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Oberlin Opera embraces the fun and games in La finta giardiniera

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by Stephanie Manning

The Oberlin Opera students have recently been learning to see their stage as a playground — literally.

In Mozart’s La finta giardiniera, “ these characters are sort of playing games in regards to their romantic relationships,” director Stephanie Havey explained. “ So we’ve incorporated different children’s games and playground activities into the action, as a metaphor for how they’re manipulating each other.”

This comedic Mozart opera from 1775, which boasts enough mistaken-identity plotlines to set one’s head spinning, will be presented this weekend at Oberlin’s Hall Auditorium. Conducted by Christian Capocaccia, the Thursday, March 6, Friday, March 7, and Saturday, March 8 performances are at 8:00 pm, while the Sunday, March 9 performance is at 2:00 pm. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera: L’Orfeo in Hall Auditorium (March 17)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The ancient Greek legend of Orpheus and Eurydice has interchangeable endings.

At the end of Claudio Monteverdi’s musical fable L’Orfeo, first performed at the ducal palace in Mantua on February 24, 1607 and staged by Oberlin Opera Theater in four Hall Auditorium performances last weekend, the god of music lives on to continue to enchant everything that hears him sing, having been snatched from the clutches of Pluto in a classic deus ex machina intervention.

Those who prefer happy-ever-after endings can rejoice that Monteverdi didn’t set the alternate conclusion of Alessandro Striggio the Younger’s libretto, in which Dionysius’ Maenads, having grown tired of his incessant mourning for Eurydice, dramatically tear Orpheus limb from limb.

Oberlin’s production, directed by Stephanie Havey and conducted by Christian Capocaccia, offered the rare opportunity to hear Striggio’s poetic verse and Monteverdi’s inventive score performed by college age voices and period instruments. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera: Candide
(March 12)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin Opera’s wonderful mid-March production of Candide combined several layers of brilliance.

First, the source: the anonymous 1759 novella Candide, or the Optimist. Later owned up to by the French Enlightenment philosopher François-Marie Arouet — better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire — it was a deliciously wicked send-up of the absurd teachings of optimist philosophers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who taught that everything was for the best “in this best of all possible worlds.”

Then in 1956 came the first staged version of Candide as a comic opera with a witty libretto by Lillian Hellman and a high-spirited score by Leonard Bernstein — originally conceived by Hellman as a play, but Bernstein’s intentions of making it an operetta won out. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera Theater to present Mozart’s Così fan tutte

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by Mike Telin

Update from Oberlin Conservatory: While there are no suspected cases of COVID-19 on our campus or in our community, we have chosen to limit public gatherings for performances during the coming days to ensure the health and wellness of our community. Therefore, out of an abundance of caution, Hall Auditorium will be closed to patrons for the Oberlin Opera Theater production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte.

The opera will still be performed, however, and we are currently working on the necessary technology to make the Saturday, March 14 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, March 15 at 2 p.m. performances available via live stream. We will publicize the link to the live stream as soon as it becomes available.

Here’s a plot worthy of an opera: in a single day the philosopher Don Alfonso will prove to the young officers Guglielmo and Ferrando that like all women, their fiancées Fiordiligi and Dorabella are incapable of remaining faithful. And there’s the maid Dispena who, for a price, is more than happy to help move things along. Thus the stage is set for Così fan tutte.

This week Oberlin Opera Theater will present Mozart’s comic opera — subtitled The School for Lovers — directed by Jonathon Field with Christopher Larkin conducting the Oberlin Orchestra. Performances take place in Hall Auditorium on Wednesday, March 11, Friday, March 13, and Saturday, March 14 at 8:00 pm, and Sunday, March 15 at 2:00 pm. (The performances are closed to the public — see notice above.) [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera Theater presents
“A Salute to Leonard Bernstein”

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by Mike Telin

When Leonard Bernstein wrote his one-act opera Trouble in Tahiti in 1951, Harry Truman was president, unemployment was at 3.3%, and new roads were built to accommodate the increasing numbers of cars. A gallon of gas cost 19 cents, a loaf of bread 16 cents, and a dozen eggs 24 cents. I Love Lucy debuted on television, Disney’s Alice in Wonderland was released in movie theaters, and, the American Dream could only be achieved by moving to the suburbs.

This week, Oberlin Opera Theater will celebrate the 100th birthday of Leonard Bernstein with a tribute that includes Trouble in Tahiti along with music from his hit Broadway shows West Side Story, Candide, On the Town, and Wonderful Town. Performances take place in Hall Auditorium at 8:00 pm on Wednesday, November 7, Friday, November 9, and Saturday, November 10, and at 2:00 pm on Sunday, November 11. Raphael Jiménez leads the Oberlin Orchestra. Tickets are available online.

“The opera is a social commentary on life in suburbia,” Oberlin Opera Theater Director Jonathon Field said during an interview. Trouble in Tahiti opens with a jazz vocal trio espousing the virtues of living in a little white house in places such as Scarsdale, Highland Park, and Shaker Heights. “They’re singing about what was supposed to be the good life and all the things you were supposed to strive for. But Sam and Dinah discover that in reality, the idyllic 1950s suburban life in America is not all it’s cracked up to be.” [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera invites laugh-fest with titles by Donizetti & Poulenc this week

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by Mike Telin

oberlin-opera-poulenc-donizettiFarce and Surrealism will be center stage when Oberlin Opera Theater, Jonathon Field, director, presents a double-bill of Gaetano Donizetti’s satirical Viva la Mamma and Francis Poulenc’s outrageous Les Mamelles de Tirésias. Raphael Jiménez will conduct the student cast and the Oberlin Orchestra in performances beginning on Wednesday, November 2 at 8 pm in Hall Auditorium. The production continues through the weekend with 8 pm curtains on Friday and Saturday, November 4 and 5, and 2 pm on Sunday, November 6. Both operas will be sung in English, with English supertitles.

