Opera Theater 2008–2009
Spring Opera 2009 Information
I quattro rusteghi (School of Fathers)
Music by Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari
Libretto by Luigi Sugana and Giuseppe Pizzolato
February 27 and March 1, Kobacker Hall.
April 19 at 3 p.m., Bryan Recital Hall. Opera scenes.
Fall Opera 2008 Information
Tuesday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m., Wildwood Preserve Metropark, Toledo. Opera scenes.
Friday, November 7 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, November 9 at 3 p.m.
Kobacker Hall
Moore Musical Arts Center
Tickets are $12 ($9 for students and seniors)
Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten, libretto by Eric Crozier
Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was an English composer known for his art music and operas. Through his life he helped create institutions to advance the continuing viability of music drama and to inrease national musical literacy. He especially worked with musical outreach, often targetting children, to accomplish these aims. Britten also believed in remaining acceptable and practical, eschewing the “modern” trend, at the time, for obscurity and musical complexity for complexity’s sake.
Albert Herring is a three-act, chamber opera premiered on June 20, 1947. It is a comic opera often said to be a companion to Britten’s dramatic opera, The Rape of Lucrezia. Based on Guy de Maupassant’s short story “Le rosier de Madame Husson”, the opera follows the crowning of Albert Herring as May King in a small town of Loxford. When none of the women in the town live up to the high moral standards to be crowned Queen of the May (as decided by Lady Billows), the police superintendant suggests crowning a May King instead and offers Herring’s name. At first reluctant, Lady Billows consents and the opera is rolling. Herring decides, after the ceremony, that he is tired of being so straight-laced and leaves to experience life. He stays out all night and the next afternoon, having found his May crown crushed by a road cart, his mother and other town notables lament his assured death. When Herring comes through the door, however, the lament quickly dies and is replaced by a completely different atmosphere. Herring explains his actions, everyone ends where they should and principals rejoice with Herring in his new-found self-reliance.