Tag: Queen City Opera

Queen City Opera: Tchaikovky’s little known “Life” Symphony impresses

janellegelfandLeave a comment
Isaac Selya led the Queen City Opera Orchestra in Tchaikovsky’s rarely-heard Symphony No. 7

Isaac Selya, artistic director and conductor of Queen City Opera, is known for inventive productions, usually of lesser-known operatic repertoire. He often pairs operas with social issues. Even Act I from Wagner’s Walkure featured a partnership with Women Helping Women and a discussion about domestic abuse.

As the arts begin to emerge from Covid-19, it was a good time for Selya to present a non-operatic project. On Sept. 5 in Finneytown Performing Arts Center, he led a rare performance (and possibly the Midwest premiere) of Tchaikovsky’s unfinished Symphony No. 7 in E-flat Major, “Life.” Two excellent young opera singers, tenor M. Andrew Jones and soprano Raquel González, performed arias and scenes from Tchaikovsky’s operas “Eugene Onegin” and “Iolanta.”

Selya dedicated this program to all those who have died of Covid-19.Read More »

Der Freischütz hits the mark in rare American performance by Queen City Opera

janellegelfandLeave a comment
The hunters carried assault rifles in Queen City Opera’s “Der Freischütz.” Photo by Tina Gutierrez

It’s amazing that Carl Maria von Weber’s 1821 opera, “Der Freischütz,” is rarely performed in the United States. The early German romantic opera – which Queen City Opera loosely translated as “The Magic Bullets,” has a rich orchestral score, wonderful choruses and arias and a supernatural story. It’s easy to see how it paved the way to the German opera that was to come, especially that of Richard Wagner.

Isaac Selya, founder and artistic director of Queen City Opera and conductor for the production, told me in an interview for the Cincinnati Business Courier that the opera has only been performed once before in Ohio, by Cincinnati Opera in 1933. According to Operavore, the Met last performed this early romantic gem in 1972.

On Sunday, I joined many other opera lovers who were curious to see and hear Weber’s under-appreciated work, which was staged by Rebecca Herman. Read More »

‘Iolanta’ charms at Queen City Opera

janellegelfandLeave a comment
Iolanta and her aides in Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” at Queen City Opera. Provided photos

“I long for something, but I don’t know what,” sang the lovely blind princess Iolanta, in Queen City Opera’s production of Tchaikovsky’s final opera, “Iolanta.”

Tchaikovsky’s rarely-seen one-act opera is being rediscovered, with the Met recently presenting its first production starring Anna Netrebko. Last month, inspired by the Met’s production, Isaac Selya mounted a charming, beautifully sung production in Cincinnati.

The fairytale opera is about a blind princess whose father, the king of Provence, King René, doesn’t allow her to know anything about light or vision, thus keeping her in the dark about her condition. (To create awareness, Selya collaborated with Cincinnati’s Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.)

It was a gem of an opera, with a magical orchestral score, rewarding singing by a young cast and a simple but effective set design in Dunham Arts Center, a former tuberculosis hospital on Cincinnati’s West Side.Read More »

‘Cinderella’ on the West Side

janellegelfandLeave a comment
Queen city Opera
A scene from Queen City Opera’s “La Cenerentola” opening Friday.

Issac Selya, conductor and founder of Queen City Opera, is adding a new title to his resume: Producer. For the first time since founding Queen City Opera in 2012, he is not conducting, but is producing Rossini’s “La Cenerentola,” Friday and Sunday at the Dunham Arts Center on the West Side. The production’s conductor is Queen City Opera’s Associate Music Director Jesse Leong, and the stage director is Jacquelyn Mouritsen, coming from Indiana University.

“Since the company’s mission is to launch the careers of emerging artists, I am glad we can feature a new accomplished emerging conductor as well,” Selya says.

While the company has often featured musicians and singers from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, this production will be in close collaboration for the first time with the CCM Opera Department and its chair, Robin Guarino. Current CCM students will take the starring roles.

The production is presented in memory of Dr. Bob Hasl – “Dr. Bob” — who was very fond of the opera’s alternative title “Bonta in trionfo,” or “Goodness triumphs.”Read More »