CCM Slideshows: Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow

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CCM’s Mainstage Series resumes this evening through this Sunday, Nov. 22, with a delightful new production of Franz Lehár’s witty operetta The Merry Widow. Conducted by Aik Khai Pung with stage direction by Emma Griffin, this production of The Merry Widow will be sung in English with a translation by renowned American lyricist Sheldon Harnick. Tickets are still available for select performances.

Featuring a score that Stage and Cinema describes as “a rich musical mix of Viennese waltzes, Hungarian folk dances and French insouciance,” The Merry Widow is a sparking romp in which farce, romance and jealousy abound. Join us for a fantastical Parisian bar crawl, as the fate of an entire nation hangs in the balance!

Learn more about the creation of The Merry Widow‘s costumes by clicking here.

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov.19
• 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20
• 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow are $31-35 for adults, $20-24 for non-UC students and $18-22 UC students with a valid ID.

$12-$15 student rush tickets will become available one hour prior to each performance; limit two student rush tickets per 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/mainstage/merry-widow.

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 and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Mainstage Season Production Sponsor: Macy’s

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM’s Mainstage Series Presents Franz Lehár’s ‘The Merry Widow,’ Nov. 19-22

CCM’s Fall 2015 Mainstage Series comes to a witty and whimsical conclusion with Franz Lehár’s comic operetta The Merry Widow, playing Nov. 19 – 22 in Patricia Corbett Theater.

Conducted by Aik Khai Pung with stage direction by Emma Griffin, this production of The Merry Widow will be sung in English with a translation by renowned American lyricist Sheldon Harnick.

From left to right: Andrew G. Manea as Danilo and Nicolette Book as Hanna in CCM’s production of ‘The Merry Widow.’ Photography by Mark Lyons.

A glorious early-20th century operetta and forerunner to the modern musical, The Merry Widow tells the fizzy tale of star-crossed lovers and political shenanigans in a glitzy and idealized version of Paris. Madame Hanna Glawari, the widow of the wealthiest man in Petrovenia, is in Paris for the first time following her elderly husband’s demise. Concerned by the widow’s many suitors, Petrovenian Ambassador Baron Zeta assumes the role of matchmaker to ensure that Hanna’s wealth remains within the country, rather than fall into foreign hands. To set his plan in motion, the baron sends his secretary to fetch Hanna’s old flame, Danilo, from another party. Unfortunately, the baron becomes so obsessed with his own schemes that he fails to notice the affair between his wife and rival party member Camille.

What begins as a pleasant, professional party at the Petrovenian Embassy rapidly devolves into a drunken debacle by the time Hanna and her entourage arrive at the famous nightclub, “Maxim’s,” in the early hours of the morning.

“In some ways, it’s a very simple idea,” explains Griffin, an assistant professor of opera at CCM. “The Merry Widow is about the sort of things that happen when you’re 25 years old and you go to three parties over the course of a single night. The opera is about these beautiful people, which doesn’t diminish the love stories at the heart of The Merry Widow. Instead, it instills the show with a feverish and heightened romantic atmosphere.”

Griffin read 18 different translations of The Merry Widow before settling on Harnick’s adaptation, which is written in a decidedly American vernacular.

“Our voice and opera majors don’t always get much experience performing in American English, so this is an opportunity for our students to exercise some different muscles,” she explains. Bursts of spoken dialogue also give The Merry Widow the charming feel of musical theatre.

The hybrid sensibilities of this operetta are even reflected in the production’s sizable cast, which features students from CCM’s departments of opera, musical theatre and drama. With choreography by Patti James, who promises a can’t-miss can-can number, CCM’s Mainstage Series production of The Merry Widow is sure to be magical, colorful and – of course – delightfully merry.

Featuring a score that Stage and Cinema describes as “a rich musical mix of Viennese waltzes, Hungarian folk dances and French insouciance,” The Merry Widow is a sparkling romp in which farce, romance and jealousy abound. Join us for a fantastical Parisian bar crawl, as the fate of an entire nation hangs in the balance!

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Thursday, Nov.19
• 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 20
• 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 21
• 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to Franz Lehár’s The Merry Widow are $31-35 for adults, $20-24 for non-UC students and $18-22 UC students with a valid ID. $12-$15 student rush tickets will become available one hour prior to each performance; limit two student rush tickets per 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/mainstage/merry-widow.

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 and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Mainstage Season Production Sponsor: Macy’s

Community Partner: ArtsWave

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.

