I had a great time this year with the Dal Opera Workshop, and I hope you did, too! Thanks to all of your hard work and dedication, this year’s show was tremendously entertaining. All the best!
Opera vocals generously showcased
Two casts featured in production
By STEPHEN PEDERSEN Arts Reporter
Sat. Feb 2 - 4:46 AM
Dalhousie Music Department’s opera workshop production of act two of Johann Strauss’s evergreen operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat) is a showcase for the lively young voices of the vocal department.
More than 30 singers, representing the first of two casts, filled the air with song and the stage with action in a production which, was for opera fans, the equivalent of a supersize meal at McDonald’s.
Not only was most of Strauss’s original second act intact, but since the entire act consists of a lavish party thrown by Prince Orlovsky for Vienna’s beautiful people, the production, directed by Nina Scott-Stoddart, made the most of the opportunity to stage an elaborate entertainment within the party in which 25 different singers sang solos, duets, trios, quartets, a quintet and a sextet from operas by Mozart, Offenbach, Rossini, Kurt Weill, Benjamin Britten and Douglas Moore.
It was, to say the least, a feast of melody and sweet singing.
Strauss’s music, as well as Mozart’s and Rossini’s, suit developing voices. They challenge virtuosity (as in Adele’s laughing song, sung Thursday by Katie Shelley with considerable brilliance of tone) as well as in Olympia’s song in which she’s a mechanical singing doll from Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman (sung and acted most charmingly by Mary-Claire Sanderson) to the dramatic What Do You Intend To Do, Augusta? from Moore’s Ballad of Bay Doe and the dark Spinning Wheel Quartet from Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia.
Pulling this all together in a less than two hour show was a tour-de-force. The pace never lagged and Scott-Stoddart took advantage of the potpourri of styles and stories of the operatic vignettes to poke a little fun at what she clearly loves with a passion.
In Mozart’s La Ci Darem La Mano, everybody’s favourite duet from Don Giovanni (sung by two of Prince Orlovsky’s guests) in which the Don seduces a naive serving girl, the Zerlina (Katrina Westin) clearly loathed the Don Giovanni (Ben Yeon). Her struggle to overcome her dislike in order to appear to be seduced was wonderfully comic.
Julie Rudolph, in a trousers role, singing the part of Count Orlovsky, found a delightful way of being bored by his own party, while singing in a Russian accent in a stagey, deep voice, that all but failed to disguise its treble quality. The simple set (designed by Melissa Maislin) employed an ivory grand staircase, a settee or two and a large open space defined by a square ivory dance floor to contain the entertainments.
Dean Bradshaw whipped his fingers raw through the piano reduction of Strauss’s colourful orchestra part and Gary Ewer conducted the ensembles as needed.
Act two of Die Fledermaus continues tonight at 8 p.m. with the same cast as the opening performance, while the second cast performs Sunday at 2 p.m.
