Category: Opera

“Great Scott” adds public events

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Jake Heggie gives a master class on Wednesday at CCM
Jake Heggie gives a master class on Wednesday at CCM

This just in: The creative team of a new American opera, “Great Scott,” will make two public appearances this week as they develop and rehearse the opera as part of Opera Fusion: New Works.

Master class: American composer Jake Heggie (“Moby-Dick,” “Dead Man Walking”) will lead a vocal master class, noon to 3 p.m., in Werner Recital Hall, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Talk Back: Tony Award-winning playwright and librettist Terrence McNally (“Master Class,” “Ragtime”) and Broadway legend Jack O’Brien, who is staging the opera, will host a “Talk Back,” 1:25 to 3:25 p.m. in Dieterle Vocal Arts Center 300 on the CCM Village campus.

Opera Fusion: New Works fosters the development of new opera. It is a joint project of Cincinnati Opera and the CCM opera department, and it’s funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

A free public reading will take place at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 25 at Memorial Hall in Over-the-Rhine. The hour-long presentation will include excerpts from the opera and a Q&A with composer Heggie.

To reserve a free ticket to the reading, call 513-241-2742.

 

Do Americans appreciate their arts and culture?

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First, the back story to this column. When news came over the wire that the Atlanta Symphony had settled with its players this week after a 10-week lockout, my editor wandered over to my desk and started firing questions: Why is this a big deal, or not? Could it happen here? Why don’t we see more about classical music in the media? What about arts eduction? Whoa – that’s enough for at least three stories right there. … It started me thinking. I’ve always felt lucky to live in a city with such high-quality arts.

Anyway, here are a few of my thoughts, for now! Feel free to weigh in.

Three shows in two days

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Or, how I spent my weekend… Last night, I took in a ravishing concert by the Vocal Arts Ensemble in Memorial Hall. Here’s a teaser:

The Vocal Arts Ensemble’s survey of American music on Saturday night was a journey of pristine singing and expressive beauty. But it was the final group of spirituals — when the chorus whooped it up in “Didn’t My Lord Deliver Daniel” and “Battle of Jericho” — that galvanized listeners, and we came to know the range of possibilities under new director Craig Hella Johnson. Read the full review here.

Soon, I’ll be heading down to the Aronoff to see “Peter Pan” with Cincinnati Ballet, danced to a sweet score by Carmon DeLeone. Then I’m hopping over to CCM to see the Academy of Ancient Music perform Bach’s Orchestral Suites.

By the way, did you see the story about the Corbett Foundation’s final gift? $1 million is going to CCM’s Opera Department.

Other news last week:

Cincinnati is in the running for a major conference of international museums.

The Cincinnati Pops is getting ready to go on the road in December.

And Jake Heggie and his creative team will be in town next week to workshop his new opera. “Great Scott.”

 

Wagner triumphs on the West Side

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The cast, with conductor Isaac Selya and director James Slouffman, center
The cast, with conductor Isaac Selya and director James Slouffman, center

Last weekend, on a beautiful fall day, I traveled to the West Side of Cincinnati to see the Queen City Chamber Opera mount Wagner’s “Siegfried” Act I. The opera start-up led by Isaac Selya, 28, was putting on a reduced version of the orchestration by Alfons Abbass. It is believed to be the first performance of this edition in the United States.

“Siegfried” is the the third drama in “Der Ring des Nibelungen.” It was the second Wagner opera tackled by Selya, in collaboration with the Wagner Society of Cincinnati — he mounted Act I of “Die Walkure” last spring. It was an ambitious undertaking, but no surprise for those who know about this ambitious young company. Their productions take place in the Dunham Arts Center – a Hannaford-built Arts Deco building that at one time served as an arts center for patients of a tuberculosis sanatorium on the park grounds.Read More »

Opera for all: Fun stories that helped readers enjoy opera season

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madame5Cincinnati Opera brought back the chestnut “Madame Butterfly” this year. To give our coverage a “facelift,” we had a timelapse video of Cio-Cio San getting her makeup, and gave readers five reasons why Madame Butterfly should be your first opera.

Here’s the opera review. At the end of the four-opera season, readers chimed in on Facebook — so we rounded those up here.

Photo by Liz Dufour of Maria Luigia Borsi as Butterfly