Two Classic American Operas in Oberlin

On Saturday, January 30th, members of the Oberlin winter-term operas will perform two classic American operas: Gian Carlo Menotti’s The Medium and Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti. The operas will be presented as a double-bill on one night only, Saturday, January 30, at 8 p.m. in Oberlin’s Finney Chapel. There will be a 15-minute intermission between the two operas.

Admission is free and no tickets are required. Finney Chapel is wheelchair accessible and free parking is available throughout the Oberlin campus.

From the press release:

The operas are produced by Jonathon Field, Oberlin’s director of opera theater, under the auspices of Oberlin College’s Winter Term Committee and with the support of Oberlin Opera Theater. Field is director of The Medium; Alan Montgomery is conductor of the pit orchestra, a chamber ensemble featuring Oberlin Conservatory students. Joseph Stepec, a junior in the conservatory, takes the baton for Trouble in Tahiti, which is directed by Scott Skiba ’03.

Field paired The Medium and Trouble in Tahiti to highlight what he calls the “rhythm of the American experience.” Both operas incorporate music unique to American culture: the old-fashioned waltz and folk music of The Medium and the modern pop music of television commercials and swing bands of Trouble in Tahiti. Together, explains Field, these operas present the “dark and light side of American culture.”

The Medium, originally a two-act operatic tragedy by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Gian Carlo Menotti (The Consul, The Saint of Bleecker Street), is condensed into one act in Field’s production. In it, a faux psychic, Madame Flora, her daughter, Monica, and a mute servant boy from Budapest, Toby, fake séances to cheat families desperately seeking to connect with their deceased loved ones. The tables are turned against Madame Flora when she begins to hear a phantom voice unnoticed by anyone else; she loses her grip on reality as she searches hysterically for the source.

Nine-time Grammy Award winner Leonard Bernstein, composer of such musical treasures as West Side Story, On the Town, and Candide (which will be staged in March 2010 by the Oberlin Opera Theater) wrote Trouble as a one-act opera about an average family in an anonymous 1950s suburb. Husband Sam and wife Dinah seek reconciliation for their troubled marriage but are continuously peeved by one another’s habitual annoyances, reflected in antagonistic actions. By contrast, a cheerful chorus reveals Dinah and Sam’s unspoken desires for a life that reflects the harmonious and romantic storyline of the feature film Trouble in Tahiti.

Principal roles in The Medium will be played by Kate Rosen (Madame Flora), Hilary Sample (Monica), Amalia Goldberg (Mrs. Gobineau), Malachi Kanfer (Mr. Gobineau), and Shannon Rieke (Mrs. Nolan). Principal roles in Trouble in Tahiti will be played by Meris Gadaleto (Dinah) and Alex Boyd (Sam); Danielle Lombardi, Matthew Brewer, and Paul Whitsett will play the Trio.