Meet opera’s super couple: a retired teacher and a broadcast technician who have performed in some of the COC’s largest productions

You could call Bruce Jakacki and Nancy Mellow an opera super couple.

They’ve appeared in some of the Canadian Opera Company’s largest productions, from Bizet’s “Carmen” and Strauss’s “Salome” to Mozart’s thrilling “Don Giovanni.”

Yet for all the credits to their name, neither of them has a professional background in opera: Mellow is a former elementary schoolteacher and Jakacki worked as a broadcast engineering technician for roughly three decades.

The married retirees from Whitby, Ont., are supernumeraries — known simply as “supers” — with the COC. Quite literally the unsung heroes of almost every production, they act as extras and fill out the show’s largest scenes.

For many, the opportunity is an opera lover’s dream: the chance to appear onstage in a professional production, standing metres away from some of the world’s best singers. The best part: with little to no performance experience required, almost anyone can do it, so long as they can fit in an existing costume and commit to an intense rehearsal and performance schedule.

“If it was just the singers up there onstage, it probably wouldn’t be as visually appealing,” said Jakacki, who is to appear in a new production of “Macbeth” this spring. “We’re there to provide the human scenery that’s required to help colour and fill out the whole scene.”

Mellow, who earned a master’s degree in music education, became a super after wanting to reconnect with her artistic roots in retirement. Initially, she worked as an usher, a piano accompanist for community musical theatre productions, and as a television and film background actor.

“One day, I thought, ‘I wonder who else hires extras,’” said Mellow. A brief online search led her to the COC, which she later discovered was looking for a super for its 2015 production of “Don Giovanni.”

She made her COC debut in that opera, playing opposite Canadian baritone Russell Braun, and fell in love with the process.

“Opera is a perfect marriage of all of the arts. You’ve got the glorious voices, the beautiful music and stories that could stand the test of time,” said Mellow, who’s playing a nun in this season’s “Tosca,” her sixth opera with the company.

“At the beginning, it’s all this swirling around … then all of a sudden it becomes this cohesive piece,” she added. “That is just beautiful and, for me, what keeps me coming back all the time.”

Jakacki and Mellow, who spoke with the Star during a break between rehearsals, are two of 30 to 40 active supernumeraries on the COC’s roster. They come from all walks of life: teachers, bankers, arts workers, martial artists, students. All, however, share a passion for performing.

“You don’t have to be talented to be a super in the opera,” said Liz Walker, one of the COC’s supernumerary co-ordinators, who has appeared in several productions herself. “You just have to be obedient and reliable,” she added with a chuckle in a phone interview.

While most commonly found in opera, supers also appear in ballet and, to a lesser extent, in professional theatre.

Despite often playing nonspeaking and nonsinging roles, those in opera, at least at the COC, have a gruelling rehearsal and performance schedule, needed for anywhere between 20 and 25 nights for each production.

“Being in two separate operas, you should see our calendar,” said Mellow. “I’ve had to colour code it: blue for me and orange for him. It’s just insane.”

Jakacki, who studied jazz in university before working in news media, only became a super last fall, shortly after he retired. He had watched his wife appear in various productions over the years and was always keen to join her onstage.

“I was always very envious of her doing this,” he said wryly.

Jakacki’s first production, in which he appeared opposite his wife, was Bizet’s “Carmen.” He played a tavern owner while she was an orange vendor. For him, the experience was thrilling.

“I just fell in love with it right away and I thought, ‘I want to do this again,’” he said.

However, being a super isn’t for everyone, Jakacki, Mellow and Walker are all quick to note.

“You have to have a fair amount of patience. And that is to say that there can be a lot of sitting and waiting around,” said Jakacki. “The ability to take direction, to listen and to not let an ego get in the way is also important.”

You also certainly don’t do it for the money. Supers receive a small honorarium — $15 per rehearsal and $18 per performance at the COC — meant to simply cover the cost of travel and parking.

But for those passionate about the gig, the intangible rewards are themselves pay.

For Walker, it’s the electric buzz of performing in front of 2,000 individuals at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts and receiving their applause at the end of each performance. For Mellow and Jakacki, that fulfilment is found in the creative process.

At a rehearsal for “Tosca,” roughly three weeks before the start of performances, the energy in the rehearsal hall was palpable. Mellow was one of about 50 singers, chorus members and supers all sharing the stage. Director Paul Curran approached her and shared some notes on the blocking.

In the finale of act one, she made her entrance, leading a column of other performers behind her. And as the principal singers and chorus broke out into Puccini’s thunderous “Te Deum laudamus,” a powerful wall of sound emanating from the stage, there was Mellow, upstage centre, in the midst of it.

“I have to pinch myself every now and again to realize that I’m actually a part of this all,” she said.

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