by David Kulma
If anyone is worried about the future of opera, all they have to do is attend a college production to calm the nerves. There are numerous highly-skilled young people ready to take up the genre’s mantle, as was clear from the Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater’s production of The Juniper Tree in Mixon Hall on Halloween weekend. I attended opening night on Thursday, October 31, which was dedicated to the memory of the late Cleveland arts icon A. Grace Lee Mims. Artistic director Dean Southern chose a relatively recent work composed in 1984 by Philip Glass and Robert Moran. With a libretto by Arthur Yorinks, The Juniper Tree takes its plot from a grim tale by the Brothers Grimm. [Read more…]
From November 7-10, Cleveland Institute of Music Opera Theater presented a double bill of Igor Stravinsky’s early Le Rossignol and Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges in CIM’s Kulas Hall. Dean Southern directed, and Harry Davidson conducted the CIM Orchestra, with sets and lighting by Dave Brooks and costumes by Inda Blatch-Geib. It was a very fine show, both musically and theatrically.