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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

‘The Garment of Praise’ delivers a message that heals from the heart

By Cynthia Reugh For The Spokesman-Review

As Shann Ray and the Rev. Kevin Waters collaborated for “The Garment of Praise,” the lengthy process of fits and starts mirrored a key point of the opera they were creating: nothing ever goes as planned.

Waters is an internationally recognized composer and former dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Gonzaga University. He penned a musical score for “The Garment of Praise” shortly before he retired in 2017. His longtime colleague Ray, an author, poet and professor in the Gonzaga School of Leadership Studies then undertook the arduous task of setting words and staging to that music.

A labor of faith, love and friendship, the project took seven years to complete.

“I thought it would just never be performed really, after year five,” said Ray, who recalled those long hours the two men spent together in Waters’ crammed office with a piano and musical scores stacked to the ceiling. “Over the years, we’d stay in touch,” he said. “It all kind of kept developing.”

“The Garment of Praise” will debut on Friday at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center.

“It’s been a completely unified effort from across the campus and it’s been beautiful to honor Father Waters this way,” Ray said. “He’s coming up from California and he’ll be there in the front row.”

The world premiere opera tells a sacred story of hope, communion, loss and return.

“I wanted to build a libretto that would tell the story that we all have if we talk about our beloved relationships, that has not only something to do with the possibility of the dream of healthiness, intimacy, healing, atonement … forgiveness-asking to restorative principles, but also the fact that we all have doubt, we all face loss, sometimes it doesn’t work out … lots of times,” said Ray.

The words, “garment of praise,” come from the Old Testament and relate to a spirit of faith from the inside which cloaks us from despair on the outside.

Friday’s opera will follow the intricate journey of love between Elizabeth and Zechariah chronicled in biblical scripture as they seek God. The emptiness, doubt and despair they feel growing old together in a barren home and the comfort they receive after God answers their prayers through the miraculous birth of John the Baptist.

“There’s an ancient concept that God dwells in the thick darkness,” Ray said. “I love that notion of life that we are all tasked in a way to eat our own humiliation and to understand and embrace what the shadow means … especially if we want to consider how light lands not only in art, but in the world, like dawn or spring, new life, birth, these types of things,” he said.

For Ray, the culmination of this opera brings with it, a touching family moment.

His daughters, Ariana Ferch and Natalya Fisher will perform as principal singers. Born and raised in Spokane, they studied opera and musical theater at Oklahoma City University and now reside in New York.

“It’s really beautifully written. I love singing my dad’s words. It’s been really a gift to have his words spoken over me my whole life,” said Fisher, who will portray the Angel Gabriel. It is a role which is often considered masculine.

“It’s been really fascinating to bring a more feminine approach, and also to just discuss that in the art form and the opera singing world,” she said.

Ferch will appear as Elizabeth.

“Father Water’s music is very beautiful, very captivating and interesting … intriguing. When I get to sing it, it just really makes my soul and my heart open up. The music very much draws you in,” she said.

Jadrian Tarver will join Ferch on stage in his role as Zechariah. A Florida native, Tarver spent years on the East Coast performing vocally as he studied music education. After earning multiple college degrees, his career path veered to Eastern Washington.

“I found myself traveling across the country on I-90 headed toward Spokane,” said Tarver, who now works as a voice professor at Gonzaga University.

“The Garment of Praise” production team consists of 28 orchestra members, 12 chorus voices and nine Gonzaga University dance students. Sparse staging, water-themed elements and single instrumentation will help bring auras of emptiness and spirituality to life.

“Water has a lot of biblical reference to it,” said Gonzaga dance instructor, Karla Parbon, who is choreographing the opera with her colleague, Joseph Lyons-Wolf. Dancers will portray multiple characters.

“It’s more of a contemporary style of dance … they’re constantly interchanging,” she said.

At the root of this ancient story is a message of the divine.

“Nobody can define what the divine is,” Ray said. “I think we make our guesses around the world that we believe or we hope that it is love itself. And, when any of us experience love itself, I think we all feel that we have experienced something of the divine.”