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The Cleveland Opera: “Two Portraits” in Youngstown

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by Robert Rollin

Sobieska-SkoogLast Saturday evening, November 25 at Sts. Peter & Paul Church in Youngstown, The Cleveland Opera presented Two Portraits, a lightly staged, costumed performance of Robert Schumann’s song cycles, Dichterliebe, Op. 48 (Poet’s Love) and Frauenliebe und –leben, Op. 4 (Woman’s Love and Life). Artistic Director and soprano Dorota Sobieska, credited with the concept, staging, set design and costume co-design, gave the 50-minute performance of 23 songs theatrical continuity and visual interest. [Read more…]

A weekend of short(ened) operas from Opera Circle, Kent, and Baldwin Wallace

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by Daniel Hathaway

zanetto-st-stanNovember became Northeast Ohio’s unofficial Opera Month as a number of institutions unveiled productions during the first two weeks. Particularly dense was the weekend of November 4-6, when Opera Circle Cleveland, Kent State Opera, and Baldwin Wallace Opera Theater — in cooperation with Cleveland Opera Theater — all brought titles to the stage. [Read more…]

Six opera productions hit the boards this month, four clustering on the weekend of November 4-6

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by Daniel Hathaway

serseOpera fans in Northeast Ohio will enjoy a bumper crop of productions this harvest-time. Six shows, two of them double-bills, will open between November 2 and 11. We’ll be running separate previews for Oberlin Opera Theater’s Donizetti/Poulenc evenings (November 2,4, 5, and 6), for CIM Opera’s Puccini/Menotti performances (November 9-11) and for Opera Western Reserve’s single performance of Carmen (November 11).

But let’s take a look at the busiest opera weekend of the year. Baldwin Wallace’s Serse, Kent State Opera’s scenes from The Magic Flute, and the first pair of a dozen performances of Mascagni’s Zanetto by Opera Circle Cleveland, plus the remaining Oberlin Opera performances, all fall on the weekend of November 4-6. With some astute planning, you can catch a performance of each of them. Here’s a rundown of the BW/COT, Kent State, and Opera Circle productions. [Read more…]

Opera Circle Cleveland goes al fresco in the Italian Cultural Garden July 31

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by Neil McCalmont

OCCItalianGardens2015If you were to travel to Italy in the summer and jaunt through their Renaissance gardens, you would hear the Italian people speaking their lovely language, water rushing through fountains, and concerts of gorgeous music. That delightful atmosphere will waft through Cleveland’s Italian Cultural Garden during a special opera concert of operatic arias and ensemble numbers on Sunday, July 31 at 6 pm.

“Opera in the Italian Garden” will be presented by Opera Circle Cleveland and the Cleveland Ballet, carrying on the tradition that originally began in the 1930s, and was revived in 2008. “We thought that nobody was going to show up,” said Joyce Mariani, Executive Director of the Italian Cultural Garden Foundation, over a recent telephone call. “But over 200 people came. The next year it more than doubled to 500, and last year we had an audience of 2,000. The audience makes the event what it is. We just present it.” [Read more…]

Opera Circle Cleveland: Il trovatore at the Ohio Theatre (June 11)

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by Daniel Hathaway

TentOn Saturday, June 11, four years after Opera Circle Cleveland first took on Il trovatore at Bohemian National Hall, the company revisited the opera — one of Verdi’s most popular titles — at the Ohio Theatre in PlayHouse Square. A strong cast of singers and a fine professional orchestra led by Joel Smirnoff lifted the production well above some shortcomings of staging. [Read more…]

Opera Circle: Cavalleria rusticana at First Baptist Church (November 21)

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by Daniel Hathaway

OC-Cav-1In just over an hour, betrayal and jealousy in a Sicilian village spill over into tragedy in Pietro Mascagni’s one-act classic opera, Cavalleria rusticana — all the while accompanied by some gorgeous music. Opera Circle staged two performances of “Cav” last weekend at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. I saw the opening performance on Friday evening, November 21. [Read more…]

Opera Circle to stage Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana at First Baptist

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by Daniel Hathaway

Cast-Montage

One of the most popular of all opera titles came about through a contest. 27-year-old Pietro Mascagni barely made the deadline for a new opera competition set up by Milanese publisher Edoardo Sonzogno in 1888, but won out over 72 other aspiring young Italian composers who fulfilled the entrance criterion of never before having had an opera staged. His winning entry, the one-act opera Cavalleria rusticana, received its premiere in Rome in 1890.

Although Mascagni lived until 1945 and penned fourteen other stage works, none ever received the attention that “Cav” attracted. Cleveland’s Opera Circle, having previously produced Mascagni’s second opera, L’Amico Fritz, will mount two staged performances of Cavalleria rusticana on Friday evening, November 21 and Sunday afternoon, November 23, at First Baptist Church in Shaker Heights. [Read more…]

Review: Dana New Music Festival XIX: Concert 4 at St. Columba Cathedral, Youngstown (May 1)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Sobieski-FamilyYoungstown State University’s Dana New Music Festival XIX held its ultimate concert at St. Columba Cathedral on Wednesday evening, May 1, featuring new works by faculty, student and community composers, a couple of not-so-new-music selections by French and American composers and several Polish pieces performed by four members of the Sobieski family (left) who had also been featured at a noontime concert at the Butler Institute of American Art. The Festival Orchestra was conducted by composition professor Robert Rollin and other performances featured members of the Dana Composers Ensemble (directed by Gwneth Rollin). The two-hour concert, played without intermission, offered an intriguing buffet of musical styles.

Youngstown composer Richard Zacharias’s All Right, Time to Go, ironically opened the evening with intriguing back-and-forth monologues between violin (Natalie Sahyoun) and piano (Alison Morris) who only later joined in dialogue. Both in the opening work and in Zacharias’s Duo Two (a first performance), the pairs of instrumentalists seemed to be trying to start up a conversation but communication proved difficult. Duo Two was distinguished by strong horn playing from Stephen Klein, with the fine assistance of pianist Maria Fesz. [Read more…]

Opera Circle: Il trovatore at Bohemian National Hall (February 17)

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by Robert Rollin

OCTrovatoreLast Friday night, February 17, Opera Circle joined forces with the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra to present Guiseppe Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Bohemian National Hall. Opera Circle is headed by executive director Dorota Sobieska, one of Northeast Ohio’s most talented sopranos, and music director and chorus master Jacek Sobieski, a former music director of Warsaw’s Polish National Theater. Robert Croquist, the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra’s longtime music director, served as conductor. [Read more…]

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