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October 21, 2005
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Courage During the French Revolution, to be Staged by Oberlin Opera Theater November 16 � 20 Complimentary
Media Tickets: 440-775-8328 Dialogues of the Carmelites, Poulenc�s Opera about Fear, Faith, and Courage During the French Revolution, to be Staged by Oberlin Opera Theater November 16 � 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 � Dialogues of the Carmelites (Dialogues des Carm�lites), Francis Poulenc�s tragic opera about fear, faith, and courage in a Carmelite convent during the French Revolution, will be staged by Oberlin Opera Theater in November. The production opens on Wednesday, November 16, at 8 p.m. in Oberlin College�s Hall Auditorium, located at 67 North Main St. on Route 58, between the Oberlin Inn and the Allen Art Museum. The three-act, 12-scene opera will be sung in French with English supertitles. There will be two intermissions. Stage direction for Dialogues of the Carmelites is by Sally Stunkel, visiting assistant professor of opera theater. Musical direction is by Ari Pelto �92. Performances of Dialogues of the Carmelites are at 8 p.m. Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, November 16, 18, and 19, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, November 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, free parking is available throughout the campus, and hearing enhancement is available upon request. Dialogues of the Carmelites is sponsored by the Oberlin Conservatory of Music�s Opera Theater program through generous support from the Louis C. Sudler Fund. It is produced in cooperation with the Oberlin College Theater and Dance Program by arrangement with Boosey & Hawkes, Inc., sole agent in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico for Casa Ricordi-BMG Ricordi S.p.A, a BMG Editions Company, publisher and copyright owner. Synopsis and Director�s Notes
�This is an opera about mysticism, and the nature of fear and courage,� says director Sally Stunkel. �The growing anti-clerical movement of the French Revolution resulted in the confiscation of church property and the persecution of the clergy. Hostility towards institutionalized Christianity, including monastic orders, was stimulated by the widespread conviction of revolutionaries that abuses by the French monarchy were shared and supported by the church. The Carmelites were caught in a social and political whirlwind that rolled uncontrollably out of history and swept them away.� Performers and Production Team
The Oberlin production team of professional staff and students includes: Assistant Music Director Alan Montgomery, assistant music director of opera theater; Assistant Director and Stage Manager Victoria Vaughan, assistant director of opera theater; 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 and Sound Designer Jen Groseth, lecturer in theater; and assistant stage managers Allison Choat �06, Courtney Merrell �08, and Kate Cudworth, �06. Damen Mroczek is in charge of properties. Francis Poulenc (Composer, 1899-1963) came into his own as a composer when he began exploring (under the direct influence of Stravinsky) the galant music of the 18th century. In the neo-classical ballet Aubade (1929), for piano and 18 instruments, Poulenc found a free and musically respectable framework for his melodic gifts. The untimely death of a friend and colleague in 1936 triggered a new maturity � he rediscovered his Catholic faith, a concern with serious songwriting (mostly to the verse of the humanist surrealist Paul Eluard), and the forging of a lifelong association with the lyric baritone Pierre Bernac. This period initiated a long series of religious works and melodies that form the cornerstones of Poulenc�s reputation. The war increased a strain of melancholy in his work, evinced by a new willingness to admit the lyrical and harmonic language of Ravel to an already full roster of musical influences (Satie, Stravinsky, Musorgsky, Debussy, and Prokofiev, among others). An understandable urge to celebrate all things vital and sensuous and � above all � French, led to wartime works such as the opera Les mamelles de Tir�sias (1944). The postwar years were marked by increasing isolation at the rearguard of French contemporary music (his self-awareness as a harmonic reactionary is revealed in several awkward excursions into serial writing � he could follow Stravinsky only so far) and by several bouts of depression and nervous exhaustion. His larger works of this period � Dialogues des Carm�lites (1953-6) is an example � consolidate the religious and musical discoveries made in the key years of 1936-1940 while displaying a growing technical and formal mastery. (Source: Grove Music Online.) Ari Pelto (Conductor) has been heralded as �a dynamic young force in the conducting world� following two tours with the San Francisco Opera�s national touring company. After bringing Mozart�s Cosi Fan Tutte to 21 states in 2001, Pelto spent the next year conducting 30 performances of Puccini�s La Boheme in 20 states and traveling to Japan as guest faculty and conductor at the New National Theatre in Tokyo. In 1999 he made a successful international debut in Germany with the Bochumer Symphoniker, and the same year conducted Lucia di Lammermoor at the Festival Opera in Walnut Creek, California, returning the next year to lead The Barber of Seville. In the past year he has been a regular guest conductor with both the Florida Orchestra and the Toledo Symphony. Recently, Pelto was one of four young conductors selected to conduct the Seattle Symphony at the invitation of its music director, Gerard Schwartz. As assistant conductor of the Florida West Coast Symphony in Sarasota, Florida, from 2000-2002, he conducted more than 30 concerts. While studying in Indiana, he was appointed assistant conductor of the Indiana University Opera Theater, where he led performances of The Marriage of Figaro, Dialogues of the Carmelites, Don Pasquale, Idomeneo, Orpheus in the Underworld, and Falstaff. He was also musical director for productions of La Traviata and Suor Angelica. He has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral violinist in Europe, China, and throughout the United States. Engagements in the coming year will take him to the Atlanta Ballet, the Florida Orchestra, the San Francisco Conservatory, New York City Opera (where he returns to conduct Madama Butterfly following his debut conducting La Traviata in the fall of 2004), the San Francisco Opera, and once again to Tokyo�s New National Theatre. Pelto earned a bachelor of music degree in violin performance from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 1992. Sally Stunkel (Director) has directed for the Sacramento Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Skylight Opera, the Aspen Music Festival, Kentucky Opera, and Four Corners Opera, and has more than 80 productions to her credit as a director. As a former opera singer, she has sung with the Colorado Springs Opera, Skylight Opera, and Baltimore Opera. With more than 15 years in dance training, she has also choreographed various operas. She is a graduate of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music (where she received the National Opera Association�s [NOA] award for best opera for her productions of The Consul and Postcard from Morocco). She has headed the opera programs at the former St. Louis Conservatory of Music, the University of Tennessee, the University of the Pacific in California, and the University of Iowa, where she won first place for her Marriage of Figaro from the NOA. She has taught and directed with the apprentice programs at the Des Moines Opera, Chattauqua Opera, the Banff Center in Alberta, Canada, and the Aspen Music Festival. She will be premiering her new English language version of Mozart�s The Magic Flute at the University of Kentucky this year. 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. Renowned internationally as a professional music school of the highest caliber and pronounced a �national treasure� by the Washington Post, 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 Mir�, 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
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