sort of as choir shows or campus shows and they did a few operas. But he wanted the Opera Workshop to be developed along educational lines by somebody who had been trained in the field. So, this was my first experience on the campus and the whole atmosphere of this production was one of cooperative venture between the University and the community.

As I understand it and as I recall now, we had this production primarily for students at the Larchmont Elementary School across the street. We had in the production a number of community people. As you know, it takes a small boy soprano and we had tryouts around the community for that role and we came up with two boys that were able to sing it. The thing that was unique about this production was that we weren't interested in making money on it. We were interested in doing it as a community venture and we invited the people from Larchmont to come over and see this production as our Christmas offering. In those days we always had a Christmas show and this was our Christmas show and we invited them to come and they came in groves.

Q: How was it that no admission had to be charged to the performance of "Amahl and the Night Visitors"?

Hawn: As I just said we weren't really interested in making money here as this was a community thing. Mr. Webb at the time felt that this was of sufficient importance to give it to the community rather than charge them to come see it. So when he decided that the University would take care of the expenses we would just do this to give to the community.

Q: Did you consider this performance a success and was it performed elsewhere in the area?

Hawn: Yes, I consider them all to have been a decided success not only because the way it was received by the people who came to see it but for the first time we saw some very artistic designing going on by students. The man who designed the set for "Amahl and the Night Visitors" came into the workshop as an architectural engineer. He was an architectural engineering student on the campus and he wanted to try his hand at designing scenery. He did an unusually superb job. The set was very artistically done and we had a number of people from the community singing in our chorus and we did not however perform anywhere else that year.

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We did the production in the gymnasium. What is now the old gymnasium, that is in the Old Academic Building. It wasn't too conducive to an aesthetic artistic appeal but there was some other atmosphere there of the Christmas Sprint that I felt we were able to create in that gymnasium.

Q: Could you discuss the significance of the presentation of "Don’t' We All" by contemporary American composer Burrill Phillips?

Hawn: I chose to do "Don't We All" by Burrill Phillips very early when I came to Norfolk because I became familiar with this little chamber opera when I was at the Eastman School of Music. Burnill Phillips at that time was a composition teacher on the staff of Eastman and he wrote this opera. I sang in the premiere performance of it, the tenor role at the University. It is a lovely work and I grew fond of it. It only took four singers to do it and generally I think it went over quite well with the public. Even though the music is in a rather modern idiom and at that time modern opera, even some today, is rather frowned upon and not accepted well.

I think that the "down to earth" story of "Don't We All" which takes place in a farm kitchen was such that it appealed to the people. Having had an immediate relationship with the opera, I felt it would succeed and it did.

Q: Could you tell me how "Don't We All" came to be presented on WTAR-TV on March 6, 1954?

Hawn: This performance was a world premiere on television. It came to be presented then because at that time I was working with WTAR-TV in presenting shows from the University. I talked to one of the directors there about "Don't We All". They had never done an opera like that on their station and particularly of a local nature, So, I explained to him about the work and he and I both agreed that it would televise very well because of the intimate nature of the work. The fact that it only had four singers. So we proceeded to set up rehearsals for this show and we presented it then for the first time on March 6. The station had a lot of very good comments about the show and we feel that it was a success.

Q: Now you have already commented on the technical aspects of opera production. I wondered if there was anything you wanted to add about the costumes, posters set designs or anything else?

Hawn: Yes, the technical aspects of these productions of course were always a problem because being human, frequently you find people who like to sing roles on the stage and don't like to get their hands dirty backstage. Therefore, it wasn't always too easy to encourage our singers to really get involved with these backstage activities but I think we were rather successful here. I think that some of them saw the importance of learning these aspects of opera. So, these technical things were handled by the students themselves with my supervision and I was able to secure a couple of outside people.

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There was William Harrison, who is now deceased, but he played an important part in assisting me in actual construction of these sets. Another person who was very instrumental in these early days and did got get anything for it. People like that just did it because they enjoyed being with the people; the fellowship that we enjoyed together. I know they enjoyed this aspect of it. Anthony Evans who is a teacher over in Hampton now, was an important worker who also helped in constructing these scenes. They did it as I say, because they enjoyed the work. We did not have many funds so we had to make everything we had, including the costumes and posters.

