Thursday, Nov 18, 2010
Opera Arias and choruses with orchestra
Westminster Opera Theater will present a gala concert of opera scenes and arias Friday, December 3 and Saturday December 4 at 8 p.m. in the Princeton Regional Schools Performing Arts Center at Princeton High School.
The program will feature Westminster vocal students performing arias and scenes from operas that include Der Rosenkavalier, Peter Grimes, Carmen, Falstaff, La Cenerentola, Lakmé, L'Elixir d'amore, Street Scene and The Magic Flute with orchestra and supertitles.
Music director is William Hobbs, who has devoted a large portion of his career to working with young singers. Hobbs was on the faculty of the Aspen Opera Theater Center of the Aspen Music Festival for six years, and he has served on the faculty of Westminster’s CoOPERAtive summer opera training program since 2008. He was on the coaching staff of the Juilliard School of Music for many years, and he has been a visiting master coach with the National Theater of Tokyo.
Hobbs also works as repetiteur and conductor at many of the world’s major opera houses including the Opéra National de Paris, the Salzburg Festival, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Seattle Opera, Washington Opera and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. His repertoire ranges from Handel to the European avant-garde, as well as works by Slavic composers and a number of premieres by American composers such as Lowell Liebermann and John Musto.
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. Recent productions have been Savitri by Gustav Holst, Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini, Oreste by George Frideric Handel, L’Enfant Prodigue by Claude Debussy, L’Enfant et les Sortilèges by Maurice Ravel, La Clemenza di Tito and Il Re Pastore by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc, Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten and Pelléas ét Mélisande by Claude Debussy. Program graduates include Jennifer Larmore, the most recorded mezzo-soprano of our era; mezzo-soprano Emily Magee and three Metropolitan Opera Council winners: Norah Amsellem, Melissa Citro and Laquita Mitchell.
Admission for the performance is $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Box Office at 609-921-2663 or online. The Princeton Regional Schools Performing Arts Center is located in Princeton High School on Walnut Lane in Princeton.