PREVIOUS SEASONS

2007-2008 Opera Season

From Carthage to Rome:
Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Robert Ward's Roman Fever
Oct. 25-27, 7:30 pm
Oct. 28, 3:00 pm
Callaway Theatre
Directed by Linda Lister
Music Direction: Elizabeth Blood
Chorus Master: Matthew Hoch

Shorter Opera Theatre explores early music in Purcell's Baroque classic.  Based on Virgil's Aeneid, the opera features sailors, spirits, and sorcery but stars the ill-fated love of Dido, Queen of Carthage, and Aeneas, future founder of the Roman Empire.  Contemporary composer Robert Ward brings Edith Wharton's short story to life in his operatic realization of Roman Fever.  Two American widows vacationing in Rome, Italy realize they have quite a lot in common in this opera's surprise ending.  In one evening, enjoy a taste of both 17th century and 20th century opera all sung in English.

Gilbert and Sullivan's The Gondoliers
Jan. 11-12, 7:30 pm
Rome City Auditorium
Directed by Linda Lister
Music Direction: Elizabeth Blood

The twelfth collaboration by Gilbert and Sullivan, this charming operetta delights in satirizing British snobbery while reveling in its Italian setting of Venice.  Two gondoliers and their brides mix with Spanish nobility, singing Sullivan's lilting barcarolles and dancing cachuchas in Gilbert's typical topsy-turvy fashion.  Come see the first Shorter Opera Theatre production at the Rome City Auditorium in this production sponsored by Dr. Sam Baltzer and Rome’s Own Music Ensembles. The Gondoliers will be performed with orchestral accompaniment.

Operas being considered for the 2008-9 season include Menotti’s The Medium and The Old Maid and the Thief and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel (in German).

2006-2007 Opera Season

Celebrating 250 Years of Mozart
October 25-28, 7:30 p.m.
Brookes Chapel
Bastien and Bastienne
The Impresario

An Evening of Puccini*
January 18-20, 7:30 p.m.
January 2, 3 p.m.
Callaway Theatre

Suor Angelica - by Giacomo Pucinni (sung in Italian with English supertitles)
 In this haunting opera set in 17th century Italy, a young girl named Angelica is banished to a convent for disgracing her family.

Gianni Schicchi - by Giacomo Pucinni (sung in Italian with English supertitles)
Set in Florence, Pucinni's comic masterpiece features the beloved aria "O mio babbino caro." In a clever and complicated plot, the wily Gianni Schicchi outsmarts a handful of greedy relatives to receive the inheritance of the recently departed Buoso.

2005-2006 Opera Season

Your True Calling: Composing in the Shadow of Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Mahler (world premiere): music by Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Alma Mahler; libretto by Linda Lister

Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld

2004-2005 Opera Season

Francis Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites

2003-2004 Opera Season

Rodgers and Hammerstein's Grand Night for Singing
Linda Lister's Tryst and Thereafter, Love Theories (world premiere), and How Clear She Shines!

2002-2003 Opera Season

Johann Strauss's Die Fledermaus

2001-2002 Opera Season

Frank Loesser's The Most Happy Fella