VOCI Archives - Cleveland Classical

Opera Circle Cleveland creates partnerships for community collaboration on The Bartered Bride

October 16, 2015 by Daniel Hathaway

by Mike Telin

Sometimes one simply must wait for the right time to assemble all of the collaborators necessary in order to bring an opera production to fruition.

For Opera Circle Cleveland, Voices of Canton Incorporated, The Bohemian National Hall, and the Cleveland Women’s Orchestra, the time to present a fully staged production of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride has arrived. On Sunday, October 18 in Canton’s Timken High School Auditorium, and Sunday, October 25 in Cleveland’s Bohemian National Hall, audiences can enjoy Smetana’s comic opera about an arranged marriage gone awry.

“For us this project has been nine years in the making,” Opera Circle Cleveland co-founder and executive director Dorota Sobieska said over coffee in Ohio City’s Hingetown neighborhood. “It is a very difficult opera in every respect, and the only way for us to produce it would for it to become a large-scale community collaboration.” [Read more…]

Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts return with plenty of festive cheer (Dec. 11)

by Stephanie Manning

This article was originally published on Cleveland.com

CLEVELAND, Ohio — If the twinkling lights, leafy green garlands and festive poinsettias didn’t already clue you in, the holidays have arrived at Severance Music Center. ‘Tis the season for annual traditions — including The Cleveland Orchestra’s holiday concerts, which began on Wednesday evening.

Running through December 22, the programs feature plenty of seasonal classics plus some potential new favorites. The first performance proved that this mix is a delightful recipe for festive cheer.

“Look at you all, out on a school night!” conductor Sarah Hicks proclaimed joyfully from the podium. Just as many concertgoers donned red outfits to get into the spirit, Mandel Concert Hall was also decked out with decorations and stage lighting effects.

[Read on…]

Oberlin Conservatory convincingly tells Omar’s story (Dec. 8)

by Stephanie Manning

The Cleveland premiere of Rhiannon Giddens’ and Michael Abels’ Pultizer Prize-winning opera Omar on December 8 at the Maltz Performing Arts Center proved that concert productions of opera can succeed without sets, elaborate costumes and extensive staging. Indeed, the Oberlin Conservatory presentation offered more than enough to keep the audience in the crowded house enthralled.

The Opera, which was also presented at Oberlin’s Finney Chapel two days earlier, is based on the 1831 autobiography of Muslim scholar Omar ibn Said, the only such work written by an enslaved person during their enslavement, and the only such document written in Arabic.

Rhiannon Giddens’ brilliant libretto chronicles the life of ibn Said, beginning in present-day Senegal and following him through his capture, journey via the Middle Passage, and enslavement in North and South Carolina. [Read on…]

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