Chances are you haven’t heard opera like this before.
When Vero Voce Studio Theatre presents An Evening of Opera, two one-act operas will be staged as radio plays.
“It seemed sensible to us to convert the theater into a radio studio and do them both as radio plays,” Director Dennis Brown said. “So we’re having some fun with that. It’s very interesting how it’s turning out. It gives us the opportunity of updating some of the things that are being done and said. But a very interesting take on how these things are done.”
Performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “The Impresario” and Gian Carlo Menotti’s “The Old Maid and The Thief” are at 7:30 p.m. May 19-20 and at 6 p.m. May 21 at Vero Voce in St. Charles.
“This is a new venture for Vero Voce, and a pretty new venture for most of the western suburbs. Not many people do opera in the Western suburbs,” Brown said. “We’re breaking people in gently by giving them two English language one-act comedic operas.”
The evening will begin with “The Impresario,” which Mozart dubbed “a comedy with music.”
“It was written by Mozart, sort of pointing his finger at the establishment that they had in those days with how he had to get his music through and how music was being utilized in theaters,” Brown said. “(It’s) hilariously funny, considering it was written 300 years ago.”
The opera follows an impresario, who is akin to a modern day producer.
“This particular impresario has become disenchanted with the idea of running a series of shows at the theater and he wants to just do dramas because opera just costs far too much with all the trappings that opera brings with it,” Brown said.
But his assistant wants proposes allowing the opera stars to pay their way to take part in the production.
“It has a lot of twists and turns in it, and the ending is not exactly what you would expect to be either,” Brown said. “It’s well worth seeing how Mozart views the whole music scene in his day.”
“The Impresario” features students Ryan Bussert, Liam McCarron, Dan Keller, Lauren Freas and Abageal Phelan. Brown portrays the impresario.
“It’s really an interesting play to be part of,” he said. “The quality of the voices in these operas is astounding.”
While it was written 1786, the opera is brought into the 20th century since it is being presented as a radio show.
“We’re not going to be dressed in 1700s garb. We will be dressed in 1940s garb because the radio show that we’re doing is set in the ’40s,” Brown said. “The radio studio is a 1940s studio, and the people that are doing it are 1940s.”
The audience gets the feeling of being a radio studio watching a live broadcast.
The second opera to be performed, “The Old Maid and The Thief,” was written in 1939 as a radio play. The opera tells the tale of an old maid who has lived in the same house for 40 years with her housemaid. One day a good-looking beggar comes to the house seeking help.
“All she can think of is ‘oh, a good looking man has come to my door, perhaps if I give him a bed for the night … he’ll fall in love with me and everything will be wonderful,'” Brown said. “But she’s an old maid and he’s a young man. She can’t see beyond that.”
They plan all sorts of things to make him stay. But then learn there is a murderer on the loose, and they think it’s him. But with all that she has plotted, it is the old maid who is the criminal and the beggar just wants to leave, Brown said.
“It’s an ending that people don’t realize is going to happen. But it’s a really funny, wonderful situational type opera that these people get themselves into,” he said. ” “Wonderful music. Really, really difficult music, to be quite honest. It’s very difficult music, but very funny. You understand every word because it’s all in English and you see the situation coming together as it does.”
The cast of “The Old Maid and the Thief” features professional singers Marie Groh, Dawn Harkins, Keith Brown and Catherine Lord.
This is the first time Vero Voce is presenting opera performances, but the school and theater wanted to do so for a long time, Brown said.
“Being a school of performing arts, we teach all forms of singing,” he said. “But it’s just not done. We don’t want to end up with a three-day Wagnerian opera. We want to basically give people an opportunity to come see, or hear, what opera sounds like. And it’s really a great venue for it.
“We did see a lack of opera in the area and we’ve been wanting to do opera for quite some time. It’s just a matter of getting the right one,” Brown said. “We want to see opera coming to the suburbs.”
Kathy Cichon is a freelance writer at The Beacon-News.
An Evening at the Opera: “The Impresario” and “The Old Maid and the Thief”
When: May 19-21
Where: Vero Voce Studio Theatre, 951 State Ave., Suite F, St. Charles
Tickets: $28 adults; $25 seniors and $23 students
Information: 630-584-0139 or www.verovoce.com
