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CIM Opera to stage Hector Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict February 24-27

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by Mike Telin & Daniel Hathaway

CIM_Beatrice_Benedict_1Directed by David Bamberger, CIM Opera Theater will present four performances of Hector Berlioz’s comic opera Béatrice et Bénédict in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music beginning on Wednesday, February 24 at 7:30 pm and continuing through Saturday, February 27. An adaptation of William Shakespeare’s comedy Much Ado About Nothing, Berlioz conceived the piece as early as 1833, but completed it only in 1862 at the behest of a casino owner in Baden-Baden, Germany, where it was first performed at the Theater der Stadt in August of that year.

“It’s not performed that often, and most people only know it from the overture, which is such a great piece in itself,” conductor Harry Davidson said in a telephone conversation. “For the opera, Berlioz took out all the tragic elements that appear in the play — Héro being accused of adultery and her father disowning her — none of that is there. But it’s very stageworthy and the music is really quite delightful and charming.” [Read more…]

CIM Opera Theater: The Marriage of Figaro in Kulas Hall (November 5)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Figaro-&-SusannaMaking virtue out of necessity, CIM Opera Theater director David Bamberger introduced a new operatic technique in his production of Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro on Thursday, November 5 in Kulas Hall: ventriloquism.

[Read more…]

CIM Opera’s The Marriage of Figaro: conversations with Susanna and Figaro

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by Mike Telin

CarolineThe celebrated collaboration between Mozart and librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte yielded three of the most popular operas in the repertoire. This week, CIM Opera Theater will present The Marriage of Figaro, the first of those operas, beginning on Wednesday, November 4 at 7:30 in the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Kulas Hall. Performances run through Saturday. The opera will be sung in Italian with English subtitles.

Based on Pierre Beaumarchais’ play The Marriage of Figaro, which had been banned in Vienna due to the plot’s lack of moral restraints, the opera is full of comical, manipulative mind games as Count Almaviva neglects his wife, the Countess Rosina Almaviva, in order to pursue her maid Susanna, who is about to marry his valet Figaro. Luckily, everything works out in the end for all parties. [Read more…]

CIM Opera: Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito (Feb. 25)

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by J.D. Goddard

CIMOPERA-1For CIM Opera’s opening night performance on Wednesday, February 25 in Kulas Hall, conductor Harry Davidson, an outstanding CIM orchestra, and a multi-talented CIM cast who were eager to take full advantage of the wonderful opportunities Mozart offered them shown forth in an impressive performance. [Read more…]

Handel’s Alcina at CIM (November 8)

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by Nicholas Jones

Alcina-Wide

To enter the world of Baroque opera is to abandon realism, especially with Handel’s magical Alcina, his 1735 recasting of the bizarre inventions of Italian chivalric romance. Almost every one in the opera is disguised, transformed, or betrayed — Bradamante, a young maiden dressed in her brother’s armor, pursues her fiancé Ruggiero, whom she discovers snuggling with the sorceress Alcina; Astolfo, a hapless warrior of whom we learn little except that his son Oberto very much misses him, has been turned into a lion quite reminiscent of Bert Lahr in The Wizard of Oz; a second sorceress (Morgana, sister to Alcina, it turns out) happily betrays her lover Oronte in the very first scene as she falls in love with Bradamante . . . and I could go on. [Read more…]

CIM Opera Theater to produce Handel’s Alcina this week

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by Daniel Hathaway

Alcina-PosterIn his recent review of a concert performance of Handel’s 1735 opera Alcina at Carnegie Hall, New York Times critic Anthony Tommasini called the work “a stunning masterpiece,” and noted that “for all its musical splendors, Alcina is not staged by major companies as often as it merits. The three-act opera, an allegorical fantasy, would seem a big enticement for a director.”

Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater director David Bamberger was definitely enticed, but for different reasons. “Every title we pick is based on the question, ‘What would be a great show for our students?’ The result is that I get to program some very interesting works that I probably would not have chosen when I was with Cleveland Opera.” [Read more…]

Review: A Celebration of English Opera at CIM (February 27)

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by Mike Telin

RidersThe Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theatre’s most recent production, “A Celebration of English Opera,” either left you scratching your head or re-energized, depending on your sensibilities. Performed in Kulas Hall from February 26 through March 1 the “Celebration” consisted of two one-act operas, the rarely heard Ralph Vaughan Williams Riders to the Sea and the second, a staple of the Baroque opera repertoire, Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas.