Frequently we made them right on the campus and that's the way we handled the technical aspects after the faculty. The faculty became busier I guess. As the school became larger, we sort of changed the procedure of having the faculty actually working on these sets backstage so much and it began to be more and more the students. We tried to shift these backstage activities away from the faculty and over onto the shoulders of the students because we wanted them to learn how to do these things.

Q: In the Spring of 1954 you made enthusiastic comments about the prospect of the Division becoming a four year college. What exactly were your hopes? Were these aspirations realized?

Hawn: Yes, when I came to the Division, I was very enthusiastic about its future and I was particularly anxious for it to become a four year college. If it did, then I would be able to have my opera people and my singers for a longer period of time to teach. When you just have a two year school you really don't have the students long enough to get them developed to a point where they can really take over these things and do them efficiently.

The prospect of having upper division students was something that I was looking forward to. My hopes also included the fact that I felt that when we got larger like this we would be able to have the facilities to do these shows in a truly artistic style. In those days we had to do these shows just about any place we could find because we really did not have an auditorium on campus as such. We just used this gym as I said, and sometimes we would use the Larchmont School across the street which is, of course a very small stage but we did a number of operas on it. We also used the Blair Junior High School auditorium and we used Center Theater. We also used Northside Junior High School. These were the principal stages that we used in those days. I felt that in order to develop a music program at Old Dominion University the facilities must come first. I still feel that way today. You don't attract these people in these arts unless you are going to be able to have the facilities there for them to experience the things that are necessary for the profession.

I was looking forward someday to having a theater on the stage where these people could work; where they could sing, or dance. We could perhaps build a center of music, a cultural center of the arts on the campus. I would have to say these aspirations have not been realized. Although the University has expanded greatly since I came here I have always felt that the arts have been grossly neglected. They have never gotten the facilities they need to do the job. They've always come out

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second best to whatever else it is. I mean the school has developed beautifully along the lines of engineering and in many sciences and so forth, but we in the arts have just not had the facilities that are required to really develop a first-class School of Music, or a center for cultural arts.

So we are still today handicapped in that respect. We do a small theater on the stage but we had to get that one in the back door. They have never approved a theater for this campus. We had to get that through calling it an assembly hall. But someday, if there is ever going to be a center for the arts, somebody is going to have to say that it will be the number one priority and it will be done. You can't constantly keep putting down the arts in priority lists and putting them back in the corner, under the stadium, in leaky places, in dirty places or small places and expect them to grow in a healthy way. It will never happen and it hasn't happened. I am hoping and praying that we will get what we need at this institution. I hope in my lifetime.

Q: Your production of "The Chocolate Soldier" in the Spring of 1954 was quite a success. Do you recall anything about that production?

Hawn: "The Chocolate Soldier" is something I first worked with at the Eastman School of Music. I was a student director there for a production of "The Chocolate Soldier" and it went over extremely well. I mean the music was appealing to the masses of the people and I felt that if I ever had a job where I was an opera director and would be able to do an operetta, I would enjoy doing that. The people seemed to enjoy the music from it and it is good theater. Then when I went to Ferdonia for that one year they wanted to do a show over there and what show did we do? "The Chocolate Soldier". Again it was an arousing success. I've never done "The Chocolate Soldier" when it wasn't a success. I think it is just very good.

So when I came here I thought since I was successful twice with it, I'd try it again early in my work here at the University. It was a fine success. The work we did down at the Center Theater, but we didn't get the audience we would have liked to have had. I don't feel that we really did because for the most part the workshop was really never given the backing of the press that would have meant real development and growth. Somehow the press could never get out of their heads that this wasn't the Metropolitan and this wasn't the New York City Center Opera or something of the sort, simply that this was a school that was striving to develop and build something from an educational standpoint. Eventually it would result in the Virginia Opera Association as we now have in Norfolk. It's interesting enough to see that the people they are casting now for "Le Traviata" were all members of the Opera Workshop at one time or another. That seems to be very interesting and it should speak for itself.

