BEL CANTO Newsletter of the Manatee Opera Guild Early Winter 2021 Happenings President’s Message Preludes/Prologues Happy New Year, and a wish that we may all be back together soon! The Opera is pleased to present the following introductions to the Winter Season Operas. Please While the vaccine distribution has not been stay tuned for instructions to join these meetings nearly fast enough to ensure that we can online. again meet with the degree of security we Monday, 2/8/21 4:00 PM – The Happy Deception, used to know, enough people are getting Carlos Vicente the vaccine that we can begin to contemplate meeting in person. Monday, 2/15/21 4:00 PM – Maid to Mistress, Dr. Peter Shimkin Richard Russell has suggested that MOG might meet in the Tuesday, 3/30/21 4:00 PM – Il signor Bruschino, Opera House Courtyard on Scott Guinn the 24th of February at 10:30 Tuesday, 4/6/21 4:00 PM – Dido & Aeneas, a.m. It would be a masked, Rosanne Martorella, PhD socially-distanced, outdoor WEDU Program meeting, with singers, singing from the balcony, as pictured WEDU is offering a program about Sarasota Opera as here. I would need to know part of their Greater Sarasota series. how many people would be The program “gives an insider’s look into one of interested; we would need a Sarasota’s most iconic arts institutions. You’ll hear the minimum of 20 to make the story of how SO was able to keep operations going event happen. Please email during the pandemic by creating a bubble for their me at [email protected] to performers with extraordinarily tight protocols for indicate your interest. RSVP every department.” by February 20 please. Watch digitally on wedu.org on Thursday, February Preludes are back! See the dates, operas and presenters at 11 at 6 PM left. Also, WEDU is presenting what will be a very On WEDU television on February 11 at 8 PM interesting and revealing portrait of SO in a pandemic. and on WEDQ on Turesday February 18 at 8 PM. Thank you to Elizabeth Aversa for bringing us a column on SILL Sarasota short operas with many links to performances that will Join SILL interview and performance on Monday, surely entertain us. February 15 at 10:30. Guest is Lisa Chavez, mezzo- And thank you to Syble DiGirolamo for introducing us to soprano at Sarasota Opera. Instructions to view Scott Guinn, a retired baritone and current Director of here. Development at Sarasota Opera. Listen and Learn More About Short Operas The Cunning Little Vixen by Leoš Janáček. A forester, some animals, and love mix in this short Elizabeth Aversa opera. An OperaWire article by David Salazar along One January soon after retirement I made a new with a YouTube video of the full opera can be found year’s resolution to listen and learn more about opera. here. Sadly, I wasn’t any more successful with that than I Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell. From the was with my resolve to cycle five times a week or to baroque period, this beloved opera is based on get more sleep. In analyzing my failure to listen to an Virgil's Aeneid. An informative article from the New opera a day I realized that many operas are way too York Times by Ellen T. Harris offers contemporary long and that I had a limited number of hours to insight into Dido and Aeneas. See the article here. devote to the resolution. Happily, however, in the Two interesting videos are found here from Teatro process of assessing my failure, I discovered some Comunale Luciano Pavarotti, Modena (Italy), and excellent and entertaining short operas that can be here. The latter is an award-winning production of the heard and enjoyed in an hour and a quarter or less. San Francisco Girls Chorus and Voices of Music. An hour on the treadmill can go by quickly when combined with a “little” opera. Gianni Schicchi by Giacomo Puccini. One of the three operas that comprise Il Trittico, this features one Although recordings and videos of some popular of the most beloved arias in all of opera, “O mio short works like Gianni Schicchi and Pagliacci are easy babbino caro.” A 2011 Royal Opera House to find, it is not always easy to locate full videos or production of the composer’s only comedy can be even excerpts from some of the shorter, less accessed here. The video runs 55 minutes, and the frequently performed works. The purpose here, then, production is conducted by Antonio Pappano. is to provide a brief guide to 10 selected short works with links to media that can be accessed on a cell phone, IPad, or laptop computer. These will be Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. A video of the enjoyed by both opera novices and opera regulars. Met Opera’s production from 1994 is the one to watch. Access it here. The video of this play-within-a- Amahl and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Menotti. play opera features an all-star cast: Juan Pons, This opera is notable as the first made-for-television Luciano Pavarotti, and Teresa Stratas, conducted by opera. It is short, tells a familiar tale, and is often James Levine. Pagliacci is so frequently paired with performed around the Christmas season for families Cavalleria rusticana that the two have been dubbed and children. This video includes an introduction by the shorthand title “Cav/Pag.” Run time for each the composer for the original telecast of December opera is approximately one hour and 15 minutes. 