With an exciting and diverse slate of productions focused on St. Olaf’s Liberal Learning and Religion theme the 2010-11 Lyric Theatre Season launches its 5th-year celebration:

 

October 22-23, 2010
- Two classic one-act operas Suor Angelica and Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini (Sung in English translation)

 

January 25-26, 2011
- The world premiere of the opera/oratorio The Mysteries by James McKeel (Sung in English)

 

May 13-14, 2011
- The student-directed production of the Tony Award - winning musical Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim (Sung in English)

All productions are FREE and OPEN to the public with open seating on a first-come-first-serve basis.

 

Suor Angelica & Gianni Schicchi are two parts of Puccini’s famous Il Trittico which also includes Il Tabarro. Suor Angelica tells the tragic tale of a young 17th century nun torn between her life in the convent and the illegitimate son she left behind. In stark contrast the comedy Gianni Schicchi (in a modernized version) sheds light on the lengths that greedy relatives will go to in order to keep their dead patriarch’s money for themselves and out of the hands of televangelists.

The Mysteries is an opera/oratorio based on humankind’s fascination with life and death. A group of christian sojourners begins a dance with mortality as they question its origin, power, and God’s ultimate role in humankind’s existence. With richly poetic 17th & 18th century texts by Anne Bradstreet, Samuel Wesley Sr., & John Gambold and ritual dances of searching and celebration this production provides a dramatic voice for the questions that all people ask of life and death.

 

Into The Woods is a musical that weaves together several of Grimm’s fairy tales to reveal not only the consequences of characters' wishes and quests, but to grapple with many of the issues (perceived good vs. perceived evil, hope vs. despair, love vs. hate, faith vs. disbelief) that pervade the sacred and secular world.

 

Unique among Minnesota private liberal arts colleges, the St. Olaf Music Department offers a complete Lyric Theatre Season of three fully-produced operas, operettas, or musicals in order to provide St. Olaf students with a broad spectrum of practical lyric theatre opportunities during their college careers while nurturing and guiding them as young singer-actors. The Lyric Theatre Season also provides undergraduate leadership/training opportunities for aspiring conductors, pianist-coaches, lighting operators, stage managers, and, in collaboration with St. Olaf Arts Management, general managers/arts administrators.

Led by co-directors Janis Hardy and James McKeel the lyric season’s past productions include Mozart's La Finta Giardiniera, Cosi Fan Tutte, & Le Nozze Di Figaro, Bizet's Carmen, Ravel's L'enfant et les Sortileges, Sondheim's Company, Gilbert & Sullivan's An Evening with the Mikado & Utopia Limited, Jacques Offenbach’s Christopher Columbus, a vintage Broadway revue - Manhattan Madness, and the world-premiere of James McKeel's jazz-era opera Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum.

Welcome to the Lyric Theatre Season’s 5th year celebration!

 

*For more information about the Lyric Theatre Season and Lyric Theatre Training at St. Olaf College please visit the Music Department website and click on Lyric Theatre: Opera, Operetta, and Musical Theatre.