CCM’s 2014-15 Mainstage Series Comes to a Close with Mozart’s Famed Opera ‘Cosi Fan Tutte,’ April 9-12

CCM concludes its 2014–15 Mainstage Series with a true powerhouse: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Così fan tutte. The celebrated opera buffa returns to the Patricia Corbett Theater stage at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 9, and plays through Sunday, April 12.

Director of Orchestral Studies Mark Gibson conducts and J. Ralph Corbett Distinguished Chair in Opera Robin Guarino directs. Assistant Conductor Yael Front conducts the matinee performance on Sunday, April 12. This production will be sung in Italian with English supertitles.

Guarino is certainly no stranger to Così, as she has successfully directed the opera multiple times for the world-renowned Metropolitan Opera (the Met) in New York City. Notably, her September 2013 engagement with Così also marked the return of beloved conductor James Levine to the Met’s podium for the first time since May 2011. A Cincinnati native, Levine is a former pupil of LaSalle Quartet violinist and CCM Professor Emeritus Walter Levin.

In his review for the New York Times, Anthony Tommasini hailed the Met’s production of Così as the most “vibrant, masterly and natural performance” of the work he had ever heard. Tommasini especially lauded Guarino’s direction, calling it “effortlessly in sync” with Levine’s conducting.

Mozart’s opera, with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, follows the well-worn tread of light Classical Era opera. Officers Ferrando and Guglielmo are certain that their fiancées Dorabella and Fiordiligi (respectively) will always be true to them… a belief not shared by Don Alfonso, who, in his certainty that women can never be faithful and trustworthy, makes a wager with the two that he can prove within one day that their fiancées are fickle. To this end, he concocts a scheme with the soldiers: they will pretend to be called off to war, return disguised as “Albanians” and they will each attempt to woo the other’s fiancée.

Confusion, cross-dressing and romantic banter abound as the scheme unfolds, testing Dorabella and Fiordiligi’s resolve as well as Ferrando and Guglielmo’s skills in deception.

With enjoyable music and a lighthearted plot transported to mid-20th century America, Così fan tutte is the perfect way to welcome spring and say a fond farewell to CCM’s Mainstage Season!

The Company

• Ann Toomey as Fiordiligi*
• Jessica Faselt as Fiordiligi^
• Adria Caffaro as Dorabella*
• Eleni Antonia Franck as Dorabella^
• Joseph Lattanzi as Guglielmo*
• Simon Barrad as Guglielmo^
• Alec Carlson as Ferrando*
• Chris Bozeka as Ferrando^
• Grace Kahl as Despina*
• Jasmine Habersham as Despina^
• Derrell Acon as Don Alfonso*
• Tyler Alessi as Don Alfonso^

* – Performs Thursday, April 9 and Saturday, April 11
^ – Performs Friday, April 10 and Sunday, April 12

The Creative Team

• Mark Gibson, conductor
• Robin Guarino, stage director
• Lydia Brown, musical preparation
• Ryan Howell, scenic designer
• Caroline Spitzer, costume designer
• Wes Calkin, lighting designer
• Una Lin, wig & make-up designer
• Kevin Semancik, sound designer
• Sarah Stewart, stage manager
• Maria Fuller, Levi Hammer and Kihwa Kim, rehearsal pianists

Performance Times

• 8 p.m. Thursday, April 9
• 8 p.m. Friday, April 10
• 8 p.m. Saturday, April 11
• 2 p.m. Sunday, April 12

Location
Patricia Corbett Theater, CCM Village
University of Cincinnati

Purchasing Tickets
Tickets to CCM’s Mainstage production of Così fan tutte 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/cosi-fan-tutte-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 Opera Chair Robin Guarino Discusses Latest Projects with the ‘New York Times’

Ryan Howell, a 2013 graduate of CCM’s Set Design program, in character in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Arms and Armor Court for Gotham Chamber Opera’s new production of Monteverdi’s ‘Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda.’ Photography courtesy of Robin Guarino.