24, 1951. The run time is just under an hour. Rita by Gaetano Donizetti. Sarasota Opera subscribers Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók. This opera packs enjoyed this delightful short opera in 2019, and a lot into its run time of under one hour. The newspapers around Florida noted the departure from psychological drama tells an eerie tale of a new wife longer productions with larger casts. Running about exploring the rooms of her husband’s dark castle. one hour, Rita can’t be considered one of the most Access the production of the Budapest Opera popular selections, but the music is pretty and the story conducted by Sir Georg Solti (2018) here. entertaining. Go to Rita for a 1962 black and white Cavalleria rusticana by Pietro Mascagni. This video. The advantage of this one is that there are perennial favorite runs about one hour and ten English surtitles. Another more recently recorded minutes. A video of the full opera, as traditionally performance (in color but without English surtitles) is performed at Teatro alla Scala di Milano and from 2009 and features Wendle Kettle conducting. See conducted by Herbert von Karajan, is available here. it at Rita in Color. A more contemporary treatment was recorded at the Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini. Considered Salzburg Festival in 2015. Conducted by Christian Puccini’s “mystery opera,” Suor Angelica is part of Il Thielemann, the latter video runs one hour and Trittico. It was said to have been Puccini’s favorite of thirteen minutes and can be accessed here. the three. This may have been because he had a sister of his own who had joined a religious order. The opera Opera, plus others. He made his Sarasota Opera can be heard at Suor Angelica. The third opera of the debut in La bohème as Schaunard. He has also sung at trio is Il Tabarro. Carnegie Hall, as Thidias in Barber’s Antony and Cleopatra and singing Mozart’s Solemn Vespers. Il Tabarro by Giacomo Puccini. The final opera in Il Trittico, this one has been described as “Puccini’s Scott is a Southeast Regional Winner and National darkest opera.” From Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, Semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Opera National this 1979 video features Placido Domingo and runs Council Auditions. If you would like to know more only 51 minutes. Access it at Il Tabarro. It is about his singing career, there is a good bio posted interesting to note that David Salazar, editor in chief of here. OperaWire, ranked Puccini’s triptych third among the prolific composer’s works. In his view, it was bested Scott transitioned his singing career into an Arts only by La Fanciulla del West and La Boheme. Administration career in 2011, first as Assistant to the (“Ranking Giacomo Puccini’s Operas from Least to Executive Director at Sarasota Opera and Best,” OperaWire, December 22, 2018.) subsequently as Associate Director of Artistic This opera season (Winter 2021) in Sarasota will give Administration at Florida Grand Opera, Individual us the opportunity to experience three additional short Giving Associate at Asolo Repetory Theater (followed operas which we may not have seen before. Rossini by promotions to Major Gifts Associate and Interim composed both The Happy Deception and Il Signor Development Director), and Director of Development Bruschino; Maid to Mistress by Giovanni Battista at Knoxville Opera. He joined Sarasota Opera’s Pergolesi will complete the season. Development Team as Senior Individual Giving Officer in February, 2020 and was promoted to Director of There are many additional short operas suitable for Development in July when Stacy Ridenour became a listening as we walk, work out, or simply sit and enjoy. part-time employee. But if we’re running a marathon or an Iron Man competition, there’s always Wagner’s Die As MOG members know, my favorite question in these Meistersinger von Nürnberg. It can run over 5 hours! articles is: “What is it that sparks joy in your life?” Scott’s first answer to this question was simply “Opera”.