CCM Students Bring ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ to Stages Across Cincinnati This March and April

A group of CCM students will revive Arnold Schoenberg’s 1912 melodrama masterpiece Pierrot Lunaire—both in excerpts and in its entirety—during several free performances across the city this March and April.

The CCM ensemble consists of Jillian McGreen, soprano; Matthew Umphreys, piano; Nave Graham, flute; Mikey Arbulu, clarinet; Walter Park, violin; and Amy Pirtle, cello.

The sextet will first perform excerpts of the work at 2 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, at the Cincinnati Art Museum as part of their MUSE Concert Series.

The ensemble will next give a complete performance of Pierrot in CCM’s Albino Gorno Memorial Music Library as part of their “Music in the Library” series at 1 p.m. on Thursday, March 12.

A month later, the group will again perform the entire work at Northside Tavern during the monthly Classical Revolution Cincinnati event at 8 p.m. on Sunday, April 12. The performance will also be part of the annual Constella Festival and will occur alongside other featured musicians including Detroit Symphony Orchestra bassist Rick Robinson and his group CutTime and acclaimed local cellist (and CCM Preparatory Department instructor) Nathaniel Chaitkin.

Based on French poet Albert Giraud’s cycle about a deformed, lunar-obsessed harlequin and his misfit puppet companions, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire still stands as a landmark in German Expressionist music. It is particularly noted both for its revolutionary atonal approaches to music as well as its employment of Sprechstimme, a “sing-speak” style in which vocalists aim for non-pitched, approximate notes often followed by a sudden fall to create an eerie type of rhythmic speaking. The combination of these two techniques—as well as the small, varied ensemble required—helps evoke an atmosphere that is scary and jarring but also beautiful and engaging, setting a world in which Pierrot explores various vices and decadences.

If you have the opportunity, don’t miss out on hearing these free performances by CCM students of one of the most acclaimed works of the twentieth century!

CCM’s ‘Hansel and Gretel’ Receives Glowing Reviews

CCM’s Mainstage Production of HANSEL AND GRETEL. Photography by Mark Lyons.

The critics have weighed in with unanimous praise for CCM’s recent production of Hansel and Gretel!

In her review of the fairy tale opera for the Cincinnati Enquirer, Janelle Gelfand calls the production “magical” and “breathtaking.” She singles out the performance of the CCM Philharmonia, writing that “you could get lost in the glowing orchestral score, so beautifully led by Mark Gibson.”

Mary Ellyn Hutton‘s review for Music in Cincinnati was similarly enthusiastic. “Highlights of the performance were many,” she writes, “One was the prayer scene… where Hansel and Gretel knelt and sang, with snow falling in the background. Another came during the dream pantomime… where the 14 angels, all children, cavorted on an angelic playground, with a swing, a seesaw and bicycles hanging over the stage, as the children looked on.”

Rafael de Acha calls the production a “sweet treat” in his review for Seen and Heard International. “Robin Guarino sets the story during the Depression in America,” he observes, “but surprisingly, this setting undermines neither the lush Romanticism of the music nor the innocent fairytale story, and the results are nothing but happy.”

Hansel and Gretel concluded its run on Sunday, Nov.  23. CCM’s Opera Season resumes in February with a Studio Series production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea running Feb. 20-22 and a CCM Opera d’arte Series production of Handel’s Alcina running Feb. 27 – March 1.

The season concludes April 9 – 12 with a Mainstage Series production of Mozart’s Così fan tutte, conducted by Mark Gibson with stage direction by Robin Guarino.

Last fall, Guarino directed the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Così fan tutte, which also served as James Levine’s highly anticipated return to the Met. In his review of the opera for the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini noted that “Guarino worked with this cast of gifted actors to inflect their characters with telling comic bits and hapless human touches.”

CCM Slideshows: Hansel and Gretel

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CCM’s Mainstage Series resumes this evening with a contemporary production of Engelbert Humperdinck’s timeless opera Hansel and Gretel. Running Nov. 20 – 23, this magical production also features the Cincinnati Children’s Choir, ensemble-in-residence at CCM. Mark Gibson conducts with stage direction by Robin Guarino.

Above, enjoy a preview slideshow of the opera that Richard Strauss regarded as “a masterpiece of the highest quality.”

WCPO calls the opera the number one thing to do in Cincinnati this weekend, and the Cincinnati Enquirer and CityBeat have also highlighted the production! Learn even more about Hansel and Gretel here.

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20
• 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 21
• 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 22
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23

Location
Corbett Auditorium, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to CCM’s Mainstage production of Hansel and Gretel are $31-35 adults, $20-24 non-UC students and $18-22 UC students with valid ID.

Tickets can be purchased in person at the CCM Box Office, over the telephone at 513-556-4183 or online at ccm.uc.edu/boxoffice/hansel-and-gretel-mainstage.

Parking and Directions
Parking is available in the CCM Garage (located at the base of Corry Boulevard off Jefferson Avenue) and additional garages throughout the UC campus. Please visit uc.edu/parking for more information on parking rates.

For detailed maps and directions, please visit uc.edu/visitors. Additional parking is available off-campus at the new U Square complex on Calhoun Street and other neighboring lots.

For directions to CCM Village, visit ccm.uc.edu/about/directions.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor & Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Mainstage Season Production Sponsor: Macy’s

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM’s Mainstage Series Presents the Fairy Tale Opera ‘Hansel and Gretel’ Nov. 20-23

Talya Lieberman as Gretel and Adria Caffaro as Hansel. Photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM’s Mainstage Series proudly presents Engelbert Humperdinck’s timeless opera Hansel and Gretel from Nov. 20 – 23 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. This magical production also features the Cincinnati Children’s Choir, ensemble-in-residence at CCM.

Based on the German fairy tale popularized by the Brothers Grimm, this contemporary production is conducted by CCM Director of Orchestral Studies Mark Gibson with stage direction by the J. Ralph Corbett Distinguished Chair in Opera Robin Guarino. This opera will be sung in English with supertitles.

Composed by Humperdinck, with a libretto by his sister Adelheid Wette, the perennially popular opera premiered in 1893 to instant success. Showing the influence of German folksong, along with harmonic and textural influences of Richard Wagner, the opera was hailed by fellow German composer Richard Strauss (who conducted the premiere) as “a masterpiece of the highest quality.” The opera has since become a holiday tradition throughout the world.

Guarino’s production transports the classic fairy tale to the 1930s Depression Era. The precocious brother and sister duo are poor, hungry and dreaming of tasty treats. When their overworked mother sends them into the world to find food, they lose their way in the forest and encounter a scary witch with a deliciously sinister plan.