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Ohio Light Opera presents splendid Yeomen of the Guard (July 16)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Ohio Light Opera opened its tenth production of The Yeomen of the Guard, on Thursday afternoon, July 16, at The College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre. Director Steven Daigle’s staging kept the action buoyant and funny without pretending that every character emerges happily from the plot.

Arthur Sullivan sets it all to one of his richest scores: grand, intimate, and often joyous. Renée Surprenant Fitzgerald’s setting placed the action at the imposing doorstep of the Tower of London, while Charlene Gross’s costumes, in yellows, reds, and pinks, were bright and reassuringly ridiculous — not just British, but Gilbert & Sullivanian.

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Ohio Light Opera’s Damn Yankees has all kinds of heart (June 18)

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by Stephanie Manning

Any hardcore Cleveland Guardians fan might say they’d do anything to see their team win. But would they strike a deal with the devil for it?

The character of Joe Boyd makes just that kind of Faustian bargain for his beloved baseball team in Damn Yankees, the second of six shows to open at Ohio Light Opera this season. The 1955 musical, with music and lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and a book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, began its run in the College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theater on June 18.

A premiere for the company, this golden age musical has plenty of heart, even if its second half doesn’t quite hit a home run. But with a strong cast and direction by Steven Daigle, it’s a production worth checking out, filled with colorful sets and infectious energy from the performers.

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Ohio Light Opera: Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet (July 17)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet was a grand hit in 1929, but its large cast, relatively complex plot, and throwback operetta format have kept it out of the regular repertoire in recent years.

Thank goodness for Ohio Light Opera’s polished new staging, seen on July 17 at The College of Wooster’s Freedlander Theatre. This elegant — and yes, bittersweet — tale of love, loss, and the passage of time was elevated by superb singing, splendid orchestral playing under Michael Borowitz’s baton, and all the wit, warmth, and visual splendor one hopes to find at the theater.

Structured as a memory play, Bitter Sweet is a deeply personal work. According to biographers, the love story — particularly as expressed through the character of Carl Linden — puts Coward’s romantic ideals on full display.

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Ohio Light Opera: three key players discuss this season’s repertoire and some bittersweet changes ahead

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by Stephanie Manning

This summer, Ohio Light Opera artistic director Steven Daigle is crossing not one, but two shows off his bucket list.

“ I would’ve loved to direct all six of the shows this summer,” he said. But after dividing up assignments between him and his three fellow directors, eventually he had to choose.

So what drew him to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel and Noël Coward’s Bitter Sweet?  These shows aren’t just visual and musical spectacles — they also grapple with some complicated emotions. [Read more…]

Ohio Light Opera’s The Arcadians: all upbeat, all the time (July 18)

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by Peter Feher

The Ohio Light Opera is traveling to a world terrifically out of time in The Arcadians, the company’s sixth and final production of the summer.

No, not Arcadia, the mythical realm where shepherds and nymphs always tell the truth and, as a result, never grow old. That vision of utopia lasts for only one act of Lionel Monckton, Howard Talbot, and Arthur Wimperis’ 1909 musical comedy. For the remainder of the show, we’re whisked to what would have been familiar territory for the three songwriters but what, in 2024, might seem like an even more fantastical setting: Edwardian England.

The delightful sense of dislocation owes a little to OLO’s staging and a lot to the inevitable reality that The Arcadians has aged. Like much turn-of-the-20th-century musical theater, the story here — by librettists Mark Ambient and Alexander M. Thompson — comes second to the songs. [Read more…]

Steven Daigle previews Ohio Light Opera July openers

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by Mike Telin

Now that the Ohio Light Opera is just past the midpoint of its 2024 season, there are still two titles to add to its repertoire. Franz Lehár’s The Count of Luxembourg opens on Thursday, July 11 at 2:00 pm, and the curtain rises on Lionel Monckton’s and Howard Talbot’s The Arcadians on Thursday, July 18 at the same hour. Both are staged by OLO’s artistic director Steven Daigle and will be conducted by Wilson Southerland.

“I always gravitate to operettas,” Daigle said during a telephone interview earlier this summer. “I think it’s because when I started here at OLO, my first show was Emmerich Kálmán’s The Gypsy Princess. Because of my background in directing opera and as an educator dealing mostly with classical music, it really represents the diffusion of all things wonderful about lyric theater.”

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Ohio Light Opera: Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld (July 13)

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by Daniel Hathaway

In 1858, a French government critic described Offenbach’s first two-act operetta, Orpheus in the Underworld, as “a profanation of holy and glorious antiquity.” But instead of reacting to its “blasphemy and lascivious goings on” with shock and horror, Parisians flocked to see the show, which ran for a then-record of 288 performances.

Ohio Light Opera shows why in the production I saw — cleverly staged by Steven Daigle, brightly conducted by Michael Borowitz, and colorfully designed by Daniel Hobbs — in its opening performance at Freedlander Theatre at the College of Wooster on July 13. Satire can scarcely ever be overdone, and the opportunity to skewer society’s sacred cows — or its gods — opens many doors wide.

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Ohio Light Opera:
Arizona Lady (July 6)

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by Kevin McLaughlin

The variety of titles that make up Ohio Light Opera’s annual summer series is its secret sauce. Go to a few shows and you’re bound to find something you’ll like, or maybe in this case a dark horse to love. Emmerich Kálmán’s Arizona Lady is an unknown in these parts — an OLO premiere this summer, which I heard on July 6 at Freedlander Theatre. It stumbles a little at times, but in the end she’s a winner.

Kálmán, who was born in Hungary, always sounds middle European to me, no matter the setting of a particular show or scene. Though the music and setting in Arizona Lady occasionally seem at odds, it’s fun to hear Hungarian-tinged folksong one minute, Viennese tradition the next, and Western cowboy songs the next.

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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 returns to Freedlander Theatre

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by Mike Telin

For over four decades Ohio Light Opera has enthralled audiences with performances of the complete Gilbert & Sullivan catalog as well as American and European operettas and titles from the Golden Age of musical theater. Performed in the intimate Freedlander Theatre located on the campus of Wooster College, Ohio Light Opera offers fully-staged, entertaining productions in the midst of a charming college-town atmosphere.

Like nearly every performing arts organization in the world — especially those reliant on vocalists — OLO had to “improvise” during the pandemic. Now the company is ready to launch its 2022 season on Saturday, June 18 at 7:30 pm with Rodgers & Hammerstein’s enchanting Cinderella. Tickets are available online. Click here to view a season calendar. [Read more…]

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