A fun and moving evening of scenes from operas and musical theatre. Selections include Stephen Sondheim’s dynamic sex-farce “A Weekend in the Country “ from A Little Night Music and R. Strauss’ thoughtful opera about young people growing up in Ariadne auf Naxos. Shakespeare is represented with selections from Gounod’s masterpiece Roméo et Juliette and Béatrice et Bénédict by Hector Berlioz (based on Much Ado About Nothing) . Marital relationships are explored in Intermezzo (also by Strauss) and to the extreme in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas and Britten’s A Midsummernight’s Dream. Young love is contemplated in Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore and finally, we dive into a pasta sauce of human relationships in Rossini’s raucous ensemble opera, Il Viaggio a Reims. An evening of light, love, and human relationships presented by the talented singer-actors of the Thornton School of Music.
Performance List
A Little Night Music
by Stephen Sondheim
“A Weekend in the Country”
Intermezzo
by Richard Strauss
Final Scene
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
by Benjamin Britten
Act I, Scene 1
Ariadne auf Naxos
by Richard Strauss
Prologue – duet, scene, aria
Roméo et Juliette
by Charles Gounod
Act I, Scene 1; Act II, Scene 1
Dido and Aeneas
by Henry Purcell
Final Scene
by Gaetano Donizetti
Act I, Scene 3 duet
Béatrice et Bénédict
by Hector Berlioz
Trio
Il Viaggio a Reims
by Gioachino Rossini
Belfiore and Corinna Duet