Tickets are $30 for adults and $10 for students/children and are now available at the Rozsa Center Box Office on the Michigan Tech Campus; at the Calumet Theatre, 340 6th St., Calumet; on-line at www.pmmf.org; or by calling 487-3200. Tickets will also be available at the door. All seats are general admission.
The Festival's production, directed by PMMF artistic director, Joshua Major, and conducted by Maestro Steven Byess,* will be performed by PMMF's remarkable Resident Opera Artists, who will bring you a version of Carmen not to be missed. The performance will begin with an introduction by the director, and the opera will be sung in French with English supertitles. This electrifying and emotional adaptation, with its familiar music and streamlined plot, has been thrilling audiences for more than 25 years.
Peter Van Pelt, chairman of the PMMF Management Committee, attended a rehearsal and shared this reaction to the production:
"Last Saturday, as a trustee of Pine Mountain Music Festival, I saw the first run-through of La Tragédie de Carmen, with Russell Miller on the piano," Van Pelt said. "This is a special and powerful theatrical experience. It is like a piece of theater, with all the incidentals stripped away, plus Bizet's music and the Festival's Resident Opera Artists' strong, enthralling singing."
Van Pelt noted the production is about one hour and ten minutes, with no intermission; Director Joshua Major will give an introduction to the show at curtain time.
"The singers are dressed to character, including Carmen in brilliant red skirt and Escamillo poured into all black as befits a toreador," Van Pelt added. "The staging is spare but creative and clear. I knew it would be simple and would have Bizet's music, but I didn't know it would be this gripping."
Van Pelt said the PMMF production might even appeal to people who think they don't like opera.
"It is gritty, direct, tough, unadorned and ultimately beautiful and satisfying," he noted. "It's a powerful show."
Carmen, by French Composer Georges Bizet, is based primarily on Chapter 3 of the novella by Mérimée, and omits characters in the first two chapters. La Tragédie de Carmen is based on the whole story and stays true to the nature of the original book. It is a gritty and emotional story of obsession, jealousy and betrayal. The New York Times called Brook’s innovative version of Carmen "a raw, brutal tale of mutual self destruction that’s fueled by both lust and existential bloodlust -- and is as deadly for others as it is for [the protagonists]."
For those who would like to read the whole story, an electronic version of Prosper Mérimée's novella is on the Festival's Web site.
PMMF patrons may also enjoy a post-opera reception at the Vertin Art Studio and Gallery, 220 Sixth St., Calumet, for a $2.00 minimum donation at the door. It will be a chance to meet the artists and celebrate the end of a successful 2008 season.
This theatrical and musical tour de force may also be experienced at the Crystal Theatre in Crystal Falls at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, July 11.
La Tragédie de Carmen is made possible with the support of the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts.
* Editor's Note: In the summer of 2007, Maestro Byess conducted Bernstein's Candide at the Pine Mountain Music Festival. He is the Music Director of the Tupelo Symphony Orchestra and serves as Cover Conductor for the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Opera Conductor for the Cleveland Institute of Music and California State University -- Los Angeles. He recently finished an eleven-year tenure as the Associate Music Director of the Ohio Light Opera where he conducted, to critical acclaim, over 400 performances of 50 diverse operas, operettas, and musical theater works. (Read more about Steven Byess on his Web site.
No comments:
Post a Comment