Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Opera Ensemble brings the Latin Quarter of the 1840s Paris to campus in a one-night presentation of Giacomo Puccini’s La Bohème Nov. 10 at 8 p.m. in the Hugh Hodgson Concert Hall. Tickets for the performance, part of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music 2nd Thursday Scholarship Concert Series, are $18 for the general public and $5 for UGA students and are available through the UGA Performing Arts Center box office at 706/542-4400 or online at www.uga.edu/pac.
The Opera Ensemble, under the direction of Frederick Burchinal, the Wyatt and Margaret Anderson Professor in the Arts at UGA, will present La Bohème in a concert performance, with costumes and sets. The ensemble will be accompanied by the UGA symphony orchestra, conducted by Mark Cedel. The opera will be performed in Italian with surtitles provided by Chadwick Creative Arts.
Consistently ranked as one of the top five most popular operas, La Bohème is performed annually all over the world. The accessibility of Puccini’s opera to the general public, first performed in Turin in 1896, has spawned a musical version known on Broadway as RENT. “The beautiful melodies, familiar arias, humanistic story and Puccini’s gift for creating a timeless reality make La Bohème an excellent ‘first opera’ for nearly everyone,” said Burchinal. “The music provides a challenge for our young singers to test their wings and voices with this operatic classic, while acting the characters whose stories continue to live in our modern culture.”
The production features UGA students Joseph Brent as the poet, Rodolfo, Josephine Delledera as the seamstress, Mimì, and Kelsey Fredriksen as the flirtatious singer, Musetta. The cast also includes Atlanta Opera baritone Brent Davis as the painter, Marcello. The story is focused on the loves between Rodolfo and Mimì, Marcello and Musetta and their struggles to reconcile the demands of artistic impulses and desires with the realities of life.
Directed by Burchinal, a 20-year veteran of the Metropolitan Opera, UGA’s production of La Bohème marks its first with opera coach Kathryn Wright, a new faculty member in the school of music who arrived at UGA after 10 years with the Deutsche Oper Berlin. The semi-staged performance features original costumes by designer Christin Schifano and set pieces provided by the Atlanta Opera.
For more information about the events of the Hugh Hodgson School of Music 2nd Thursday Scholarship Concert Series, see http://www.uga.edu/pac/mastercalendar.html.