Student Singers To Stage Scenes From Popular Operas

Yale Opera will open its season this month with the performances of scenes from some of the world’s most popular operas.

There will be two nights of performances, with a different program offered each night. The performance on Friday, Oct. 31, will feature scenes from Handel’s “Giulio Cesare,” Smetana’s “The Bartered Bride,” Mozart’s “Idomeneo,” Verdi’s “Don Carlo” and Massenet’s “Werther.” On Saturday, Nov. 1, opera students will perform scenes from Mozart’s “Le Nozze de Figaro,” Lehar’s “Frühling,” Tchaikovsky’s “Iolanta” and Massenet’s “Don Quichotte” and “Manon.”

Performances — which will have projected English translations — will take place each night at 7:30 p.m. in Morse Recital Hall of Sprague Memorial Hall, 470 College St. Tickets are $8-$12 ($5 for students). For information and tickets, visit www.yale.edu/music, call (203) 432-4158 or visit the Sprague Hall box office. The box office is open Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

“Opera Scenes” will be performed by the student singers in Yale Opera, including sopranos Mireille Asselin, Amanda Hall, Adelaide Muir and Samantha Lane Talmadge; mezzo-sopranos Gaia El Hadidi, Ana Sinicki, Emily Righter and Chrystal Williams; tenors Eric Barry, Tadeusz Szlenkier and Michael-Paul Krubitzer; baritones David Pershall and Vince Vincent; and basses Jeremy Bowes, Damien Pass and Tyler Simpson. Musical direction is by Douglas Dickson and Timothy Shaindlin.

The stage director for the performance is Vera Lúcia Calábria, who has over 20 years of experience in opera and classical music. She has worked extensively with such directors as Gian Carlo Menotti, Harold Prince, Ruth Berghaus and the late Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, among others. She has directed numerous productions throughout the world and teaches commedia dell’arte in workshops in several universities, among them California State University in Los Angeles and the University of California in both Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

The artistic director for “Opera Scenes” is Doris Yarick-Cross, chair of the voice and opera department at Yale. She has appeared with most of the major opera companies in the United States, including the San Francisco, Chicago Lyric and New York City operas, as well as companies in Europe, Australia and Canada. She has sung with the symphony orchestras of Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Quebec, Toronto and San Francisco, and with the New York Philharmonic. She is also a well-known recitalist. Before coming to Yale in 1983, she served on the faculty of the University of Texas and was head of the voice department at the University of Connecticut.