This weekend I am performing the choir at our "Season Opening Spectacular," which combines the Ballet, Orchestra, and Opera on one program.
http://www.talkclassical.com/27813-boito-mephistopheles.html
The Dayton Ballet and Dayton Philharmonic will join the Dayton Opera to present the 2013-2014 Season Opening Spectacular, featuring the music of three very different composers in three distinctly different formats.
Operatic in spirit with musical bursts reminiscent of Bizet's Carmen, Anton Dvorák's
Carnival Overture opens the festivities. Aptly titled, the piece presents a musical festival with a ten-minute emotional roller coaster ride that employs boot-kicking, toe-tapping music to propel you to the heights of exhilaration. A composed, unruffled middle section accompanied by a persistently repeating English horn holds you momentarily above the musical carnival grounds in the night sky, before plunging you once more headlong into the final, breathless turns.
Italian librettist and composer Arrigo Boito composed
Mefistofele in part because he didn't think all that much of the prevailing standards of Italian opera in the mid-nineteenth century. Merely opting to write his own libretto made him a groundbreaker among his peers; it just wasn't done-at least not then and not in Italy. Using Goethe's version of the legend of Faust as a jumping-off point, Boito set out to shake up the Italian composing community with a work that would establish a unique style from the standpoints of both musical depth and human rationale. Described by Das Opernglas as possessing "a strong, rich and warm-colored voice with assured style," bass-baritone Mark Schnaible will bring his considerable talent to bear on this performance of the
Prologue to Mefistofele.
To write anything that praises the prodigious talent, drive, and work ethic of unique American composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein would fall short of true understanding of the man's talent. The best way to achieve this daunting task is simply to listen to his work; it will tell you everything you need to know. Many of us are familiar with his extensive oeuvre. The 2013-2014 Season Opening Spectacular features three pieces from
Candide, 'What a Movie' from the opera
Trouble in Tahiti, and a concert suite from
West Side Story-a "sampler" with the musical calorie count of a full-blown buffet.