All-English Performances At Manchester Aims To Make Opera Accessible
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NORTH MANCHESTER – Manchester University offers Opera Workshop performances at 2 and 7 p.m. on Feb. 4 in Wine Recital Hall on the North Manchester campus.
"Everything is sung in English, and we will include supertitles during the performance to make the lyrics even easier to understand," said Debra Lynn, professor of music and director of choral organizations and voice study at Manchester. She works to make opera accessible to modern audiences.
Here is the program:
• "L'incoronazione di Poppea" (The Coronation of Poppea) by Claudio Monteverdi, final scene.
• "Hansel and Gretel" by Engelbert Humperdinck, most of the third act.
• "Strawberry Fields" by Michael Torke, entire one-act opera.
"We are starting with a short scene from one of the first operas ever composed 'L'incoronazione di Poppea,' and we are ending with a 40-minute, one-act opera that was composed in 1999 called 'Strawberry Fields.' The composer is still living and composing in New York City. In between these bookends of the very old and the very new, we will perform a great operatic classic from the Romantic era, 'Hansel and Gretel,' a familiar bit of folklore we can all enjoy," Lynn said.
