NORMAN--An Austrian operetta performed last weekend at the University of Oklahoma had a distinct New Orleans flavor, due, ironically enough, in part, to Hurricane Katrina.Olanna Goudeau, Ashley R. Watkins and Tyrone Chambers were opera singers in “Die Fledermaus.”
There were three performances.
The three graduate students also share ties to the “Crescent City,” and the families of Mr. Chambers and Miss Watkins still live in New Orleans.
Mr. Chambers’ parents moved back into their own house in February after spending 3½ years living in a trailer and different rental houses.
“Oh, they were so happy,” he said. “My mom was so happy to be out of someone else’s house and into their own.”
Miss Watkins and Mr. Chambers have been friends since the ninth grade at McDonogh College Preparatory High School--many schools in New Orleans are named after 19th Century philanthropist John McDonogh--and Miss Watkins and Mrs. Goudeau knew each other at Dillard University.
To complete the small-world circle, Mr. Chambers earned his bachelor’s degree at Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he befriended Cody Goudeau, who was to become Olanna Goudeau’s husband.
Miss Watkins sang in high school and always enjoyed singing, but she enrolled in Dillard intending to become a veterinarian until she watched an Oprah Winfrey.
“I heard Lee Ann Womack’s ‘I Hope You Dance’ and that messed it up,” she said of becoming a vet. “It was in that moment when I knew I was meant to be a music major.”
Mrs. Goudeau and Miss Watkins sang together at Dillard, but Mrs. Goudeau was two years ahead and didn’t have the same social circles.
Though she auditioned for the School of Music and earned admission in 2004 after spending a summer with the Cimarron Opera Company, she realized her music education at Dillard, in terms of resources, was not the best.
“When the hurricane hit, I had a lot of problems here with the course work,” she said. “I had to do so much remedial work to catch up.”
Upset about her own undergraduate education, Mrs. Goudeau thought of other singers at Dillard who could benefit at the University of Oklahoma.
She immediately thought of Miss Watkins, Mrs. Goudeau said, because of her strong work ethic and desire to learn.
New Orleans-area residents were scattered right after Katrina, and Miss Watkins’ family was no exception.
Mrs. Goudeau tracked them down in Dallas, where the family temporarily stayed with an aunt of Watkins.
When Mrs. Goudeau reached the aunt, though, Miss Watkins was at Langston University and on the verge of enrolling there.
“I got a call from my aunt who said, ‘Don’t sign anything, talk to Olanna,’ ” Miss Watkins said. “We were at Langston, about to sign for the people there.
“If I had enrolled, I would have had to change my major to education.”
The three friends said they have benefited from music opportunities at the Norman campus they couldn’t have imagined, such as learning from international opera star Marilyn Horne.
However, they have also leaned on each other.
Miss Chambers calls the women his big sisters.
Miss Watkins has benefited from Mrs. Goudeau’s knowledge of the university, and Mrs. Goudeau said she sometimes felt alone in the program as a Black woman until Miss Watkins arrived.
The hardest times came after Mrs. Goudeau’s wedding day, Dec. 21, 2006, the day she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
“That was really rough,” Mrs. Goudeau said. “One day I was walking and ran into Ashley. We crossed paths and I was crying like a baby, but I am a cancer survivor. I have been in remission since Jan. ‘08.”
The three singers are now looking ahead to singing careers, especially with audition season coming up this fall in New York.
Their roles last week in “Die Fledermaus” became another piece of stage experience they can claim to go with life experiences few in their field can duplicate.
