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March 9, 2005
For Immediate Release

Photos
THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO
March 16, 19-20

8 PM
Wednesday, Friday & Saturday
March 16, 18& 19

2 PM Matinee
Sunday, March 20

HALL AUDITORIUM
Hall Auditorium is located on Route 58 in Oberlin, across from Tappan Square, between the Oberlin Inn and the
Allen Memorial Art Museum.
Free Parking.


RESERVED SEATING
$5 All students
$8 Oberlin College ID
$8 Senior citizens
$8 Educators
$12 Public

All Tickets are $3 more at the door.

CENTRAL TICKET SERVICE
(440) 775-8169

Located in the lobby of Hall Auditorium.

Open noon to 5 pm,
Monday - Friday
Saturdays, March 6 & 20

Media contact:
Marci Janas
(440) 775-8328

www.oberlin.edu/events

 



ACCLAIMED CONDUCTOR EVE QUELER CONDUCTS MOZART’S CLASSIC COMEDY LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
AT OBERLIN COLLEGE’S HALL AUDITORIUM MARCH 16, 18, 19 & 20

Complimentary Media Tickets: 440-775-8328
Limited Seating Available for Weekend Performances
Call Oberlin College’s Central Ticket Service at 440-775-8169

OBERLIN, OHIO — Eve Queler, music director of the Opera Orchestra of New York, will guest conduct the Oberlin Opera Theater production of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s classic comedy of errors, Le Nozze di Figaro. The curtain goes up on Wednesday, March 16, at 8 p.m. in Oberlin College’s Hall Auditorium, located at 67 North Main Street on Route 58, between the Oberlin Inn and the Allen Memorial Art Museum. The opera will be sung in Italian with English supertitles. Eve Queler is represented by Robert Lombardo and Associates.

Stage direction for Le Nozze di Figaro is by Jonathon Field, associate professor of opera theater and director of opera theater productions. One of Mozart’s most popular works, with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, Le Nozze di Figaro has delighted centuries of audiences with its memorable melodies and outrageous plot. “This is one of the more brilliant operas from one of our more brilliant opera composers,” says Field. “The variety of music and characters will make for a unique evening of music and theater. And Eve Queler continues the Oberlin tradition of having first-rate conductors for our opera students. Her work with international performers and the Opera Orchestra of New York make her an authority in the world of opera.”

Performances of Le Nozze di Figaro are at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, March 16, 18, and 19, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, March 20. Tickets are $5 for all students; $8 for those with an Oberlin College I.D. (faculty, staff, alumni, and parents), area educators, and senior citizens; and $12 for the general public. All seats are reserved. Tickets are $3 more when purchased at the door. Call Oberlin’s Central Ticket Service, located in the lobby of Hall Auditorium, at 440-775-8169. Box office hours are noon to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Hall Auditorium is wheelchair accessible, parking is free, and hearing enhancement is available upon request. Le Nozze di Figaro is sponsored by the Oberlin Conservatory of Music’s Opera Theater program and produced in cooperation with the Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program with generous support from the Louis C. Sudler Fund.

Synopsis and Director’s Notes
Figaro, the Count Almaviva’s valet, and Susanna, the Countess’s maid, are about to be married. Figaro discovers that the Count is determined to revive an old custom—the seigniorial right to anticipate the bridegroom on a servant’s wedding night. He vows to outwit his master. Figaro’s troubles multiply as the aging Marcellina attempts, with the assistance of the lawyer, Dr. Bartolo, to hold Figaro to a marriage contract he has signed as a promissory note for a loan. The page Cherubino complicates the situation by overhearing the Count making advances to Susanna.

The Countess plots to punish her husband for his pursuit of Susanna by sending Cherubino disguised as Susanna to a rendezvous with the Count. While Susanna and the Countess are dressing Cherubino, the Count arrives. Cherubino hides in the closet. The Count finds the closet door locked and accuses the Countess of infidelity. Cherubino escapes through a window and Susanna takes his place. When she emerges the Count is forced to apologize for his suspicions.

Since Cherubino has departed, the Countess decides that she herself will go, disguised as Susanna, to meet her husband. The Countess helps Susanna write a letter inviting the Count to the garden that night.
When Marcellina presses her case against Figaro, she discovers to her surprise and delight that Figaro is her long-lost natural son by Bartolo. During a double wedding for Marcellina and Bartolo and Figaro and Susanna, Susanna delivers the note to the Count. Figaro notices the Count when he pricks his finger with the pin sealing the note, causing Figaro to become jealous and suspicious.

