CHICAGO–(ENEWSPF)–February 11, 2015. A triple bill of operatic fables will be staged in Chicago’s Pilsen neighborhood on Feb. 28 and March 1 by Roosevelt University’s Chicago College of Performing Arts (CCPA).
Some of CCPA’s most talented students, including the entire graduate class of voice majors, members of the CCPA/Chicago Opera Theater’s Professional Diploma in Opera Program and the CCPA opera orchestra will perform Three Fables during the University’s annual spring opera production at Benito Juarez Community Academy.
Free and open to the public, the performances will be held at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28 and at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 1 at Benito Juarez Community Academy’s Performing Arts Center, 1450 W. Cermak Rd., Chicago. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. For more information, visit www.roosevelt.edu/ccpa or call 312-341-2352.
Fully staged and performed with an orchestra Three Fables consists of three short operas all composed in the 1920s. Paul Hindemith’s Hin und zurück (There and Back) is an operatic sketch performed first forwards and then backwards, bringing tragic events to a happy conclusion. Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht collaborated on Mahagonny Songspiel, a gritty tale of urban life that is a precursor to their beloved Threepenny Opera. Ottorino Respighi wrote an enchanting version of the Sleeping Beauty tale, La bella dormente nel bosco that the CCPA presents in its Chicago premiere. All three of these operas have jazz-influenced scores with music of the 1920s and can be viewed as modern fables.
Staging of Mahagonny Songspiel is being financially supported by a grant from the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music in New York. The Three Fables performances are being conducted by Emanuele Andrizzi, with music direction by Scott Gilmore and stage direction by Andrew Eggert.
Source: www.roosevelt.edu
