Brenau University will host the opening performance of the 2007-08 Gainesville ProMusica concert series this evening, with a veritable smorgasbord of operatic performances designed to appeal to the opera novice as well as the aficionado...
Brenau University will host the opening performance of the 2007-08 Gainesville ProMusica concert series on Tuesday, Oct. 9, with a veritable smorgasbord of operatic performances designed to appeal to the opera novice as well as the aficionado.
The concert will be in the Brenau’s ornate, historic Pearce Auditorium, a beautifully restored, acoustics-friendly facility reminiscent of 19th century opera houses. Tickets are $15, a price that includes the 8 p.m. performance and a meet-the-cast reception afterward.
During the concert, there will not be anyone wearing blonde pigtails and a Viking helmet, but according to Brenau artist-in-residence William Fred Scott, “there will be more opera singers than you will ever see on one stage short of a full production.”
“We're going to do arias, duets, trios, quartets and sextets,” said Scott, the former artistic director of the Atlanta Opera and the associate conductor of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra who will host the concert and accompany some of the performances on piano. “You’ll get a healthy dose of Mozart’s ‘Don Giovanni’ at the beginning, but there will also be pieces from Handel, Gounod, Bizet, Vivaldi and Verdi.”
For newcomers to opera, the concert features a sampler of well-known pieces from operas like Bizet’s “Carmen” and Verdi’s “Aida,” Scott said, but it also offers seasoned operagoers more esoteric pieces that they do not often hear performed.
From Brenau’s perspective, the featured performer for the evening will be soprano Cassandra Gabrell, a 2007 Brenau graduate who stayed on as the first student in the university’s new fifth-year program to help aspiring opera singers improve language, music and performance skills. The cast also includes some well-known pros, like tenor Scott Mize and bass Jason Hardy, who recently performed in the Atlanta Opera’s production of “Turandot.”
Other guest artists are soprano Barbara Steinhaus-Jordan, a familiar Atlanta performer since 1977 and currently an associate professor at Piedmont College in Demorest, Ga.; soprano Wanda Yang Temko, host of an Atlanta classical music radio program with performance credits in the United States and Italy; Minka Wiltz, on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution list of “Five Talents to Watch” who will star as radical political activist Angela Davis in the 2008 regional premiere of the hip-hop musical “Angela’s Mix-Tape;” mezzo-soprano Perri Montané, who has sung in top roles in productions from Cartersville, Ga., to Chicago; and tenors Bradley Howard and David Thomas, both of whom have extensive résumés in live and recorded performances.
Scott has been director of Brenau University International Opera Center for three years. He hosts a weekly program, “Opera Classics,” on Atlanta’s public radio station, WABE-FM 90.1.
The Gainesville ProMusica concert series has been a feature in Gainesville since 1951. Current director is Jack A. Bell, professor at Georgia State University and a past member of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.
For more concert information, please click here.