But the point is the idea of the workshop was to train people to do the job in professional life in an area that there was no training going on. When we would go out to do a show, they could not think of these students as students and frequently would cut things down and discourage people from coming and attending future performances because of someone who was

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perhaps not up to professional standards but was there to learn. I really must say that the press has to assume a great deal of responsibility for the fact that the ODU Opera Workshop isn't on the boards today.

But "The Chocolate Soldier" was a success even though it did not get the audience. The people who were there enjoyed themselves.

Q: What role did the Key Note Music Club play in aiding the Music Department's productions and assisting students of music?

Hawn: During my early days here in opera I felt that the Key Note Music Club was very important. They played a very important role. They frequently would invite members of the workshop to come and sing for their club meetings. They were also very instrumental in assisting in selling tickets and they did offer some scholarship money. Just recently, not too long ago, they set up a fund whereby students could borrow money from the organization and be able to pay it back at a very low rate of interest. We had a number of the Key Note Music Club members that participated in our workshop. A point here I ought to bring out is the fact that it was interesting that many of the community people who participated in our Opera Workshop came in and sang roles year after year.

I had people like Robert Randolph, Henry Burnick, Nancy Bolling and a number of these community people who are in this area today doing operas, musicals, dinner theaters year in and year out. Ten and twelve years ago they would come in and they would pay tuition to come into this class to sing a role. Now I think that's very indicative of the need for such training in this area, Many of the people that were in this Key Note Music Club came in and sang in the chorus and took part in actual active parts in many of our opera productions because we recruited our choruses from people just like members of the Key Note Music Club.

[Tape #51]

Q: During 1954-55 you served as overall director of the college's television Programs- three series in all. Could you provide more information on your duties?

Hawn: Yes, during this time President Webb was very desirous of having a series of programs that would feature various departments at the University as means of promoting the University and providing educational benefits for the community. The main series as I recall was called "Sign Post". It was my duty as director of these programs to solicit those departments and those personnel that were interested in doing television work and to go and discuss how their idea could be presented over television and then to rehearse their program. (I did all of this on the campus.) I had done some work previously with television as I said before up in Erie, Pennsylvania and so I had some knowledge of the requirements for shooting and also how to put down television scripts.

So I just type these up and then I would go down and confer with the television director at WTAR-TV. We would plan the programs and then go down and do them. This proved to be a very popular series and virtually all the departments on the campus participated, music, biology, business, and a few others. There were a lot of science programs presented on "Sign Post".

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Q: "The Marriage of Figaro" was performed by the Opera Workshop in April of 1955. I wondered if the decision to sing the opera in English was in any sense controversial and how did you feel about it?

Hawn: Well, in those days as I said previously, it just wasn't any opera being done around here so there wasn't too much controversy as to what way I would do it. I decided to use English because I felt that the overall gain from doing the operas in our original language was much greater than what we lost from taking it out of its original language. In the first place these students I was working with were students. They weren't experienced singers. They did not understand Italian and other languages of operas that we were doing and they were able to act their roles when they knew what words they were singing.

I felt for study purposes and for purposes of a workshop that this was far better training than to give them something in a foreign language that they neither would sing well or they certainly wouldn't understand what they were doing. The people who came to see the operas since we were primarily interested in educating them too, we felt they would understand at least some of the words and it would be better than for them to come and not understand what was going on.

Q: I notice that the production did not receive a good review in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot. Many letters to the editor then were written protesting that review and declaring that professional standards were being applied to the students. Did you agree with this criticism of the review and did you often find that the newspaper reviewer took this approach?

Hawn: Yes, that's a very good question because as I said previously, I feel that this was one of the downfalls of the workshop as far as its development in the area. I feel that the press could never get over the fact that this was a workshop and not the Metropolitan or San Francisco Opera Company, and we weren't even trying to compete with them. We were trying to train students in a field that they had no training in. Frequently a person would be assigned to do a role for strictly training purposes and they certainly were not up to professional standards by far. They never seem to take into consideration the trying circumstances under which these works were put on the stage.

