by Stephanie Manning
The Higgler is an opera about missed opportunities, mixed signals, and difficult decisions. So what awaits its regretful characters once the story ends? Well, your guess is as good as mine.
The ambiguous ending of Margi Griebling-Haigh’s opera is perhaps its biggest paradox. On one hand, when the lights went up not long after a key plot reveal, it left plenty of unanswered questions. On the other, it was hard not to be charmed by the world premiere production at Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights, which I saw on June 8.
The quandary about the ending originates not from Griebling-Haigh’s libretto, but from the original text — A.E. Coppard’s short story “The Higgler,” which the composer follows almost to the letter. Narrator Joseph Hollings occasionally read out verbatim passages, describing certain scenes that wouldn’t have otherwise been possible with the limited set. But director Marla Berg ensured that all transitions were clear, and the rotating backdrops allowed up to three distinct locations to be represented onstage at one time. [Read more…]
On Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 pm at Disciples Christian Church, Margi Griebling-Haigh’s tragi-comic chamber opera The Higgler will receive its world premiere, directed by Marla Berg and conducted by Steven Smith.
Cleveland has become something of a hotbed for chamber music, with a winter season sponsored by the Cleveland Chamber Music Society, two summer series curated by ChamberFest Cleveland and Encore Chamber Music Institute, and an orchestra famous for playing with the precision and nuance of a 90-piece string quartet.
Forming a small vocal ensemble was something that Steven Plank had wanted to do for a long time. And when a surge in COVID cases forced him to reduce the number of singers in the choir at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, the opportunity arose. “We began doing the liturgy with just eight singers,” Plank said during a telephone conversation. “We were having such a good time that one Thursday evening I asked if they would like to do some concerts. And they all said yes.”
Making 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.
For 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. 
Mozart began his opera seria, La clemenza di Tito (The Clemency of Titus), with Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, shortly after he had completed the majority of his comic opera, The Magic Flute. However the two operas are worlds apart from each other. Clemenza’s plot centers around Vitellia, daughter of deposed emperor Vitellio, who wants revenge against Tito and convinces his best friend Sesto to execute him. You can read a full synopsis