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…]
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…]
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…]
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…]
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…]