If they would have gotten behind the scenes and seen how these people got out in the snow and painted this set, how they frequently would sew their own costumes and how they worked together as a unit, they would have gotten the true picture of what the workshop was all about. It was not a competing organization in the professional sense of the word at all. We were trying to train some of these people who would ultimately become professional. The people who wrote letters to the editor at this time did the workshop quite a service because there were times when they were able to sway the basic views of some of the reviewers to the point where they would come and look and see what we were doing behind the scenes but this was the exception rather than the rule.

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Q: In the Fall of 1955 the Opera Workshop presented Mennini's "The Well" and Of fenbach's "RSVP". Many of the singers performed one role on Friday night and then another role on Saturday night. Why did you follow this somewhat unusual procedure and was it successful?

Hawn: From an educational standpoint I felt that this procedure as you say, was unusual, but I felt it was successful. If you were looking at the performance professionally, of course, you would have to say that they were unsuccessful. Again, I was interested in the education aspect of what I was doing. In the first place I was teaching at an educational institution. I wasn't here as a professional opera director in a community opera. My first and foremost responsibility was to train people.

Now, in order to give a person an opportunity to sing as much as possible I frequently would let them sing one role Friday night and another role Saturday night. That gave them maximum exposure to the public, to standing up on the stage and performing just two roles instead of one role. This helped them a great deal dramatically and musically and I feel that the educational values derive from such a procedure really were very positive. Since I'm interested in education I would have to say that the procedure was successful.

Q: Did you become involved in the choir of a local church during the 1950's? I believe I read that you were named minister of music at Miles Memorial Methodist Church in 1961.

Hawn: Well, sacred music of course is something that has always been very dear to my heart. I have been in church music work ever since I was old enough to sing at all, up in Pennsylvania as a small child. When I came to Norfolk I assumed the directorship of music at the Norview Presbyterian Church. I served there from 1953-1959. In 1959 I went to the Miles Memorial Methodist Church and served as their choir master for a period of twelve years. I was there from 1959 to 1971.

In 1971 I went as Minister of Music to the Central Baptist Church (all of these churches are in Norfolk) and served there from 1971 to 1973. In 1973 I became the Minister of Music at Azalea Baptist Church in Norfolk where I am still serving. I've always felt that this is one of the things that was primary in my remaining in Norfolk over this many years. Even with all the trial and tribulations at the University I had this accompanying service which I enjoyed immensely. It gave me an outlet that was truly beneficial to me musically and as far as my church work was concerned. So in addition to serving as Minister of Music in many of these churches I also together with my wife worked very actively in youth programs and enjoyed it very much.

Q: Could you tell me how you chose various operas to be performed by the Opera Workshop, such as Menotti's "The Medium" and "The Telephone" in 1956?

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Hawn: There were many various facets that prompted me to choose the works I did for the Opera Workshop. Many times I would choose works according to the talent that was available to do the work. Of course, this is the ideal way to do it. It's highly dangerous to select an opera and then have tryouts and learn that you don't have people to fit the roles. In those early days there weren't too many people around this area singing opera. So, you had to be sure that you had at least reasonable talent available to do the work that you were planning to do. So, I always looked at that facet first. Another thing I would select the work for many times was its value and function as an educational medium. Many works are very good for this. They teach people basic acting, and if there was a lot of dramatic interplay between the characters, sometimes I would select the work for that function. In other words, if we were going to have some special activity during the year that would call for an American opera, like an American Music Festival, then I would be looking in that direction in selecting a work.

I also selected works for a balanced educational program. If you look over the years you will probably see that we did many, many different types of operas and musicals and this was to give the singers a wide, broad picture of opera and the difference between musical comedy and opera and chamber opera and operetta and so forth. I try to give them some experience in all of these areas.

