[FAC] California Opera Arts & Education Festival

Sun Jul 12 20:33:24 CDT 2009

Celebrate the 10th Annual California Opera Arts & Education Festival

In Fresno * California * July 16th - August 2nd 

Festival Events are FREE with donations welcome at the door in order to promote a greater interest in, exposure to, and attendance of opera in Fresno -made possible, in part, through the Community Enrichment Program of the Fresno Arts Council, the Bonner Family Foundation graciously underwriting performances at the Bonner Auditorium of the Fresno Art Museum, Exxon Mobile and Bank of the West in support of the performance at Tower Theatre, and the Fred Schlotthauer Memorial Education Fund, AZCAL Management, and Pure Sense, among other individual and corporate sponsors of the Annual International Vocal Competition, and the Festival Finale performances!

July 16th Thursday at 7 PM * Featured Faculty Recital * John Minagro, Baritone

Willow International Center * 10309 N. Willow in Fresno

Versatile John Minagro is frequently seen in many genres of vocal music including Opera, Oratorio, Concert and Musical Theater. A NATS First Place division winner, both the Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the Sacramento Regional Theater Alliance nominated John for Best Actor in a Musical. In addition to features of leading traditional baritone opera roles throughout the world, John has also performed from Lincoln Center in New York, to the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle. He performed over 2000 times with The Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco, and has sung with the San Francisco Opera for eight seasons. He has also been the guest soloist with the San Francisco Symphony at their Summer Broadway Pops Concert, and can be heard singing "You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch!" on the Christmas CD Christmas Center Stage, an album featuring the San Francisco cast of The Phantom of the Opera. He was a featured soloist on a PBS children's special performing his own composition called The Piano. He can also be heard on the world premiere album of the new opera Corpus Evita singing the role of Juan Peron. This CD was nominated for a Grammy in 2005 for Best New Classical Recording. For the past few years he has been among favorites performing in Osaka, Japan.

July 17th Friday at 7 PM * International Vocal Competition 

Willow International Center * 10309 N. Willow in Fresno

Dueling Divas, Tenacious Tenors, and Bellowing Baritones battle it out for the top awards at the 2009 International Vocal Competition Finals.  Three age divisions are represented in the competition of the Festival program - youth, collegiate and professional.  Artists will be challenged on a variety of musical repertoire. Attending audience members will be able to vote for their favorite artists, as a world-wide panel of distinguished judges challenge singers to rise to the top through a grueling appraisal of stage deportment, pitch and voice quality, command of languages, musicality, preparation and readiness, and the appropriateness and fit of selected works with voice category, among other judging factor points.

July 19th Sunday at 6 PM * Young Artists Musical Theatre Showcase

Special Dinner Theatre Event *RSVP Required 233-0397

Broadway Under the Stars Featuring Musical Theatre Highlights
>From Around the World

St. George Greek Orthodox Church * 2219 N Orchard St (Near First/Clinton)

This annual special event evening meet and greet reception in support of the St. George Greek Orthodox Church includes food, fun and friendship, introducing audiences to the 2009 summer singers through a musical journey as opera artists from the UK, Germany, Italy, Armenia, Greece, Romania, Brazil, China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico and the good ol' USA share this delightful opening concert style introduction to the genre of international musical theatre, including traditional Broadway highlights and musical theatre works popular in Europe and Asia, but new to American audiences, such as from Tanz der Vampire and Elisabeth among others.

July 24th Friday at 7 PM * Mozart's Magical Musical Life

Featuring Bastien und Bastienne * Fresno Art Museum, Bonner Auditorium *

2233 North First Street * (Between Clinton & McKinley)

One of Mozart's earliest 18th century operas, written when he was only twelve years old, Bastien und Bastienne is a one act "singspiel*." Bastienne (British Soprano, Angelina Billington), a shepherdess, fears that her dearest friend, Bastien (German Tenor, Julian Michael Rickert), has forsaken her for another pretty face. Colas, the village soothsayer (California Baritone, Jeremy Silver) advises her to act coldly, which will make him come running back. When Bastien is heard approaching, Bastienne hides herself and Colas informs him that Bastienne has a new love. Bastien is shocked and asks the magician for help. Colas opens his book of spells and recites a nonsense aria filled with random syllables and Latin quotations. Colas declares the spell a success and that Bastienne is in love with Bastien once more. Bastienne, however, decides to keep up the game a bit longer and spurns Bastien.  Will the two decide that they've gone far enough and agree to reconcile? And, what ever will happen to Colas?

