The Ohio Light Opera is receiving online applications from string, woodwind, brass, percussion and harp players for its 2017 Orchestra. The deadline is March 1. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Emmerich Kálmán’s The Little Dutch Girl (July 27)
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
Most people attending operettas don’t expect the plot to make much sense, thus avoiding a fair amount of confusion. A perfect example is The Little Dutch Girl, a delightful work by Emmerich Kálmán — and the final show in Ohio Light Opera’s seven-production schedule to open the season. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Ivor Novello’s The Dancing Years (July 19)
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
The Dancing Years, an OLO premiere this season, first appeared in the UK in 1939, and ran for 1150 performances, well into the beginning of WWII. Ivor Novello wrote the book and the music, while the lyrics are by Christopher Hassall. Novello was heavily influenced by the approaching war and the situation he had encountered in Vienna shortly before beginning this work. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne (July 16)
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
Screwball comedies of the mid-20th Century may well have been inspired by the zany 1866 operetta La Vie Parisienne, which ran for 136 performances. Judging from Ohio Light Opera’s wildly entertaining production (I saw the show on Saturday, July 16), composer Jacques Offenbach surely knew what he was doing. If you want to laugh a lot and have your mood lifted by fast-paced dancing and singing, this show is for you. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Have a Heart (July 7)
by Kelly Ferjutz
special to ClevelandClassical.com
As a general rule, elevators go up and down, conveying people or goods from one level to another in a given building. The elevator on stage for OLO’s production of Have a Heart, however, goes backwards. It takes the happy audience (plus cast and crew) straight back to early 1917, and the premiere production of Jerome Kern’s then-new musical. It’s a delightful journey, one you won’t want to miss. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Kiss Me, Kate and Annie Get Your Gun (June 25)
by Kelly Ferjutz
special to ClevelandClassical.com
Many aspects of Ohio Light Opera’s productions are moving forward along with their repertoire, which is expanding beyond the traditional Gilbert & Sullivan oeuvre and the European Operetta into an exploration of early American musicals and Broadway masterpieces of the Golden Age. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera’s first four shows include old favorites and a Kern revival from 1917
by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com
For Wooster’s Ohio Light Opera, it isn’t enough simply to choose seven great examples of lyric theater to comprise a season. No, it takes months, sometimes years to pull together all the pieces of the puzzle in order to put the very best production of each show on the stage of Freedlander Theater.
Cole Porter’s 1948 masterpiece Kiss Me, Kate will open OLO’s 38th season on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 pm. As a play within a play, it looks back to Shakespeare, of course, and to The Taming of the Shrew. But it also looks forward to more modern days, with its consideration of women’s lib — recognizing Lilli as an equal participant in the story. First seen in the 1940s, it was Porter’s love letter to the theater, not only to the actors, dancers, and musicians, but also to the audiences who came to see it. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Yeoman of the Guard or The Merryman and His Maid (July 22)
by Kelly Ferjutz, special to ClevelandClassical
Before opening night, director Julie Wright Costa freely admitted that Yeoman of the Guard was her “very fave of all of Gilbert & Sullivan’s creations.” Having appeared in several productions of it through the years, she was eagerly looking forward to putting her own vision onstage at Ohio Light Opera. And what a splendid vision it is! With a bit of help from conductor J. Lynn Thompson, the production zipped right along, while still allowing everyone time to breathe. [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Oh, Kay, a madcap comedy with a bit of everything, set to music by Gershwin
by Kelly Ferjutz, special to clevelandclassical
Get your laughter on, as you’ll surely need it in this marvelous recreation of the 1926 Broadway musical that the super-talented Gershwin brothers wrote for the great Gertrude Lawrence. With a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse and a little help from Howard Dietz, Oh, Kay! is, in the words of director Ted Christopher, “a madcap romp — a drawing room comedy, with a Busby Berkley dance routine in the middle of it.” [Read more…]
Ohio Light Opera: Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore (The Witch’s Curse), July 10
by J.D. Goddard
On Friday, July 10, after the customary singing of God Save the Queen, the curtain went up on the second performance of Ohio Light Opera’s Ruddigore in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster, and the audience was immediately swept into the action in the Cornish town of Rederring. Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1887 operetta has a rather baffling story line and a whimsical musical style. [Read more…]