Chartiers grad performs in Pittsburgh Opera’s ‘Il Trovatore’
Photos: Courtesy of David Bachman Photography
Alexandra Loutsion in the 2019 Pittsburgh Opera production of “Florencia en el Amazonas”
Courtesy of David Bachman Photography
Alexandria Loutsion, center, in “Florencia en el Amazonas,” a 2019 Pittsburgh Opera production
Courtesy of David Bachman Photography
Alexandria Loutsion in “Florencia en el Amazonas,” a 2019 Pittsburgh Opera production
Kristin Hoebermann
Alexandra Loutsion, a 2002 graduate of Chartiers-Houston High School and an opera singer
We’ve all had those dreams where we have to take an exam after blowing off class for the whole semester or we’re about to walk out on stage in a play and we don’t know any of the lines.
Has Alexandra Loutsion ever had those dreams?
“All the time,” she said. “I’ll dream about being in an opera and I’ve never seen the score or something.”
Loutsion made that admission just as rehearsals were about to begin for the Pittsburgh Opera production of Giuseppe Verdi’s “Il Trovatore,” which has Loutsion playing Leonora, a young noblewoman with a deadly trick up her sleeve. “Il Trovatore” – “The Troubadour” in English – is being described by the Pittsburgh Opera as “an epic tale of love and sacrifice, deception and revenge.”
Appearing in “Il Trovatore” is something of a homecoming for Loutsion, a 2002 Chartiers-Houston High School graduate who first sampled opera when she saw Giacomo Puccini’s “Turnadot” in Pittsburgh in her junior year. It was that first taste of opera that put Loutsion on a path to being a professional singer. She studied at Ithaca College and the University of Southern California, and has built a formidable resume through appearances with opera companies in Chicago, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Houston, as well as several productions with Pittsburgh Opera.
“I always sang around the house, even as a little kid,” Loutsion recalled. “I sang in church, and I kind of drove my family nuts singing all the time. … I basically became a one-track mind when I was 17, and never looked back. … (The Pittsburgh Opera) gave me my start in so many ways. They introduced me to opera before I even knew what opera was, as an audience member.”
Much like making a living as an actor, sustaining a career in opera requires no small amount of determination and dedication.
“It’s very challenging,” Loutsion explained. “It’s very competitive, and it’s a very challenging lifestyle, and some people who are doing very well decide the lifestyle isn’t for them. So it’s a combination of both.”
She continued, “Is it a lifestyle you want? Not seeing your family, not seeing your friends, living out of a suitcase, being lonely a lot of the time. There’s no set schedule. You fly by the seat of your pants a lot of the time.”
A soprano, Loutsion previously played Leonora in a production of “Il Trovatore” in Colorado, and has been in some of the most well-known operas, including “Don Giovanni,” “Madama Butterfly,” “Macbeth” and “Tosca.” She also was in “The Sound of Music” in the Glimmerglass Festival in New York, and sometimes includes pop music by such artists as Carly Simon, Simon and Garfunkel and Joni Mitchell in her recitals.
“I’ve always loved all music,” Loutsion explained. Does she include the pop songs to make her recitals more accessible to audience members who might not be opera aficionados, or just because they are good songs on their own terms?
“A little bit of both, I guess,” she said. “I like to feel when I have a recital I like to tell a story.”
And what does she tell people who view opera as being a remote and elite art form? Loutsion notes that operas are packed with all the ingredients that make for juicy storytelling – love, lust, hate, vengeance, a thirst for power and glory, you name it.
“The stories are very far from elitist,” she said. Loutsion also pointed out that opera showcases “the purity of sound without any intervention by technology. There is something to be said for going into a theater and (experiencing) instruments and voices unamplified. … There are no microphones, there’s no mixing. It’s just the basic human voice.”
“Il Trovatore” will be presented at the Benedum Center on Saturday at 8 p.m.; Tuesday, March 28, at 7 p.m.; Friday, March 31, at 7:30 p.m.; and Sunday, April 2, at 2 p.m. Tickets and additional information are available at pittsburghopera.org.