Prepare for opera
Photo provided by Randolph Lacy
Opera members Adam Fernandez and Smile Yong performed in an opera production last semester and will be returning this Saturday at 8 p.m. for a new performance titled “Mystery and Magic by Menotti.” |
By Douglas Sulenta
The Collegian
This Saturday in the Wahlberg Recital Hall, Fresno State’s Opera Workshop will be performing a program entitled “Mystery and Magic by Menotti,” a series of scenes and arias by Jean Carlo Menotti.
“Menotti was born in Italy and studied at the conservatory in Milan, then came to the United States. He has written most of his operas in English,” said the director of the opera, Randolph Lacy.
This is different because most operas are written in Italian.
What makes this opera different from most others is Minotti composes the music and writes the words to the opera as well.
“Most of the time operas are written is such a way that one person writes the libretto (the words) and another person is the composer that writes the music,” Lacy said.
Among the scenes the group will be performing is “The Medium.” In this scene, a dishonest fortuneteller uses her daughter and a mute gypsy boy to assist in her deceptions. When the palm reader starts to hear voices and becomes delusional, she shoots the boy thinking he is a ghost who has come to haunt her.
“The Telephone” is the story of a woman gossiping on the telephone with her friend before becoming bored by the conversation and trying to escape while her friend continues to talk to her.
“The Old Maid & the Thief” tells of an older woman who takes in a young thief with the intent of making him her new lover.
The thief though, is not interested in this. The old lady’s servant has some of the same ideas about the thief and is met with the same response. This leads the servant girl to sing an aria featuring the verse “What a curse for a woman is a timid man.”
The opera will be the second for the director Randolph Lacy.
Lacy, who by trade is a voice coach and performer, took over the directorial duties of the opera workshop last year when the former director, Helene Joseph-Weil, stepped down. Joseph-Weil, though, does help out with this production by directing “The Telephone.”
Lacy also gave thanks to the theatre department for helping them out with on stage props for this production.
The show begins at 8 p.m. Tickets for the show are $5 for students and seniors, $8 for faculty and staff and $10 for general admission and are available at the door, at the music department box office or online at www.csufresno.edu/music.
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