In the darkness of the garden, the Countess and Susanna are successfully mistaken for each other, and the Count woos his own wife. When the Count is exposed, he is delighted to rediscover the playful and clever woman the Countess was when he first wooed her. He apologizes and recommits himself to her.

Performers and Production Team
This production of Le Nozze di Figaro features Oberlin Conservatory students double cast in the principal roles. The principals alternate performances, with one cast appearing Wednesday and Saturday, and the other Friday and Sunday. The principal roles include Count Almaviva (Todd Boyce ’05, Edward Parks ’06); Countess Almaviva (Megan Hart ’05, Jennifer Forni ’06); Susanna, maid to the Countess (Marie Masters ’05, Colette Boudreaux ’06); Figaro, valet to the Count (Aaron Agulay ’06, Jonathan Green ’05); Cherubino, the Count’s page (Abigail Peters ’05, Kathryn Leemhuis ’05); Bartolo, a doctor (Jason Bayus ’05, Damien Pass ’06); Marcellina, Bartolo’s housekeeper (Natasha Uspensky ’05); Don Curzio, the magistrate (Michael Sansoni ’06); Antonio, the gardener (Colin Levin ’07); Barbarina, Antonio’s daughter (Megan Radder ’05); Basilio (Alek Shrader ’06). The members of the chorus include Brian Coover ’06, Alexis Grenier ’06, Jennifer Jakob ’07, Sam Levine ’07, John Orduña ’06, Ilene Pabon ’07, Alice Teyssier ’06, Justin Manalad ’08, Kira McGirr ’06, Sheena Ramirez ’06, and Kevin Ray ’07.

The Oberlin production team of professional staff and students includes: Assistant Music Director Alan Montgomery; Assistant Director and Stage Manager Victoria Vaughan; Scenic Designer Damen Mroczek, lecturer in theater; Managing Director/Technical Director Michael Louis Grube, associate professor of theater; Costume Designer Chris Flaharty, associate professor of theater; Lighting Designer and Sound Engineer Jen Groseth, lecturer in theater; Elizabeth Johnson ’07 and Carlin Singer ’06 are assistant stage managers; and Sarah Klauer ’07 is in charge of properties.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Composer, 1756-1791) is the first composer whose operas have never been out of the repertory. His comprehensive mastery of three genres, opera seria, opera buffa and Singspiel, is unmatched in operatic history; and although he wrote no operas in French, pera comique is represented in translation by Bastien und Bastienne and tragédie lyrique by his first masterpiece, Idomeneo. This achievement is founded on his genius for assimilation and in the circumstances of his life and early experience of operatic genres. (Information from Grove Music)

Eve Queler (Conductor), music director of the Opera Orchestra of New York, has conducted more than 90 operas in concert at Carnegie Hall. Standing out among her many successes are Wagner’s Rienzi and Tristan und Isolde, Berlioz’ Benvenuto Cellini, Smetana’s Dalibor, and Strauss’ Die Liebe der Danae. In 2003 she received one of the highest awards presented by the French government when she was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture for her commitment to French operas and singers. Queler was also recently presented with the prestigious Touchstone Award from Women In Music, Inc., in recognition of her visionary spirit as one of the “Women Who Make a Difference.” Queler has championed many neglected Russian and Czech operas that are staples in Central Europe but virtually unknown in America. She was the first conductor here to perform Mussorgsky’s unfinished Khovanshchina with orchestration by Shostakovich, as well as the first Czech-language performance of Janacek’s Jenufa.

In addition to her extensive accomplishments as a conductor of standard and rare works in both opera and symphonic repertory, Queler has given critical early exposure to many young singers who have gone on to become the foremost artists of our time: Jose Carreras, Renée Fleming, James Morris, and Deborah Voigt, to name a few. Eve Queler has guest conducted worldwide, including: Mazeppa with the Kirov Opera in St. Petersburg, Russia; Don Pasquale with the Hamburg Oper; Tancredi with the Frankfurt Oper; Fidelio, Jenufa and La traviata with Oper Bonn; Der fliegende Holländer in Kassel; The Abduction from the Seraglio with the Australian Opera in Sydney; I vespri siciliani and Parisina d’Este at the Liceu in Barcelona and Nice Opera; Anna Bolena with the San Diego Opera; La bohème with the Utah Opera; I puritani in Royal Festival Hall, London; Lakmé in Caracas; Tales of Hoffmann in South Africa; and opera gala concerts at the Salle Pleyel, Paris, and with the Honolulu Symphony and Hong Kong Philharmonic. Last fall she led Rossini’s Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra at Buenos Aires’ legendary Teatro Colón. She has conducted numerous symphony orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Rome Opera, Montreal Symphony, and San Antonio Symphony. A native New Yorker, Queler studied conducting with Carl Bamberger at the Mannes College of Music and with Joseph Rosenstock. Early in her career, she served as rehearsal accompanist and coach with the Metropolitan Opera Studio and for five years was assistant conductor to Julius Rudel at the New York City Opera.