* Singspiel refers to opera in the German language containing spoken dialogue and usually comic in tone. The earliest singspiels were light plays whose dialogue was interspersed with popular songs. Resembling the contemporary English ballad opera and the French opéra-comique (both of which stimulated its development), the singspiel rose to great popularity in the late 18th century. Its success was in part, related to reaction by composers and audiences against the conventions of the then dominant Italian opera styles.

July 25th Saturday at 2 PM * Shep, The Musical 

Fresno Art Museum, Bonner Auditorium * 2233 North First Street 

(Between Clinton & McKinley)

Fresno based composer-playwright, Joe W. Ozier's original composition is arranged by Director of Education, Dr. Diane Nixon to produce an old fashioned children's musical melodrama, underscoring the ethical treatment of animals and humanistic moments of people and their dogs. Performed by the Cal Opera Youth Troupe led by Zaroohi (ZZ) and Eddie Nixon, Constantine, Chrysanthe and Evangelia Pappas, Erica Sylva, Michael Vang, Emily and Hannah Beatty and Young Artists joining the Festival from around the world, at its core is the heartwarming story of the rescue of a lonely dog, a young veteran's search for love, and an orphaned girl's conquering of fear to love again. Real life events inspired Ozier. Since he rescued Shep, songs about the dog's life flowed into his head. He decided to try his hand at writing a musical, but needed a playwright to polish to the actual script and an arranger to incorporate the music into the story...enter California Opera. Its a story of hope, says Ozier, I'm a dreamer...

July 26th Sunday at 2 PM * Il Trovatore (Verdi) 

TOWER THEATRE * 815 East Olive Avenue at Wishon 

The opera in four acts, Il Trovatore, Verdi's 1853 work based on the Spanish drama of the same title by Antonio Garcia Gatteerez, has been of worldwide popularity. It could be accounted the most popular work in the operatic repertoire of practically every land. Swift, spontaneous, and stirring is the music with intriguing storylines revolving around war, love, and revenge. Uniquely and fully staged with chamber orchestra and chorus, this production features returning California based Soprano Jamie Bonetto (Leonora) Mezzo-Soprano Leslie Hassberg (Azucena), Tenor Fred Winthrop (Manrico), and Baritone John Minagro (Ferrando), introducing California newcomer Joe Kinyon (Count di Luna), British Soprano Angelina Billington (Inez) and Tenor Julian Michael Rickert of Germany (Ruiz). 

July 31st Friday at 7 PM * Sisters of Manzanar 

and Other Musical Tales of the Japanese American Experience 

Fresno Art Museum, Bonner Auditorium * 2233 North First Street 

(Between Clinton & McKinley)

Western opera became popular in Japan during the Meiji era, and by the 1930s a number of home-grown operas had been created in the western style. Before World War II the most important Japanese opera was Yamada's Kurofune (The Black Ships), which was premiered in 1940. After the war, the premiere of Ikuma Dan's opera Yuzuru (1952) led to a renewal of interest in the form, which has continued to develop ever since. Featuring Miwako Isano, Haruna Shiokawa, and Elyse Nakajima, California Opera presents a Night in honor of Japanese-Americans to highlight pre-war through post-war sagas, including The Sisters of Manzanar, a one-act opera by present day New York composer Paul Stuart, which addresses experience of Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. 

