Westminster Opera Theater Presents Hansel and Gretel on December 10, 11 and 12
Westminster Opera Theater will present Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera Hansel and Gretel Friday, December 10 at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, December 11 at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sunday, December 12 at 3:00 p.m. All performances will take place in The Playhouse on the campus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton.
The opera, which is based on a famous Grimm brothers’ fairytale, was first performed in Weimar, Germany in 1893 to great acclaim. The opera tells the story of two children, Hansel and Gretel, whose mother asks them to go into the fields to pick strawberries, little knowing that they would encounter a terrifying, child-eating witch as well as the Sandman. The quick-witted children, however, are able to trick the witch and rescue all the other children she has transformed into gingerbread statues.
Bill Fabris is stage director and Richard Cordova is music director for this production, which will be sung in English. All of the performers are students at Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton.
Westminster Opera Theater has been praised for its innovative productions of a wide range of operas. Participants in the program have gone on to perform in opera houses around the world. They include Jennifer Larmore and Emily Magee, who perform regularly with the world’s greatest opera companies. Graduates of the program have been the grand prize winners in three of the past 12 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.
A regular with Chautauqua Opera, Bill Fabris has directed H.M.S. Pinafore, The Barber of Seville and The Mikado as well as several musical reviews for the Young Artist Program. Equally at home in the worlds of opera and musical theater, Mr. Fabris has been directing musicals for the past several years at the Ash Lawn-Highland Summer Festival. Recent productions include Fiddler On The Roof, Oklahoma!, The Wizard of Oz and Kiss Me, Kate.
Mr. Fabris’ work regularly appears on the stages of regional opera companies, including OperaDelaware, Mobile Opera, Opera Colorado Artist Center, Eugene Opera, South Carolina Opera, Opera Pacific, Natchez Opera, Lyric Opera of San Antonio and Opera Boston.
His New York credits include The Desert Song, The Merry Widow and Countess Maritza for the Village Light Opera Group. Since 1987, Mr. Fabris has been director and choreographer for the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. Highlights of his work include the recent productions of The Pirates of Penzance and H.M.S. Pinafore at City Center. Off-Broadway, he directed and choreographed the 20th-anniversary production of Boy Meets Boy.
Internationally, Bill Fabris directed A Little Sondheim Music and The Music of Leonard Bernstein at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Spain. He directed the European tours of Jesus Christ Superstar, Hair, and choreographed the award-winning short film Boot Camp, which was featured at Sundance.
Mr. Fabris is on the faculty of Westminster Choir College of Rider University, where he teaches music theater, dance, and directs the Westminster Opera Theater.
Music director Richard Cordova has had a multi-faceted career as both conductor and pianist all over the world. A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the University of Southern California, he made his professional debut conducting the Scandinavian premiere of Bernstein’s Candide in Bergen, Norway, and has subsequently conducted for Oper der Stadt Bonn, Opera Company of Boston, Long Beach Opera, Berkshire Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Baltimore Opera, as well as such educational institutions as California State University Long Beach and the Mannes College of Music in New York.
Mr. Cordova has guest conducted with several symphony orchestras including the Atlanta Symphony, as well as both the Rhode Island and Dayton Philharmonics. As an accompanist and a coach, he has been fortunate to have collaborated with such artists as Martina Arroyo, Frederica von Stade, Renato Bruson, Florence Quivar and Julia Migenes, and he has worked in this capacity for such organizations as the Istanbul Opera, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Sarasota Opera, New Orleans Opera, New York City Opera, Santa Fe Opera, Dallas Opera, Opera Festival of New Jersey, Chautauqua Opera, the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria, and the Florida Grand Opera, where he served as director of the Young Artist Program. He has served at the Manhattan School of Music as the chorus master for their Opera Theater productions, which have included both the world premiere of The House of the Seven Gables, and the New York premiere of A Death in the Family.
Tickets for these performances are $20 for adults, $15 for senior citizens and students, and $10 for children 12 and under. To order, call the Westminster box office weekdays between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. at 609-921-2663. Westminster Choir College is located on the corner of Hamilton Avenue and Walnut Lane in Princeton. For more information visit Westminster’s Web site at http://www.westminster.rider.edu/.