Jonathon Field (Director) has directed more than 90 productions and is becoming one of America’s most sought-after stage directors. He has directed touring productions for the Lyric Opera of Chicago of Trouble in Tahiti, Gianni Schicchi, The Old Maid and the Thief, and The Spanish Hour. For San Francisco Opera’s Western Opera Theatre he directed La Cenerentola and Die Fledermaus and for Seattle Opera, an updated version of La Bohème. In San Francisco he has also directed Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov in the original Russian. He has directed 10 productions for the Arizona Opera, being deemed by the press “their most perceptive stage director.” Since coming to the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1997, he has directed Carmen, Slow Dusk, The Old Maid and the Thief, Roméo et Juliette, Così fan Tutte, Manon, Don Giovanni, Coyote Tales, La Cenerentola, Die Fledermaus, The Rake’s Progress, The Bartered Bride, and Alcina. As artistic director of Lyric Opera Cleveland, Field directed the 2002 production of Don Giovanni, which was nominated for the Northern Ohio Live Award of Achievement in classical music/opera. In the 2004 season Field directed Così fan Tutte and artistic directed Little Women. During the summer of 2005 Field will continue in his fifth year as artistic director of Lyric Opera Cleveland. This summer they will present Rossini’s The Barber of Seville with Rossini expert Francis Graffeo as conductor; She Loves Me with Jacqi Loewy as stage director, and the Ohio premiere of the Philip Glass opera The Fall of the House of Usher. Based on the Edgar Allan Poe story, Usher will be conducted by Mary Chun, who led their forces in I Was Looking at the Ceiling, and Then I Saw the Sky, by John Adams and June Jordan, three years ago.

The Oberlin Conservatory of Music, founded in 1865 and situated within the intellectual vitality of Oberlin College since 1867, is the oldest continuously operating conservatory in the United States. It is renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber, and its alumni have gone on to achieve illustrious careers in all aspects of the serious music world. Numerous Oberlin alumni have attained stature as solo performers, composers, and conductors, among them Jennifer Koh, Steven Isserlis, Denyce Graves, Franco Farina, Lisa Saffer, George Walker, Christopher Rouse, David Zinman, and Robert Spano. All of the members of the contemporary music ensembles eighth blackbird and the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) are Oberlin graduates, and members of the Miró, Pacifica, Juilliard, and Fry Street quartets, among others, include Oberlin alumni, who can also be found in major orchestras and opera companies throughout the world.

THE OBERLIN CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC OPERA THEATER
LE NOZZE DI FIGARO
By Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte

Eve Queler, conductor
Jonathon Field, stage director

Wednesday, March 16 at 8 p.m.
Friday, March 18 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, March 19 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 20 at 2 p.m.

RESERVED SEATING TICKETS:
$5 All Students
$8 Oberlin College I.D. (Staff, Faculty, Parents, & Alumni)
$8 Educators
$8 Senior Citizens
$12 Public
ALL TICKETS $3 MORE WHEN PURCHASED AT THE DOOR

CENTRAL TICKET SERVICE
(440) 775-8169
Located in the lobby of Hall Auditorium.
Open Noon to 5 p.m.
Monday – Friday

HALL AUDITORIUM
Hall Auditorium, 67 N. Main St. on
Rte. 58, between the Oberlin Inn and
the Allen Art Museum. Free Parking.

FREE OPERA SCENES PROGRAM
4 p.m. & 8 p.m., Monday, May 16; Finney Chapel
Excerpts from:
Così Fan Tutte
Elisir d’Amore
The Ballad of Baby Doe
and others...

MEDIA CONTACT:
MARCI JANAS
440-775-8328
marci.janas@oberlin.edu
www.oberlin.edu/con
www.oberlin.edu/~events
www.oberlin.edu/operathe