The New York Times recently featured Gotham Chamber Opera‘s bold new double-bill production of Claudio Monteverdi’s Il combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda and Lembit Beecher’s I Have No Stories to Tell You, which is being staged at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York this week (Feb. 26 and 27).

Robin Guarino, CCM’s J. Ralph Corbett Distinguished Chair in Opera, directs both works and discusses the unique experience of staging operas in an art museum in the New York Times piece, which you can read online here.

Guarino’s cast for this highly anticipated double-bill production includes three CCM alumni: Craig Verm (MM, ’04), Sarah Tucker (MM, ’11) and Ryan Howell (MFA, ’13). You can learn more about this production by visiting www.gothamchamberopera.org.

LCT Awards ‘S.L.U.T.’ Top Prize in CCM’s TRANSMIGRATION Series

Panelists for the League of Cincinnati Theatres (LCT) have recognized S.L.U.T. as the best production at CCM’s 2013 TRANSMIGRATION Festival, the Drama department’s annual presentation of student written and produced work. Panelists awarded second place to Sentenced, and honorable mentions to 2122 Michigan Avenue and The Sherwin Williams Effect. Congratulations to all involved!

The fifth-annual festival allows the audience to experience half-hour works produced by small groups of Drama majors, who create and design all aspects of their productions from start to finish. The festival is an exciting event for both guests and the presenters, as audiences get the opportunity to see up to four very different pieces of new theatre in a single night and the students premiere works that are entirely their own. This year, six shows were presented. “TRANSMIGRATION teaches our actors to be entrepreneurs,” says Richard Hess, chair of CCM’s Drama Department and director of the TRANSMIGRATION Festival. “There are absolutely no holds barred, with the exception of the thirty-minute time limit, allowing our students to learn to express from within.”

The 2013 TRANSMIGRATION Festival’s New Works

Running March 7 – 9, this year’s TRANSMIGRATION festival will feature student-created new works 2122 MICHIGAN AVENUE, The Opening, Sentenced, The Sherwin Williams Effect, S.L.U.T. and Void.

Audience members will have the opportunity to customize their theater-going experience by choosing to watch up to four different productions, which are performed simultaneously and in non-traditional spaces throughout CCM’s Corbett Center for the Performing Arts. Learn more about each of these new, student-created works after the jump!

CCM Drama Students Present Edgy, Original Works During TRANSMIGRATION Festival

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CCM Drama students continue to learn what it takes to produce their own art as they prepare for the 2013 TRANSMIGRATION Festival of Student-Created New Works taking place March 7-9 throughout CCM Village.

The fifth-annual festival allows the audience to experience half-hour works produced by small groups of Drama majors, who create and design all aspects of their productions from start to finish. Admission to the festival is free, but reservations are required.

A.B., Dolly, Ralph and Julia Cohen Chair in Drama Richard Hess.

The festival is an exciting event for both guests and the presenters, as audiences get the opportunity to see up to four very different pieces of new theatre in a single night and the students premiere works that are entirely their own. “TRANSMIGRATION teaches our actors to be entrepreneurs,” says Richard Hess, chair of CCM’s Drama Department and director of the TRANSMIGRATION Festival. “There are absolutely no holds barred, with the exception of the thirty-minute time limit, allowing our students to learn to express from within.”

TRANSMIGRATION came into being in response to the dynamic careers of today’s professional actors. Though auditioning and getting cast for roles is the conventional way for an actor to make a name for his or herself, “the second way to make work is to gather a group of like-minded people, get together and create something… students need to know how to go into a storefront theatre and say ‘we’re going to make something in this raw space,’” Hess asserts. TRANSMIGRATION gives students real-world creative experiences that will last and develop through the rest of their careers.

CCM Slideshows: The Threepenny Opera

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CCM proudly presents The Threepenny Opera, running tonight, March 1, through Sunday, March 10, in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. Tickets are on sale now. This production contains mature subject matter.

