Pine Mountain Festival to present zany opera July 8, 10, 12

Stars of the 2009 Pine Mountain Music Festival Opera, The Secret Marriage. (Photo courtesy Pine Mountain Music Festival)

HANCOCK -- Opera returns to the Upper Peninsula with Pine Mountain Music Festival’s production of The Secret Marriage by Domenico Cimarosa. It will appear on Wednesday, July 8, at Norway-Vulcan Fine Arts Center in Norway; on Friday, July 10, at Kaufman Auditorium in Marquette; and on Sunday, July 12, at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts in Houghton.

The Houghton show is at 3 p.m., and the others at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $30 (students and children $10) and are available from the Rozsa Center box office, tel. 906-487-3200 or 1-877-746-3999. A pre-opera talk, free to ticket holders, starts one hour before curtain time.

The Secret Marriage is a highly entertaining farce about the consequences of keeping secrets and the zany actions of mismatched couples. Although it was composed at the time of Mozart, this production is set in the 1960s and will be totally understandable and contemporary.

The featured singers will be the Festival’s six Resident Opera Artists, young professionals selected through nationwide auditions from a pool of over 400 applicants. An orchestra of 18 will play, and there will be English surtitles projected on a screen above the stage.

"This production is going to sparkle and will be a lot of fun for the audience. It’s a great one for people not familiar with the world of opera," says Joshua Major, artistic director of Pine Mountain Music Festival. "It’s a real romp and is produced with the same high quality that the Festival is noted for."

The Festival’s theme this year is "Anything Goes," which highlights the fact that audience members do not need to know the story or dress up to enjoy the opera.

"Just come, sit back, and let it wash over you," says Peter Van Pelt, executive director of the Festival. "You’ll wonder why you didn’t discover opera sooner."

The Pine Mountain Music Festival presents a season of opera, classical and jazz music each June-July in the Dickinson County area, the Marquette area, the Keweenaw Peninsula and other smaller towns in the Upper Peninsula and northeastern Wisconsin. Headquartered in Hancock, Michigan, it is supported by donations, ticket sales and grants. Visit the web at pmmf.org, or call 1-877-746-3999 for tickets or 888-309-7861 for more information.