5. March 2008

Dear Opera Lovers and Potential Opera Lovers,

our opening weekend of Dido and Æneas was a great success, and I was pleased to see so many of you there! This coming weekend we will be bringing the production to Sitka. We always love taking opera on the road and building new audiences. Performing in the Sheet' Ka Kwaan Naakahidi tribal house will be an interesting challenge for us, since the space is so much different than the JDHS Auditorium. Part of being a performer, especially in Opera, requires flexibility and thinking on your feet, so I am certain that we will be able to rise to the occasion with great success. If you are in Sitka this Saturday or Sunday, come check out what we will do!

I must admit that performing in the Auditorium with everything inverted was going to be fraught with unknowns and issues that we did not expect. During our rehearsals last week, we realized that there are many advantages to this arrangement, and those greatly outweighed the challenges. There were many discoveries, large and small, that contributed to the success of the production, and just like a well designed opera set (which is a work of art in its own right), one can work with it and find the nuances that it will continue to offer. I think that anyone seeing this production will never look at the seating the same way again!

The "film act" is yet another OTG innovation for this production, and while many groups use multi-media to enhance and/or clarify, not so many use it as an integral part of a staged performance.

What is the point of the film, you might ask? The film, in director Roald Simonson's intention, is used in two ways; to bring focus to the music by giving different visual stimulation to the same pieces - to hear the same music in different ways, and to bring us through the story again (as a matter of fact 2 more times!) while see the plot from a very different perspective. A previously unmentioned aspect if the "film act" is the rather elaborately beautiful costumes worn by Dido and Æneas in the final scene. These were put together by Theatre in the Rough's Aaron Elmore and Katie Jensen especially for this production. Known for their sumptuous costumes, as well as intriguing and inventive stagings, audiences can only begin to imagine the contrast created by their creations.

OTG Raffle time is coming to an end as well. The drawing will be held after the performance on the 15th. tickets are $10 each, or 3 for $25. This is our biggest single money-maker of the season, so get your tickets soon, or buy more if you already have!

Following Dido, our guest artist Amanda Crider will be giving a Masterclass on the 16th of March at 6.30 at the UAS Egan Lecture Hall. Please see the webpage for more information. (http://www.operatogo.net/masterclass.html)

If you are stuck in Juneau this coming week and can't make the trip to Sitka, there are a few other best-bets to check out. The Juneau Student Symphony will be presenting their Fantasia Project March 8 (7.30pm) and 9 (4pm) in the DZ commons. This will be another music-with-film production featuring the music of Holst and Grieg with "Fantasia"-style original films to accompany. Also on Monday the 10th at 7pm, JDHS Auditorium will host Glacier Valley Elementary's production of TIDES & THE TEMPEST, a contemporary adaptation weaving together two stories: Shakespeare's TEMPEST with the story of the creation of the killer whale from Tlingit Alaska Native oral tradition. The production will then travel to Washington D.C.! Directed by Ryan Conarro.

That's all the news for right now, time to go prepare for the Sitka trip!

Todd Hunt

PS, anyone looking for a recording of Dido and Æneas should check out our production's favourite.
Arkivmusic.com
Amazon.com