Another thing of course that governed my selection were expenses. I had to be very careful about how much money the opera was going to cost. Some operas are very expensive to produce because of the sets and the costumes that you must have to do them. Another thing I would do in my selection would be the physical facilities that would be available to me. Sometimes I would have to select an opera because I just didn't have the physical facilities, to do a work that I might like to do and also production space. That is, how much room was there going to be for me to build the scenery.

This has always been a problem at the University. It's always been very difficult to try to keep things that you had constructed because the storage facilities around here have been virtually nil. Therefore I had to be very careful about building things that I would be able to find the space to construct them in.

Auditioning also determined what we did. Sometimes I would try to deliberately not select my works until after I had the Opera Workshop class started and had everyone audition and find out exactly what their talents were. This also helped me find out what types of activities in regard to lyric theater they were interested in before I selected the works. This had both a positive and a negative result. It would be very difficult sometimes to get somebody to register when they didn't know what we were going to do. The positive thing was that once they came and sang we knew what we had in the way of singers and actors and so forth. Generally we could fit works that really fit the class to perfection.

Q: In 1956 the Opera Workshop attended the National Opera Convention in New York. Could you provide some information on this trip?

[14]

Hawn: Yes, this was a very educational field trip as I called it. This was a convention in which a number of workshop people who had been singing in the workshop for a number of years became interested in. It was centered around community opera and at these conventions they are always educational. It was not just some place where you go and sit but you actually participated and had many demonstrations going on of newest production techniques, newest techniques for lighting and staging, and a number of the finest specialists in the country showing various ways of doing the same thing.

The group I took felt that the trip was highly educational and beneficial to them and they were able to see a little bit more into why I was doing things the way I was doing them. So I think it helped the organization immensely to have these people, the five or six who went, from the workshop go and experience this. Some of those who went with us then are still in the area Singing opera.

Q: How did the Workshop commemorate the 200th anniversary of Mozart's birth in 1956?

Hawn: This was the year that I wasn't here. I was away at Indiana working on my doctorate and Robert Young took over. I don't know that there was anything especially done as far as opera was concerned during this year. But I do know that he did "La Boheme" and he did "Hansel and Gretel" while I was away in Indiana. To my knowledge there wasn't anything special commemorating Mozart's birth at that time.

Q: Did any individuals in the community act in any way as patrons of the Opera Workshop? I believe in one article a Reverend Edward Goddard is mentioned in this connection.

Hawn: We had a number of various types of support from our community when we were conducting the Workshop. When you stop to think about it the performers themselves, the students that kept registering each semester for years and years (some of them for as many as ten or twelve years), were our biggest supporters. They kept coming back and paying fees to come into the Workshop in order that they could perform various opera roles. We had not too much in the way of gifts, outright gifts to the group. When we did a show we would sometimes print a program in which we could get some patron money. They would donate five or ten dollars to help defray the expenses to the Workshop. The Edward Goddard that you speak of here was not a Reverend. He was a minister of music I think, at one of the Methodist churches in town. I cannot remember which one, but he was very active in the Workshop for years. He came in and kept registering like many of the others to sing these various roles.

We did have one club that became very active in supporting the organization and this came in the 60's. It wasn't in the 50's as we are talking about now. But later on the Optimus Club in Norfolk became very active in sponsoring certain shows that we did and this helped a great deal to defray the expenses at Center Theater.

Q: Were any of the Workshop's productions broadcast over the college radio station WMTI-FM or any commercial stations?

[15]

Hawn: We had very little broadcasting going on of our programs as far as radio was concerned. I feel that perhaps this might have been beneficial if we had done more PR work. I think that I had my hands just more than full trying to get these shows on the stage. In those days we didn't have a department at the University that took on these projects to promote organizations too much. So, only what some of the people in the Workshop were able to muster up in the way of contacts with the various commercial media that was about all we were able to get. Now, we did do a number of television scenes over WTAR and WVEC in which they gave us some prime time and we were able to broadcast every year once or twice.

Q: I believe you've already answered the next question, you relinquished the directorship for a year to continue study for the doctoral degree. Did you give any recitals in the community during the 5Os?

