Monday, Mar 16, 2015
The story of Romeo and Juliet, sung in Italian with English supertitles, March 27 and 28.
Westminster Opera Theatre will present Vincenzo Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi on Friday, March 27 and Saturday, March 28 at 7:30 p.m. in the Bart Luedeke Center Theater on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. The fully staged production, featuring Westminster Choir College students, will be sung in Italian with English supertitles, and performed with piano and chamber ensemble. Music director is William Hobbs and stage director is Beth Greenberg. The set features projections by media artist Joan Grossman.
The opera is librettist Felice Romani’s reworking of the celebrated tale of Romeo and Juliet. It centers on a pair of passionate lovers who are kept apart by feuding between their families. An ingenious scheme to bring the lovers together leads to misfortune, heartbreak and death.
Westminster Choir College faculty member Williams Hobbs works at many of the world’s major opera houses as conductor and coach. These include the Opéra National de Paris, the Salzburg Festival, San Francisco Opera, Chicago Lyric Opera, Seattle Opera, Washington Opera and the Opéra de Monte-Carlo. He has assisted conductors Claudio Abbado, Sir Charles Mackerras, Jiří Bělohlávek, Jiří Kout, Marco Armiliato and many others, and worked closely with singers such as Renée Fleming, Susan Graham, Frederica von Stade, Sonia Ganassi, Placido Domingo, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Sam Ramey and Kurt Moll. Mr. Hobbs has devoted a large portion of his career to working with young singers. He was on the faculty of the Aspen Opera Theater Center of the Aspen Music Festival for six years, and he has been on the faculty of the CoOPERAtive Program at Westminster Choir College since 2008. He was on the coaching staff of the Juilliard School of Music for many years and was invited by the National Theater of Tokyo to serve as visiting master coach.
Beth Greenberg has earned a solid reputation for her collaborations with contemporary composers. Recent world premieres include The Three Feathers children's opera by Lori Laitman and librettist Dana Gioia and The Red Silk Thread by Stella Sung. She's also currently involved with many operas in development, including Steal a Pencil for Me by Gerald Cohen and Deborah Brevoort; Nkeiru Okoye's Harriet Tubman; and The Enchanted Organ by Gordon Beeferman. Her original productions have been seen worldwide with Carmen in Tokyo and Tosca in Lima, Peru. In the United States she has staged Aida for Utah Festival Opera; Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Pasquale for the Pittsburgh Opera; Eugene Onegin for OperaDelaware; Rigoletto for the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado; and Madama Butterfly, Rigoletto and Il Barbiere di Siviglia for the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice.
Westminster Opera Theatre 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 included Savitri by Gustav Holst; Oreste by George Frideric Handel; L’enfant Prodigue by Claude Debussy; L’enfant et les Sortilèges by Maurice Ravel; Così fan tutte, La Clemenza di Tito, Il re pastore, Die Zauberflöte and Der Schauspieldirektor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc; Albert Herring and A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Benjamin Britten; Les contes d’Hoffman by Jacques Offenbach; Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini; Iolanta by Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky; and Il mondo della luna by Joseph Haydn.
Tickets are $25 for adults and $20 for students and seniors. They can be purchased at the door, through the Rider University office at 609-896-7775 or online at www.rider.edu/arts. For more information, visit www.rider.edu/arts. Rider University is located at 2038 Lawrenceville Road in Lawrenceville, N.J.