costumes Archives - Cleveland Classical

Ohio Light Opera at 40: season preview, part one

June 12, 2018 by Delaney Meyers

by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

Usually, the celebration of an anniversary results in gifts offered by the visitors to the host. But not this time! Ohio Light Opera is celebrating its 40th anniversary this summer, but they’re gifting the audiences with five OLO premieres! That’s correct – five productions that have never graced the stage of Freedlander Theatre, their home in Wooster, Ohio.

Four of the premieres — The Pajama Game, Babes in Arms, Fifty Million Frenchmen, and Candide — are from America’s Lyric Theater tradition, while the fifth — CloClo — is steeped in the Viennese operetta tradition. The season is rounded out with two old friends of OLO, Iolanthe and La Périchole.

Opening on Saturday, June 16 at 7:30 pm, The Pajama Game is known for wonderful tunes and sassy choreography by Bob Fosse (one of his dancers was Shirley MacLaine), debuted in New York in 1954. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera stages a Cendrillon of professional quality (Nov. 10)

by Daniel Hathaway

Any regional opera company would be popping its buttons with pride to have produced such an impressive performance of Jules Massenet’s Cendrillion (Cinderella) as Oberlin Opera did in Hall Auditorium on Sunday afternoon, November 10.

Imaginative staging by Stephanie Havey, skillful pacing by conductor James Feddeck, beautiful set design and costuming by Laura Carlson-Tarantowski and Chris Flaharty, respectively, plus dramatic and — for the fairies — enchanting lighting by Jeremy K. Benjamin provided a supportive environment for splendid singing by the cast and brilliant playing by the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra.

Literally thousands of versions of the Cinderella tale exist in cultures around the globe, but many of the details of Massenet’s opera date back to Charles Perrault’s 1697 Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre, which adds what have now become essential elements to the tale: a young girl mistreated by her stepmother and stepsisters, who temporarily attracts the attention of a handsome prince at a royal ball and is eventually reunited with him to become a princess herself. [Read on…]

Seraph Brass dances through musical travels in Rocky River (Nov. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

Before Seraph Brass arrived in Ohio on November 11, the group’s fall touring season had taken them on the road to Missouri, Florida, New York, and even Peru. And at the Rocky River Chamber Music Society, they gave the audience a taste of the traveling life right from the first piece.

The “Prelude” from Edvard Greig’s Holberg Suite whisked listeners away to Norway, with a melody surely familiar to many. It was extra familiar to the brass quintet themselves, who launched into their opening number without sheet music. Playing memorized is part of the group’s trademark, and they smoothly alternated using music and no music throughout the evening. Either way, the wide-ranging program had those at West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church spellbound.

Trumpet players Mary Elizabeth Bowden and Raquel Samayoa, horn player Layan Atieh, trombonist Lauren Casey-Clyde, and tuba player Robyn Black sounded equally comfortable in Romantic and contemporary repertoire, flipping between both with practiced ease. [Read on…]

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