CCM Students and Alumni Featured in NANOWorks’ Season Closing Productions June 27 – 29

Composer (and CCM alumna) Jennifer Jolley, co-founder of NANOWorks.

We are delighted to report that North American New Opera Workshop’s (NANOWorks) season-closing production of Marie Incontrera’s At the Other Side of the Earth and Eric Knechtges’ Last Call will feature a number of current and former CCM students!

This exciting double-bill production opens with the Midwestern premiere of Incontrera’s riot girl opera, showcasing the talents of sopranos Molly Hanes (MM, 2013), Autumn West (MM, 2013) and Esther Kang (MM, 2012), along with bass-baritone Ben Flanders (MM, 1998). Instrumentalists for this piece include violinists Nick Naegele (BM, 2007; MM, 2008; AD, 2010) and Dylan Firlie (current BM student), along with rehearsal pianist Stephen Variames (AD, 2014).

The production also features the world premiere of Knechtges’ Last Call, an opera loosely based on Cincinnati’s gay bar scene. That work features mezzo-soprano Lauren McAllister (MM, 2014) and sopranos Stacey Sands (MM, 2010) and Katherine Krueger (MM, 2012).

Aik Khai Pung (MM, 2009) conducts both operas.

NANOWorks’ season-closing double-bill runs June 27 – 29 at the Cabaret Room above the Below Zero Lounge. Learn more about both works by visiting www.nanoworksopera.com.

NANOWorks was co-founded by CCM alumna Jennifer Jolley (MM, 2009; DMA, 2012) and is dedicated to raising the spotlight on young singers, composers, librettists, directors, choreographers and other company artists in order to give them a stepping stone to national attention.

Last July, Opera News’ Kyle MacMillan profiled Jolly and observed that NANOWorks is based in Cincinnati “partly because Jolley and her collaborators live there and partly because of the rich pool of vocal talent there, due to the presence of the respected University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.”

CCM Slideshows: The Magic Flute

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CCM’s acclaimed 2012-13 Mainstage Series comes to a close this week with a colorful new production of Mozart’s beloved comedic singspiel The Magic Flute. This production runs April 4–7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

The Cincinnati Enquirer‘s Janelle Gelfand recently visited CCM to take a behind-the-scenes look at The Magic Flute‘s costumes, wigs and make-up designs. Watch her exclusive video preview here.

CCM’s 2012-13 Mainstage Series Concludes With ‘The Magic Flute’

Jacqueline Echols as Pamina and Yi Li as Tamino in CCM’s ‘The Magic Flute.’ Photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM proudly presents Mozart’s beloved comedic singspiel The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte, 1791) from April 4–7 in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. The fourth most frequently performed opera worldwide, this production will be sung in German with English dialogue (with supertitles displayed). Mark Gibson conducts with stage direction by Steven Goldstein.

Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart with a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder, this beloved opera offers something for everyone: a hero and heroine questing for true love, evil villains, a comical sidekick and a whole range of beastly creatures. According to Goldstein, The Magic Flute is a sort of vaudeville variety show of the 18th century. However, this iteration isn’t all about the slapstick comedy. “My charge to the performers,” Goldstein explains, “is for the comedy to come from somewhere genuine. There is a real play back and forth between light-heartedness and deep morality in Flute and our goal is to find the truth inside of it.”