Hawn: Yes, I didn't give too many because anybody who is a concert singer realizes that you don't maintain that concert strength when you are giving it all to opera. In those early days I really spent myself trying to get those shows on the stage and therefore the actual singing of concerts was limited. I gave some concerts at the museum and at the University and I sang many solo roles in large chorale presentations at the University.

In those days we would give large things at the University such as "The Messiah", "The Requiem" by Brahms and so forth. Dr. Vogan who was on the faculty has always given large sacred musicals at the Presbyterian church in town here and I sang many times the solo works for him. So I would say I did give concerts, but they were infrequent because I was spending my energy doing other things.

Q: When you were back at the Norfolk Division in 1958, you assisted in the production of "Carmen". I wondered if you could give any more information on the part you played in this?

Hawn: Yes, when I returned from Indiana I again assumed the directorship of the Opera Workshop and "Carmen" was one of the first major works that we gave. We gave it I would say under not the best conditions. We gave it in the gymnasium here at the school and that wasn't too good of a place acoustically or otherwise. I staged the work and conducted the orchestra and did the usual set design and construction and most of the painting. My wife oversaw all the costume work. We had a very good cast musically for "Carmen" and I thought the orchestra was quite good. We again, as I say, when I came back from Indiana took up the Workshop's major productions each year.

Q: Again in 1958, you were engaged in educational television. You produced and directed courses on WVEC, Channel 15 at that time. One of these was a music course number 2llE (Music Appreciation and Literature). Could you tell me more about this?

Hawn: Yes, this was quite a milestone for Old Dominion because then it was William and Mary, of course. This was the first time any college course was given for credit of a commercial television station in the State of Virginia and we gave a number of these courses.

[16]

One was typing, another was the history of Virginia. I do not remember the man who gave the typing course for the School of Business, then called the Department of Business. Mr. Young, who is now chairman of the Music Department taught the Music Appreciation and Literature course over television and Dean Pliska taught the history of Virginia. As I recall, the Honorable William Whitehurst who was then on our history staff here at the University, taught a course. I don't recall the name of it, but he really always was very active in television. I helped him stage some of his programs when he gave them on Sign Post in our early days here and then later on he continued to appear on television and I worked with him in the shows that he gave at that time. The production and direction of these again I would help with. I would type up the programs, go over them with the teachers at the University and then would go down and air them over WVEC.

Q: You attended a National Opera Workshop Conference in New York in 1958. Did this conference provide you with new ideas for the college's workshop? How did you feel the college's effort compared to other such efforts around the country?

Hawn: Each year as I think I've mentioned before I've been serving for many years as treasurer of the National Opera Association. This association gives conferences every year and they are given throughout the United States. These conferences are very educational. They always provide you with new insights on how to stage as far as college workshops are concerned and how to set up community workshops and so forth. I've always felt that the college's effort here compared very, very favorably with what was going on around the nation because I was able, at these national conferences, to see what was being done. In those days we really were doing far more in many respects than many of the larger universities around the United States. So, I always felt very good about the efforts that we were putting forth here. It is too bad that we did not get the support locally that we are getting recognized for at the national level. I've always felt this and I think at the national level sometimes we were better known for what we were doing than what we were known for right here in our own community.

Q: One of the highlights of the Spring of 1958 was the Workshop's production of "Oklahoma". What part did you play in this production?

Hawn: Again I was, you might say, the chief cook and bottle washer because I again conducted the orchestra, staged the work, designed the scenery, helped to paint it and so forth, besides conducting the orchestra. This work was one of the few musicals and operas that made money for the University. "Oklahoma" was done a number of times in the area, but it was very successful not only artistically successful, but it was very successful from a financial viewpoint.

Q: You did then perform it in the area. There was a mention in the press of performance of the entire opera at the Williamsburg Phi Beta Kappa hall and in Virginia Beach at the Confederacy Amphitheater. Do you recall these performances?