In his director’s notes David Bamberger pointed out that both operas center on a powerful woman and in each case, that woman self-identifies through a man – in one case a mother, in another as a lover. And in each opera the woman loses the man to rival forces that she can neither control nor totally understand. But without a doubt, the pairing of these two titles made for a fun, enjoyable and thought-provoking evening. Enjoyable because of the outstanding performances given by the young and talented CIM cast. Thought-provoking due to an ingenious take on an all too-familiar tale. I attended the Thursday, February 27 performance. [Read more…]

Preview: CIM Opera Theater — Riders to the Sea & Dido & Aeneas: conversations with Lyndsay Moy & Elizabeth Frey

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by Mike Telin

MOY-FREYBeginning on Wednesday, February 26 in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music director David Bamberger and the CIM Opera Theater will present two one-act masterpieces of English opera, Dido & Aeneas and Riders to the Sea. Harry Davidson will conduct the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra. The performances will be sung in English with projected text. Performances begin at 7:30 pm and run through Saturday, March 1.

Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Riders to the Sea is set in the Aran Islands, off Ireland’s west coast. Before the opera opens, Maurya has lost her husband, father-in-law, and four of her six sons at sea. Mezzo soprano Lyndsay Moy (left), who performs the role of Maurya, says all one needs to do to perceive the difficulties of daily life the opera’s characters are forced to endure is to look at the geographic location where the opera is set.

“It’s easy to understand just how dangerous the ocean can be. And Maurya is someone who has experienced a lot of pain caused by the ocean. She has lost her husband, her father-in-law and four sons and at the beginning of the opera she presumes that her fifth son, Michael, is also dead. [Read more…]

Preview: CIM’s Magic Flute — insights from director David Bamberger

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by Daniel Hathaway

BAMBERGER-DavidCIM Opera Theater director David Bamberger has chosen Mozart’s The Magic Flute for its fall production in Kulas Hall at the Cleveland Institute of Music, which runs from Wednesday, November 6 through Saturday, November 9, with a 7:30 pm curtain time each night. The production is double-cast (Wednesday-Friday and Thursday-Saturday) and will be sung in the original German with English supertitles.

Weighed down by enough symbolism to give Dan Brown material for a thick new book, Flute also calls for a stratospheric (and scary) soprano to play the Queen of the Night, a basso profundo to play Sarastro and a charismatic baritone to play the birdcatcher, Papageno. We reached David Bamberger by telephone last week to talk about the production. He began by musing about the character of the evil sorcerer, Sarastro.

David Bamberger: I have a big problem with Sarastro. I know that Shaw said his music sounds the way God ought to sound, but everything he actually says, if you go by the words rather than the tunes, is actually untrue. Or inept. [Read more…]

Preview: Operas opening this week— Il matrimonio segreto at CIM and Il mondo della luna at Oberlin: chats with the directors

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by Daniel Hathaway

The operahere departments of the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music are busy tightening up the final details of their Fall productions, both of which will open on Wednesday evening, November 7. Each school will present four, double-cast performances, Oberlin of Joseph Haydn’s Il mondo della luna (The World on the Moon, Wednesday and Friday through Sunday), CIM of Domenico Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto (The Secret Marriage, Wednesday through Saturday).

Stage directors Jonathon Field (Oberlin) and David Bamberger (CIM) had both aesthetic and practical reasons for choosing the Fall opera titles. “Il matrimonio is a wonderful, delightful piece that I directed once before for Cleveland Opera”, Bamberger told us in a phone conversation, “and it showcases our students well”. Field made his choice in conversation with his colleagues: “Last year the voice faculty became enthused about Il mondo della luna because there are a lot of roles for women. There’s a huge number of sopranos in the department and then an equal number of mezzos, tenors and basses. You need to be sure that you are educating as many students as possible.” [Read more…]

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