CCM Announces 2014 Opera Scholarship Competition Results

Five voice students were named winners of CCM 2014 Opera Scholarship Competition, which was held Saturday, March 15, in UC’s Corbett Auditorium. The annual competition welcomes current and incoming CCM voice students to compete for scholarships and cash prizes, and a panel of judges composed of opera industry professionals selects each year’s class of prizewinners.

The 2014 CCM Opera Scholarship Competition winners are:

Edward Nelson (Candidate – Artist Diploma)
From Saugus, Calif., studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Corbett Award ($15,000)
This award is supported by the Corbett Foundation in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. This award also guarantees a stage audition with New York City Opera.

Talya Lieberman (Candidate – Artist Diploma)
From Forest Hills, N.Y., studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Italo Tajo Memorial Award ($15,000)
This award is supported by the Italo Tajo Memorial Scholarship Fund (established by Mr. Tajo’s wife, Mrs. Inelda Tajo) in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Christopher Bozeka (Candidate – Master of Music)
From Akron, Ohio, studying with William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Andrew White Memorial Award ($12,500)
This award is supported by the Andrew White Memorial Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Alec Carlson (Candidate – Master of Music)
From Red Oak, Iowa, studying with Kenneth Shaw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the Seybold-Russell Award ($10,000)
This award is supported by the Seybold-Russell Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Jasmine Habersham (Candidate – Artist Diploma)
From Macon, Ga., studying William McGraw
Prize: Full-tuition scholarship and the John Alexander Memorial Award ($10,000)
This award is sponsored by the John Alexander Memorial Scholarship Fund in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

The following students also received an award as part of the competition:

Jessica Faselt (Incoming – Master of Music)
From Iowa City, Iowa
Prize: Corbett Incentive Award for new Master of Music students ($2,000)
This award is supported by the Corbett Foundation in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

Ann Toomey (Incoming – Master of Music)
From Shelby Township, Mich.
Prize: Corbett Incentive Award for new Master of Music students ($2,000)
This award is supported by the Corbett Foundation in cooperation with the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music.

The judges’ panel for CCM’s 2014 Opera Scholarship Competition included:

• Cori Ellison, Chief Dramaturg of the Glyndbourne Festival and Dramaturg at American Lyric Theatre in New York;
• Neal Goren, Artistic and General Director of the Gotham Chamber Opera in New York; and
• Craig Terry, Music Director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

About CCM Opera
The Department of Opera at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music boasts one of the most comprehensive training programs for opera singers, coaches and directors in the United States. Students at CCM work with some of the most renowned teachers and artists active in opera today.

CCM students frequently advance to the final rounds of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions. Furthermore, CCM’s Mainstage and Studio Series of Opera have received some of the National Opera Association Production Competition’s highest honors throughout the years, taking home six of the 18 nonprofessional prizes awarded in 2010 and four prizes in 2011.

CCM Opera graduates have performed on the stages of the world’s greatest opera companies, including Cincinnati Opera, Metropolitan Opera (New York), Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco Opera, Royal Opera (London), La Scala (Italy) and more.

CCM’s 2013-14 opera season concludes next month with Donizetti’s beloved Don Pasquale (April 3-6), conducted by Mark Gibson with stage direction by Omer Ben-Seadia. Learn more about that production by visiting ccm.uc.edu/boxoffice/donpasquale.
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CCM Season Presenting Sponsor and Musical Theatre Program Sponsor: The Otto M. Budig Family Foundation

Community Partner: ArtsWave

CCM Opera Scholarship Competition Brings Bright Young Artists to the Stage on March 15

Corbett Auditorium

CCM invites local audiences to hear tomorrow’s opera stars today during its prestigious national competition from 10 a.m. until approximately 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, in UC’s Corbett Auditorium.

Twenty-five current and incoming young artists will compete for approximately $100,000 in tuition grants and $65,500 in other named awards, including the Corbett Award, Italo Tajo Memorial Award, Andrew White Memorial Award, Seybold-Russell Award and John Alexander Memorial Award. Each contestant will be judged on the basis of voice, acting, language, musicianship and style in a complete dramatic performance of an aria.

A panel of judges composed of world-renowned opera industry professionals will select the winners. The judges’ panel for this year’s competition includes:

• Cori Ellison, Chief Dramaturg of the Glyndbourne Festival and Dramaturg at American Lyric Theatre in New York;
• Neal Goren, Artistic and General Director of the Gotham Chamber Opera in New York; and
• Craig Terry, Music Director of the Patrick G. and Shirley W. Ryan Opera Center at the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

The winners will be announced on Saturday afternoon, March 15, following the conclusion of the competition.