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Ohio Light Opera: 
No, No, Nanette! (June 24)

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by Daniel Hathaway

When the Freedlander Theatre grand drape rose for the first No, No, Nanette! curtain call on Saturday afternoon in Wooster, it revealed only the tap dancing feet of the excellent Ohio Light Opera cast. That cleverly validated both stage director Steven A. Daigle’s characterization of the 1925 hit musical as “a dancing show” and choreographer Spencer Reese’s genius in getting an entire stage full of actors to tap and create a wonderful din with their feet during several production numbers.

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Ohio Light Opera: 
Camelot (June 14)

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by Daniel Hathaway

In short, there’s simply not a more congenial spot
For happily-ever-aftering than here in Camelot

On June 10, Ohio Light Opera opened its 44th season with the first of thirteen performances of Lerner & Loewe’s Camelot, brilliantly time traveling its audiences in Freedlander Theater at the College of Wooster back to a legendary and evanescent Medieval era when knights in shining armor gathered with King Arthur at a round table (where all are equal) and pledged themselves to a code of purity and chivalry.

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Ohio Light Opera: 
The Fantasticks (July 19)

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by Daniel Hathaway

The Fantasticks travels lightly, but it’s traveled a great distance since Harvey Schmidt and Tom Jones adapted Les Romanesques, an 1894 play by Edmond Rostand, into a 1960 hit. The show opened in May of that year and ran off-Broadway for 42 years and over 17,000 performances.

It’s a boy-meets-girl tale simply and poignantly told along the lines of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town (or e.e. cummings’ anyone lived in a pretty how town) by a troupe of traveling actors who begin by unpacking everything they need to tell the story from a trunk.

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Ohio Light Opera: The Devil’s Rider (July 17)

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

If, like me, you think there can never be too many Viennese-style operettas, you should be pleased with The Devil’s Rider, the latest presentation at Ohio Light Opera. You will also be happy that artistic director Steven Daigle is adept at translating German librettos into English (the original German libretto was by Rudolph Schanzer and Ernst Welisch), so it all makes sense as it proceeds. He has waved his magic wand once again, presenting the 13th OLO premiere of a work by Emmerich Kálmán. This one is also an American premiere. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Music in the Air (July 11)

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

What sets Music in the Air apart from most operettas that take place in Germany is the touch of screwball comedy that is interwoven with the musical side to produce a vastly different, yet totally enjoyable work of musical theater. It isn’t quite an operetta, nor is it strictly musical theater (imagine if you will, I Love Lucy meets The Merry Widow). It is totally tuneful, just as one would expect from Jerome Kern, and the book and lyrics for this 1932 production were by his frequent collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein II. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera: Into the Woods (June 27)

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by Kelly Ferjutz
Special to ClevelandClassical.com

There’s a wise old saying: be careful what you wish for — you might just get it. And if that happens, then what do you do? That could well be the theme of Into the Woods, now in rep at Ohio Light Opera through August 9. Once upon a time, Stephen Sondheim wrote lyrics for music that had been composed by others: among them were the classics West Side Story and Gypsy. At some point, he must have realized that writing the music might be more fun. [Read more…]

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