On April 19 and 21, Toledo Opera will cap off the 2023 – 2024 season with Ragtime.
Nominated for 13 Tony Awards in its initial run in 1998, it was the winner of Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical and made a star of lead Audra McDonald.
Ragtime centers on three families in turn-of-the-century New York — an upper-class white family, a Black family from Harlem and a family or Eastern European immigrants living in the Lower East Side. These families’ lives intersect against the backdrop of a society undergoing major changes that see the ending of the Gilded Age where a few controlled wealth and social status and the beginning of the Progressive Age that ushered in political reform, better conditions for workers and ended monopolies.
While Ragtime is technically a Broadway Musical, it does have the sweeping epic storyline and drama common in many operas and serves as a gateway between the two genres.
Meet Opera and Broadway singer Raquel Suarez Groen
Joining Toledo Opera’s cast in the role of “Mother” is Raquel Suarez Groen, an opera singer who spent six years on Broadway in Phantom of the Opera where she played Carlotta Giudicelli in nearly 1,300 performances, closing out the show’s multi-decade run last April.
Suarez Groen was born in Holland, lived in Canada for 11 years and moved to New York to attend the Manhattan School of Music where she also received her master’s degree in professional studies. Suarez Groen is foremost an Opera singer but crossed over to Broadway when she landed the role of Carlotta in Phantom in 2017 during the show’s 30th Anniversary.
This is Groen’s first time in Toledo and she’s excited to be here. It’s also her first time playing the role of Mother in Ragtime. When asked how she came to work with Toledo Opera, Suarez Groen elaborates, “My agent knows Jim (Norman) very well because he directed a lot of shows for Toledo. Jim asked if he knew anyone that might be right for the role of Mother. I happened to be there when they were talking on the phone, so Jim came to see me in Phantom and that’s how I was hired. Phantom was more of an Opera crossover. Ragtime will be a very different role vocally because the singing is more of a Broadway belt style.”
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Derrick Davis who plays Coalhouse Walker is also a Phantom alumnus, and Suarez Groen gushes about how wonderful he is in the role. “The chorus in this production, the actress playing Sarah, everyone is just insanely good, and Ragtime has some of the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard.”
Preparing for Ragtime
Ragtime will be a new challenge for Suarez Groen. The character of Mother is the polar opposite of Carlotta in Phantom and there’s only a short period of time for in-person rehearsals.
“When I got the score, I watched all the performances of Mother that I could find, then I did research on the Gilded Age and what women were experiencing at the time,” Suarez Groen notes. “The really great thing about Mother is that she comes from this upper-class family in New Rochelle and she’s an anomaly because she takes in this mother (Sarah) and her child and her husband is not supportive of it. Mother grows so much through the story and her husband really doesn’t change. So, at the end when she sings ‘Back to Before,’ it’s so heartbreaking. They’re a couple who grow apart and can’t go back to the way things were.”
Suarez Groen mentions that her voice teacher also taught Marin Mazzie who originated the role on Broadway, which helped her when working on the role.
“For some of us who’ve done these long-running shows, you worry that you’ll get stuck in one role. Something like Ragtime is a joy and a blessing. You arrive at live rehearsals knowing your music and stage directions — ready to perform — and that pushes you to be focused, work hard, and be very prepared. I’m loving every minute of it.”
Ragtime plays at Toledo Opera 4/19 & 4/21. For tickets go to itkt.choicecrm.net/ChoiceCRM.NET/templates/TOLO/#/events
