Voice students in the School of Music at Stephen F. Austin State University will present “Opera Scenes of Fantasy and Frivolity” at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 16, in Cole Concert Hall on the SFA campus.
A culmination of the semester’s Fall Opera Workshop, the performance is under the direction of Nita Hudson, lecturer of applied voice and opera in the School of Music and stage and musical director of the opera scenes performance; Dr. Thomas Nixon, and Margaret Hinchliffe, SFA collaborative pianists; and Julia Redinger, student collaborative pianist. Works by W.A. Mozart, Gian Carlo Menotti and Aaron Copland, among other composers, are on the program.
“I selected these specific scenes to showcase the talents of the students, while also providing challenges for them to grow,” Hudson said.
Among the prominent scenes to be performed is the quartet form Menotti’s “The Old Maid and the Thief.”
“In this scene, Miss Todd and Miss Pinkerton are having tea one late afternoon in the parlor, when a ‘visitor’ arrives, turning their world upside down,” Hudson explained.
Another prominent scene is the sextet from Mozart’s “Così fan tutte,” in which Don Alfonso, a cynical old philosopher, declares to his young friends Ferrando and Guglielmo that “no women can be trusted, including their respective fiancées, the sisters Dorabella and Fiordiligi,” Hudson said. “A test is then put into action.”
“The Fall Opera Workshop and the experience of performing these scenes has had a direct pedagogical impact on the lives of both the performance majors and music education majors,” Hudson said. “All of the students have gained insight into how to communicate and to take a project from its creation to its fruition.”
Other scenes on the program are from “Die Fledermaus” by Johann Strauss; “Street Scene” by Kurt Weill; “Hansel and Gretel” by Engelbert Humperdinck; along with Mozart’s “Così fan tutte” and “Le Nozze di Figaro,” and Copland’s “The Tender Land.”
Cole Concert Hall is located in Wright Music Building, 2210 Alumni Drive.
Tickets are $8 for adults, $6 for seniors and $3 for students and youth. To purchase tickets, call the SFA Fine Arts Box Office at (936) 468-6407 or visit sfasu.edu/boxoffice. For additional information, contact the SFA School of Music at (936) 468-4602.