Learn more The Threepenny Opera here.

“[Stage Director Robin] Guarino fearlessly goes back to the musical satire’s socio-political roots in 1920s Berlin,” Jackie Demaline writes in her review for the Cincinnati Enquirer. “Everything about The Threepenny Opera carries out Guarino’s vision, as the cast prowl scenic designer John Arnone’s industrial set of catwalks, with the small orchestra (in costume) perched at the top. Musical director Roger Grodsky as always asks much and gets all from singers and musicians.”

Read Demaline’s full review here.

A New Sneak Peek at the Scenic Design of ‘The Threepenny Opera’

Assistant to the Scenic Designer Alexandra Kuntz provides these previews of ‘The Threepenny Opera.’

CCM’s acclaimed Mainstage Series resumes this week with Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s epic musical The Threepenny Opera. Today, we are happy to provide a preview of the show’s set, courtesy of Alexandra Kuntz, a sophomore in CCM’s Scenic Design program and Assistant to Guest Scenic Designer John Arnone on this production.

Learn more about this dynamic new production, which features set designs by Tony Award-winner John Arnone.

“Set in the mid-19th century, Macheath (otherwise known as ‘Mack the Knife’) runs the town with his rag tag band of ruffians and gets what he wants,” Kuntz explains. “His latest want just happens to be Polly Peachum, daughter of the Beggar’s Lord of London (Johnathan Jeremiah Peachum), who doesn’t take too kindly to Mack the Knife’s interest in his daughter. Doing anything to keep them apart, Peachum uses broads, bribes and blackmails to get Mack out of the picture, while Macheath’s life hangs in the balance.”

This production contains mature subject matter.

The Epic Theatre of CCM’s ‘The Threepenny Opera’

Sophomore Hannah Zazzaro as Sukey Tawdry and junior Max Clayton as Macheath. Photography by Mark Lyons.

CCM’s year-long Kurt Weill Festival resumes this month with a dynamic new production of the iconic musical The Threepenny Opera. Composed by Kurt Weill with book and lyrics by dramatist Bertolt Brecht (adapted into English by Marc Blitzstein), The Threepenny Opera weaves the riveting tale of notorious bandit and womanizer Macheath (“Mack the Knife”) and his seedy companions in London’s underworld. Weill’s innovative score invented a new form of musical theatre, leading the way for such shows as Chicago and Cabaret.

CCM’s Mainstage Series production of this jazz-infused musical is directed by Robin Guarino, with musical direction by Roger Grodsky, choreography by Patti James and scenic designs by Tony Award-winning guest artist John Arnone. The Threepenny Opera runs Thursday, Feb. 28, through Sunday, March 10, in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater. Tickets are on sale now. This production contains mature subject matter.

Enquirer Previews CCM’s ‘Mad Men’ Inspired Take on ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’

Photography by Mark Lyons.

Jackie Demaline takes a closer look at CCM’s unique spin on William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in today’s edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer. A Midsummer Night’s Dream runs through this Sunday, Oct. 7, in Patricia Corbett Theater.

Learn more about director Michael Burnham‘s unique approach to the play and scenic designer Ryan Howell‘s collaboration with Toronto-based artist Amy Shackleton and CCM’s Division of Electronic Media here.

CCM Slideshows: A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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CCM proudly presents a colorful new twist on William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, running through Oct. 7 in UC’s Patricia Corbett Theater.

Are you coming to campus for UC Homecoming this weekend? Come to CCM Village after the Homecoming Kickoff Party at the Myers Alumni Center on Friday for an 8 p.m. performance or come early on Saturday and catch a matinee of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at 2 p.m. (kick-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.).

This is a perfect weekend to experience EVERYTHING going on at the University of Cincinnati! Don’t miss the opening of CCM’s must-see 2012-13 Mainstage Series.