Is there a unifying theme between the two operas? “Sexual identity,” Jonathon Field said during a recent interview. “It is topical — is our identity determined by people who have knowledge of us, or is it determined by what we want it to be? The Poulenc certainly deals with that idea, and to a certain degree so does the Donizetti.” [Read more…]

Review: Oberlin Opera Theater — Hansel und Gretel (November 6)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Oberlin-H&G-1Jonathon Field never fails to bring new insights into his opera productions, and Oberlin Opera Theater’s fall show, Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel is full of details that add to the delicious ambiguity of what many of us think of as a children’s opera. After all, it’s a fairy tale decked out with a wicked witch, a gingerbread house and guardian angels. But scratch the surface of this musical rendering of a Brothers Grimm story and disturbing topics come to light.

When we first meet Hansel (Marisa Novak) and Gretel (Alexis Aimé), they seem like normal adolescent siblings who are locked in a continuous squabble — until you notice that there’re a lot of physical blows being exchanged. That’s a stock element in all kinds of comedy from Punch and Judy shows to animated cartoons, but as the scene goes on and mother (Kayleigh Decker) and father (Daveed Buzaglo) come home, the level of physical violence begins to add up to a diagnosis: this is a dysfunctional family who are plagued by hunger, overshadowed by drunkenness and who take out their frustrations on each other with fists and brooms (their cottage industry has stockpiled plenty of weapons close at hand).

You can set that level of analysis aside if you like, but it keeps coming back. [Read more…]

Preview: Oberlin Opera: Hansel and Gretel— insights from director Jonathon Field and members of the cast

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by Mike Telin

JESSE-KarenThe first volume of children’s tales published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812 includes some of today’s most beloved stories such as Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel and Rumpelstiltskin. Also included in that volume is the tale of Hansel and Gretel, two children who cleverly outwit a witch. This week, Englebert Humperdinck’s adaptation of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale returns to the Hall Auditorium stage in Oberlin in four performances by Oberlin Opera Theatre, Raphael Jimenez conductor. The production also marks the return of rising opera star Karen Jesse (left) who is reviving her role as the witch.

The opera was last staged at Oberlin in 2003. Oberlin Opera theatre director Jonathon Field says this production is very different from the traditional approach to the opera that he took in the past. “As I was working on it during the spring I became disenchanted with the way I had done it before, so I took my score and erased all of my staging. I also began to look at the characters and tried to figure out some of the motivations — like what it was that led Hansel and Gretel to survive the witch when all of the other kids hadn’t.” However it is Field’s character motivations that prompted him to include a disclaimer in the opera’s publicity materials — Please note: Portions may not be suitable for patrons younger than 12.

Field points out that Hansel and Gretel come from a family that is very poor and often goes hungry. [Read more…]

Review: Oberlin Opera Theater — Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus (March 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

Fledermaus-1It was clear from the first notes of the overture on Wednesday evening in Hall Auditorium that Oberlin Opera Theater’s Die Fledermaus was going to be a musically distinguished production. Guest conductor Raphael Jiménez and the Oberlin Orchestra (which he regularly conducts in concerts) took brisk tempos and played all the tunes that would come around later with verve and precision, including some wicked violin licks. Jiménez, who has plenty of experience in the opera pit, led a tight performance of the entire operetta, closely partnering singers and infusing the orchestra playing with enough Viennese rhythmic nuance to sound authentic.

The opening night cast for Johann Strauss II’s dizzy tale of a Viennese practical joke that gets repaid with interest was strong, confident and wonderfully comedic. [Read more…]

Oberlin Opera: Conversations with William Bolcom and Joan Morris

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by Mike Telin

Bolcoms-1111Last week the Oberlin Conservatory of Music’s Opera theatre presented four performances of American composer William Bolcom’s comic opera A Wedding. Bolcom was present for Wednesday’s opening performance as well as to give a talk on Friday about his career and his work in opera. A Wedding was preceded by McTeague, and A View from the Bridge. All three operas were commissioned by Chicago Lyric Opera.

On Thursday morning only minutes prior to an interview on WCPN’s “Around Noon” program, the composer and his long-time performance collaborator and wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris, were beaming at the success of the previous night’s opening performance. “I am so pleased with the way it went”, Bolcom said with a smile. “The conductor had the perfect tempos, and that’s always a concern of mine.” Bolcom was soon ushered into the studio with “Around Noon” host Dee Perry, and the two had an engaging conversation about how A Wedding came to be and his about career as a composer and teacher. Although Ms. Morris must have heard these stories before, as well as living many of them, she listened attentively to the interview in the green room, smiling and nodding with affirmation as Bolcom and Perry conversed. “She’s very good” Bolcom said of Perry following the interview, “Very well prepared, and she asked good question.” [Read more…]

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