Deirdre of the Sorrows  opens

The first-ever student written opera at Oberlin

Monday marks a special event in the Conservatory's history. Deirdre of the Sorrows, the first-ever student written opera, will be performed in Finney Chapel. Double-degree senior Curtis Hughes wrote the score in collaboration with wife Doria Hughes, OC '97, the librettist.

Based on an ancient Irish legend, Deidre was born in its Oberlin form almost two years ago when Curtis Hughes was enrolled in a musical theatre class. "I've been working on it ever since," he said. "I just stuck with it."

The basic plot revolves around the main character, Deirdre, and her journey through a self-fufilling prophecy. Hughes' opera, unlike most, casts its main character as a very strong female role. "It goes against a lot of the stereotypes in opera," he said. Deirdre is played by Alissa Rose and, for the most part, the rest of the cast plays smaller, supporting roles in relation to her character.

Musically, Hughes said that the opera is "somewhat experimental, but tonal as well." This is almost a given with contemporary opera, but Hughes aimed to write in both a lyrical fashion as well as making his music sound new.

Despite Hughes' excitement in going down in Conservatory record books for his opera, he said that some faculty have not been as supportive. Hughes noted that while financial support has not been too large of a problem, there are a lot of "obstacles" in pursuing the production of a student-produced opera. "There's a lot of resistance to it," he said.

More traditionalist faculty members, Hughes said, may be concerned with the possibility of their students being involved in a non-classical work as opposed to the traditional Conservatory repertoire. Students were not given the go-ahead to earn credit for playing for Deirdre, but Hughes said that his volunteer chamber orchestra has been wonderful anyway. "It's been hours [practicing] every week," he said.

Especially because the opera's entire chamber ensemble is volunteer, faculty members have protested their students' hours spent on the non-credit work instead of their required studies. Hughes said that he was surprised at the negative feedback, "especially when it seems like such a good idea to collaborat the Con and College." He said, "It upsets me, but I don't want to get too upset because we've gotten through the obstacles; it's still going up."