Four Seasons Theatre presents Leonard Bernstein’s Candide at the Wisconsin Union Theater tonight and Sunday. Madison Opera’s chorus master Andy Abrams is directing the production, which also features Madison Opera chorus members Doug Swenson (as Candide) and Megan Cullen (as Paquette). Really, a whole slew of Madison Opera friends are involved with Candide, too many to list, so check it out! You can read more about the production in 77 Square.
And don’t forget that the ever glamorous and in-demand soprano Danielle de Niese will be making her way to Wisconsin in just two weeks, performing at the Wisconsin Union Theater on Thursday, February 19 at 8 p.m. (Madison Opera is a presenting partner for this event). She’s also doing a master class with the UW School of Music on the 18th at 4:30 in Morphy Recital Hall. It seems Lindsay Christians was busy last week; read her interview with de Niese in 77 Square here.
Opera Today has a page devoted to Cosi fan Tutte, on which they provide a free, streaming recording of the opera. Just follow this link to download, and it should start playing in your iTunes or other desktop media player!
NPR’s “World of Opera” offers an insightful introduction to Cosi fan Tutte that captures the dilemma that has come to define the work: is it comedy or drama? The answer of course is that Cosi is both, the problem being that it in turn veers to the extremes of both. It’s all fun and games, disguises and accents, until Fiordiligi and Dorabella begin to yield to the temptations foolishly put forth in jest by Ferrando and Guglielmo. Many think this dichotomy is rooted in the difference in tone between da Ponte’s libretto and Mozart’s music: critics of the last two centuries have called da Ponte’s libretto shallow, arguing that only
Mozart’s music infuses any complexity. Undeniably the sheer beauty of the music forces one to at least occasionally take the on-stage antics seriously.
Mozart is always complicating matters though, because he is also a master of jovial tunes that so perfectly capture the naivety of the characters, and some argue that to take Cosi too seriously, to impose any sort of modern psychology on it, is to miss the point: Mozart and da Ponte were writing to entertain with this one.
It’s easy to talk in circles about this, which is one of the joys of the work. Make sure to listen to the brief audio introduction provided by NPR, and they’ll tell you why Cosi falls somewhere in between I Love Lucy and Perry Mason.
Photo: A scene from Cosi fan Tutte, with Ferrando and Guglielmo in disguise, testing the faithfulness of their ladies Fiordiligi and Dorabella. Courtesy Sarasota Opera; Madison Opera will be using the sets and costumes of this production.
Tenor John Bellemer will sing the role of Ferrando in our upcoming Cosi. Like Leonardo Vordoni (of Madama Butterfly) and Laura Vlasak Nolen (also of Cosi), Bellemer was at the Wexford Festival in Ireland this past summer earning high praise, with the London Times calling his work “outstanding.” Brian Kellow of Opera News recently wrote that he has “a warm, rich tenor and gave a performance to remember as Bonconnion [in Richard Rodeny Bennet’s The Mines of Sulphur.]” Bellemer is presently in Bilbao, Spain, performing the role of Toni in Hans Werner Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers at Teatro Arriaga, a much anticipated production that has been well received by the Spanish press (from what I can glean). To conclude, we have an awesome cast for Cosi and can’t wait for rehearasls to start!
Four Seasons Theatre presents Leonard Bernstein’s Candide at the Wisconsin Union Theater tonight and Sunday. Madison Opera’s chorus master Andy Abrams is directing the production, which also features Madison Opera chorus members Doug Swenson (as Candide) and Megan Cullen (as Paquette). Really, a whole slew of Madison Opera friends are involved with Candide, too many to list, so check it out! You can read more about the production in 77 Square.
And don’t forget that the ever glamorous and in-demand soprano Danielle de Niese will be making her way to Wisconsin in just two weeks, performing at the Wisconsin Union Theater on Thursday, February 19 at 8 p.m. (Madison Opera is a presenting partner for this event). She’s also doing a master class with the UW School of Music on the 18th at 4:30 in Morphy Recital Hall. It seems Lindsay Christians was busy last week; read her interview with de Niese in 77 Square here.
