Dominic Mercier
Angela Brown, Will Liverman, Rachel Sterrenberg and Angela Mortellaro.
More opera is on the way! With the Madison Opera’s final production of the 2015-16 season coming up in April, the company is releasing information on its plans for 2016-17.
The first of three productions will be offered Nov. 4 and 6, 2016, in Overture Hall. This is Charles Gounod’s romantic drama, Romeo & Juliet, based on the Shakespeare play. The Madison Opera production is scheduled to coincide with the arrival in Madison of the touring display of Shakespeare’s First Folio, at Chazen Museum of Art.
The tragedy’s story is the familiar one of the two “star-cross’d lovers” who could end the bitter feud between their families by their own deaths together. Second in popularity only to Faust among Gounod’s operas, this one is filled with beautiful arias and duets — catnip for star singers and a feast for the audience. The two leading roles will be sung by Madison’s own diva, soprano Emily Birsan, and tenor John Irvin. John DeMain will conduct
The second opera, to be performed in the Overture Center's Capitol Theater on Feb. 10 and 12, 2017, is an exciting, novel and brand-new work recently premiered by the Philadelphia Opera. The Madison production will be only its second one, and its Midwestern premiere, edging out the Chicago Lyric Opera’s plans for it. The opera is Charlie Parker's Yardbird, by Daniel Schnyder, who is not a conventional opera composer but a jazz specialist who has used that idiom as the basis for a fully composed and thoroughly operatic score, celebrating Charlie “Bird” Parker’s emergence as a jazz star. Joshua Stewart will be Charlie, Will Liverman will play Dizzy Gillespie, and Angela Brown will sing Charlie’s mother. John DeMain again be the conductor.
The third production, April 21 and 23, will be of the great popular favorite The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte) by Mozart. In a struggle between virtue and evil, a prince and his beloved achieve lofty love while a comic bird man finds earthy happiness with his bird lady. A rich visual setting will serve a cast including Andrew Bidlack as Prince Tamino and Amanda Woodbury as his Pamina, Alan Dunbar as Papageno, Caitlin Cisler as the scheming Queen of the Night, and Nathan Stark as the wise and noble Sarastro. Gary Thor Wedow will conduct.
The season will end on April 15 and 17 with a gala production of Jacques Offenbach’s fantasy spectacle The Tales of Hoffmann (Les Contes d’Hoffmann). And after that will be the 15th anniversary Opera in the Park, on July 23, at Garner Park.