August 1st Saturday at 2 PM Opera Espanol * Un Dia Caliente

Fresno Art Museum, Bonner Auditorium * 2233 North First Street 

(Between Clinton & McKinley)

An annual festival opera favorite, this year's event highlighting the Latino arts and culture will feature young opera artists of Mexico, Brazil and the US performing opera art and folk songs along with members of the *Fresno Brisa Espanola in a fiery melodrama Un Dia Caliente (One Hot Day) featuring contemporary, traditional, and classical Latin and Spanish flamenco music, dance, and song. *Anne Young, the California Opera Association resident choreographer and a castanet virtuoso, continues almost 30 years of performing and choreographing Spanish dance. Daniel Ocampo is currently majoring in Instrumental Performance w/emphasis on Flamenco Guitar at CSUF. He has studied in Italy, Spain, and with renowned flamenco guitarists such as Gerardo Nunez of Spain. Teresa Deleon-Gomez offers over 15 years of flamenco dance and music experience, performing & collaborating with distinguished international artists with a current focus on introducing vintage flamenco to the public schools. Joyce Vasquez is an aficionado for over 25 years, credited with initiating and organizing flamenco projects various forms of music and dance, and she is known for her creativity and dramatic style. Kirk Cruz has studied playwrights and various aspects of stage-acting theory and adds drama and original story lines to performances.

August 2nd Sunday at 2 PM Suor Angelica (Puccini) * Pagliacci (Leoncavallo)

<https://student.tuiu.edu/exchange/dnixon/Drafts/RE:%20FAC-List%20Digest,%20Vol%20328,%20Issue%204.EML/special_events.html> SHAGHOIAN CONCERT HALL * 2770 East International Avenue 

(Willow & International in NE Fresno)

Suor Angelica is the second installment in Puccini's triptych of one-act operas commonly known as Il trittico. The 1918 opera chronicles the fall, redemption, and final transfiguration of its central character, Sister Angelica (Soprano Samantha Knjoi of Huntsville Alabama), who has taken the veil in repentance for bearing a child out of wedlock. Angelica has lived in the peace of the convent for seven years. Her aunt, the princess (Golden Gate Opera Director Roberta Wain-Becker), visits her and tells her that the child has died. Angelica later prays and seemingly in answer to her prayer, the Virgin Mary and her son appear in a vision. The libretto, by Giovacchino Forzano, was immediately appealing to the composer, whose sister Igenia was Mother Superior of the convent at Vicepelago. It contains some of Puccini's most adventurous writing -- the musical language at times even flirts with polytonality -- Angelica's aria Senza mamma (Without your mother), one of the most poignant moments in any of Puccini's works, has remained a favorite. Local and International singers complete an all female cast of ages 6 to 60.

Pagliacci, Ruggero Leoncavallo's Opera in Two Acts, cultivated a late 19th-century new Italian literary movement style called verismo, meaning realism or truthful. The story follows actors' loves and jealousies, which spill over into their stage performances. It is explained that the dangers of love will be presented on stage but actors are human too, and have real feelings. Canio (the Pagliaccio portrayed by California Tenor Zachary Sheely) says that stage and life are quite different, but that if his Nedda (portrayed by Fresno Soprano Stephanie Hower) deceived him in real life, he would avenge such treachery. The central figure Canio (Pagliaccio) sings his famous self-pitying lament... laugh Pagliaccio, laugh! In the end La commedia è finita! (The comedy and central figures are finished.)  Conducted by the great Fresno Opera Association founder Nicola Iacovetti, with chorus director Dan Bishop, and special appearances by CSU Fresno professor Anthony Radford as Sylvio and Fresno's mystical miming magician Tony Blanco, the performance will represent an all-star feature of Fresno's own greatest operatic and stage talents. 

Bring the kids, friends, and family. Support these international artists arriving from around the world and our own local talent learning their craft and performing for YOU - share Fresno's hospitality and culture through your attendance! Dress comfortably for all the summer opera events. Enjoy the opera-tune-ity to try something new and learn more about this treasured classical and evolving contemporary art form!!! Celebrate with us our 10th year of summer opera in Fresno!

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