[17]

Hawn: Yes, I recall them very well. Both of these were highly successful. We went to the Confederacy Amphitheater in Virginia Beach and after we had done the work in the college gymnasium here, we also went up to Williamsburg. The outdoor amphitheater was very interesting because the first time we were going to present it there it just poured down rain and I was afraid all of my scenery would be washed away because it was all up and ready to go when the rains came. But fortunately I had enough glue in the paint that it didn't cause it to run off and we were able to give the production after all.

Q: The Workshop's production of "La Traviata" in English received very favorable reviews in January 1959. Do you recall this presentation?

Hawn: You know during the years I gave all of these shows there were some highlights. There's no question about it. I feel that this was one of them. At the present time, they are just getting ready to do "La Traviata" here in Norfolk with the Virginia Opera Association. Many of the performers that were in my original production in 1959 are still active today in the area and will be performing in the Virginia Opera Association production coming up. The reviews were very favorable and even though the work was done again under not too ideal conditions. We did this work in the college gymnasium and as I said before that's a far cry from a theater. The work was very successfully done, I thought.

Q: The workshop also presented "Pepito's Golden Flower" as part of the Norfolk Divisions participation in the American Music Festival in 1959. Could you explain this?

Hawn: One thing that the Opera Workshop was always noted for was the large number of American Chamber Operas that we did. This was not by accident because this was the theme that I used for my doctoral dissertation at Indiana University and I did uncover a large number of unusual American works. We were able to do during a ten year period more American Chamber Opera productions than any other university in the United States. I think this is quite a distinction. We began to give American Music Festivals about this time and this was an ideal vehicle for these festivals because they were American and it provided a highlight for these festivals.

"Pepito's Golden Flower" was written by a lady, Mary Caldwell of California and it dealt with the early history of the United States. It was an ideal work because it had a lot of children in it. It appealed to a lot of young people. I chose it because of its color, its setting, its historical significance and the work was very well received. The business of continuing American work for this festival did go on into the sixties.

Q: Do you recall any students from your first six years at the college who especially distinguished themselves in their performance and/or went on to professional careers in music?

Hawn: I don't recall exactly how many years these people served in the Workshop that I am going to mention but we have had a large number of people in the Workshop who have come back after being very successful in opera and musicals in a professional way and tell me how much their training meant to them when they got out to the professional world.

[18]

I want to mention several people. Patti and Shirley Thompson who were sisters, sang very actively in workshops in the early years. They did a number of roles and were very successful in opera abroad and in this country. They sang opera in Germany for a number of years and were very active in the Northeast. I think Shirley Thompson is now back in the country and still singing very actively and I think she is still teaching in California. Frank Summers was probably the best bass that ever went through this university. He went on to further study at Indiana University to receive his Masters degree there and to sing in the "Singing Sergeant" and then to go into professional opera, in the summer touring opera company. Later he went into the Met studio, then went abroad and sang very successfully major opera roles in several cities in Germany and Italy. He even made some television opera appearances over there. He, too, is now back in the United States and still very active as an opera singer and is currently working for his doctorate in musical art at the University of Michigan.

Eugene Davis, a baritone, also was very active in the opera workshop here. He was a student of Mr. Young and he distinguished himself at Indiana University and then later went to New York to sing there professionally. I understand he is also now teaching at a university somewhere in either Maine or Florida.

These people get together with many local people who still remain active in opera singing. I think that shows that the training they received was beneficial and this is probably the most disappointing facet to me is that we do not now have in Norfolk a training vehicle for those people who might desire to enter the opera profession. This is a sad commentary because we do have a number of people that are trying to go in that direction. Educationally speaking, we don't have the facilities and facets for them to be trained. Robert Randolph who is a salesman for the lumber company here sang many roles in the Opera Workshop. One of the leading baritones in the community sang for Christ and St. Luke's Episcopal Church and will be singing in "La Traviata" production coming up in a few weeks. Another Opera Workshop person who likewise is still singing opera very successfully is Athena who is working at WTAR-TV.

[Ends 3/4 through Tape 51, Side 2]

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